(Originally written on the 6th of January, 2009)
Today both The Star and the New Straits Times used the same picture for the front page. It's a picture of a Palestinian man (Google Magdi al-Samuli if you wanna see the picture) grieving in front of the corpses of three children (Two toddlers and a child, really), while two other guys are kinda supporting him in his grief. The Star's caption is entitled "Father's Agony" and just describes what's happening in the picture (Father grieving over three children killed by an Israeli tank shell). This is a rather gruesome picture for the front page, but its use and caption are reasonable. However, the NST threw a black box with the words "BABY KILLERS: An Israeli tank did this..." right onto the middle of the picture.
The Star's headline was Push for Gaza with the subtitle "Malaysia seeks special UN session on Invasion". The New Straits times headline reads: "Malaysia to the United Nations: STOP THE CARNAGE" and has the subtitles "PM calls for emergency session on Gaza..." and "Authorizes US$1 million in humanitarian aid...”
The Star's quote from our Prime Minister was "We cannot accept the cruelty that is happening in the Middle East". The quote that the NST used was "The United Nations Security Council has a moral duty to stop the atrocities committed by Israel and demand a ceasefire by all sides. I urge that an emergency session be convened to adopt a 'Uniting for Peace' resolution."
Also, the New Straits times has a box that takes up about a fourth of the front page calling for donations to "Help the Palestinians" as the title so helpfully reads. It's called the NSTP Fund for Gaza and has uses a crying Palestinian child in front of a column of smoke as its article image. It's calling for donations to provide medicine and emergency supplies and tells everyone in the first paragraph that "Even body bags for victims of Israel's aggression are in short supply."
Thankfully, my family subscribes to the Star.
Our former prime minister (who my grandfather's friend calls senile) is calling for a boycott of US goods among Malaysians and the citizens of other countries across the world. His reasoning is that a boycott of US goods will force the US to intervene. His exact words were "The people have the capacity to act. For instance, they don't have to drink Coca Cola and the government can't force them to drink it. If we need to buy weapons, we can always buy them from Russia instead of the US. The boycott will be a universal effort. If confined to Malaysia alone, it is not going to be effective but Malaysians must also play their part. We must not allow ourselves to be cowed. Even if we do little things, I think we can achieve quite a lot." Fuck that shit, I'll drink as much coke as I damn well please.
Also, in the NST they quoted him as saying "The US dollar has got nothing to back it... and the only reason that it is still being used is because people still accept the dollar as legal tender. If people stop using the US dollar, the US cannot make any money. It will then be very poor and it will have to stop its production of more and more weapons to kill people. That is how the US uses it money and people who use the dollar are actually contributing towards the manufacture, invention and production of weapons to kill." The day he said that our current prime minister sent one million US dollars of aid to Gaza, so that sure shows what he thinks about all this nonsense.
Our country's likeliest choice for next prime minister, when referring to the current situation in Gaza said that "This would not have happened if the Palestinians were allowed to lead normal lives. They were denied jobs, economic aid, and infrastructure development. This is also why Hamas began firing rockets into Israeli territory." Well, I don't have a job, I don't see any money from the government on its way to my doorstep, and there hasn't been a new ministry in this area in ages. According to his logic, it would be acceptable for me to start bombing my neighbors right now. What an ass.
So yeah, the New Straits Times has a major bias and our former and next prime ministers are probably mentally handicapped.
The Star's headline was Push for Gaza with the subtitle "Malaysia seeks special UN session on Invasion". The New Straits times headline reads: "Malaysia to the United Nations: STOP THE CARNAGE" and has the subtitles "PM calls for emergency session on Gaza..." and "Authorizes US$1 million in humanitarian aid...”
The Star's quote from our Prime Minister was "We cannot accept the cruelty that is happening in the Middle East". The quote that the NST used was "The United Nations Security Council has a moral duty to stop the atrocities committed by Israel and demand a ceasefire by all sides. I urge that an emergency session be convened to adopt a 'Uniting for Peace' resolution."
Also, the New Straits times has a box that takes up about a fourth of the front page calling for donations to "Help the Palestinians" as the title so helpfully reads. It's called the NSTP Fund for Gaza and has uses a crying Palestinian child in front of a column of smoke as its article image. It's calling for donations to provide medicine and emergency supplies and tells everyone in the first paragraph that "Even body bags for victims of Israel's aggression are in short supply."
Thankfully, my family subscribes to the Star.
Our former prime minister (who my grandfather's friend calls senile) is calling for a boycott of US goods among Malaysians and the citizens of other countries across the world. His reasoning is that a boycott of US goods will force the US to intervene. His exact words were "The people have the capacity to act. For instance, they don't have to drink Coca Cola and the government can't force them to drink it. If we need to buy weapons, we can always buy them from Russia instead of the US. The boycott will be a universal effort. If confined to Malaysia alone, it is not going to be effective but Malaysians must also play their part. We must not allow ourselves to be cowed. Even if we do little things, I think we can achieve quite a lot." Fuck that shit, I'll drink as much coke as I damn well please.
Also, in the NST they quoted him as saying "The US dollar has got nothing to back it... and the only reason that it is still being used is because people still accept the dollar as legal tender. If people stop using the US dollar, the US cannot make any money. It will then be very poor and it will have to stop its production of more and more weapons to kill people. That is how the US uses it money and people who use the dollar are actually contributing towards the manufacture, invention and production of weapons to kill." The day he said that our current prime minister sent one million US dollars of aid to Gaza, so that sure shows what he thinks about all this nonsense.
Our country's likeliest choice for next prime minister, when referring to the current situation in Gaza said that "This would not have happened if the Palestinians were allowed to lead normal lives. They were denied jobs, economic aid, and infrastructure development. This is also why Hamas began firing rockets into Israeli territory." Well, I don't have a job, I don't see any money from the government on its way to my doorstep, and there hasn't been a new ministry in this area in ages. According to his logic, it would be acceptable for me to start bombing my neighbors right now. What an ass.
So yeah, the New Straits Times has a major bias and our former and next prime ministers are probably mentally handicapped.
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