Golongan belia di Sarawak akan sentiasa diiberi perhatian Kerajaan Negeri

KUCHING: Kerajaan Sarawak sedia membantu belia dalam menjayakan dan menganjurkan program bermanfaat untuk golongan itu di negeri ini.

Menteri Belia dan Sukan Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah berkata, kementeriannya sedia menghulurkan dana kepada belia untuk menganjurkan programprogram bermanfaat bagi golongan tersebut.

Tegasnya, ini bagi mempersiapkan golongan itu yang merupakan pemimpin masa hadapan Sarawak khasnya dan Malaysia amnya.

“Kementerian kita akan memberi sokongan penuh dari segi dana bagi menganjurkan program khusus untuk belia jika ia dirancang dengan betul dan memberi manfaat kepada belia di kawasan tersebut.

“Kamu (belia) boleh memilih untuk menganjur apa jua aktiviti yang kamu suka, seperti kesenian, kebudayaan, sukan dan sebagainya yang memberi manfaat kepada kamu semua,” katanya ketika sesi dialog awam Jelajah Belia

Sarawak 2020 (Samariang) Kampung Semariang Batu di sini semalam.

Abdul Karim yang juga Menteri Kesenian, Kebudayaan dan Pelancongan berkata, dengan ini dapat menggalakkan golongan belia dalam memperkasakan potensi kepimpinan mereka.

Tambahnya, belia merupakan aset penting yang bakal memaju kemajuan dan masa depan sesebuah negara.

“Kita mahu mereka menjadi pemimpin yang berjaya, jadi mereka harus berani dan bijak dalam menganjurkan aktiviti yang boleh memperkasakan diri mereka,” tegasnya lagi.

Pada majlis itu, Ahli Dewan Undangan Negeri (ADUN) Asajaya itu turut mengumumkan peruntukan sebanyak RM20,000 kepada Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK) Tun Ahmad Zaidi untuk aktiviti sekolah dan RM10,000 geran sukan untuk program inkubator usahawan Samariang.

Program itu dihadiri lebih 1,000 orang yang diadakan dua hari yang berakhir semalam.

Hadir sama Menteri Muda di Pejabat Ketua Menteri (Undang-Undang, Hubungan Negeri dan Persekutuan dan Pemantauan Projek) Datuk Sharifah Hasidah Sayeed Aman Ghazali dan tetamu kehormat lain.

SUMBER BERITA:Utusan Borneo (Tarikh 02.02.2020)

Sarawak to have its own dedicated Wushu Training Centre

KUCH­ING: The much awaited wushu cen­tre for Sarawak will be com­pleted within two years.

Min­is­ter of Tourism, Arts, Cul­ture, Youth and Sports Datuk Ab­dul Karim Rah­man Hamzah said the RM12 mil­lion fa­cil­ity will fur­ther boost wushu de­vel­op­ment in the state.

“It is in­side the Sarawak Sports Com­plex and it has al­ready been ap­proved by the State gov­ern­ment. We are go­ing for ten­der soon and hope­fully the con­struc­tion will start soon this year.

“In less than two years, we should see a proper wushu cen­tre, a big hall where we can have train­ing and or­gan­ise lo­cal, state or re­gional com­pe­ti­tions there,” he told re­porters at the Wushu Fed­er­a­tion of Sarawak (WFS) Chi­nese Lu­nar New Year cel­e­bra­tion at its premises at Tabuan Laru yes­ter­day.

When asked on his ex­pec­ta­tions for wushu at the Jo­hor Sukma this July, Karim said wushu is ex­pected to do well as in ev­ery Sukma, the sport had not failed to de­liver gold medals for the Sarawak con­tin­gent.

“Wushu is one of the sports that I am not re­ally too wor­ried about be­cause the WFS, led by Allen Wong, has very com­mit­ted com­mit­tee mem­bers and coaches and they are very pas­sion­ate about devel­op­ing wushu in Sarawak.

“I hope the of­fi­cials in other sports as­so­ci­a­tions would be like what we see in wushu,” he added.

Ear­lier, Karim ex­pressed con­fi­dence that the prob­lem of the Wuhan coro­n­avirus will be over­come soon look­ing at the way how the China au­thor­i­ties is han­dling it.

“I know that WFS used to send ath­letes to China for train­ing and ex­po­sure and this will be af­fected by the novel coro­n­avirus out­break.

