‘Parents send their children to gain a sound education and learn good moral values - not to demonstrate or to be taught to play politics or create any animosity.'

On PSM: Education minister 'exploiting' children

Marion Tharsis: I totally deplore the use of children to satisfy the government's or more particularly, the education minister's show of hatred towards the conflict in Gaza. I, as a parent, would not even send my child to school if such a show of hatred is being planned.

Do not make the teachers and children the scapegoats of your own selfish agenda. Children should never be used to serve anyone's cause be it with parents' consent or otherwise. Period.

If the minster really cares for the future well-being and good mental development of these young ones, he should instead advise the teachers to tell the children that the peace and tranquility we enjoy in this country, should always be preserved and valued.

This way, the children grow up with the right attitude and character - not ones with abject anger or hatred. As it is, racial integration in schools is already at its lowest level and no proper action is taken to correct the situation.

I shudder to think of the consequences of this kind of ill advice given by a man in authority and custodian of the nation's education system. The very same person who flashed the keris some time ago.

Parents send their children to gain a sound education and learn good moral values - not to demonstrate or to be taught to play politics or create any animosity.

I had the good fortune of having a good education in the mission schools of old and I can still remember that we used to observe a few minutes of silence in prayers for those people ravaged by war or some natural disasters. At no one time was there any expression of any anger or hatred shown to any one.

Please do not make the mistakes that others around the world made with young, innocent and tender lives who just follow the adults and are not in a position to realise if it is right or wrong.

On Police force has improved, claims Suhakam

Ganesh: A few days ago, a baby girl of hardly one year old was raped . Not only I was shocked by such a disgusting and cruel act, I was even more shocked that there was no public outcry.

The police should concentrate on patrolling neighbourhoods as crime is so rampant. Residents are so scared to even come out of the house nowadays.

Ask anybody and they can relate to you how elderly folk got their gold chains snatched from their necks whilst taking out the garbage. And due to the injuries they sustained, they either died or are paralysed.

Children cannot even go out to play. Why? One of the main reasons is the fact that parents, out of fear, do not allow children to go outside the house gates.

The situation is so bad that not only do robberies and thefts happen in neighbourhoods, a lot of perverts also hang around, either to rape or to molest.

The police should concentrate on safeguarding the public. All we want is to be able to walk safely and get some fresh air. Even this basic right is now denied.

The police, instead of arresting anti-war vigil participants, should concentrate on patrolling neighbourhoods to make people feel safer. I was quite shocked to read that twenty-one people were arrested at an anti-war vigil held in Dataran Merdeka in KL on Saturday.

The police got time for this? And yet, sometimes when I go through my video footage of my home security CCTV camera which faces the front road of my house, I cannot even see a single patrol car passing my house for days.

On KLIA East: AirAsia's boss explains why

Subra: Tony Fernandes prides himself on boosting tourism in Malaysia. That may be so but I still fly Tiger Airways because the fares are cheaper and the facilities are better at the Singapore budget airlines terminal

As a frequent budget airline flier, I find the facilities at the LCCT at Singapore far superior to what the LCCT in Sepang offers.

For a start, there is not even a decent toilet amenity at LCCT and passengers have to share the washbasins with one another. This is disgraceful.

At Singapore, you get a great variety of food and shopping and free use of the Internet inside the terminal. For busy people, you can make last minute hotel booking ie, after checking in.

Also, the bus rides to Sepang are unreliable where timekeeping is concerned. Compared to Singapore's LCCT, the amenities at Sepang's LCCT are substandard.

Now that a new LCCT airport is going to built, it is going to make it harder to connect budget and non-budget flights.

On Celcom broadband a 'Malaysia Boleh' let-down

SC Chan: As an occasional Celcom wireless broadband subscriber, I agree with the writer's comments.

If I could use a layman's term to describe why there are so many dissatisfied customers, it is that the Internet service that is presently available works like an overloaded 1.5 cc Proton Saga - seven or eight passengers packed into a five-seater car.

It doesn't really run - it drags because of the overload.

Similarly, if the Internet service providers keep on selling the products without actually improving the supporting infrastructure and the capacity at the international gateways, what you will get in terms of service is what we are experiencing now.

For my home, I subscribe to a TM Net Streamy service and although I am quite happy with the speed, my greatest disappointment is that I can never actually access YouTube or download movies.

In Korea I am told, one can download a movie in 15 to 20 minutes whereas here in Malaysia it will take a few days! What kind of Internet service are we providing in this country?

In Korea Internet operates at 16M, Japan 20M but in Malaysia 2M. Malaysia Boleh?

On Time rubbing out for ‘deviationist' sect

Badr: The Ahmadiyya Muslim community is one of many Muslim communities around the world and is among the most peaceful and law-abiding of them.

Since it's inception, it's founder and his successors as well as its members in general have been serving the cause of Islam and humanity with distinction.

A close look at the beliefs of the jamaat prove that there is nothing objectionable about this community.

