Things Will Get Worse for the Malaysian Ringgit: BMI Research

by Will Davies

Bloomberg

January 5, 2017

Ringgit was among the weaker major Asian currencies in 2017

China’s economic slowdown will weigh on Malaysian trade: BMI

Malaysia’s ringgit, one of Asia’s worst-performing currencies over the past year, has further to fall, according to BMI Research.

One reason is because it is affected by the yuan, which is going to remain under downward pressure, BMI said in a Jan. 4 note. There will also likely be a narrowing of real interest-rate differentials between the U.S. and Malaysia, with the latter probably staying on hold this year while the Federal Reserve increases rates by a total of 50 basis points. Further weakness in the global bond market would also put the ringgit under pressure given that around 40 percent of Malaysian bonds are held by foreigners.

BMI has lowered its forecast for the ringgit. It expects it to average 4.50 per U.S. dollar this year and 4.40 in 2018, from 4.00 and 3.88 previously. The currency, which fell 4.3 percent against the greenback last year and 18.5 percent in 2015, hasn’t posted an annual gain since 2012.

“The Chinese economy remains mired in a medium-term slowdown as the structural weaknesses such as overcapacity in the industrial sector and dominance of inefficient state-owned enterprises persist,” the note said. “Given that China is Malaysia’s largest export partner, we believe that Malaysia’s export-driven economy remains exposed and is likely to be negatively impacted.”

The ringgit is, however, likely to claw back some losses over the longer term, supported by the rising price of commodities such as oil and improving terms of trade, which will be positive for domestic savings and investment, BMI said. Malaysia’s relatively positive fiscal position relative to the U.S. should also keep inflationary pressure subdued, it said.

The risks to BMI’s view are to the downside. If the Fed increases rates faster than expected it could lead to higher outflows from Malaysia and put the ringgit under greater pressure. Donald Trump’s presidency also raises the likelihood of a global trade slowdown, while Malaysia’s export sector would suffer if additional protectionist measures are imposed, it said.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 6 January 2017, 10:04 am and is filed under
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Liow should explain  how MCA could reconcile its public stand to oppose Hadi’s private member’s bill with Najib’s announcement that Barisan Nasional government will vote in support of  Hadi’s private member’s bill motion in March Parliament and government take over Hadi’s bill?

There is a rule of thumb in political exchanges that personal attacks or character assassination is the last resort of political opportunists and scoundrels who have run out of arguments based on facts and reason, and this is what the MCA President Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai resorted to when he  launched a ferocious personal attack on me, accusing the DAP as a privately-owned “Kit Siang & Son Sdn. Bhd” and not a political party.

I can understand Liow’s frustration and exasperation, but it is no justification nevertheless for him to resort to personal attacks and character-assassination.

What was Liow frustrated and exasperated about?

The latest incident was the MCA leadership’s total inability to respond to my statement on Thursday catching Liow “red-handed” in saying one thing to the Chinese but giving a totally different impression  to the Malays –  which is the height of political dishonesty and chicanery  at work in plural Malaysia.

I had said in my statement of Thursday, 5th January 2016:

“After MCA’s degeneration into a ‘7/11 political party’, very few Malaysians paid much attention to sayings and doings of MCA leaders, including Ministers – and I am one of them.

“But the Malaysiakini headline yesterday “MCA slams ‘amnesiac’ Kit Siang over hudud bill” aroused my curiosity, for there is some mental life left if one can use words like ‘amnesiac’!

“This led me to read the report but I was bound for a disappointment.

“I was accused of having lost my memory and advised to immediately consult a doctor  for forgetting that “on Dec 30, 2016, MCA president Liow Tiong Lai had declared that ‘regardless of any bill tabled by the opposition or Umno, if it is against the constitution, MCA will oppose it to the end’.”

“I  did not forget. I just did not know.

“In utter humility, I searched the website of MCA’s official mouthpiece, the Star. It was not there.

“For the first time, I visited the MCA website, and it was also not there.

“Liow might have told the Chinese media, but that is exactly the point about MCA Ministers and leaders – they say one thing to the Chinese media but a very different thing to UMNO leaders!

“May be the only occasion when MCA leaders dare to differ from UMNO leaders is over my relationship with Tun Dr. Mahathir.

“UMNO leaders are telling the Malays that Mahathir has become my pawn and puppet, but MCA leaders disagreed, for they are telling the Chinese that I am Mahathir’s pawn and puppet.

“Can the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council convene an emergency meeting to resolve this conundrum – whether I am Mahathir’s stooge or Mahathir is my stooge?

“Clearly, it has never entered into the mind of MCA leaders that one should have the courage of conviction of one’s beliefs, the dignity and humility to stand by one principles, and one should never forget the injunction 不為五斗米折腰 or bowing for five pecks of price (meaning, unwilling to do anything demeaning for material gain).”

The MCA leaders, propagandists and cybertroopers would have won the argument by simply  showing where and when  in the Star and the MCA website Liow’s statement of Dec. 30, 2016  declaring that MCA Ministers and MPs would oppose Hadi’s private member’s bill even if supported by UMNO and taken over by the Barisan Nasional government.

But the MCA leadership is unable to do this, for the simple reason that Liow’s statement of Dec. 30 was made to the Chinese media, and was not even published in the MCA mouthpiece, the Star, and completely omitted on the MCA website.

Having been caught “red-handed” in the act of political hypocrisy and chicanery, saying one thing to the Chinese but giving a different impression to the Malay community, the MCA leaders should have the grace and humility to admit their wrongs and mischief.

Instead, Liow resorted to the tactics of the desperate and the reckless – launching an invective of personal attacks on me to distract attention from  the serious questions I have raised.

I do not propose to descend to Liow’s level and reply on a personal level, but Liow must answer for his and the MCA leadership’s political record, and answer:

Why has MCA been reduced a single-digit Parliamentary representation in the Dewan Rakyat, when it had 27 elected MPs in 1964 General Election, 24 MPs in 1982 General Election, 30 MPs in 1995 General Election, 28 MPs in 1999 GE and 31 MPs in 2004 GE?

Why has MCA got more Senators (ten unelected) than elected MPs (seven)?

Why with seven elected MPs, MCA is able to get three Ministers and four Deputy Ministers?

Isn’t the controversy of over the hold-up of RM50 million allocation for Chinese primary schools for last year, which has to take three MCA Ministers and four Deputy Ministers and the intervention of the MCA President with the Prime Minister  to hopefully resolve by January 19, a sickening indication of the utter irrelevance and impotence of MCA in the Barisan Nasional corridors of power?

Had the three MCA Ministers and four  Deputy Ministers ever raised with the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, whether in Cabinet, Barisan Nasional Supreme Council or other Barisan Nasional gatherings, the infamy and ignominy of the international multi-billion dollar 1MDB money-laundering scandal and  Malaysia’s ascent to the infamous club of “global kleptocracy”?

MCA claims to represent the Chinese in Malaysia. Why are hundreds of thousands running into millions over the decades of Chinese together with Indians and Malays migrating overseas, because they have lost confidence and hope in Malaysia?

A test of a person’s political acuity and mental prowess is whether he knows he is insulting and humiliating himself.  For instance, when Liow said that DAP is nothing but a “Kit Siang & Son  Sdn Bhd”, is he aware that he is in fact insulting and humiliating himself that he could be President of  an MCA which had  been reduced into a “7/11” political party by a “father and son Sdn. Bhd” and still very happy to be a Minister of world-known kleptocratic government?

Liow said DAP is a party without principles and that I will sell whatever principles I have to stay in power.

Liow is quite joker, talking about “selling whatever principles to stay in power” – is he referring to my two stints of detention under the Internal Security Act and Guan Eng’s detention under the ISA under Operation Lalang and imprisonment for 12 months in Kajang Prisons for crossing the racial divide and defending the dignity and honour of an underaged Malay girl?

Liow should know better than anyone else that if I am prepared to sell my principles, he would have no hope whatsoever to come near a Ministerial post – even a very dishonourable and craven one.

But we must not allow Liow  as well as Datuk Seri Mah Siew  Keong and Datuk Seri Dr. S. Subramaniam the opportunity and excuse  to distract attention from RUU 355 and demand that the Presidents of MCA, Gerakan and MIC explain how they could reconcile their public stand that MCA, Gerakan and MIC Ministers and MPs will oppose PAS President Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi’s private member’s bill with the announcement by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak that the Barisan Nasional government will vote in support of  Hadi’s private member’s bill motion in March Parliament and take over Hadi’s bill?

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Nancy Shukri has admitted that the Sarawak BN leaders have yet to be briefed on the proposed government takeover of Hadi’s private member’s bill – and the same applies for the other 13 Barisan Nasional component parties, whether MCA, Gerakan or MIC.

I hope Liow Tiong Lai, Mah Siew Keong or   S. Subramaniam will pluck up the courage to present the  Pensiangan Formula to the Cabinet as the best way to address the political and constitutional stalemate created by UMNO’s support for Hadi’s private member’s bill.

The Pensiangan Formula comprises two elements, viz:

•        Firstly, no  government take over of Hadi’s private member’s bill; and

•       Secondly, the  formation of an all-party Parliamentary Select Committee with the overall objective to  strengthen inter-religious relations in Malaysia based on the Malaysian Constitution, Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) and Rukunegara, and with the specific objective to study Hadi’s private member’s motion, and to make recommendations.

This is  particularly important and pertinent as two UMNO leaders, namely Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom and the Deputy Minister for International Trade and Industry, Datuk Ahmad Mazlan had publicly admitted about a secret UMNO agenda and conspiracy  to present a “fait accompli” to the other 13 Barisan Nasional component parties to compel them to support Hadi’s motion in Parliament in March and the BN government takeover of Hadi’s private member’s bill.

The answer to UMNO’s agenda and conspiracy to present a “fait accompli” to the other 13 Barisan Nasional parties and to compel them to vote for Hadi’s private member’s bill motion in the March Parliament to be followed by Barisan Nasional take-over of Hadi’s bill is the Pensiangan Formula.

