elephantiasis...eh?

Kuman di seberang lautan tampak, gajah di pelupuk mata tiada tampak. The saying goes and had nothing to do with the title above. And this can only happen elsewhere.

Record fine for restaurant that hired illegals from Malaysia

The Temptations Chinese Restaurant in Colchester has been slapped with a £96,000 (RM526,000) fine – the biggest ever handed down by a court in Britain – for employing illegal workers from Malaysia, China and Indonesia.

The Harwich magistrates court had last week found Bo & Sum Ltd directors Phing Woon Pun and Anthony Lam guilty of six offences contrary to Section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996, said a press statement by the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur.

The UK Border Agency Immigration officers had raided the restaurant on Nov 29, 2007, and detained the illegal workers. According to the statement, at least 10 Malaysians were deported following the raid.

Pun was also charged with conspiracy to facilitate breaches of Britain’s immigration laws, an offence that carried a maximum 14-year imprisonment. The charges would be heard separately.

Gail Adams, the UK Border Agency regional director for the Midlands and East of England, said the record fine sent a clear message that both the agency and the court would not tolerate hiring of illegal workers.

All foreigners, foreign workers and expatriates, are all legit here. All our employers, be they mega multinationals or those fly by night metal recyclers, have legally obtain all the necessary legal papers for all their legally acquired expats and workers. No qualms about that. Irregularities can only happen in the first world, where everything and anything gets reported. Nothing bad can happen in Malaysia. Our government will ensure to that.

And all those foreigners are well treated here. Especially them expats. Especially caucasian expats. You would bash a Bangladeshi or a Myanmarese to death sometimes even though they're legal aliens. But nobody will even try being disrespectful to caucasian expats even though they're here illegally. Being colonised all those centuries ago can do that to your collective psyché. And being further misled and misinformed by the government of the day and its media(whose investigative reporting expertise is either on the opposition stupidities or sports. Else they'll be concentrating on them tabloid pieces or which foreign news to include to further distract the already distracted masses) don't help either.

But we don't need help. We're cool with it.