Malaysia Update

KUALA LUMPUR: Selangor Menteri Besar Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim filed a defamation suit against the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and its chief for making false and scurrilous allegations against him over the issue of his car and cows.

Khalid filed the suit yesterday afternoon at the High Court registry through counsel Sankara N. Nair.

Khalid named MACC chief commissioner Datuk Seri Ahmad Said Hamdan, the commission and the government as defendants.

Khalid claimed that on or about Feb 21, Ahmad Said had made a statement which was published on the front page of the New Straits Times, "Khalid in hot water over car and cows", and on page two of the paper titled "There is evidence Khalid misused powers".

He said the statement was also published in other newspapers and their online services.


Khalid claimed that Ahmad Said and the MACC had acted in bad faith in that it instigated public hatred against him, lowered his esteem in the eyes of the public and exposed him to ridicule and contempt.



Khalid, through his lawyer, had sent two letters to Ahmad Said, on Feb 26 and on March 19, to seek an explanation but to date, the MACC had not responded.

SYDNEY:The swine flu outbreak is more worrying than bird flu because it is spread much more readily between humans, an infectious diseases expert said yesterday.

Australian National University epidemiology specialist Prof Paul Kelly said swine flu had a lower mortality rate than bird flu but warned this was a mixed blessing because it would help the virus spread more quickly.

He said bird flu had remained relatively contained because human-to-human transmission was difficult, while swine flu was highly infectious.

"Bird flu has been limited -- to an extent that it happened in Indonesia and other places, but it's never been on the sort of scale as this.

"This is actually more worrying."
He told ABC radio that swine flu appeared to be a form of the virus that epidemiologists had feared for years -- a combination of strains from various animals that was easily transmitted between humans.

Prof John Mackenzie, a biosecurity expert from Perth's Curtin University, said the latest flu threat appeared to be a combination of at least two types of swine virus and an avian virus gene.

He said the next few days would be crucial in determining whether the world was facing a pandemic.

"I guess we're at that 'grey' stage where we don't know if it is going to be a pandemic strain or not."