“There is a need to mon­i­tor our ath­letes be­cause we don’t want them to fall sick due to this virus,” he said.

On an­other note, Karim said he was pleased to see that more peo­ple from other races are tak­ing up wushu and he hoped that the WFS would strive harder to bring the sport to greater heights.

“Wushu is now an open sport and I be­lieve that with this kind of ef­fort by WFS to en­cour­age more peo­ple of dif­fer­ent races and re­li­gions in devel­op­ing wushu, we can go far,” he said.

NEWS SOURCE: The Borneo Post (Sports page Headline- Dated 02.02.2020)

Dated 02.02.2020)

Suasana meriah semasa sambutan Rumah Terbuka Tahun Baharu Cina oleh Konfederasi Wushu Sarawak

Stern warning to fake news spreaders

KUCH­ING: Those re­spon­si­ble for spread­ing fake news on the Wuhan coro­n­avirus out­break can be jailed for up to two years, warned Sarawak Sarawak’s Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sioner Datuk Dev Ku­mar.

He said one such case in­volved the ‘news’ that a pa­tient al­legedly in­fected with the coro­n­avirus had been admi ed to Tim­ber­land Med­i­cal Cen­tre here, which went vi­ral on so­cial me­dia re­cently.

“The man­age­ment of Tim­ber­land Med­i­cal Cen­tre has lodged a po­lice re­port yes­ter­day (Tues­day) and the case is be­ing in­ves­ti­gated un­der Sec­tion 505(b) of the Pe­nal Code and Sec­tion 233 of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Mul­ti­me­dia Act (CMA) 1998,” he told a press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day.

Dev Ku­mar, who ear­lier a ended a State Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Commi ee meet­ing, said po­lice were still in the midst of iden­ti­fy­ing those re­spon­si­ble for the fake news.

Sec­tion 505(b) of the Pe­nal Code makes it a crim­i­nal of­fence for who­ever makes, pub­lishes or cir­cu­lates any state­ment, ru­mour or re­port with in­tent to cause, or which is likely to cause, fear or alarm to the pub­lic, or to any sec­tion of the pub­lic whereby any per­son may be in­duced to com­mit an of­fence against the state or against pub­lic tran­quil­ity.

Those guilty shall be pun­ished with im­pris­on­ment which may ex­tend to two years or with fine or with both, he said.

Sec­tion 233(1)(a) of the CMA makes the im­proper use of net­work fa­cil­i­ties or net­work ser­vices a crim­i­nal of­fence, which car­ries a max­i­mum fine of RM50,000 or a jail term not ex­ceed­ing one year or both.

“The po­lice will not hes­i­tate to take ac­tion against those who are re­spon­si­ble for the of­fences un­der those sec­tions,” added Dev Ku­mar.

Deputy Chief Min­is­ter Datuk Amar Dou­glas Ug­gah, mean­while, de­scribed those spread­ing fake news on the out­break as “very ir­re­spon­si­ble”, adding their ac­tions could trig­ger un­nec­es­sary alarm, dis­rup­tion and con­fu­sion among the pub­lic.

“My ad­vice is to please stop it (spread­ing fake news). Any in­for­ma­tion on the spread of Wuhan coro­n­avirus in Sarawak will of­fi­cially be re­leased by the commi ee, apart from the Min­istry of Health,” he said.

Mean­while in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Mul­ti­me­dia Com­mis­sion (MCMC) has de­tained a sus­pect for al­legedly spread­ing fake news on the coro­n­avirus out­break.

A state­ment is­sued by MCMC yes­ter­day stated that the sus­pect, aged 34, was ar­rested in Bangi, Se­lan­gor, at 4pm Tues­day for in­ves­ti­ga­tion on a post­ing that was up­loaded on a Face­book page on Jan 26.

“The con­tent on the coro­n­avirus is found to be false. Also seized were a hand­phone and a SIM card be­long­ing to the sus­pect, which were be­lieved to be used to up­load the con­tent on the Face­book page,” it said.

The case is be­ing in­ves­ti­gated un­der Sec­tion 233 of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Mul­ti­me­dia Act 1998.

NEWS SOURCE: The Borneo Post (Dated:30.01.2020-Front page Headline)

Sarawak tourism industry slightly affected by global Coronavirus situation

KUCHING - The tourism industry in Sarawak is expected to slightly be affected by recent China’s ban on in­ter­na­tional group travel to con­tain the deadly coro­n­avirus out­break. Malaysia’s move to stop is­su­ing visas for Chi­nese cit­i­zens from Wuhan and the ar­eas around Hubei prov­ince has also badly hit the tourism in­dus­try in neighbouring Sabah.

