Malaysia’s new prime minister Najib Razak unveiled a new-look Cabinet yesterday, retaining his control on the finance portfolio and ejecting figures seen as loyal to his predecessor, while two policemen were sentenced to death for killing a Mongolian woman.
The number of Cabinet ministers was cut to 28 from 32 and several ministries were amalgamated.
In a wide-ranging shake-up, former trade minister Muhyiddin Yassin who was elected deputy of the ruling party UMNO last week, was promoted to the key post of deputy prime minister and also given the education portfolio.
The trade ministry is now helmed by Mustapa Mohamed, a trained economist who served as agriculture minister in the last administration. His deputy is Mukhriz Mahathir, the son of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.
The defense portfolio goes to Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, a close ally of Najib and one of the newly appointed vice-presidents of UMNO.
Foreign Minister Rais Yatin was shifted to the newly created ministry of information, communications, arts and culture, and replaced by Anifah Aman, a backbencher from Sabah state on Borneo island.
Several figures seen as loyal to former prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who Najib took over from last week, were dropped including Rural Affairs minister Muhammad Muhammad Taib and Home minister Syed Hamid Albar.
There was a snub for Abdullah’s son-in-law Khairy Jamaluddin, who won the influential post of UMNO youth chief last week. Traditionally the youth chief sits in the Cabinet, but he was omitted from Najib’s new line-up.
Meanwhile, two Malaysian policemen were sentenced to death yesterday for the murder of Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu, in a sensational case the opposition has tried to link with the new prime minister.
Abdul Razak Baginda, a close associate of Najib, had been accused of ordering police to kill his former lover after she came to his family home to harass him for money.
But last year he was acquitted of abetting the 2006 slaying of the 28-year-old model and interpreter — a case which, with its ingredients of sex, politics and violence, has captivated the nation.
Altantuya’s body was blown up with military-grade explosives in a jungle clearing, leaving only shattered bone fragments as evidence.
The two officers found guilty of the murder, Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar, are from an elite unit that guards the prime minister and deputy prime minister.
“Each of them are blaming the other, they failed to raise reasonable doubt against the prosecution’s case. I convict both of you as charged,” Shah Alam High Court judge Zaki Mohamad Yasin said.
“I sentence both of you to death. You will be taken to a place of execution where you will be hanged by your neck until you are dead,” he said.
Malaysia’s top blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin has been charged with sedition after repeatedly linked Najib and his wife to the murder on his popular Web site Malaysia Today.
Najib has vehemently denied any involvement in the killing and said he never even met Altantuya, but despite any evidence linking him to the case, the allegations persist and the opposition has called for an official inquiry.
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
‘MONSTROUS CRIME’: The killings were overseen by a powerful gang leader who was convinced his son’s illness was caused by voodoo practitioners, a civil organization said Nearly 200 people in Haiti were killed in brutal weekend violence reportedly orchestrated against voodoo practitioners, with the government on Monday condemning a massacre of “unbearable cruelty.” The killings in the capital, Port-au-Prince, were overseen by a powerful gang leader convinced that his son’s illness was caused by followers of the religion, the civil organization the Committee for Peace and Development (CPD) said. It was the latest act of extreme violence by powerful gangs that control most of the capital in the impoverished Caribbean country mired for decades in political instability, natural disasters and other woes. “He decided to cruelly punish all
NOTORIOUS JAIL: Even from a distance, prisoners maimed by torture, weakened by illness and emaciated by hunger, could be distinguished Armed men broke the bolts on the cell and the prisoners crept out: haggard, bewildered and scarcely believing that their years of torment in Syria’s most brutal jail were over. “What has happened?” asked one prisoner after another. “You are free, come out. It is over,” cried the voice of a man filming them on his telephone. “Bashar has gone. We have crushed him.” The dramatic liberation of Saydnaya prison came hours after rebels took the nearby capital, Damascus, having sent former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad fleeing after more than 13 years of civil war. In the video, dozens of
RSS