Talk:Anwar Ibrahim
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[edit] POV Disputes
Sorry, what sections in the article do you consider NPOV? I think that the article pretty much sticks to the facts, so please present the exact parts you wish to dispute. Jpatokal 06:24, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
[edit] List of wrong things (can this be split up into sections?)
There are very few facts that are disputable. What is disputable is the context. The article includes facts that make Mahathir out to be some big bad guy, just like the article on him does. Little background is provided for the claim that Musa Hitam was sacked for having too high a profile. The article needs to clarify its claim that dissent was banned under Mahathir. The article needs references to back up its claims that Anwar's home was raided by masked marauders (I'm not disputing that, but it really does need references). The article drums up the protests, but in reality, just like the infamous May 13, the protests were limited to Kuala Lumpur, and unlike the article implies, not everybody was so pro-Anwar (IMO, the point of view of the quiet majority in Malaysia has been quashed — just because Mahathir was corrupt does not make his opponents innocent), and the protests were joined by a small segment of the population. This is addressed a paragraph or two later, but one NPOV paragraph does not cleanse others. The article implies that the government cracked down on the protests like a dictatorship would, but addresses this in only one sentence, and doesn't provide a reference. The paragraph on the 1999 elections contains quite a few factual errors (the government losing three states? It lost only one — Kelantan has been PAS' for quite a while). Clarification needs to be provided on Keadilan being allocated less seats — where is the Alternative Front mentioned? The last section on Anwar's release was quite bad a few days ago, with the tone being completely inappropriate, and it presented only the views of Anwar's family. I've fixed it up, but the point is that it's not the facts that are included that I have a problem with. It's the facts that aren't, and the article's overall tone. The government's version of events is almost entirely omitted, except in cases where it's presented to back up Anwar's case. I'll try to NPOV the article, but I can't guarantee anything. Johnleemk | Talk 13:37, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Articles in Malaysiakini
Here's the article version before I copyedited it. [1] And here are some letters written by Malaysians to Malaysiakini, a private newspaper famous for being shut down and having its offices raided while Mahathir was in power: [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Those are not representative of the mail that Malaysiakini received praising Anwar, but at the very least, indicate there's a sizeable amount of people who have their own critical view of Anwar, that is hardly represented in this article. Nothing is said of Anwar's negative influence on education in Malaysia. The views of those who argue that he was/is just as corrupt as Mahathir don't have anything mentioned about them. As I said, this article focuses too much on the views of Anwar's supporters, and the evidence supporting their opinions. I'd love to help NPOV this article, but I know too little about Anwar as it is to help very much further (I can help copyedit grammatically incorrect edits, though). If it's true that Anwar destroyed English education in Malaysia, I'm pretty pissed off about that, so I just thought I'd mention my bias here. I'm placing the NPOV dispute notice on the page until we can cover the opinions of others on Anwar, whether they're right or wrong. Johnleemk | Talk 09:49, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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- No. My position is that it presents only Anwar and his supporters' views half of the time — the other half was copyedited by me. The issue is not whether or not Anwar and/or his critics are right, but that his critics, right or wrong, are not mentioned here.
Johnleemk | Talk 16:03, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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- Nonono, the thing is, that if these crucial facts are omitted, the article is POV, and therefore deserves to be listed as such. I was making my case for placing the tag on the article, partially as a benefit for future readers (since the notice asks them to read the Talk page for further information). Johnleemk | Talk 16:41, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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- Methinks you are not getting it. Whether or not the fact(s) claimed by Anwar's critics are true or not is irrelevant. The point is that the article is unbalanced because only one point of view is presented, even if that point of view is ultimately correct. Let's see if we can apply your arguments to something like, say, Nazism. We don't shove Holocaust revisionists' opinions under the carpet and pretend they don't exist, even though almost everybody thinks they're, shall we say, wrong. We present their opinions. We mention that most people disagree, but we don't hide their views. The fact that their facts are biased, twisted and in some cases, outright wrong doesn't prevent us from mentioning that. Johnleemk | Talk 13:52, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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- From the article, a Martian would think that Mahathir was a monster and that Anwar was entirely free from guilt from corruption. What negative things are you talking about? The last section seems a bit too personal at times, with a tone that appears to be sympathetic to Anwar. The rest of the article focuses on his campaign against Mahathir, not even noting that he had not been known for any such tendencies towards reformasi beforehand (in other words, Mahathir became corrupt only after he fired Anwar). I don't have an issue with what is already in the article, like I've said already. I have an issue with what isn't in the article. Johnleemk | Talk 16:03, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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- See above.