The question is whether Liow, Mah and Subramaniam dare to embrace the Pensiangan Formula and present it to the Cabinet next Wednesday as the best solution to address the constitutional and political stalemate created by UMNO’s support for Hadi’s private member’s bill.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 7 January 2017, 9:14 am and is filed under
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Najib Razak appears secure, but looks can deceive

Banyan

Economist

Jan 7th 2017

The opposition has a chance to strike

A ROUND of applause, ladies and gentlemen. Any typical leader of a typical democracy, when found with nearly $700m of ill-explained money from an unnamed foreign donor in his accounts, would experience a swift and fatal fall. Yet, nearly two years after news first broke that Najib Razak’s bank balance had been thus plumped up, his high-wire act continues.

You could even argue that the Malaysian prime minister, who denies any wrongdoing, is at the top of his game. Mr Najib appears to command the unstinting loyalty of the party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), which leads the coalition that has ruled the country since independence in 1957. He has undermined a fractious opposition, not least by peeling an Islamist party away from it. And as investigations proceed in several other countries into the alleged bilking of colossal sums from 1MDB, an indebted state investment-fund whose advisory board Mr Najib once chaired, the prime minister himself remains untouched. Staying in power helps stave off any risk he might face of international prosecution. A general election is due by late August 2018, but perhaps Mr Najib will call a snap poll in the next few months to give himself several more years’ rule.

The question is how, despite the mysteries surrounding 1MDB and his personal accounts, the prime minister appears to be consolidating his power. Patronage is a big part of it. Though his wife has a lusty appetite for Hermès Birkin bags, and the wedding of his daughter to a nephew of the Kazakhstani president was an occasion of such bling that the Malaysian media were discouraged from publishing photographs, Mr Najib may be essentially right when he says the cash in his accounts was not for personal gain. An UMNO leader needs money to buy loyalty from powerful politicians. It is also handy for spreading largesse among ordinary Malays — including helping devout Muslims make the haj.

Threats are as important as money. Anwar Ibrahim, the charismatic leader of the informal opposition coalition which won the popular vote in an election in 2013 (though not, thanks to gerrymandering, a majority of seats), has been in prison since 2015 on trumped-up charges of sodomy. In November the leader of an anti-corruption rally in Kuala Lumpur was arrested and held under tough new security laws. Newspapers and bloggers have been hounded. The number of activists and politicians charged with sedition has shot up. As for 1MDB, the only conviction in Malaysia related to it has been of a whistle-blowing legislator who highlighted alleged wrongdoing by the fund’s managers.

Now perhaps Mr Najib feels that the chief risks from 1MDB are behind him. Bear in mind that among the most assiduous investigations to date have been those by America’s Department of Justice, which claims $3.5bn is missing from the fund. Yet the next American president, Donald Trump, speaks admiringly of Mr Najib, a golfing buddy. It might be hard for the department to pursue a full-throttle investigation if Mr Trump expressed displeasure.

At any rate, the prime minister is at work covering his domestic bases, including wooing the Islamist party, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS). Some analysts mock the PAS leader, Abdul Hadi Awang, as having ayatollah-like aspirations: the party has long urged for sharia punishments to apply much more widely to the Malay Muslims who make up nearly two-thirds of the population. Such a proposal is not only morally but also constitutionally iffy. Undaunted, Mr Najib took the extraordinary step last year of backing Mr Hadi’s private member’s bill, which aims to increase the power of Islamic courts. With little discussion in cabinet or with the other 12 coalition members, the government submitted it to Parliament.

Mr Najib’s strategy is clear. Although his image has not hitherto been one of ostentatious piety, he is rebranding himself as a Muslim devout. And the message to Malays is also clear: either you are with him, or, as Jayum Anak Jawan of Ohio University puts it in New Mandala, a website on South-East Asia, “your Malay-ness or Muslim-ness are brought into question.”

If that seems a masterstroke, looks may deceive. Mr Najib’s people insist that the issue is no business of the (non-Muslim) ethnic Chinese, who make up a quarter of the population, or with ethnic Indians, who make up a tenth. Yet these largely urban and prosperous groups worry that Mr Najib is playing a potentially explosive game of racial politics, targeted at them. That could galvanise the opposition.

Friendless in high places

As it is, Mr Najib is counting on the squabbling opposition not to get its act together — in particular, on its failing to acknowledge the futility of Mr Anwar leading the opposition from jail. Yet there is ample scope for surprises. A growing number of opposition sympathisers say that a heavyweight with political experience is needed to take on UMNO. The obvious candidate is Muhyiddin Yassin, a former UMNO deputy prime minister who fell out with Mr Najib over 1MDB. Last year he and Mahathir Mohamad, who ran the country for 22 years, founded an ethnic-Malay party opposed to Mr Najib. The opposition would need to swallow a lot of pride and some principles to ask Mr Muhyiddin to be its leader. But he shares some of its reformist agenda, and it would transform the opposition’s chances of victory.

Lastly, Mr Najib is running not only against the opposition, but against the economy. Since April the currency has fallen by nearly a quarter, reflecting the weak price of oil, a crucial export, and concern about cronyism under Mr Najib (Malaysia ranks second, after Russia, in The Economist’s crony-capitalism index). China’s help in bailing out 1MDB may have bought Mr Najib time, but budgets are strapped as economic growth starts to slow. If he can’t keep the money flowing, his seemingly loyal allies would abandon him in a jiffy. So if anything keeps the prime minister awake at night, it may well be a future without friends.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 7 January 2017, 4:14 am and is filed under
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Cabinet on Wednesday should congratulate Cardinal Fernandez as  the first Malaysian to be appointed as a Roman Catholic cardinal

The Cabinet on Wednesday should congratulate Cardinal Fernandez as the first Malaysian to be appointed as a Roman Catholic cardinal.

As a multi-racial, multi-lingual,  multi-religious and multi-cultural nation which is the site for the confluence of the great civilizations in the world, Malaysians should celebrate whenever a Malaysian regardless of race, religion or culture scaled new heights or achieved new accomplishments.

At the “Red Hat” ceremony in the Basilica of St. Peter’s at the Vatican on November 19 last year where Cardinal Fernandez was one the 17 new Cardinals who received the red hat (biretta), Pope Francis underlined the different cultural traditions of the new Cardinals.

He said:  “We come from distant lands; we have different traditions, skin colour, languages and social backgrounds; we think differently and we celebrate our faith in a variety of rites. None of this makes us enemies; instead it is one of our greatest riches…”

The Pope lamented the modern world in  which “polarization” and “exclusion” are burgeoning and considered the only way to resolve conflicts.

Malaysians share similar concerns at the rise of polarization and exclusion not only on the global stage but also in Malaysian politics and life.

It is in this context that the Cabinet should take proactive steps to tamp down the rearing of the ugly heads of religious polarization and extremism in Malaysia, which threatens the fabric of plural Malaysia.

For this reason, I would urge the Cabinet to seriously and urgently consider the Pensiangan Formula as the best way to address the political and constitutional stalemate created by UMNO’s support for PAS President Datuk Seri Abdul Awang Hadi’s private member’s bill to amend the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act (Act 355).

The Pensiangan Formula comprises two elements, viz:

·        Firstly, no  government take over of Hadi’s private member’s bill; and

·       Secondly, the  formation in March Parliament of an all-party Parliamentary Select Committee with the overall objective to  strengthen inter-religious relations in Malaysia based on the Malaysian Constitution, Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) and Rukunegara, and with the specific objective to study Hadi’s private member’s motion, and to make recommendations.

This is the time to arrest the disease and perils of  “polarization” and “exclusion” in our plural nation and the Pensiangan Formula should be the  basis for the Cabinet and Parliamentary response to Hadi’s private member’s bill.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 9 January 2017, 3:07 pm and is filed under
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I will be surprised if 99% of the civil servants at Prime Minister’s Department monthly assembly today  were not thinking of three things, Malaysia’s ill-repute as global kleptocracy, 1MDB and “MO1” when they heard Najib’s speech this morning

I will be surprised if 99% of the civil servants at the Prime Minister’s Department monthly assembly this morning were not thinking of three things, Malaysia’s ill-repute as global kleptocracy, 1MDB and “MO1” when they heard the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s speech this morning.

In his speech, Najib said the recent arrests made by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) are a reminder to civil servants against wastage.

Najib  said wastage “is equal to taking away what belongs to the people,” and he reminded those in government that they cannot take away the people’s rights.

The founder of Center to Combat Corruption & Cronyism (C4), Cynthia Gabriel and Bersih chairperson Maria China were  spot-on when they  responded to Najib’s speech by urging the Prime Minister to lead by example on his reminder to civil servants this not to take what rightfully belongs to the people.

Among other things, Najib should explain the RM2.6 billion donation and RM42 million from SRC International Sdn. Bhd, the former subsidiary of 1MDB,  found in his personal bank account and what he did with the money.

Otherwise, Najib’s speech was only hypocrisy at its height.

I believe a fourth item would also be in the minds of the majority of the civil servants when they heard Najib’s speech this morning – the most cutting article in the latest Economist which said that “any typical leader of a typical democracy, when with nearly US$700 million  of ill-explained money from an unnamed foreign donor in his account, would experience a swift and fatal fall”, but the bizarre spectacle of Najib seeming on  “top of his game” after two-years of “high-wire” act, with the warning that “If he (Najib) can’t keep the money flowing, his seemingly loyal allies would abandon him in a jiffy”.

A wholly bizarre spectacle – Najib’s position and his speech at the PM Department’s monthly assembly this morning – and a most disgraceful and dishonourable place for Malaysia to be in on the eve of 60th National Day celebrations on August 31, 2017.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 9 January 2017, 4:02 pm and is filed under
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Malaysian government prepares to wind up 1MDB amid scandal

Leslie Lopez Regional Correspondent In Kuala Lumpur

Straits Times

JAN 7, 2017

The Malaysian government is laying the groundwork to shut down 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), the state investment firm mired in a scandal that has become the most serious blight on Prime Minister Najib Razak’s administration at home and abroad.

