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- How Taib Family Built Huge Housing Wealth In The Name Of <b>...</b>
- Rose' World: End of <b>Kuching</b> holiday
- Timelapse At <b>Kuching</b> | Primelapse
| HotelDealsWeekly.com >> Travel Guides » <b>Kuching</b> Travel Guide Posted: 22 Nov 2013 03:24 PM PST The capital and largest city of Malaysia's Sarawak state on the island of Borneo, Kuching (formerly called City of Sarawak) is the cleanest city in Malaysia. It is also referred to as the 'Cat City' by many locals. With people of thirty different ethnicities residing in the city, including a significant Chinese population, Kuching is home to diverse cultures. Sarawak, which was part of the Sultanate of Brunei for a long time, was ceded to the British adventurer James Brooke. Kuching was founded in 1827 by the Sultanate and from 1842, it served as the capital of the Rajah Brooke government. Kuching, along with the rest of Sarawak, was captured by the Japanese, during World War II. After the war, the last Rajah ceded Sarawak to the British Empire. In 1963, it became a part of the Federation of Malaysia. A new terminal complex was opened at Kuching International Airport in 2006. With air traffic briskly growing and the museums being refurbished, tourism in Kuching has been growing in recent years. It has now become a major tourist destination in Malaysia. Getting aroundKuching has a bus network with new, air-conditioned, comfortable buses plying within the city. However they do not have a fixed schedule and can at times become very infrequent, causing long waiting times. Shuttle vans (keretasewa) run more frequently than buses within the city and to nearby towns. Kuching also has many taxis; be warned however that taxi drivers rarely use the meter. Visitors can also rent cars or motorcycles or bicycles here. River taxis (tambang) provide services between the Sarawak River's banks near the city centre and also outside the city. Kuching is by and large a pedestrian-friendly city and the city centre is sufficiently small to cover on foot. City centre and waterfrontTuaPek Kong Temple, which you can find near the east end of Main Bazaar(Kuching's oldest street), is Kuching's oldest Chinese temple, dating back to 1843. Just opposite sits the Chinese History Museum, which has previously been the courthouse for the Sarawakian Chinese and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and now has a small exhibition on the various Chinese groups in Kuching. Main Bazaar consists mostly of Chinese shops built in the 19th century along the Kuching Waterfront, which runs along the Sarawak River and is always bustling with activity, day and night. It is located in the Old Town. Also to be found in the Old Town is Chinatown, located on Padungan Street. Kuching Civic Centre near the garden Taman Budaya has a tower topped with an umbrella-shaped roof. This is one of the best places to obtain a panoramic view of the city's skyscrapers with the jungle in the background. In the same complex you will find the Sultan Iskandar Planetarium, Malaysia's first planetarium. Near the open air market, you will come across the Kuching City Mosque, built with a remarkable fusion of Italian and mid-western architecture. On the north bank of River Sarawak, just opposite the waterfront, stands the Astana (the Palace), which is now the official residence of the Head of State of Sarawak. It was built by Rajah Charles Brooke in 1870 for his wife Margaret. Sarawak Museum, the oldest museum in Borneo, is one of Kuching's main sights. On the north bank of the Sarawak River stands Fort Margherita, an absolute must-see if you are travelling to Kuching. It is presently a Police Museum that displays old cannons, cannonballs, swords, guns and pieces of armour. Visitors are welcome to visit The Cat Museum in Kuching North City Hall in Petra Jaya which has many cat memorabilia. Outside the cityGunung Gading National Park in Lundu houses the Rafflesia, the world's largest flower; it is accessible by bus. Video of KuchingMap of Kuching |
| How Taib Family Built Huge Housing Wealth In The Name Of <b>...</b> Posted: 20 Nov 2013 03:38 AM PST  This post is also available in: Iban, Malay  1/2 million ringgit price tags on CMS built homes in Bandar Samariang The Taib family company CMS proudly boasts of its "vast land bank" in its annual reports and has started selling off chunks for tens of millions in Kuching. Commercial centres and grand housing estates are also being developed in two key areas, Bandar Samariang, where CMS has 5,200 acres, valued around half a billion ringgit, and of course on the Kuching Isthmus, where land is even more expensive. But, how did CMS acquire all this property and who has benefitted? Sarawak Report has acquired shocking information about the way Taib and his family members have profited from this land, which was forcibly taken (official term is 'alienated') from local people and state ownership. We did it to help the poor The story that the Chief Minister told from the start was that this was land that difficult and expensive to develop, but that his family company was kindly determined to provide housing for poor people. Back in 2001, he even made out that CMS was doing this supposed favour in Bandar Samariang entirely "for the people's benefit" for "not much profit", because other developers didn't want to get involved in such a loss-making venture!