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- I do not have facts, but opinions of Anwar's critics, which I will try to get around to placing in the article, but I cannot corroborate the facts they mention. Trying to find negative, substantiated facts about Anwar is almost pointless, as almost everything is so pointlessly biased either in favour of Anwar or hopelessly against him that it's mostly a mass of opinion.
Johnleemk | Talk 16:03, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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- "Facts" as in that we have trivial information such as what course Anwar's daughter graduated in, when we don't mention what Mahathir had to say about Anwar, we don't mention what Anwar's opponents think of him. I am not condemning your viewpoint. Rather, I am condemning the article's viewpoint for somehow avoiding Anwar's opponents' criticisms, whether they are truthful or not. If, for example, John Kerry were to be accused of eating babies by a sizeable number of people, we would mention that they did, but that the claims are false. We don't cite our own opinions. When I was talking about a fact deficiency, I was referring to the article's complete silence about Anwar's critics — not even a sentence mentioning they exist. If the John Kerry article were not to mention that people accuse him of eating babies (presuming that a sizeable number of these people exist), ti would have the NPOV tag slapped on it right away. I'm just justifying my reasons for doing so here.
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- Perhaps Anwar's daughter being Anwar's daughter is topical on this page. Mahathir's views on Anwar can be on the Mahathir page (which again you can feel free to edit). Surely if you have spent 6 years in prison only to come out days before your daughter graduates, it is material that you have a hard choice between staying for it or going for a life saving operation. No?--Malbear 19:48, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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- An in-depth analysis/presentation of Mahathir's views, yes. But we don't even have a single quote from him or even a government/UMNO spokesperson in the section about the turbulent period when Anwar was sacked and led the protests. That's a serious hole in the article. As for the graduation, I wasn't challenging the inclusion of that material, just using it as a comparison, but using the same argument, wouldn't what course she graduated in be more topical in an article about her? People who visit the Anwar article won't be interested in a full-length speech of Mahathir's or three paragraphs discussing what Mahathir had to say about Anwar, but they're not coming to see a sugar-coated brochure advocating Anwar. You see, what Mahathir has to say about Anwar is not only relevant to the article about him, but the article about Anwar too. Some people would even be able to craft an argument for why the longer discourse on Mahathir's opinion of Anwar should be on Anwar's article. Johnleemk | Talk 13:52, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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- Regardless, I will be adding what I managed to glean from those letters to the article. My reason for posting them was to prove that there is a sizeable mass of people who do not share the rosy opinions of Anwar some editors of this article have. According to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, their opinions must be represented in the article as well for it to be NPOV. Much of the policy actually focuses on an article including the opinions of its authors, but that's not that much of an issue here compared to that we have glaring omissions in negative material about Anwar, which I will be adding tomorrow (if possible). Johnleemk | Talk 16:03, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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- No. You apparently haven't even gotten the drift of what my hypothesis is. I'm not talking about facts as in cold hard facts, damn it. I'm talking about reporting the opinions of Anwar's critics. I've proven they exist. I just haven't gotten around to examining their claims in closer detail. Johnleemk | Talk 16:41, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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[edit] Users Views
[edit] Sabre23t
My brief look through the article didn't find me anything much to add or subtract from the article now. Perhaps it's NPOV enough from my location. ;-) -- sabre23t 13:03, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Okay, I've gone through the article once or twice, added sections for clarity and to break monotoy of the long pessages, wikified a few key figures that has yet to have articles, and removed one sentence that seem to belabor a point. That's it from me for now. ;-) -- sabre23t 13:48, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Malbear
Sorry. I realized that I was taking up tons of space basically repeating the same point so I moved it down here to be more "summarized". Basically my view is that:
- There are many views on these matters
- Each "side" should present its view clearly and honestly
- Failure to be honest can then be called out by anyone and should be clearly categorized. Upon resolution each party will be a gentleman and remove his post from the category to avoid uncessary clutter. This is an encyclopedia but surely the talk page does not need to be encyclopediac. I will begin by creating a list of disputes in the POV.
- Lack of dilligence or lack of ability by either side to present their views should not render the page POV. The page should only become POV if one side sees their views supressed or expunged by the other. Thus far, this has not occured.
I urge that all contributors add their stands on the POV thread in a thread marked with their usernames rather than cluttering up individual points of conflict. --Malbear 13:35, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Johnleemk
This is an unorthodox way of resolving disputes, but I'll bite.
- There are no factual errors in the article at this moment.
- There are glaring omissions in that almost all the facts included in the article are those positive about Anwar.
- Not even the allegations of Anwar's opponents, whether true or false, were included in the article, until I started adding what information I already had.