Opposition to this community is based only on ignorance and vested interests within the Muslim world, in the same way that opposition to Jesus was also based on vested interests among the Jewish scholars.

The Muslim world is stepping ever farther from the territory that was inhabited by Prophet Muhammad (saw) and his companions.

They make war on the innocent, persecute minorities, and keep people in ignorance, when the Prophet (saw) did the opposite of these things. Is Malaysia now going to join this sorry group?

Is this the behaviour of a real 'Islamic' country that unable to do anything against the rea' enemies of Islam (ie vested interests and the weakness and moral corruption of Muslims themselves).

You attack the nearest, weak community and blame them for everything. How noble. How 'Islamic'.

This is the kind of behaviour which is destroying the Muslim world today and I hope that in Malaysia, there are still true Muslims who live there and do not ignorantly commit every crime simply because the mullah tells them to do so.

Do not attack, persecute and harass the innocents but rather do follow the Qur'an and sunnah .

R Chaudhry: The Ahmadiyya Muslim community has been a force for positive change in Malaysia for several years.

Its membership are hard-working and humble; they are our fellow doctors, teachers and engineers, working collectively to keep Malaysia a booming center for trade and commerce.

That is what makes the government's recent mandate to them to remove their credo from their mosque façade both perplexing and terrifying.

Why go after a community that has only contributed to our country's progression? The world has enough turmoil, why are we beckoning turmoil to our doorstep by restricting civil liberties?

The people of Malaysia should pay close attention to the government's actions. Today it's the Ahmadis, tomorrow it could be any one of us.

On PM wants UN's urgent intervention in Gaza

SM Mohamed Idris: The Consumers' Association of Penang (CAP) is outraged by the Israeli aggression and invasion of Gaza, which continues today despite the UN Security Council resolution last week calling for an immediate ceasefire.

Clearly, Malaysia should not under these circumstances continue with the negotiations for a US- Malaysia Free Trade Agreement (MUS-FTA). In this regard, we wholeheartedly support the call by the Malaysian Bar Council in urging the same.

As we have stressed in the past, Malaysia stands to lose more than gain from such an FTA. The US FTA has serious consequences for the country on many issues which include the following:

• government procurement and the implications for the ethnic relations in the country;
• investment and the implications for local jobs, small industries and enterprises;
• intellectual property rights and access to affordable medicines and knowledge;
• agriculture and food security in relation to impact on local farmers and rice self-sufficiency; and
• food safety related to labelling of GM foods etc.

At a time when Malaysia is showing true leadership in the developing world in spearheading efforts at the UN -evel on the Gaza tragedy, we should also lead in expressing our outrage by ending all negotiations over the MUS-FTA with immediate effect. (The writer is president, CAP).

Secr:

The Zionist state has made a hell out of the Middle East and created a holocaust for the Palestinians.

All international laws and any thinkable written or unwritten conditions for the UN resolutions 181 and 194 have been violated.

For example, genocide, torture, chemical weapons and all other war crimes are the ingredients of the Israeli/US wars of aggression.

The terror organisation Mossad has specialised in conducting false flag terror operations to induce civil wars in other countries, in particular Iraq.

By means of the ruling US Zionist neo cons, Israel drives the worldwide aggression of the US empire of evil -the cancer tumor of the planet.

Israel can exist so long as its economic, military and political sponsors do. But when the US collapses before long, the UN must immediately take action.

On Mahathir: Boycott US products and their currency

Josie M Fernandez: Among the strategies proposed by civil society to stop the disappearance of Palestine and the shocking and brutal injuries to children and civilians are consumer boycotts of Israeli and American products.

The Muslim Consumers Association of Malaysia has initiated a boycott of American products. Canadian author Naomi Klein has resurrected the ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel' campaign of 2005 by a coalition of Palestinian groups.

History is dotted with many stories of how consumer power can be used to bring social justice to victims of harmful political and corporate actions. Consumption is a moral, economic and political act.

Moral issues have remained ‘at the core of any articulation of the rights and duties associated with consumption. point out Martin Daunton and Mathew Hilton in their book The Politics of Consumption .

The consumer movement has stressed in the last 30 years that consumption must be based ‘On Value for People, Value for the Environment and Value for Money'. The Malaysian government adopted these principles in its consumer campaigns since it observes World Consumer Rights Day since 1993.

Many civil and political rights achieved by Americans have been through orgainsed consumer boycotts of products and services. There was a move to boycott sugar in the 1790s in protest against the slave trade.

African Americans also mobilised black consumers in ‘Don't shop ehere you can't work' campaigns as a protest against job-discrimination by white store-owners.

More recently, consumer boycotts have been orgainsed against corporations for their unethical conduct particularly their marketing strategies, employee work conditions and environmental destruction. Such campaigns have resulted in improving business ethics.

A consumer boycott of Israeli products is a non-violent tool to bring about justice and peace for the Palestinians.