Supriya "i have not problem with your faith, mate, but if you want to keep a blind faith in your pociailitns, even when they use your church for their politics, i say good luck to you."Rocky, i have never mentioned having faith in my pociailitns, as you put it. I believe in an honest administration, simple. My contention is with Utusan; up until today, no proof has been verified (READ: VERIFIED) that the alleged pastor meeting reported by BD and Utusan actually has the agenda Utusan claimed it did.. I don't give a hoot about opportunistic pociailitns, but to blow the issue out of proportion, especially what Utusan has done (EMPHASIS AGAIN: WITHOUT VERIFIED TRUTH) is an abuse of freedom. As such, im not surprised LGE banned Utusan. Why would you want to trust such reporting?Get it into your head that i DO NOT CARE A DIME about ANY politician. What i do care is about unsubstantiated reports making up stories about religions being FRONTPAGED.. what say you Rocky? would you trust a newspaper that carries unsubstantiated report about you?Gunther

Priness Rocky!Actually strong mtaorijy of the Umno Supreme Council members have voted against the merger of Utusan and NST, with the exception of one or two! However, Dollah Badawi is under the illusion that as the PM of the country he cannot be touch and he can veto any collective decision made by honourable members of the council on serious isues! It appears that Dollah Badawi always falls for the last person advising him against anything, namely Kalimullah Hassan and not even his son in law! I dont know about the rest of Malaysians, with the exception of Lim Kit Siang and Lim Guan Eng, Kali's drinking buddies, we have to do something really fast to stop the rot. Now that Rais Yatim has stood up, as real proud Umno member, to voice his concerns others must follow suit and we cannot be dragging our feet or all will be lost! BTW this message does not apply to Nazri Aziz!

Roberto A point of clerification. Utusan Melayu Berhad is crlootlned by Umno. NSTP belongs to Umno President. Chairman of Realmild, the ultimate holding company, is only a proxy. The PM is the beneficial owner of NSTP via Realmild/Prima Media.Umno "institutionalised" Utusan ownership in the name of Umno Treasurer when the company was almost lost to indivuduals under the old proxy system which is now operational in the case of NSTP.The merger may either "institutionalise" NSTP's controlling-ownership under Umno Treasurer (like Utusan) thereby saving from falling into the hands of individualstn or it may "deinstitutionalise" Utusan.The merger is the handy work of Pak Lah and his 4th Floor adivers who have been concetrating media control in the hands of Utusan and Realmild/Media Prima and giving monopoly power to a few Abdullah's henchmen like Kallimullah Hassan, Datuk Mutalib and Tan Sri Hashim Makaruddin.But the merger may not work in Umno's favour. There will the psychological resitence by the readers who are already suspicious of newspapers belonging to both groups. There could be another round of rejection of these papers similar to 1998 when Anwar was sacked, arrested and tried.Businesswise, it'll reduce competition and the consumers may lose. But it may also lead to wasteful competition because both groups will be competing for same readers and advertisers.In the final analysis, the current administration's talk about freedom, transparency and openess will continue to be doubted when the media is concentrated in the hands of a few people.Corporatewise, the recent low prices of NSTP and Utusan shares could be an act of deliberate market manipulation to enable the merger to be carried out cheaply. It is also possible that the combined group will fall into the hands of individuals instead of remaining Umno assets.