- Let's face it, Anwar's opponents must have said something about him. Why are all the facts included in the article sympathetic towards him?
- Just because I don't know what Anwar's opponents said about him in the past does not change the fact that they have said something about him.
- I have already presented proof that Anwar's opponents have made several allegations about him.
- These allegations, true or false, POVed or not, must be included in the article per Wikipedia's NPOV policy.
- I would include them if I had the time to sort out which ones are the most widely used accusations against him — allegations supported by only one or two people are the opinions of fringe groups, which, unless they suddenly make a lot of noise, aren't encyclopedic.
- The general tone of the article seems to be sympathetic toward Anwar.
- The page is POV whether or not a user cleans up the page. This is obvious when you look at it from a logical point of view:
- Let's say I write that Bush's opponents claim he mishandled the Iraq conflict. The article does not mention Bush's supporters arguments that he handled it well.
- The other side does not remove it and posts blogs indicating that there's a sizable amount of people who are of the opinion that Bush did a good job in the Iraqi conflict.
- The other editors do not add the views of Bush's supporters.
- Is the article POV or not? (If you answer no, I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do further to convince you that this article is POVed)
That was long-winded, but almost half of it was just an example illustrating my rebuttal of your "Because you didn't bother doing anything to correct your claims of POVness, this article is NPOV." Johnleemk | Talk 14:27, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Resolved Issues
[edit] Opposition leader
Anwar Ibrahim was and has never been an opposition leader technically and officially. The opposition leader at that time was Abdul Hadi Awang and the current opposition leader is Lim Kit Siang.__earth 22:26, Jul 9, 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Corruption Fighter
Opinions if they are held by a good number of people are mentioned in an encyclopedia. The goal of the NPOV policy is to present all POVs regardless of their veracity or foundation in truth. This article presents just one of two widely held POVs about Anwar. Therefore, the article is POV. I have not disputed the facts already in the article, because they are facts. My issue with the article is that it omits other facts — the most notable one, I've already mentioned — Anwar did not become such a corruption-fighter until he was no longer hobnobbing with Mahathir and his cronies. I've avoided adding them because I can't think of a way to coherently insert this into the article. Yes, I am upset because my POV is not in the article, because my POV is the one held by several other people. I am not arguing that we tilt the article in favour of Mahathir and his gang's POV, but merely that we have facts and criticisms from both sides. For example, until I added the NST's report to the article, the article argued that Anwar's back injuries were suffered during detention. I added that the NST reported that Anwar suffered it from a fall from a horse in 1993. I didn't say whose is correct, because I don't know who is. That's what I'm getting at here. We need to present both sides' opinions equally. Johnleemk | Talk 13:52, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Anwar did not become such a corruption-fighter until he was no longer hobnobbing with Mahathir and his cronies
- Add that into the article if you have the facts or citation of opinion of a significant group. -- sabre23t 15:52, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Correctly seguing material into the article
Just now I had to shift a couple of paragraphs in the article around, because they were in the wrong section. I doubt that the result of Anwar's corruption appeal has anything to do with his back treatment in Munich, though perhaps I'm just not getting the connection here. Likewise, can the parties concerned please update the article appropriately when adding new material instead of tacking it onto the end? I had to rewrite a paragraph about Anwar's corruption appeal pending, to make sense when we already have another parapagraph about the "pending" appeal being rejected. Johnleemk | Talk 16:16, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Copyright violation
About three paragraphs of the article were taken from this page. We have sufficiently reworded the paragraphs concerned so that it no longer applies, but just letting you guys know... Johnleemk | Talk 16:18, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Commonwealth Games
I removed this from the article: Although the government had spent a large sum of public money to host the Commonwealth Games, journalistic attention, both international and local, swiveled to focus on Anwar Ibrahim and his fledgling reformasi movement. The Games did not recover from the lack of attention and, till today, the financial accounts of the games are still a state secret protected under various security laws.