Under a plan spearheaded by a high-level government unit called the Budiman committee, the assets of the state development fund will be transferred in the coming months to two companies owned by the Finance Ministry.

These valuable assets are two massive plots of land in Kuala Lumpur and one on Penang island.

1MDB, which at one point had debts totalling US$12 billion (S$17.2 billion), last November sold off its other main asset – power plants grouped under Edra Energy – to a Chinese company for RM17 billion (S$5.4 billion).

The three plots of land will be transferred to Piramid Pertama and Aroma Teraju, according to government officials and lawyers involved in 1MDB’s debt workout.

“The resolution of 1MDB’s debt obligations will be carried out separately by the government,” said a senior government official familiar with the exercise.

Datuk Seri Najib, who set up 1MDB seven years ago to spur development at home and to pursue strategic investments abroad, has repeatedly rejected claims that 1MDB had morphed into a private political slush fund for him and his ruling Umno party.

1MDB LIABILITIES

RM5 BILLION

Sukuk bond due in 2039.

RM800 MILLION

Loan from workers’ social security fund Socso due in 2022.

RM2.4 BILLION

Bandar Malaysia sukuk bond.

US$3 BILLION

International bond due in 2023.

US$6.48 BILLION

Under dispute with Abu Dhabi state fund IPIC and its unit Aabar Investments PJS.

To head off the deepening crisis at 1MDB last year, the government decided to dissolve the company and embark on a divestment of its assets to settle its debts.

The Budiman committee, headed by Second Finance Minister Johari Abdul Ghani, was set up last April to handle the restructuring.

In a recent interview with The Straits Times, Datuk Seri Johari noted that proceeds from the sale of 1MDB’s power generation business had helped settle debts owed to Malaysian banks.

“Our next move is to kick-start the property development of Bandar Malaysia and TRX,” he said, referring to 1MDB’s two major real estate projects on the fringes of Kuala Lumpur.

Bandar Malaysia, 40 per cent owned by 1MDB and 60 per cent by a Malaysian-Chinese consortium, is an upcoming township being built on 197ha of land on the edge of Kuala Lumpur. It will house the Singapore-KL high-speed rail terminus.

Nearby is the 28ha Tun Razak Exchange, or TRX, which is slated to be the capital’s financial hub.

Another plot of real estate to be transferred out of 1MDB is a 94.7ha parcel of land in Penang’s Air Itam district.

Still, officials and financial executives said the debt workout faced numerous hurdles.

A major challenge will be securing support for the plan from 1MDB’s bond holders and creditors.

1MDB’s current debt load is estimated at US$4.78 billion.

Separately, the Malaysian entity is locked in a dispute with two Abu Dhabi state-owned concerns, which are demanding US$6.48 billion for financial guarantees on a bond issue and direct loans extended to 1MDB.

1MDB’s debt profile is also complex. “Some (of the debt comes with) outright guarantees, some are with letters of comfort and letters of support,” said a lawyer close to the situation.

To win approval for the plan, the government must guarantee 1MDB’s creditors and holders of billions of dollars in bonds that it will honour all obligations of the state-owned entity upon its liquidation as a company, officials and bankers said.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 9 January 2017, 5:40 pm and is filed under
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Three mini-political earthquakes in Sabah and Malaysian political landscape to lead to the major political earthquake in the 14GE to change the government in Sabah and Putrajaya

The launching of the Pakatan Harapan Sabah this morning is one of the three mini political earthquakes to lead to the major political earthquake in the 14th General Election expected this year to peacefully and democratically change the government in Sabah and Putrajaya.

As Mat Sabu, the President of AMANAH, said just now, the issue is not whether one is a Sabahan or not, but whether the political leaders asking for popular support are men and women of integrity.

The next general election should be a choice between democracy or kleptocracy; good governance or injustices and abuses of power.

In the past year or so, Malaysia had become a global kleptocracy – which I said in Parliament is a government of 3Ps, Pencuri, Perompak and Penyamun. Equally shocking, Sabah has emerged as the most kleptocratic state in Malaysia.

In the last few days, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) arrested a Federal Ministry Secretary-General and a few millions of ringgit were found in his possession – but this was small fry compared to the tens and hundreds of millions of ringgit which the MACC found when it raided two top officers of the Sabah Water Department in October during the Sabah Watergate scandal!

China has caught and imprisoned “tigers” and Indonesia “crocodiles” in their anti-corruption campaigns but the Malaysian MACC has still to net and jail a single “shark”, and unless the MACC can net the “political sharks” in the fight against corruption, the focus on civil servants will not take Malaysia’s anti-corruption campaign very far.

There must a clean, honest and dedicated political leadership, both at the national and state levels.

Sabahans are entitled to ask why with Sabah’s vast wealth and natural resources, poverty in Sabah is so acute and abject with Sabahans among the poorest in the country.

Malaysia will be celebrating its 60th National Day in less than eight months to mark Merdeka on August 31, 1957, while the 53rd anniversary of Malaysia Day will be celebrated the following month.

In 60 years, Malaysia has had six Prime Ministers, but in 53 years of Sabah in Malaysia, there had been 12 Chief Ministers for Sabah.

One important reason why we have not been able to break the back of the problem of poverty in Sabah in 53 years is the problem of rampant corruption and abuses of power of those in authority, to the extent that Sabah has the dubious dishonour of being the most kleptocratic state in Malaysia, which is recently regarded world-wide as a global kleptocracy.

Pakatan Harapan Sabah will offer the voters of Sabah a choice between democracy or kleptocracy; good governance or injustices and abuses of power in the 14th General Elections, not only in Sabah but the whole of Malaysia.

We must save Sabah, and at the same time save Malaysia. One slogan in the coming general election will be: Save Sabah, Save Malaysia; Save Malaysia, Save Sabah.

The second mini political earthquake took place at the Kepayan DAP Christmas party in Kota Kinabalu last night, where one of the founders of PACOS, former Suhakam Commissioner, Chairperson of Sabah Bersih, and world-known campaigner for rights of Indigenous People and human rights, Jannie Lasimbang and her 80-year-old mother, Rosina Sogondu and her sister Pauline Lasimbang joined the DAP to widen the scope of her commitment for human rights and the rights of Orang Asal.

Rosina should a role model not only for Sabahans but also Malaysians.

She has brought up 12 children, eight girls and four boys, together with her husband, Benedict Lasimbang, without a single sen of government help and all her 12 children have gone on to establish a name for themselves in their chosen field of public service or profession.

In the struggle for justice, freedom, harmony and unity in a multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-cultural Sabah and Malaysia, the contributions of all, regardless of race, religion, region, gender or age is a pre-condition for success of our noble cause.

Jannie’s joining the political battle in Sabah and Malaysia will add not only a new dimension to the struggle of human rights and the cause of Orang Asal in Malaysia, but also for gender equality.

It will be a challenge, not only to DAP but also to Pakatan Harapan to target at least 30% of women participation at all levels of the political struggle.

At present, there is one woman Minister in the Sabah Cabinet of 11 when there should be at least three women Ministers in the state; two women deputy ministers among 18 deputy ministers, when there should be at least five or six.

The third mini political earthquake in Sabah and Malaysian politics is the Pensiangan Formula to address the political and constitutional stalemate caused by UMNO’s support for PAS President Datuk Seri Hadi Awang’s private member’s bill.

I confess great shock and dismay that the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Tan Sri Joseph Kurup, has made a ferocious but baseless attack against me for visiting his constituency in Pensiangan some ten days ago.

In a statement, Kurup said he rejected the DAP’s “politics of hatred” as there is no space for DAP’S politics of hatred “among peace loving Malaysians, including those living in Sabah”.

He expressed regret that “instead of understanding and appreciating this”, he accused me of “sticking to his endless journey of polluting the hearts and minds of peace loving Malaysians living in Sabah with his scorching political hatred”.

Kurup said: “It seems that there is no limit to how low politicians like Kit Siang will go as long as his goal of expanding DAP’s influence in Sabah is achieved. Even if that means promoting political extremism in the serene and peaceful land of Pensiangan (an interior) district in Sabah.”

I cannot agree more with Kurup that there should be no space for politics of hatred or political extremism in Sabah or Malaysia, and I invite him to quote chapter and verse to substantiate his allegation that I had been guilty of the “politics of hatred” or “political extremism” during my recent visit to Tenom, Keningau, Sook and Pensiangan.

I have no hesitation in condemning any “politics of hatred” or “political extremism” if he could cite chapter and verse to prove that I had been guilty of them during my recent visit to Tenom, Keningau, Sook and Pensiangan – but he had clearly been misinformed and misled.

If Kurup cannot quote chapter and verse to substantiate his allegation that I had been guilty of “politics of hatred” or “political extremism”, would he have the decency to retract the charges and apologise for the false allegations?

Or does Kurup think that the Pensiangan Formula is proof of “politics of hatred” or “political extremism”?

This will indeed be a great tragedy, for the Pensiangan Formula was conceived to address the political and constitutional stalemate caused by UMNO’s support for Hadi’s private member’s bill and I had expected Kurup to embrace and advocate it in the Cabinet.

If Kurup still does not understand or have doubts about the Pensiangan Formula, I am prepared to meet him personally to explain it to him. Just name the place, date and time.

In the next few months, in the run-up to the 14GE, DAP and Pakatan Harapan must create more mini political earthquakes so that Sabahans can be fully conscious of their paramount role to bring about peaceful democratic change in Sabah and Malaysia.

One mini political earthquake is to educate Sabahans and Malaysians about the central importance of the three pledges of Batu Sumpah in Keningau on religion, land and adat.

