Middle class residents of London have turned out to clean up their streets after nights of rioting

London residents wait to be allowed through a police cordon to help council workers with the clean up after the rioting that took place outside Clapham Junction railway station. Source: AP

ARMED with brooms, brushes and rubber gloves, London's defiant middle classes have turned out in force to reclaim the streets of their city after its worst night of violence for decades.

They responded in their hundreds to calls on Facebook and Twitter, as well as radio and TV, to help to clear up the damage caused by looting, arson and violence by mobs on Monday night.

USM holds first Senate polls

Democracy at work: Dzulkifli (left) casting his vote during the
election at the USM main campus in Penang yesterday.

GEORGE TOWN: Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) held elections for the post of Senate members, a first of its kind for a public university in the country.

A total of 195 candidates vied for 41 seats (41 Senate memberships) in the one-day polling which were held from 9am-4pm at the main campus here and three other branch campuses.

More international condemnation pours in for Taib Mahmud

The UK’s most respected and established Environmental magazine, The Ecologist, has this week turned its attention to Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, with a major investigative article about his record in Sarawak.

In a devastating analysis it outlines Taib’s corruption and his lies about what has happened to the Borneo jungle and its people.  Even more significantly, on the eve of the MoCS Red March, it writes about a discernible change in the mood in Sarawak and speaks of real hope of change.  This is not least because Taib’s decades of self-interested destruction and plunder have been well and truly exposed.

Najib, Rosmah in court but no interviews

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor
were in the court but refused to be interviewed as
potential defence witness in the Sodomy II trial.

KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and wife Rosmah Mansor turned up at the Jalan Duta court complex here today but they refused to be interviewed as potential defence witnesses in the Sodomy II trial.

Both arrived at 2.55pm and was in an interview room on level seven of the complex together with Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim, his lead counsel Karpal Singh, and lawyers Sankara Nair and Param Cumaraswamy.

“No questions were asked as the two immediately conveyed that they did not wish to be interviewed and that they have a right not to be defence witnesses,” Sankara told FMT.

Siah and 8 others barred from rally

Sarawak police have clamped down on the organisors
of tomorrow's Walk for Democracy and Reforms.

KUCHING: Police here have obtained a restraining order against Movement of Change Sarawak (MoCS) chief Francis Siah and eight others in relation to tomorrow’s ‘Walk for Democracy and Reform’ at the Museum Garden, here.

All nine have been barred from taking part in the walk, known here as the Red Rally,  or being anywhere in or near the vicinity of the Museum Garden.