What exactly is this supposed to mean? How is it relevant? I remember the accounts have been in the news lately, but how is this relevant to the article? If one can argue that Mahathir's views of Anwar are relevant only to his page (highly dubious, but...), how is this relevant to this article? Johnleemk | Talk 16:16, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- No dispute here, I think. Moving to resolved. I guess you can move those points to somewhere in 1998 Commonwealth Games. Mmm, I've been snapping pixs of all those expensive statues of CG98 logos around towns, the fallen one near KLIA, the faded one in Klang. Is there one you know that's still in good condition? -- sabre23t 23:21, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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- The point here is that Anwar made bigger press than the comonwealth games which was pretty much not what the government wanted and definitely not what the sponsors of the games wanted. Cannot think of a more specific example of how to write "this was front page news" to the exclusion of almost anything else. We can either put a POV statement like this was front page news or show how millions of RM was spent to publicize another event yet the publicity failed to take away the headlines.....your choice --Malbear 01:50, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Pending Issues
[edit] "Reformasi" not included
Oh, yeah, and the article never mentions what reformasi (economic and political reforms) is supposed to be, exactly. Interestingly, I don't think I've ever heard a clarification from Anwar or Keadilan. They talk about reforming the government, but what Anwar did was just giving in to the IMF's demands. At the very least, Mahathir's and the government's excuses could be provided. Also note that Anwar has his own cronies, or at least is believed to, so this point of view should be presented as well. [7] Johnleemk | Talk 13:41, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Perhaps "reformasi" is best handled in a page marked "reformasi". You rightly mention that there seems to be so many issues under the reformasi banner (figuratively) and perhaps its best that this is not handled here for topicality reasons. Furthermore I think the contention is that the supporters of Anwar found "reformasi" to be their battle cry. Don't worry, it costs nothing to start a new page and I'm sure many of the same crowd here will be there to help you out. --Malbear 13:33, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Anti Cronyism
This page seems rather biased in favour of the view that Anwar was a supporter of human rights, etc. but he was generally just as bad as Mahathir. He had his own cronies, and was just as corrupt as Mahathir was. I don't have any sources, so feel free to refute me, but this article doesn't quite capture the viewpoint of people who don't think so highly of reformasi. Johnleemk | Talk 12:26, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I don't think the article should talk about anti-croynism. Anwar himself has cronies and saying Anwar as croynism is hypocritical. __earth 19:26, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
- the sentence should read Anwar himself has cronies and saying Anwar as anti-croynism is hypocritical. __earth 06:06, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)
Sorry? Am I the only one who does not understand this sentence? I believe the point being made here is that there are some who would contend (me included) that although Anwar was an anti-cronyism/nepotism etc crusader in his final years, this was not so earlier in his career. However, someone has to make a case of this and weave it into the article. Hopefully Johnlee can come up with something for this. --Malbear 03:01, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- I've placed a sentence about it in the article.
[edit] Mahathir looking bad
"Many Malaysian companies were facing the threat of bankruptcy, but Anwar declared: "There is no question of any bailout. The banks will be allowed to protect themselves and the government will not interfere." Anwar was an advocate for a pro-free market approach sympathetic to foreign investment and trade liberalization, whereas Mahathir favored currency and foreign investment controls."
This paragraph number makes Anwar seem somewhat like a rebel leader with him being everything right and Mahathir being everything wrong. Anyways, Mahathir tactics in the financial crisis did prove to be the correct ones as he lead Malaysia into a prosperous country.--Andylkl 13:15, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Notably, the article doesn't say what happened in the wake of the course Mahathir steered for the Malaysian economy. Johnleemk | Talk 16:16, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Deleted It appeared as if Mahathir was strengthening his control over the party and making moves against Anwar. Wikipedia is supposed to offer fact from NPOV, not some extrapolated event to suit one's view.__earth 20:46, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)
- It is acceptable to include the quote in the article if we could find some public figure who made that accusation, or a major news organisation which said that, instead of leveling the accusation ourselves. However, it seems Malbear would be in favour of putting that on the public figure's or news organisation's article, since apparently what Mahathir said of Anwar isn't relevant to this article. Johnleemk | Talk 16:16, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Lay off of workers
Remove line ", and many more had been forced to lay off workers in droves". It was exactly to avoid lay offs that the government pumped money into the failing conglomerates. 10 billion RM to avoid 10,000 lay offs. That's 1 million per employee. Anwar was very against the profiligate waste of your EPF funds and your tax ringgit for this purpose and this is where Halim Saad (later discredited by the same government), Daim Zainuddin (Halim's godfather) etc. were very very against the whole idea.--Malbear 02:40, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
[edit] The Mahathir doctrine for economic recovery
Removed the following "Mahathir believed that the development of Malaysian-owned businesses and local industries took a higher priority than that of untrammelled open competition; particularly in light of South Korea's experience after it accepted IMF conditions where significant portions of Korean industry ended up in foreign (largely American) hands."