In fact, I would suggest the erection of a replica of Batu Sumpah in the Sabah State Assembly to remind Sabah Assemblymen and women about an important and integral part of the history of Sabah when they enter the State Assembly for debates.

(Speech at the launching of Pakatan Harapan Sabah at Wisma Hakka, Kota Kinabalu on Sunday, 8th January 2016 at 12 noon)

                This entry was posted on Monday, 9 January 2017, 3:43 am and is filed under
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1MDB scandal: Federal Police assisting probes into Malaysia’s wealth fund

ABC News

10th January 2017

1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), founded by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, is the subject of money laundering investigations in at least six other countries including Switzerland, Singapore and the United States.

Civil lawsuits filed by the US Department of Justice allege more than $US3.5 billion ($4.76 billion) was misappropriated from the fund.

The lawsuits seek to seize $US1 billion ($1.36 billion) in assets allegedly siphoned off from 1MDB and diverted into luxury real estate in New York, Beverly Hills and London, valuable paintings, and a private jet.

Mr Najib, who also chaired 1MDB’s advisory board, has denied wrongdoing and said Malaysia would cooperate with international investigations.

“The AFP is aware of allegations relating to companies associated with 1MDB and have assisted our foreign law enforcement partners with their investigations in relation to a number of these matters,” the AFP told Reuters.

“As the AFP continues to evaluate these allegations it would not be appropriate to provide any further comment at this time.”

The AFP did not respond to Reuters’ questions about reports they were investigating whether any financial gains from the scandal were in Australia, or with which international agencies it was working.

Reuters

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 10 January 2017, 8:22 pm and is filed under
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Let Mohd Faiz, Harith Iskander, Mohd Ridzuan and Ziyad Zolkein be exemplars of world-beaters for Malaysians

Events in the first ten days of the new year have given both hope and dejection about the future of Malaysia.

Standing head and shoulders above all other events in the first 10 days is undoubtedly Penang footballer Mohd Faiz Subri’s clinching of the Fifa Puskas Award for the most beautiful goal of 2016, putting his name on the same list as past winners such as famed football stars Christiano Ronaldo and Neymar.

The 29-year-old Penang striker  has indeed brought joy to millions of Malaysians thousands of kilometres away when Mohd Faiz was handed the award for his spellbinding free kick at a glittering ceremony in Zurich yesterday.

Mohd Faiz  created history as the first Asian to be bestowed the gong named after Ferenc Puskas, the Hungarian football legend who enjoyed huge success with Real Madrid during the 1950s and 60s as well as his national team.

Last year  Harith Iskander won the Funniest Person in the World competition in Finland while  Malaysia won two gold medals in the Rio Paralympics, one by Mohamad Ridzuan Mohamad Puzi in men’s 100m T36 and the other by   Ziyad Zolkefli  in the men’s F20 shot putt.

On the dark side, Malaysia ascended the world chart to become a “global kleptocracy”.

Mohd Faiz’s success is an inspiration to all Malaysians to regain confidence in themselves and the nation to aim to be among the best in the world – not to be mediocre or worse, heading towards a failed and a rogue state.

Let Mohd Faiz, Harith Iskander, Mohd Ridzuan and Ziyad Zolkein be exemplars of world-beaters for Malaysians.

Let me mention two other events in the past ten days, but both do not uplift Malaysia to new heights, but should serve as warning as to the depths Malaysia can fall to if we do not continue to be honest and honourable in our intentions and actions.

The first is the speech by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak at the Prime Minister’s Department monthly assembly yesterday.

I would  be surprised if 99% of the civil servants at the Prime Minister’s Department monthly assembly were not thinking of three things, Malaysia’s ill-repute as global kleptocracy, 1MDB and “MO1” when they heard Najib’s speech about the recent arrests made by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) saying that they are a reminder to civil servants against wastage.

Najib  said wastage “is equal to taking away what belongs to the people,” and he reminded those in government that they cannot take away the people’s rights.

If Najib was sincere, he should lead by example by first explaining the RM2.6 billion donation and RM42 million from SRC International Sdn. Bhd, the former subsidiary of 1MDB,  found in his personal bank account and what he did with the money.

No wonder the Economist has come out with a very scathing article which said that  “any typical leader of a typical democracy, when with nearly US$700 million  of ill-explained money from an unnamed foreign donor in his account, would experience a swift and fatal fall”, with  the bizarre spectacle of Najib seeming on  “top of his game” after two-years of “high-wire” act, but warning that “If he (Najib) can’t keep the money flowing, his seemingly loyal allies would abandon him in a jiffy”.

The third episode I want to mention is the  depth of dishonesty and dishonor some Malaysian leaders are prepared to descend to advance their own interests.

This is illustrated by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Tan Sri Joseph Kurup, who made a ferocious but baseless attack against me last Friday for visiting his constituency in Pensiangan some ten days ago.

I had challenged Kurup to prove his baseless allegations against me that I had been guilty of the  “politics of hatred” and “political extremism” when visiting Pensiangan, and his silence and inability to quote chapter and verse to substantiate his allegations is the most eloquent testimony as to who is speaking the truth.

The Prime Minister had kicked off the new year warning about “fake news” and “false stories”  but UMNO and Barisan Nasional leaders, propagandists and cybertroopers including the country’s mainstream media like New Straits Times and Utusan Malaysia are the worst culprits in concocting and disseminating fake news and false stories about critics and the Opposition.

Truth, honesty and honour seem to be scarce commodities in present-day Malaysia.

The news report that police  are still investigating claims that Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng’s son (my grandson) had sexually assaulted a schoolmate, almost six years since the allegations circulated on pro-Umno blogs, proves this point.

Police received six complaints alleging that the then 16-year-old boy had committed the crime, and that money was paid to ensure the matter was not circulated online – when in fact  the allegations were pack of lies.

Have police taken action against anyone for lodging false police reports or circulating false news?

Would the police fail to take action for six long years if such false, malicious and despicable lies are told about Najib’s children?

The latest handiwork of such Nazi-style “Big Lie” peddled in particular by two UMNO poodles  is the fairy tale that I had met Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad on Dec. 3 and “sealed a deal that Mukhriz would become prime minister with Kit Siang as his deputy”.

This “false story” is in the class of the “false story” about my grandson molesting a Hong Kong girl when they had never even met.

I hope Mohd Faiz’s world achievement, like those of Harith Iskander, Mohd Ridzuan and Ziyad Zolkefli, will inspire the misguided UMNO/BN leaders, propagandists and cybertroopers to repent and return to the right path to turn Malaysia away from a global kleptocracy to become shining example of a tolerant, progressive, democratic, harmonious, multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-religious nation.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 10 January 2017, 2:55 pm and is filed under
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Malays and Their Educational Misery

Koon Yew Yin

10th Jan 2017

A few days ago, I received a whatsapp with a long heading. It dealt with the education woes of the Malay community and was titled: HASIL DARI DASAR BANGANG, SIAPA YANG BANGANG KALAU BUKAN KITA YANG MEMILIH MEREKA PEMBUAT DASAR BANGANG? SEORANG RAKAN SEJAWAT DI IPT MENULIS

Loosely translated, this is the equivalent in English: PRODUCT OF STUPID POLICY: WHO IS IT THAT IS STUPID IF NOT OURSELVES WHO HAVE CHOSEN THOSE POLICY MAKERS. A FRIEND FROM THE UNIVERSITY WRITES

This post in the social media has gone viral in many Malay chat groups. But I doubt if it will ever appear in the Malay newspapers such as Utusan Malaysia or Berita Harian. Or even be carried or commented on in the English media even though it is worthy of national discussion and analysis.

Here is a quick summary of its contents:

1. Malay younger generation not able to afford higher education even though they may have excellent examination result

2. Limited places in public universities and prohibitively expensive private higher education

3. Parents have to dip into their savings to pay for children’s higher education

4. Students not able to choose the more expensive courses such as medicine despite interest and ability.

5. Parents with many children are worst off. In the words of the post: Ramai ibubapa yang kecawa. Yang ada tiga anak sudah azab, yang ada 5,7, 10 anak bagaimana? Mereka yang sudah “give-up” akan berkata “buat apa suruh anak belajar tinggi-tinggi? Last-last berhutang juga, baik terus kerja, baik kahwin dengan menteri, baik jadi orang biasa-biasa jual goreng pisang” .

6. Meanwhile our political leaders and policy makers are enriching themselves and could not give a damn

7. We are angry with our stupid but proud ministers. But we are exactly the same in being stupid but proud.

8. We hope God will save our nation by removing the cursed leadership and having in its place a responsible and God fearing one.

Selamat Datang to the Education Misery Club

My response to this post is:

1. Welcome to the Education Misery Club which has for a long time had hundreds of thousands, if not millions of non-Malay parents, as its members during the past 40 plus years of the NEP.

2. To get them through the decades of discrimination and bias, non-Malay parents have followed the following strategies:

a) save and work hard; and save some more

b) practice a policy of self-reliance as little or nothing can be expected from the government except for those well-connected and BN party leaders

c) have children enrol in practical and affordable courses. Avoid religious schools and courses except for those that want to enter the priesthood, monastery or nunnery

d) push their children to study hard and compete as best they can

d) practice family planning and limit the number of children they have. Perhaps 2 or 3 at most. Certainly not 5 or more.

e) vote for a change of the ‘bangang’ government any time you get the opportunity. Any replacement will do, even PAS candidates previously. But today with PAS under Hadi Awang in cahoots with UMNO, avoid PAS as it is part of the bangang mafia..

Let me give some practical advice and end on a personal note.

Don’t be dependent on the Government. The Chinese community, and to some extent the Indian, have supported the bright and deserving children from their own community to further their higher education because of the drought in government assistance. The Malay community certainly can do the same.

I myself have supported many, including some Malay, students who were not able to obtain government scholarships. I have also pledged in my will for my executors to use my wealth to help poor students.

