PETALING JAYA: A party insider said Umno has gone back to the drawing board over its nominee for the deputy prime minister’s (DPM) post in the Perikatan Nasional (PN)-led government.

Prior to this, a source said Umno only put forth one nominee, party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

The majority of Umno’s 39 MPs are said to be aligned to the Bagan Datuk MP and want him to reassume the DPM role as part of Umno’s “new conditions” for its continued support for the PN government.

“Our choice was Zahid as he has the experience and was the deputy prime minister too,” said a source in the know.


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PETALING JAYA: Investors who recently bought completed commercial properties may have to wait up to a year to find tenants, according to property experts

They said the Covid-19 pandemic had made businessmen reluctant to expand to newly developed areas.

A video showing banner advertisements for shop lot rentals plastered onto buildings in Bandar Tropicana Aman went viral last week, and restaurant owners in the area told FMT that most of the lots had been vacant since the site’s completion last year.

Michael Kong, president of the Association of Valuers, Property Managers, Estate Agents & Property Consultants in the Private Sector Malaysia, said new properties on the outskirts of the Klang Valley would have a particularly tough time as supply had increased rapidly while demand had been sapped by the pandemic.

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IndigoTrout2522: Malaysiakini columnist S Thayaparan is right. Within the first year of the Pakatan Harapan government, the rakyat already made comment after comment to warn that then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad could not be trusted.

Mahathir was not supporting the Harapan manifesto. He was not going to honour his promise to the transition plan as agreed because he had a different agenda. He strengthened Bersatu by bringing in Umno MPs. He deliberately undermined Anwar Ibrahim by dividing PKR, using then party rival Azmin Ali. He continued to undermine DAP with the apparent support of Lim Guan Eng and Lim Kit Siang.

His words and actions were apparent enough. However, Kit Siang and Guan Eng were out of touch with the rakyat. Maybe getting power and positions blinded them, even after losing so many by-elections.

All we heard was that they would evaluate why they lost, but, to the public, it was obvious that the trust and confidence were eroding. They did not support Anwar the way they did Mahathir, and it still seems that way now.

Mahathir used Anwar to undermine the whole coalition when the fact was that Mahathir should be the one to shoulder the blame. Of course, Anwar could not imagine, in his wildest dreams, that his friends were the ones to betray him.

DAP has many young dedicated leaders. It is time for Kit Siang and Guan Eng to take a step back and let the younger leaders helm the party and, hopefully, the government. The same goes for PKR. Our younger leaders are the future of Malaysia.

Meanwhile, those younger leaders should speak up. Of course, those older and established leaders would try to sidetrack them because they can’t give up power, but the future is in the hands of the next generation.

Hopefully, many of them will speak up.


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(CNN)Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's campaign is making a late push into deeper-red states in the final week before the 2020 election, chasing a number of possible paths to 270 electoral votes while President Donald Trump focuses on defending a narrower set of states that he won four years ago but where polls show he now trails.

Biden is set to visit Georgia and Iowa this week, while his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, travels Friday to Texas -- all states Trump won handily in 2016.

Trump's campaign, meanwhile, is narrowing its focus. It is largely ignoring the Biden team's bids for states like Georgia, Texas and Ohio, where Biden has made a late advertising push -- a result of the reality that Trump cannot keep pace with the better-funded Biden's spending.

Build your own road to 270 electoral votes with CNN's interactive map.
With so many states to defend, Trump's campaign is banking on those states' electorates being Republican enough that he can win them with limited effort. Instead, Trump is focusing his efforts on seven states he won four years ago, as well as Minnesota and Nevada, which he hopes to flip this time around.

The travel schedules and ad spending in the race's final week underscores the reality that Biden's campaign is competing on a much larger playing field than Trump -- one that includes states where a strong Biden performance could also help deliver Democratic victories in key House and Senate races.


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IPOH, Oct 27 — Beruas MP Datuk Ngeh Koo Ham today accused the Perak government and State Agriculture Development Corporation (SADC) of being complicit in the destruction of the mangrove ecosystem in the Manjung district.

Ngeh claimed that the state government has tasked the oversight of many mangrove areas to SADC, which in turn leased them to third parties for aquaculture purposes such as prawn and fish farms.“The state has the largest tracts of mangrove land along Sungai Segari, Sungai Dinding, Sungai Sitiawan and Sungai Sempit in Segari, Manjung district.

“Recently, some fishermen in Segari have complained that the number of crabs, prawns and fish has decreased due to water pollution and that many mangrove areas which are the breeding grounds for crabs, prawns and fish have been destroyed and used for aquaculture,” he said in a statement.

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PETALING JAYA: A PKR MP has hit out at Deputy Communications and Multimedia Minister Zahidi Zainul Abidin after he blamed the current political turmoil on Malaysians who voted for Pakatan Harapan (PH) in 2018.

Ledang MP Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh said Zahidi’s remarks yesterday were irresponsible and embarrassing, and told the Umno MP to stop shifting the blame onto the people.

“I’m sure many have not forgotten Zahidi’s actions in the issue involving Veveonah Mosibin. I’m sure many also have not forgotten that he once said he would work on providing free internet for universities when most universities already provided that facility.

“It is not wrong for the people to carry out their duties in casting their votes to uphold democracy.


“A government that only plays politics, that doesn’t take the people’s issues seriously and that shifts the blame to others is the one that’s wrong and irresponsible,” Syed Ibrahim said in a statement today.

Zahidi, who is the Padang Besar MP, had said the dwindling economy and political impasse had been caused by the previous PH government voted in by the people in the last general election.

He said the people should not blame politicians for the current state of affairs in the country as elected representatives and members of the administration were merely trying to remedy the situation.

Syed Ibrahim told Zahidi to reflect and ask himself whether he had helped in correcting the situation.


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