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No. 4681 PP 2644/12/2009 (023092)

Monday
January 19, 2009
TELLING IT AS IT IS www.sun2surf.com

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45,000 face
temporary lay-off
by Tan Yi Liang
newsdesk@thesundaily.com

KUALA LUMPUR: About 45,000 workers face

the prospect of being temporarily laid off
Ceasefire in Gaza
HAMAS TO SILENCE GUNS FOR A WEEK AFTER ISRAEL DECLARES TRUCE
AZA: Palestinian militants announced a

during the Chinese New Year period due to
falling demand, said Human Resource Minister
Datuk S. Subramaniam. “During the period, the
factories will be on holiday for two to three
weeks and workers have been asked to take
leave. Some are on paid leave, and some on
no-pay leave,” he said yesterday.
Explaining that the lay-offs are due to a
drop in orders, he said the factories felt that if
they did not operate for two or three weeks,
they could reduce their output and solve the
issue of declining orders.
Subramaniam said the government was
watching the situation closely. “We have
opened 80 centres nationwide to monitor
G
one-week ceasefire yesterday after Israel
called a unilateral halt to its massive of-
fensive on Gaza, as medics pulled dozens
of bodies from the rubble of bombed-out
homes.
After exchanges of gunfire and an air strike
punctured what Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert acknowledged was a “fragile” cease-
fire, Gaza’s Hamas rulers and other armed
groups said they would silence their guns for
the next seven days to give Israeli troops a
chance to withdraw from the territory.
“We in the Palestinian resistance move-
ments announce a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip
and demand that enemy forces withdraw in
a week and open all the border crossings to
permit the entry of humanitarian aid and basic
goods,” Mussa Abu Marzuk, the deputy leader
of Hamas’s politburo, said in Damascus.
Dawud Shihab, a Gaza-based spokesman
for Islamic Jihad, a smaller armed faction,
said the truce would give an opportunity for
Arab governments to put pressure on Israel to
withdraw all its troops.
“During this period, the resistance is ready
to respond to all efforts by the Egyptians,
Turks, Syrians and Arabs that will allow for a
total withdrawal of Israeli soldiers and the total
opening of border crossings,” he told AFP.
Militants in Gaza, however, fired two rockets
into Israel following the announcement without
wounding anyone, police said.
Israeli troops in Gaza pulled back from key
positions in and around Gaza City yesterday
towards the border fence east and north of the
city, witnesses said.
Meanwhile, an international summit of
European and Arab leaders aimed at shoring
up the truce took place in the Egyptian resort
of Sharm el-Sheikh while officials in Cairo held
talks with Hamas with the same goal.
European leaders called on Israel to with-
draw from the Palestinian territory and on
militants to stop firing rockets.
“This fragile ceasefire has got to be followed

the problem; at the same time, we are
trying to find information on available
vacancies. As at Jan 12, there are
15,000 vacancies registered with the
ministry, and those who have been
forced to stop work in one field can find
work in other areas,” he said.
The government will help job-
seekers find jobs, he told a press confer-
ence after opening an agriculture seminar
and workshop at Universiti Malaya.
Subramaniam also said the government
was considering the proposed pension plan
for private sector retirees to overcome the
problem of needy senior citizens.
“There are many facing financial
difficulties, especially in the private sector.
After they retire at 55, they receive an EPF
payment of RM33,000. However, the money is
all spent within a year or two,” he said.
He said one source of the problem was the
breakdown of the traditional extended family.
“Normally, they depend on their chil-
dren to look after them, but this does not
happen today. This creates a situation where
poverty exists among senior citizens and they
are forced to turn to the welfare department
and Socso for assistance with the hope of
qualifying for invalidity pension,” he said.
He said that more than 80% of applicants
for the disability pension did not qualify.
He expects the problem to get worse. “The
lifespan of Malaysians is increasing to about 70
to 75 years. We need to ensure that they have
financial freedom. The question is, how do we
do that,” said Subramaniam.
REUTERSPIX
immediately, if it is to be sustainable, by hu-
manitarian access ... by troop withdrawals, by
an end to arms trafficking,” said British Prime
Minister Gordon Brown.
He also joined international calls for an end
to Palestinian rocket fire.
Olmert announced late Saturday that he
had ordered an end to offensive operations in
Gaza after 22 days of combat but that troops
would remain in the territory and would fire
back if attacked.
After the ceasefire came into effect at 2am
(8am in Malaysia), Gaza enjoyed its first
bomb-free night in more than three weeks,
but there were soon signs that the calm was
unravelling.
As militants fired rockets and Israel
launched retaliatory air strikes, troops shot
dead an eight-year-old girl in the northern
town of Beit Hanun and a 20-year-old man
near Khan Yunis in the south, medics
said.
Gaza medics took advantage of the halt in
the fighting to rush to areas which had been
inaccessible, pulling at least 95 bodies from the
rubble, including those of several children.
The discoveries brought the overall death
toll since Israel launched Operation Cast Lead
Obama lookalike ...
As Barack Obama, who arrived by train in Washington yesterday, takes his oath as the
on Dec 27 to at least 1,300, the medics said,
making it by far the deadliest Israeli offensive
ever launched on the Gaza Strip.
44th President of the United States tomorrow, Ilham Anas, 47, will be watching the historic On the ground, as Hamas congratulated the
moment on television, just like millions of others around the world. But for the Indonesian Palestinians on “victory” from mosque loud-
photographer, who looks like the first African American to hold the most powerful job in the speakers, Gaza residents cautiously ventured
free world, it will be especially meaningful. Reports pages 8 and 9. out into the streets to survey the rubble that
was once their homes. – AFP