If the Malay rich and wealthy, especially those who claim to be religious, do the same, I am sure no deserving Malay young will be left behind in realizing their educational ambitions.

Of course, voting out the present leaders and getting rid of the “bangang” mentality is necessary to “selamatkan negara and gantikan pemimpin celaka kepada pemimpin yang berjiwa beragama” as advised by by the post.

NB

Readers commenting on this can help other readers to track down the original Malay post and contribute to the chat groups discussing it.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 10 January 2017, 6:09 pm and is filed under
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Obama’s Farewell Address: How Presidents Use This Moment Of Reflection

Tamara Keith

NPR

January 10, 2017

In giving his farewell address on Tuesday night in Chicago, President Obama will follow a tradition begun by America’s first president.

George Washington offered a series of warnings, what he called a “solemn contemplation.” His parting words have been deemed so valuable that they are read on the floor of the U.S. Senate each year, including his warning about the dangers of partisanship:

“It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passion.”

The presidential farewell address became a fixture in the 20th century, right along with the arrival of television in American homes. In these modern farewell speeches, almost all of them talk about the difficulty of the job, and urge the American people to be nice to the next guy.

“I want all of you to realize how big a job, how hard a job, it is — not for my sake, because I am stepping out of it — but for the sake of my successor,” President Harry Truman said. “He needs the understanding and the help of every citizen.”

All the presidents look back on their years in office, some lingering on their legacies longer than others. There is pride at accomplishment — as expressed by President Ronald Reagan, who thanked the men and women of the Reagan of revolution and talked of proving the pundits wrong.

“Once you begin a great movement, there’s no telling where it will end,” he said. “We meant to change a nation, and instead, we changed a world.”

But there is often talk of regrets, like not securing peace, says Gerhard Peters, co-director of the American Presidency Project.

“They are almost very respectful in the way they present their administration’s accomplishments,” Peters says. “You know, at times they’re also very humble.”

Peters says in most cases, it has been a president of one party handing the presidency off to a successor from the other party. And yet, “They’re very graceful to their successor, and I’d expect President Obama to be, even though this has been a very political climate, this transition.”

As with Washington’s address, many of these final speeches contain warnings. President Eisenhower coined a term: “military-industrial complex.”

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex,” he said in 1961. “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

In modern times, presidents have used these speeches to argue for American leadership in the world, including President George H.W. Bush:

“We must engage ourselves if a new world order, one more compatible with our values and congenial to our interest, is to emerge. But even more, we must lead.”

His son George W. Bush took up the same theme: “In the face of threats from abroad, it can be tempting to seek comfort by turning inward. But we must reject isolationism and its companion, protectionism.”

Many presidents, including Gerald Ford, talk with pride about the peaceful transfer of power and of the balance of power built into the American system of government.

“This often results in difficulty and delay, as I well know, but it also places supreme authority under God, beyond any one person, any one branch, any majority great or small, or any one party,” Ford said. “The Constitution is the bedrock of all our freedoms.”

Guard it and cherish it, he said. President Jimmy Carter said it could be tempting in times of tension and economic distress to abandon principles: “We must never yield to this temptation. Our American values are not luxuries, but necessities — not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself.”

American values come up again and again in these speeches. Listening to President Bill Clinton in early 2001, you could imagine President Obama striking a similar theme on Tuesday night:

“We must treat all our people with fairness and dignity, regardless of their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, and regardless of when they arrived in our country — always moving toward the more perfect Union of our Founders’ dreams.”

And ultimately, as so many have before him, President Obama will have to say goodbye.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 10 January 2017, 8:09 pm and is filed under
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Barack Obama legacy: Did he improve US race relations?

Nick Bryant

New York correspondent

BBC

10 January 2017

Barack Obama sealed his racial legacy the moment he sealed victory in the 2008 election – a black man would occupy a White House built by slaves, a history-defying as well as history-making achievement.

In 1961, the year of Obama’s birth, there existed in the American South a system of racial apartheid that separated the races from the cradle to the grave.

Whites-only water fountains. Whites-only schools. Whites-only graveyards.

In some states, his very conception – involving an African father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas – would have been a criminal offence.

Washington, too, remained a largely segregated city.

When in the 1950s, a former TV executive by the name of E Frederic Morrow became the first black White House aide not to have a job description that included turning down beds, polishing shoes or serving drinks with a deferential bow, he was prohibited from ever being alone in the same room as a white woman.

Back then, as Morrow recounted in his memoir, Black Man in the White House, African-Americans were routinely stereotyped as sexual predators incapable of controlling their desires.

Little more than half a century later, a black man ran the White House – occupying the Oval Office, sitting at the head of the conference table in the Situation Room, relaxing with his beautiful young family in the Executive Mansion – a family that has brought such grace and glamour to America’s sleepy capital that it is possible to speak of a Black Camelot.

When Jack and Jackie Kennedy lived in the White House, that would have been unthinkable, even though the civil rights movement was starting to hammer more insistently at the walls of prejudice, and seeking legal and legislative redress for a malignant national condition described as the “American dilemma”.

When demonstrators assembled in August 1963 to hear Martin Luther King deliver his I Have a Dream Speech at the Lincoln Memorial, few would have thought that a black man would one day take the oath of office at the other end of the National Mall.

Likewise, how many of the protesters bludgeoned by white policemen on Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma in 1965 would have dared to imagine that, 50 years later, they would cross that same bridge hand in hand with the country’s first black president?

For veterans of the black struggle, those remarkable images of Obama marking the 50th anniversary of the Selma protest became instantly iconographic, a truly golden jubilee.

In legacy terms, his very presence in the White House is one of the great intangibles of his presidency. Just how many black Americans have been encouraged to surmount colour bars of their own? Just how many young African-Americans have altered the trajectory of their lives because of the example set by Obama?

And behaviourally, what an example it has been. Because of the lingering racism in American society, the Obamas doubtless knew they would have to reach a higher standard, and they have done so, seemingly, without breaking a sweat. In deportment and personal conduct, it is hard to recall a more impressive or well-rounded First Family.

The “when they go low, we go high” approach to racists who questioned his citizenship has made the Obamas look even more classy.

His family’s dignity in the face of such ugliness recalls the poise of black sit-in protesters in the early 60s, who refused to relinquish their seats at segregated restaurants and lunch counters even as white thugs poured sugar and ketchup over their heads, and punched, kicked and spat at them.

Yet racial firsts, of the kind achieved by Barack Hussein Obama, can present a distorted view of history and convey a misleading sense of progress. They are, by their very nature, a singular achievement, a milestone indicative of black advance rather than a destination point.

Hollywood did not become colourblind the moment in 1964 that Sidney Poitier became the first black man to win best actor at the Academy Awards any more than discrimination ended in the justice system when Thurgood Marshall first donned the billowing robes of a Supreme Court jurist.

America’s racial problems have not melted away merely because Obama has spent eight years in the White House. Far from it.

Indeed, the insurmountable problem for Obama was that he reached the mountaintop on day one of his presidency.

Achieving anything on the racial front that surpassed becoming the country’s first black president was always going to be daunting. Compounding that problem were the unrealistically high expectations surrounding his presidency.

Media captionBarack Obama: What would he have done differently?

His election triumph is 2008 was also misinterpreted as an act of national atonement for the original sin of slavery and the stain of segregation.

Yet Obama did not win the election because he was a black man. It was primarily because a country facing an economic crisis and embroiled in two unpopular wars was crying out for change.

Doubtless there have been substantive reforms. His two black attorneys general, Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, have revitalised the work of the justice department’s civil rights division, which was dormant during the Bush years.

The Affordable Healthcare Act, or Obamacare, as it was inevitably dubbed, cut the black uninsured rate by a third.

Partly in a bid to reverse the rate of black incarceration, he has commuted the sentences of hundreds of prisoners – 10 times the number of his five predecessors added together.

As well as calling for the closure of private prisons, he became the first president to visit a federal penitentiary. “There but for the grace of God,” said a man who had smoked pot and dabbled with cocaine in his youth.

Early on, he used the bully pulpit of the presidency to assail black absentee fathers, and, more latterly, spoke out against police brutality.

But that record of accomplishment looks rather meagre when compared to the drama of hearing “Hail to the Chief” accompany the arrival of a black man on the presidential stage.

Race relations have arguably become more polarised and tenser since 20 January 2009. Though smaller in scale and scope, the demonstrations sparked by police shootings of unarmed black men were reminiscent of the turbulence of the 1960s.

The toxic cloud from the tear gas unleashed in Ferguson and elsewhere cast a long and sometimes overwhelming shadow. Not since the LA riots in 1992 – the violent response to the beating of Rodney King and the later acquittal of the police officers filmed assaulting him – has the sense of black grievance and outrage been so raw.

Historians will surely be struck by what looks like an anomaly, that the Obama years gave rise to a movement called Black Lives Matter.

Public opinion surveys highlight this racial restlessness. Not long after he took office in 2009, a New York Times/CBS News poll suggested two-thirds of Americans regarded race relations as generally good. In the midst of last summer’s racial turbulence, that poll found there had been a complete reversal. Now 69% of Americans assessed race relations to be mostly bad.

An oft-heard criticism of Obama is that he has failed to bring his great rhetorical skills to bear on the American dilemma, and prioritised the LGBT community’s campaign for equality at the expense of the ongoing black struggle.

But while he was happy to cloak himself in the mantle of America’s first black president, he did not set out to pursue a black presidency. He did not want his years in office to be defined by his skin colour.

The impact of Obama’s presence in the White House on a black generation is impossible to calculate

As a candidate, he often left others to attach racial meaning to his candidacy, rather than doing so himself.

His famed race speech in the 2008 primary campaign, when his friendship with a fiery black preacher threatened to derail his candidacy, was as much about his white heritage as his black.

