Kuala Lumpur - The Malaysian government on Tuesday denied launching a political crackdown after two opposition party newsletters were slapped with three-month suspensions.

Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar said Monday that Harakah of the hardline Parti Islam SeMalaysia and Voice of Justice of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's People's Justice Party would be banned for three months for publishing news that was "defamatory."

Kuala Lumpur - The wives in Malaysian Armed Forces' officers were urged to join a slimming programme to draw the attention of their husbands, a news report said Tuesday.

The recently launched programme, which roughly translates to "From fat, frumpy and lumpy to slim, fashionable and glamorous," was aimed at giving make-overs to the women, organizer Rositah Mohamad Mawi was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency.

Kuala Lumpur - Malaysian police have detained four Taiwan men and seized more than 430 kilograms of drugs worth 61.3 million ringgit (16.5 million dollars) in the country's biggest seizure of the hypnotic drug Nimetazepam, a news report said Tuesday.

Police also detained six locals in Sunday's pre-dawn raid on a factory in the southern Johor state, said federal narcotics chief Zulhasnan Najib Baharuddin.

Kuala Lumpur - At least 900,000 Malaysians are guilty of not paying their taxes, prompting the government to track down the evaders, a news report said Monday.

There were an estimated 2 million people with taxable earnings in the country, but only 1.1 million are currently paying, Deputy Finance Minister Kong Cho Ha told parliament.

Companies fared even worse, with only 104,000 corporations paying taxes on their profits, out of the 500,000 firms registered, Kong was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency.

Kuala Lumpur, Mar 23 : Malaysia's Human Resources Minister Dr S. Subramaniam said that about 7.4 percent of the Indian population were eligible for JPA scholarships this year.

He said the government scholarships would be given to students with outstanding SPM results and after taking into consideration their family backgrounds.

Dr Subramanian was speaking to reporters after closing the MIC Youth's Educational Bureau's motivational seminar in Shah Alam.

Kuala Lumpur, Mar 23: Former Malaysian Indian Congress vice-president M. Muthupalaniappan, who failed in his bid to contest the party’s top post, claims that “democracy is dead” in the MIC.

He said this was evident as many of his nominations were disqualified. Muthupalaniappan said his bid for the presidency did not go down well with incumbent S. Samy Vellu from “day one”.