This was mentioned recently by Sabah As­so­ci­a­tion of Tour and Travel Agents (Satta) pres­i­dent Datuk Seri Win­ston Liaw who has asked the gov­ern­ment to step in and help the tourism sec­tor as Satta ex­pects a sharp drop in tourist ar­rivals to Sabah.

He said about 45 per­cent of tourists ar­riv­ing in Sabah presently are from China and with the pol­icy change on trav­els im­posed by the coun­try due to the dis­ease, the tourism sec­tor in Sabah is ex­pect­ing the worst. From Jan­uary to Septem­ber last year, China was the third big­gest source of for­eign tourists (2.41 mil­lion ar­rivals) for Sabah af­ter Sin­ga­pore (7.8 mil­lion) and In­done­sia (2.7 mil­lion).

“The prob­lems are ex­cep­tional. In my 30 years in this line, this will be one of the most chal­leng­ing so far,” he told re­porters af­ter meet­ing with other tourism play­ers from Malaysian As­so­ci­a­tion of Tour and Travel Agents (Matta) and Malaysia Chi­nese Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (MCTA).

He added that to date, a to­tal of 22 tour groups from Sabah had left for China.

The groups have no place to go, he said, since all the at­trac­tion points have been shut.

Restau­rants have also been closed due to the di­rec­tive from the gov­ern­ment, he said.

“We have hun­dreds of tour mem­bers now stuck in China and they have re­quested to re­turn early,” he said.

Liaw said it is es­ti­mated that be­tween 600 and 700 tour mem­bers fol­low­ing the tours from Sabah are now stranded in China, ex­clud­ing Free In­de­pen­dent Trav­el­ers (FIT).

“If we in­clude the FIT, there are over 1,000 of them now stranded there,” he said.

He added that so far, five tour groups to China from Sabah have also been can­celled.

“It is un­for­tu­nate that it has to hap­pen in 2020,” he said.

He then urged tour mem­bers who have booked to travel to China to can­cel their trip since the pri­or­ity would be their safety.

Liaw also asked the air­lines in­volved to as­sist the tour op­er­a­tors in­volved in Sabah as the lat­ter will in­cur losses.

“With some air­lines, they can pro­vide re­fund while some al­low their trav­ellers to de­fer their dates of trav­els,” he said.

How­ever, he said those booked on char­ter flights would face a prob­lem as they won’t be able to de­fer their travel itin­er­ar­ies.

Nev­er­the­less, com­mu­ni­ca­tion is un­der­way to see if re­funds could be ar­ranged, he said.

In ad­di­tion, the tourism sec­tor in Sabah is also af­fected by the China gov­ern­ment’S de­ci­sion to sus­pend trav­els abroad for its cit­i­zens.

Liaw said var­i­ous play­ers rang­ing from ho­tels to restau­rants to tour buses would be ad­versely im­pacted by the de­ci­sion.

He added that all tour op­er­a­tors op­er­at­ing on pre­paid mode and ask if the gov­ern­ment could come in to help over­come this prob­lem so that the losses to the in­dus­try could be min­i­mized.

In view of the cur­rent sce­nario, he ex­pects the in­dus­try will take up to six months to re­cover, and that some, who are faced with weak­ened fi­nan­cial ca­pa­bil­i­ties, may not make it at all.

“They may have to close their op­er­a­tion,” he said.

He also said that the sce­nario would also have neg­a­tive im­pact on the em­ploy­ment scene in Sabah and that the prospect of peo­ple be­ing laid off from work is very likely.

Matta pres­i­dent Tan Kok Liang said tour agents had been re­ceiv­ing a lot of can­cel­la­tions, although he did not have the ac­tual num­ber.

As of now, Tan said, in­bound and out­bound tourism be­tween Malaysia and China have been se­verely af­fected.

“The Wuhan coro­n­avirus will af­fect the na­tional tourism in­dus­try. Matta hopes that the sit­u­a­tion is con­tained and that it will last only for a short pe­riod.

“We hope the sit­u­a­tion will be con­tained and will only be for the short term, other­wise the reper­cus­sions will be more se­vere as it will af­fect the global tourism,” he said. NEWS SOURCE: The Borneo Post (Dated 28.01.2020)