This remained true when he won election. Besides, there were pressing problems to deal with, not least rescuing the American economy in the midst of the Great Recession and extricating US forces from two long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Early on in his presidency, his efforts at racial mediation also seemed ham-fisted. The “beer summit” at the White House, when he brought together the black Harvard academic Henry Louis Gates and the white police officer who had arrested him on the porch of his own home in an affluent suburb of Boston, all seemed rather facile.

A clumsy photo-opportunity rather than a teachable moment. Obama, one sensed, wanted to speak out more forcefully – initially he said the Cambridge police “acted stupidly” – but his political cautiousness reined him in.

Seemingly, he did not want to come across to the public as a black man in the White House.

Rather in those early years, it was as if he was trying to position himself as a neutral arbiter in racial matters, though one sensed his preference was for not intervening at all.

As his presidency went on, however, it became more emphatically black. He spoke out more passionately and more intimately.

Telling reporters that his son would have looked like Trayvon Martin, the unarmed high school student shot dead in Florida by a neighbourhood watch coordinator, was a departure.

This new, more candid approach culminated in Charleston, South Carolina, when Obama delivered the eulogy at the funeral of Reverend Clementa Pinckney, the black preacher slain, along with eight other worshippers, by a white supremacist at a bible study class at the Emanuel American Methodist Episcopal church.

That afternoon he spoke, as he often does in front of mainly black audiences, with a cadence that almost ventriloquised the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr, and ended, electrifyingly, by singing Amazing Grace.

That month he seemed to be at the height of his powers.

The Confederate flag, a symbol for many of black subordination, was about to brought down in the grounds of the South Carolina State Capitol because the Charleston gunman Dylann Roof had brandished it so provocatively.

Obamacare had withstood a Supreme Court challenge. On the morning that he flew to Charleston, the Supreme Court decreed same-sex marriage would be legal in every state. Progressivism seemed to have triumphed. Obama seemed to have vanquished many of his foes.

But that month Donald Trump had also announced his improbable bid for the White House, and the forces of conservatism were starting to rally behind an outspoken new figurehead, who sensed that nativism, xenophobia and fear of the other would be central to his electoral appeal.

That America’s first black president will be followed by the untitled leader of the Birther movement, a candidate slow to disavow support from the Ku Klux Klan and happy to receive the backing of white nationalists, Donald Trump can easily be portrayed as a personal repudiation and also proof of racial regression.

The truth, though, is more complicated.

Obama is ending his presidency with some of his highest personal approval ratings, and clearly believes he would have beaten Trump in a head-to-head contest. Moreover, although Trump won decisively in the electoral college, almost three million people more voted for Hillary Clinton nationwide.

In judging the mood of the country, the 2016 election hardly produced a clear-cut result that lends itself to neat analysis.

What Trump’s election does look to have done, however, is end Obama’s hopes of being a transformative president, not least because of the proposed rollback of his signature healthcare reform.

Truly transformative presidents, like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, enact reforms, like social security, that become part of the nation’s fabric rather than being ripped apart. If Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress get their way, Obamacare will be shredded.

Nor has he been transformative in the attitudinal sense. Indeed, Trump’s victory, messy though it was, can easily be viewed partly as a “whitelash”.

Much of his earliest and strongest support came from so-called white nationalists, who saw in his candidacy the chance to reassert white cultural and racial dominance. Some of the loudest cheers at his rallies came in response his anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim invectives.

Trump’s message, from the moment he announced his candidacy to the final tweets of his insurgent campaign, was aimed primarily at white America.

The billionaire’s victory also makes it harder to view Obama as a transitional president. Eight years ago, it was tempting to cast the country’s first black president as the leader who would oversee a peaceable demographic shift from a still strongly Caucasian America – the last census showed that 62.6% of US citizens are white – to a more ethnically diffuse nation.

But the talk now is of walls, not human bridges.

Of course, the notion that Obama would usher in a post-racial America was always fanciful, and a claim wisely he steered clear of himself. For all his cries of “Yes we can,” he was never that naïve.

But the black writer Ta-Nehisi Coates makes a persuasive case that Obama has always been overly optimistic on race, in large part because he did not have a conventional black upbringing.

His formative years were spent in Hawaii, America’s most racially integrated state, and the whites he encountered, namely his mother and grandparents, were doting and loving.

Obama was not the victim of discrimination in the same way as a black kid growing up in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, or even New York or Illinois. As a result, he may have underestimated the forces that would seek to paralyse his presidency and to impede racial advance more broadly.

The president has said repeatedly since election night that the result proves that history is not linear but rather takes a zig-zagging course.

He is also fond of paraphrasing Martin Luther King’s famed line that the arc of history bends towards justice. However, that curvature has veered off in a wholly unexpected direction.

Besides, even to talk of arcs of history at this moment of such national uncertainty seems inapt.

For as we enter the final days of the Obama presidency, the more accurate descriptor of race relations is a fault-line – the most angry fault-line in US politics and American life, and one that continues to rumble away, threatening small explosions at any time.

From Obama we expected seismic change of a more positive kind.

And although it was a presidency that began atop a mountain, it ended in something of a valley.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 11 January 2017, 9:01 am and is filed under
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Condolence messages flood Twitter following Adenan’s passing

Malaysiakini

11th January 2017

Messages of condolences flooded social networking site Twitter following the passing of Sarawak Chief Minister Adenan Satem.

Adenan, who was recently warded at Sarawak General Hospital Heart Centre in Kota Samarahan, died at the age of 72 this afternoon.

Among the earliest to express their condolences were Umno leaders Mas Ermieyati Samsudin and Khairy Jamaluddin.

Khairy in his tweet, expressed his condolences to Adenan’s widow, Jamilah Anu, his family, as well as the people of Sarawak over Adenan’s passing.

Soon after, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak also took to Twitter to express his sorrow over Adenan’s death.

“I will be going to Sarawak to pay my last respects,” he tweeted.

Stating how Adenan had contributed greatly to Sarawak, Malaysia, Najib added that Malaysia had lost a respected leader.

Other Barisan Nasional leaders who expressed their condolences were Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, Tengku Adenan Tengku Mansor, Razali Ibrahim, Ahmad Shabery Cheek, Bung Moktar Radin, Liow Tiong Lai, Ahmad Maslan, Tan Keng Liang, P Kamalanathan, Mary Yap and Azalina Othman Said.

Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said today was a “sad day for all, especially Sarawak”.

“(We have) lost a leader who had contributed a lot and he is also someone I respected. May his soul rest in peace among the pious,” tweeted Hishammuddin.

Opposition leaders also tweeted their sorrow over the passing.

Among them were Azmin Ali, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, Lim Kit Siang, Mohd Shafie Apdal, Mahfuz Omar, Fuziah Salleh, Darrell Leiking, Charles Santiago, M Kulasegaran, and Hannah Yeoh.

Azmin in his tweet, prayed for Adenan to be granted “husnul khatimah” (good end) and to be placed in heaven.

Lim, on the other hand, expressed his “deepest condolences to the bereaved family”.

“Malaysia and Sarawak have lost a great visionary leader,” he tweeted.

Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng in a statement said Adenan will be remembered as one of the few chief ministers of Sarawak who was not embroiled in personal controversies or tainted by public scandals of corruption.

“In the few years I met him during the regular Conference of Rulers meetings, I found him to be humble, well-read, easily approachable and willing to engage.

“Despite our political differences, we share a belief that there must be decentralisation of power by respecting state rights and the inalienable right of local people to decide their own local affairs.

Lim believes that the struggle to treat all as Sarawakians and Malaysians instead of “pendatang” (immigrant), respect for religious freedom for non-Muslims, the native customary land rights of native people and a 20 percent share of oil royalties should be continued.

“Rest in peace Tan Sri, you have done your duty to all Sarawakians,” said Lim.

Meanwhile, describing Adenan as a “good man”, Sarawak DAP chief Chong Chieng Jen said Adenan had tried his best to introduce some changes for the better for Sarawak, despite “great resistance from within the system”.

“As the chief minister with such a short tenure, he has contributed greatly to Sarawak and shown us that Sarawak can stand up against the might of the federal government,” said Chong in a statement.

“His demise is a loss to Sarawak and on behalf of Sarawak DAP and the people of Sarawak, I would like to thank him for his deeds and contributions to the state.”

Sarawak PKR chief Baru Bian in a Facebook post lamented how the people of Sarawak had lost a chief minister who truly cared for them.

“He chose to carry on with his role as chief minister even though his health was declining.

“He did his best for Sarawak and I had the greatest respect for him. Rest in peace, Adenan,” wrote Baru Bian in the post.

Sarawak PAS commissioner Jofri Jaraiee, in a press statement, described Adenan as a chief minister who defended the rights of natives in Sarawak and fought for Sarawak autonomous rights.

“We hope his successor will continue to resume his struggle in championing the people,” he said.

“Many are aggrieved because there are many more people of Sarawak, especially in rural areas, who still need his services as a chief minister,” said Jofri.

Adenan took over the post of Sarawak chief minister from his predecessor Abdul Taib Mahmud in February 2014.

A popular leader, Adenan led BN to a sweeping victory in the last Sarawak state election, winning 72 state seats.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 11 January 2017, 6:55 pm and is filed under
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Falcon Bank’s Former Singapore Manager Sent to Prison in 1MDB Probe

By P.R. VENKAT

Wall Street Journal

Jan. 11, 2017

The former branch manager is the fourth person to go to prison in the city-state’s probe of a Malaysian state investment fund

A Singapore court Wednesday sentenced a former branch manager of Switzerland’s Falcon Private Bank AG to prison for crimes connected to the alleged multibillion-dollar misappropriation at Malaysian state investment fund 1MDB.

Jens Sturzenegger, 42, a Swiss national who managed Falcon’s Singapore unit, was charged last week with 16 offenses under various laws, including one that requires banks and their officers to enact due-diligence checks on clients to prevent money laundering.