Do we have any evidence (can we cite any source) that this is what Mahathir believed? I think we can ipso facto post what he did. However believes and state of mind need to be carefully balanced. Also the post about the South Korean recovery is very very badly informed. Someone needs to do some research and clean that up as well. AFAIK, the South Korean recovery was a result of the breaking up of the chaebols, the deregulation of various industries, the injection of foreign capital (which does not necessitate a gratuitious anti american off handed remark) both American and European. It's not a simple issue we can link in simplistically in one sentence.--Malbear 02:40, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- That Mahathir was a protectionist is clearly established. See Mahathir bin Mohamad and Asian values. The South Korean bit is unclear, but it's definite that Mahathir did believe that protecting Malaysian businesses was more important than allowing them to collapse under the strain of a free market. Johnleemk | Talk 07:36, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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- Actually what we perhaps can find commong ground on is "Mahathir believed that the development of Malaysian-owned businesses and local industries took a higher priority than that of untrammelled open competition". However, I do not agree with the phrase "Malaysian owned business". Perhaps "businesses owned by his circle". Many companies were in fact allowed to fail while Folks like Halim Saad and Tajuddin were bailed out. As for the South Korean bit we need more evidence methinks. --Malbear 06:53, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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- If you want to put that into the article, you'll need to give specific examples of companies as big as those these guys held that weren't bailed out. As for Korea, I don't know Mahathir's opinions, but there's sentiment that the IMF didn't really help out much. [8] [9] [10] [11] Johnleemk | Talk 12:35, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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- I don't think thats necessary in an Anwar article. Perhaps in a more exhaustive article about the crisis/recovery (have we actually recovered?). The point is that Mahathir and Anwar had different views on the plan to sail out of the crisis. The Korean thing was gratuititous anyway and we cannot actually link it with Mahathirs decision. Regarding the Korean recovery it wasn't really an IMF effort as opposed to more a restructuring effort on the part of the government to allow large but diseased chaebols to fall. http://wfile.fss.or.kr/data1/en/nws/hjl1026sf.html
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The section in the article which references Ibrahim's relations with the IMF (Anwar_Ibrahim#Financial_crisis) seems rather POV. There are many who believe that Malaysia was spared much greater suffering, because Mahathir stood up to the IMF -- compare what happened to Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines. I think it would be fair to say in the article that much opposition to Ibrahim stems from the perception that he was a tool of foreign interests, who sought to use IMF policy to loot the Malaysian economy. --Herschelkrustofsky 12:25, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Removal of Hoagland's offer
Why was the following removed?
Hoagland had offered his services for free, claiming the procedure would cost 15,000 euros under normal circumstances. Hoagland had been flown in by Anwar's family in 2001 to examine him while in prison.
Johnleemk | Talk 07:40, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
It was removed since the same sentence is stated one paragraph prior to that. the repetition is quite unecessary (if this is resolved enough for you kindly remove this entry) --Malbear 06:46, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Ops Lallang
This is mentioned in the article, but no background and/or context was provided. Johnleemk | Talk 07:40, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Kindly begin page on ops lallang. Will pitch in some personal info as some of our personal friends were "swept up". Would like to see a neutral framework before working in bits of personal experience. --Malbear 06:47, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Other things todo
[edit] Pictures pictures
We want pictures. At least I want one. I hate seeing a long article without one. Some pictures I think we can get without too much effort ...
- join the crowd at KLIA and snap Anwar's pix when he arrive back from Munich
- join the crowd at his house at Damansara to snap a pix
- look out for any of his "black-eye" reformasi poster and snap it in context
... I'll do #3 if I can find that poster somewhere. ;-) -- sabre23t 23:09, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- I have a special ABC report VCD concerning the Sham Trial of Anwar Ibrahim. I probably can snapshot the scene where the masked policemen broke Anwar's house's window the night they arrested him (the same night he was beaten by the then IGP).
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- I've just reinstated the CopyrightedFreeUse images from www.malaysia-today.net as released by its editor Raja Petra Kamarudin back in 2004. Images page updated with CopyrightedFreeUse template. --sabre23t 10:45, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] Family and personal life
Shouldn't we have some information about Anwar Ibrahim's family in this article. His parents, siblings, wife, and kids? Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography doesn't seem to mention anything about family. Though I see George W. Bush has a "Personal life, service, and education". -- sabre23t 11:34, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
[edit] on the virtues of brevity and concision
I have made numerous copyedits to this article. Just because we are not bound by physical constraints, does not mean we are not obliged to offer our international readership a concise overview of the facts and relevant opionions. That means, for example, we do not need to mention such factoids as the name of every judge in the appeals court, the name of the German surgeon, the time the surgery took place, how much it cost, etc etc etc. While there is no reason for us not to offer a comprehensive article on Anwar, that does not mean we should include trivia and information solely of interest/use to Malaysian readers. -- Viajero 13:49, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
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