Such a kind old fellow!  Chief Executive and key shareholder at the time, Taib brother Onn Mahmud Interestingly no mention has ever been made again of these poor soil conditions by CMS. This is probably, not least, because in every other country in the world, developing tropical peat soil has been banned, because of the severe environmental consequences. To gain a sense of the value of this land handed to CMS in the guise of helping the poor, consider the recent news that the company has decided to sell on a parcel of 500 acres for over RM45million to Sentoria Group to build a theme park. Suddenly, another developer has been found willing not only to take on the job of developing the land, but to pay big money for the plot. However, this time of course the money has gone to CMS, not the government or the people from whom the area was 'alienated'. At the time CMS got this land for free it was largely owned and run by Taib's brother Onn Mahmud, who shortly after passed on his shares to Taib's wife, with the remainder being largely in the hands of the Chief Minister's four children. No nepotism at all then! Sucking money out of pensions too  Robert Geneid, the Head of CMS Property Development and husband of Taib's sister Raziah Mahmud. But, of course, the Taibs didn't really want to invest their own money in this mission to assist the poor with 'quality low cost housing'. Far better to use their influence to encourage the government controlled Employee Provident Fund (EPF) to put in the money instead. After all, this fat milk cow has been used to pour vast sums of money into endless pet projects to benefit BN politicians, meaning public employees can look forward to far lower pensions, despite being forced to pay a quarter of their salaries into the obligatory savings fund controlled by the government. EPF therefore was dragged into a joint venture with CMS and the investment in the "low cost housing" in Bandar Samariang began. But, in fact, low cost housing was only ever planned to form a small part of the project from the very start. The original terms of agreement, as explained in CMS's own annual reports, made clear just 1/3 of the area was to be housing for the less well-off.  Housing for the poor? The rest of the huge site was to be developed as an ambitious commercial enterprise. CMS's 1997 Annual Report was certainly not bashful about the profit-driven nature of CMS's latest housing project or the ambitions of its new Property Development Division, headed by the new husband of Taib's sister Raziah, the Lebanese Australian, Robert Geneid. It also reveals that, thanks to Taib's ability to pull the strings, that the State Housing & Development Commission had already been tasked with buying whatever 'quality low cost housing' CMS Property produced on the site, ensuring a guaranteed profit.
So, in fact, a mere 4,000 units of the token low cost housing have been included in the first phase of the project, all promoted in the beginning in a blaze of positive publicity, before CMS moved speedily to the much more lucrative "medium cost" housing, where units are currently being sold for the very fancy prices of anything up to half a million ringgit!  Phase 1 – including 4,000 low cost housing units guaranteed to be purchased by the Housing Committee Of course, the fact that the state has ploughed in major infrastructure, in terms of roads and amenities into the area, has made the development potential of this project ever more lucrative. Yet, the Chief Minister is still justifying his handing of it all to his family in the name of charity for Kuching's poor!  Presiding over his family's vast profitable land venture. However, this mother of all land grabs from the Sarawak people is just the start of the story of how the Taib family set about enriching themselves from this project. In 'Phase 2′ of our investigation we will be looking at how individual members of the Taib inner family circle, set about using the massive housing project to develop profitable businesses for themselves, with disastrous consequences for the very poor people in whose name the Bandar Samariang land grab was executed.  "The new township boasts a myriad of vibrant features such as improved road connectivity between central and South Kuching" Borneo Post |
| Rose' World: End of <b>Kuching</b> holiday Posted: 26 Nov 2013 02:49 AM PST Our 9 days holiday is coming to an end. I just reached Sibu this evening. What I miss about Kuching most is definitely not the traffic jam. Lol. Let me share some food that I manage to eat there. Except Laksa, I have tasted almost all the food I want to eat.  Tomato kueh tiaw from Stall 17 Ngap Kiang Kenyalang market  Have breakfast with mum in Woon Lam and I had char kuaw and kuah chap while kids had kolok mee. Woon Lam is famous of char kuaw and kuah chap. I like its char kuaw as fried to crispiness.   |
| Timelapse At <b>Kuching</b> | Primelapse Posted: 21 Nov 2013 01:52 AM PST  0 Views0 Likes This timelapse is called IPOH TIMELAPSE - KHAI MOTION, and was created by khaimotion on YouTube. It is 00:12:59 long, and the last time we checked (on November 21st, 2013), it had around 320 plays on YouTube Descript...  0 Views0 Likes This timelapse is called In My Memory 2012, and was created by LOW on Vimeo. It is 00:16:42 long, and the last time we checked (on October 16th, 2013), it had around 330 plays on Vimeo Description 在缩时摄影摄影中，...  0 Views1 Likes This timelapse is called still at pahang, and was created by LOW on Vimeo. It is 00:03:38 long, and the last time we checked (on October 16th, 2013), it had around 550 plays on Vimeo Description thank you for viewin... |
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