The court Wednesday handed a 28-week prison sentence and a fine of 128,000 Singapore dollars (US$89,000) to Mr. Sturzenegger after he pleaded guilty to six offenses. These include three counts of providing false information to police and central bank authorities, and three counts of failing to report suspicious transactions. The remaining charges were taken into consideration in his sentencing but won’t be pursued separately by the prosecution.

While the charges didn’t directly link Mr. Sturzenegger to fund flows at 1Malaysia Development Bhd., Singapore’s central bank and regulator had said in October that the branch manager had been arrested that month in connection with the city-state’s probe into the alleged misappropriation of billions of dollars from the Malaysian fund. Prosecutors have called the investigation Singapore’s largest-ever probe of alleged money laundering.

On Wednesday, prosecutors told the court that Mr. Sturzenegger had lied to officers of the central bank and to the Singapore police’s white-collar crimes investigation unit as they examined Falcon transactions related to 1MDB fund flows. Mr. Sturzenegger’s lawyer said that his client had not derived any personal gain in relation to bank transactions, and sought a more lenient sentence, court documents showed.

The charges refer to Mr. Sturzenegger’s business dealings with Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low, who global investigators have said was key to orchestrating the alleged 1MDB misappropriation. The Wall Street Journal has previously reported that global investigators believe hundreds of millions of dollars of 1MDB money made its way through an account held at Falcon in Singapore to the personal accounts of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Mr. Najib has been cleared of wrongdoing by Malaysia’s attorney general, who said that the money deposited in his account was a legal donation from Saudi Arabia and most of it was returned. Mr. Najib, the Malaysian financier Mr. Low and 1MDB have all denied any wrongdoing. 1MDB has pledged cooperation with any lawful investigation. None of the three could be reached immediately on Wednesday.

Falcon declined to comment on Wednesday. The bank has previously said it is initiating new control measures to prevent future issues and that it has been cooperating with authorities.

Investigators in at least five countries are probing the finances of 1MDB in response to allegations that billions of dollars have gone missing. Swiss investigators say they believe that as much as US$4 billion was misappropriated from the fund through several banks, including private banks in Singapore.

In October, Singapore’s central bank withdrew the merchant-banking license of Falcon’s Singapore branch that Mr. Sturzenegger managed for what it called “persistent and severe lack of understanding” of its regulations, and fined it S$4.3 million.

The same month, Switzerland’s Office of the Attorney General expanded its scrutiny of Malaysia’s 1MDB by opening a criminal investigation into Falcon. The Swiss attorney general’s office said at the time that internal “deficiencies” at the Zurich-based bank may have caused it to fail to prevent alleged money laundering associated with 1MDB.

Mr. Sturzenegger is the fourth person to be handed a prison sentence in Singapore’s 1MDB-related investigations.

In recent months, Singapore courts have convicted three former bankers at the local branch of another Swiss private bank, BSI SA, for crimes related to their handling of fund flows connected to 1MDB. They were given prison sentences of varying lengths for crimes such as failing to report suspicious transactions, forgery and attempting to obstruct the course of justice.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 11 January 2017, 7:10 pm and is filed under
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Mainstream media practitioners should stop their hypocrisy belly-aching about “fake news” on social media when they are themselves the  worst purveyor of false news

Mainstream media practitioners should stop their hypocrisy belly-aching about “fake news” on social media when they are  themselves  the worst purveyor of false news.

Two days ago, one mainstream media admitted purveying “fake news” about Ketua Umum PKR Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in its articles in 2013 alleging that Anwar was a dishonest politician involved in money-laundering activities, including giving RM50 million to the late Karpal Singh to fix judges.

This same mainstream media was recently purveying the “fake news that I had met Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad on Dec. 3 last year and “sealed a deal” that Mukhriz Mahathir would become prime minister and I would become Deputy Prime Minister.

Despite my denial, this mainstream media continued to carry reports on this “fake news”.

Yet this mainstream media had the temerity to conduct a campaign against “false news” in the social media, with an major article entitled “DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN REAL AND FAKE NEWS” on New Year’s Day and another entitled “Non-truths must be treated with contempt” today.

What moral high ground do  these mainstream media practitioners possess when they are equally guilty of creating or purveying “fake news” in the mainstream media?

It is indeed most ironic that it was the Prime Minister, Datuk Sri Najib Razak himself who kicked off the new year warning about “fake news” and “false stories”  but UMNO and Barisan Nasional leaders, propagandists and cybertroopers including the country’s mainstream media are the worst culprits in concocting and disseminating fake news and false stories about critics and the Opposition.

If there are laws criminalising  “hate speeches” in Malaysia, Najib’s speech as UMNO President at the UMNO General Assembly on Nov. 30 will be an important test case.

Yesterday, there was a report that police  are still investigating claims that Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng’s son (my grandson) had sexually assaulted a schoolmate, almost six years since the allegations circulated on pro-Umno blogs.

Six years have passed, and my grandson has gone from secondary school to university, and yet no action had been taken by the police,

Police had  received six complaints alleging that the then 16-year-old boy had committed the crime, and that money was paid to ensure the matter was not circulated online – when in fact  the allegations were pack of lies.

Did the police take any action against the UMNO cybertroopers for lodging false police reports or concocting and circulating fake news?

Would the police fail to take action for six long years if such false, malicious and despicable lies had been  told about Najib’s children?

Will Najib direct UMNO and Barisan Nasional leaders, propagandists and cybertroopers to stop concocting and purveying “fake news” about Opposition leaders and government critics, so that they have the moral high ground to rail against “fake news” on the social media?

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 11 January 2017, 4:08 pm and is filed under
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Paradise in Penang

Noor Ashikin Abdul Rahman

The New Paper, Singapore

Jan 10, 2017

We are only 10 days into the new year, but if that all-too-familiar feeling called wanderlust is already creeping in, its not your fault.

Besides, it is never too early to start planning your next getaway.

If a short vacation that will not break the bank is what you are eyeing, consider Penang.

The Malaysian state is not just steeped in culture and tradition – it is also a haven for foodies.

The best part? We have done the calculations for you – the airfare will set you back less than $100, while decent accommodation will cost less than a $100 per night.

AIRFARE

Cost: Approximately $82 for a return flight on AirAsia

ACCOMMODATION

Where: You Le Yuen Boutique Bed and Breakfast, 7, Love Lane, George Town, Penang

Cost: From $95 for a North Studio Suite from www.youleyuen.com

This quaint two-storey building located in George Town was a colonial pre-war shophouse that has since been restored.

If you are into Peranakan decor, ornate wooden furnishings and traditional charm, this option might tickle your fancy.

If you have cash to spare, opt for the Skywell Suite, which has a bathtub for you to soak in after a long day of sightseeing.

EAT

For many Singaporeans, food is serious business. Penang is the perfect place to sample a good mix of delectable local fare – Chinese, Malay, Indian or Peranakan, you name it – and cafe grub.

The famous Gurney Drive Hawker Centre is usually a one-stop destination for Penang assam laksa, char kway teow, Penang rojak, chendol and more.

If you want the really good stuff, positively-reviewed favourites include the Tiger Char Kway Teow from Kafe Ping Hooi at Lebuh Carnarvon, and the Pasar Air Itam Laksa.

If you prefer cafe nosh, you will be happy to know that Penang is not short on such options.

Cafes such as Awesome Canteen, Kota Dine & Coffee and ChinaHouse are not to be missed.

SEE

Penang’s George Town is a Unesco World Heritage site, so do not forget to look up and around.

At each turn, you can find impressive street art – in the form of large colourful paintings and wrought-iron caricatures – adorning many of the walls.

The caricatures combine witty humour and historical facts to share stories from the days of early settlement, as well as shed light on how the popular landmarks came about.

Most of the murals are the work of Lithuanian-born artist Ernest Zacharevic. They include famous ones such as those of children on a bicycle and a boy on a motorbike.

Since then, many independent works have sprouted outside of George Town to bring even more colour to Penang.

You might have vowed never to be like your Instagram friends with their endless posts posing with the street art in Penang.

But they have a point – you have not seen Penang until you have explored its art.

A map is available at www.tourismpenang.net.my for you to plan your art appreciation adventure.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 11 January 2017, 8:17 am and is filed under
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Swiss Banker Latest Conviction in Singapore’s 1MDB-Linked Cases

by Andrea Tan

Bloomberg

January 11, 2017

Sturzenegger is first foreigner charged in Singapore’s probe

Former Falcon Bank branch manager charged with 16 counts

Jens Sturzenegger, a former branch manager at Falcon Private Bank Ltd. in Singapore, became the first foreigner convicted in the city’s probes linked to a Malaysian state investment fund.

Sturzenegger, 42, pleaded guilty to six charges, including failing to report suspicious transactions, and was sentenced to 28 weeks in jail and fined S$128,000 ($89,000). Prosecutors had sought a jail term of as long as 32 weeks. His lawyer Tan Hee Joek said in court that Sturzenegger is remorseful and didn’t gain financially from the offenses. Tan said after the hearing his client won’t appeal the sentence.

The Swiss had been charged with 16 counts, including not reporting to the authorities that $1.27 billion of inflows into two bank accounts were suspicious and denying knowing Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho. He’s the fifth person to be indicted in Singapore as the city widens its investigation into fund flows related to 1Malaysia Development Bhd.

Sturzenegger engaged in “persistent, deceitful conduct in lying” to authorities, said Judge Ow Yong Tuck Leong.

Convicted Bankers

Falcon Private Bank was ordered shut by the Monetary Authority of Singapore in October and Sturzenegger was arrested as part of the city’s biggest money laundering probe. Singapore has fined some of the world’s largest banks and convicted bankers after breaches were discovered in a money trail linked to 1MDB.

Three former BSI SA employees have been convicted in cases linked to the Malaysian fund. Yeo Jiawei was sentenced on Dec. 22 to a 30-month jail term, the longest yet handed down by the city’s courts in 1MDB-related cases. His lawyer Philip Fong said Yeo will appeal. Yak Yew Chee was sentenced in November to an 18-week jail term and fined for forging documents and failing to disclose suspicious transactions allegedly related to Low. Another banker, Yvonne Seah Yew Foong, was jailed for two weeks and fined on Dec. 16 for similar offenses. Yak and Seah didn’t file appeals, according to their lawyers.

