KUALA LUMPUR: Is the recent termination of Mohamad Arshad Hussain, Malaysia\u2019s representative to the United Nation, linked to Apco Worldwide, the PR firm engaged by the Umno-BN led government to boost its image? This question was posed to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak by PAS central working committee member Mohamad Sabu.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid Apco advise the termination of Arshad?\u201d asked Mohamad Sabu, inferring a connection to the sacking with Apco’s coming onboard of Najib\u2019s team as consultants.<\/p>\n
Arshad was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in December for voting against a resolution demanding that Iran freeze its uranium enrichment programme. His service was terminated by the government last month. Mohamad Sabu, in describing Arshad\u2019s sacking as a \u201cpro-American, pro-Israeli move\u201d, said that it had pushed the country further into the gutters.<\/p>\n
\u201cUmno and BN leaders have accused the opposition of tarnishing the country\u2019s name and image, using them (the latter) as a convenient shield to protect their own misconduct.<\/p>\n
\u201cBN under Najib has dragged the country down to an all-time low with the Altantuya murder mystery, Arshad\u2019s sacking and other heinous activities,” claimed Mohamad Sabu.<\/p>\n
‘Cancel Apco’s contract’<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Mohamad Sabu’s outburst came in the wake of claims by Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim who said in Parliament that Apco had clear links with the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak.<\/p>\n Anwar had claimed last week that Najib’s 1Malaysia slogan was a mere rehashing of Israel\u2019s \u201c1Israel\u201d campaign back in 1999.<\/p>\n In a related development, PKR MPs today demanded that BN government cancel its existing contract with Apco.<\/p>\n “Failing to do so will give an impression that Israeli policy dictates Malaysia’s communications strategies,” said PKR Youth exco member Yusmadi Yusoff.<\/p>\n “People will say that BN is in cahoots with Israeli leaders,\u201d added Yusmadi, who was flanked by PKR MPs Sivarasa Rasiah, Johari Abdul and Amran Abu Ghani at a press conference in Parliament.-FreeMalaysiaToday<\/p>\n In another development, PAS has proposed all Pakatan MPs to send a special memorandum to the Malay Rulers Council seeking an investigation into Apco’s involvement in the government administration.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy must the government recruit the services of an international organisation involved with the Zionist regime when there are many other global agencies and local ones who could offer consultancy services?\u201d asked PAS vice- president and Pokok Sena MP Mahfuz Omar.<\/p>\n A new policy?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had, in his December blog posting, linked Arshad\u2019s sacking to his refusal to support the resolution demanding Iran to freeze its nuclear programme. Cuba and Venezuela had also voted against the resolution.<\/p>\n \u201cOur envoy has been called back to explain why he did not support America\u2026 the old policies must surely be done away with, but is this our new policy? asked Mahathir.<\/p>\n Apco had said its work in Malaysia included communications for a variety of new initiatives undertaken by the Malaysian government.<\/p>\n According to a Bernama report, these areas include employment, education awareness and consolidating the delivery of service to the public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KUALA LUMPUR: Is the recent termination of Mohamad Arshad Hussain, Malaysia\u2019s representative to the United Nation, linked to Apco Worldwide, the PR firm engaged by the Umno-BN led government to boost its image? This question was posed to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak by PAS central working committee member Mohamad Sabu. \u201cDid Apco advise the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"better_featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}