The Malaysian fund, which has consistently denied any wrongdoing, is at the center of multiple probes across the globe. Low hasn’t been charged with any offense and has previously described his role with 1MDB as informal consulting that didn’t break any laws.

The criminal case is Public Prosecutor v Jens Fred Sturzenegger, Singapore State Courts.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 11 January 2017, 7:22 pm and is filed under
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Will Malaysia slide down to its  lowest ranking and score in 22 years in  Transparency International’s  Corruption Perception Index 2016 which will be released in a fortnight’s time?

Will Malaysia slide down to its lowest ranking and score in 22 years in Transparency International’s (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI)  2016 which will be released in a fortnight’s time?

I do dread the TI CPI 2016 release, as the past year had been one of the worst years on the corruption front for Malaysia.

Malaysia which dropped four places in the TI CPI 2016, falling from No. 50 to No. 54, and the CPI score slipped from 52 in 2014 to 50 in 2015, would have fallen lower in ranking in TI CPI 2015  if five countries, Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Puerto Rico and St Vincent – which had been ranked higher than Malaysia – had not been excluded due to technical reasons like not meeting three minimum secondary sources for research.

The TI CPI 2015 had not taken into account the last bad news on the Malaysian corruption front on the last few days of the 2015, when Malaysia was rated third in international website, foreignpolicy.com’s “worst corruption scandal in 2015”.

In the past year, Malaysian was inundated with bad news on the corruption front, ranked second in TIME magazine “global corruption” ranking in March, second placing in Economist’s second index of crony capitalism in May, the subject of the largest kleptocratic action by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) when it filed legal suits in California in July to forfeit US$1 billion of 1MDB-linked assets in the United States, United Kingdom and Switzerland resulting from a US$3.5 billion international money-laundering conspiracy.

Since then, the 1MDB, the Malaysian government and in particular “Malaysian Official 1” (MO1) have been on the run from an endless spate of negative developments and  reports  about ever-expanding  international investigations and even criminal convictions and imprisonment of former bank officials connected to the 1MDB international money-laundering activities.

The latest report is that the Australian Federal Police have joined the international bandwagon of investigations into the international 1MDB money-laundering scandal.

In October, Malaysia again made it into the world league in the Sabah Watergate scandal, where MACC itself said that 60 per cent of the RM3.3 billion earmarked by the federal government to improve water supply to Sabahans  had been “siphoned off” by corruption, and where the MACC had the biggest ever seizure in its 49-year history, recovering RM114 million from the two top officials of the Sabah Water Department – including RM53.7 million in cold hard cash in Malaysian and  various foreign currencies which took more than 30 MACC officers 15 hours to count!

Even without taking into account the latest negative developments on the corruption front in the first ten days of January – the “gutting” of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) with the winding down of the MACC Special Operations Division (Bahagian Operasi Khas or BOK) and the early retirement by its former Special Operations Division director, Bahri Mohd Zin, because of dissatisfaction with the MACC’s investigations into the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the SRC International scandal and why the SRC International case was never brought to court – can the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and the MACC assure the country that Malaysia would not plunge to the lowest ranking and score in the 22-year series of the annual TI CPI 2016 when it is announced in a fortnight’s time?

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 11 January 2017, 1:03 pm and is filed under
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Should Malaysia emulate China and have an Operation Fox-hunt and Sky-net to bring economic or corruption fugitives like Jho Low and others back to justice in Malaysia?

The new year has been a bumpy one for Malaysia, with the international multi billion dollar 1MDB kleptocratic money-laundering scandal continuing to make waves and headlines worldwide.

The Australian Federal Police has announced that they are working with international law enforcement agencies to investigate companies associated with the 1MDB scandal – joining at least  half a dozen countries, including Switzerland, Singapore and the United States, which  have initiated criminal or legal actions concerning the international 1MDB money-laundering scandal.

In Singapore, the fourth  banker had been convicted by Singaporean courts in relation to 1MDB-related accounts – Jens Fred Sturzenegger, a Swiss national and branch manager of the Falcon Private Bank in Singapore who pleaded guilty to six charges related to Singapore’s probe on 1MDB.

Sturzeneggar was sentenced to 28 weeks jail and fined S$128,000.

Falcon Private Bank is owned by Abu Dhabi’s International Investment Company (Ipic) and its Singapore operations was shut down by  Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in October last year for failing to fulfil anti-money laundering controls and improper conduct by the bank’s senior management.

Singaporean prosecutors had told the court Malaysian businessman Jho Low had control over four accounts with the bank.

According to Channel News Asia, Sturzenegger pleaded guilty to charges of failing to report potentially criminal transactions involving billions of dollars and for lying to authorities to protect Low’s financial interest.

He was also charged for lying to MAS officers to distract them from probing bank accounts controlled by Low by claiming that the accounts were “beneficially owned” by Eric Tan Kim Loong, a known associate of Low’s.

Sturzenegger was said to have lied to investigators about never having made contact with Low.

According to the US Department of Justice, portions of the US$3 billion raised by 1MDB Global Investments Ltd in 2013 through Goldman Sachs had flowed into the Falcon accounts.

In October last year, the Swiss attorney-general’s office (OAG) announced that it was initiating criminal proceedings against Falcon, which had offices in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and London apart from Singapore and Zurich.

According to its Oct 5 press release last year, “The criminal proceedings being conducted by the OAG focus primarily on misappropriation from the 1MDB sovereign fund of monies intended for investment in the Petrosaudi, Tanjung/Genting and Admic (Abu Dhabi Malaysia Investment Company) projects, as well as the misappropriation of investments in the SRC sovereign fund in the area of natural resources.”

Meanwhile, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma) are investigating a total of six banks over the scandal, including Falcon, for potential breaches in financial and anti-money laundering regulations in Switzerland in relations to the 1MDB scandal.

According to Finma, Falcon had several business relationships with a number of 1MDB subsidiaries, and executed US$2.5 billion on behalf of two of these companies. All told, a total of US$3.8 billion in assets associated to 1MDB had been moved through Falcon.

Finma also made mention of a ‘young Malaysian businessman’ who is supposedly a client of the bank and has links to individuals in Malaysian government circles. The person was not named in the press release, but his government ties would have qualified him as a ‘politically exposed person’ (PEP) and should have been subjected to extra scrutiny by the bank.

According to Finma, the bank had failed to conduct adequate background and risk profile checks on the transactions involving the 1MDB companies.

“It did not sufficiently query or assess the plausibility of the proffered documents and information about the supposed financing of energy projects, nor did it question the commercial background of the US$1.3 billion which was immediately transferred from one account to another (pass-through transactions),” it said.

As for the businessman, the regulator said, “The bank did not verify how this individual had been able to acquire assets of US$135 million in an extremely short period of time or why a total of US$1.2 billion was transferred to his accounts at a later date – a transaction which was clearly at variance with the information he had provided when opening the account.”

In the United States, the  Department of Justice’s (DOJ)  lawsuits to forfeit US$1 billion 1MDB-linked assets said the misappropriation from 1MDB had occurred in three phases. Falcon was alleged to be involved in the latter two, dubbed the ‘Aabar-BVI phase’ and the ‘Tanore phase’.

The DOJ alleged that in 2012, 1MDB Energy had remitted US$1.367 billion from its Falcon account to Aabar-BVI’s BSI bank account under the guise of being a ‘security deposit’ for Aabar.

The money came from two separate bond issuances by 1MDB, which totalled US$3.5 billion. It bonds were co-guaranteed by Aabar’s parent company, IPIC.

IPIC and Aabar denies having any ties with Aabar-BVI, which is the intended recipient of the US$1.367, but 1MDB and the Malaysian government claimed that it has proof to show otherwise.

The matter is now at the heart of a dispute being heard before the London Court of International Arbitration.

From Aabar-BVI, according to the DOJ, the money was allegedly distributed for the personal benefit of various individuals, including officials at 1MDB, IPIC or Aabar, the document reads.

Among them includes a certain ‘Malaysian Official 1’ (MO1), who supposedly received US$30 million during this phase.

In 2013, during the Tanore phase, US$1.26 billion was allegedly siphoned out of a 1MDB US$3 billion bond issuance through a certain ‘Tanore Finance Corporation’ bank account in Falcon’s Singapore unit, and another Falcon account held under the name of Granton Property Holdings Limited.

The money was originally intended for a 1MDB-Aabar joint venture called Admic.

Again, the money was supposedly used for the benefit of unrelated individuals, including US$681 million that went to MO1’s personal bank account in Malaysia.

With the  criminal convictions of four bankers in Singapore in relation to 1MDB-money laundering activities and the US DOJ lawsuits to  forfeit US$1 billion of 1MDB-linked assets in the United States, United Kingdom and Switzerland, can the Malaysian authorities, especially the Attorney-General’s Chambers, the MACC, the Police and Bank Negara pretend that everything about 1MDB is hunky-dory and super-duper and continue to dig their heads deeper in the sand?

The Malaysian authorities, including the new MACC leadership which have recently been possessed by a bout of evangelical preachings about the evils of corruption, should realise that they have no credibility whatsoever to talk about fighting corruption until and unless they address the 1MDB kleptocratic scandal and the identity of “MO1”.

Singaporean authorities have frozen the assets of Malaysian Jho Low, although he has not been charged with any offence related to 1MDB but has been identified as a person of interest in related investigations.

May be Malaysia should  emulate China and have an Operation Fox-hunt and Sky-net to bring economic or corruption fugitives like Jho Low and others involved in the 1MDB and SRC International scandals back to justice in Malaysia!

Will the MACC and the Attorney-General’s Chambers work on this possibility?

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 12 January 2017, 9:23 am and is filed under
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