Agri minister or propaganda minister?

By Mariam Mokhtar

Malaysiakini

Feb 16, 2015

For decades, we were conned into thinking that the job of the agriculture and agro-based industries minister was to manage Malaysian agriculture. It is not! The job of the so-called agriculture minister is to spread government propaganda. Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak should rename Ismail Sabri Yaakob as the propaganda minister, and not the agriculture minister.

 Ismail’s ministerial task is to manage the massive vote bank provided by the rural people of Malaysia. Rural Malaysians make up the final piece in the ‘4-Rs’, the pillars of Umno Baru which comprises race, religion, royalty and rural folk.

 When Ismail made his racist remarks about boycotting Chinese traders, Najib refused to punish him, because Ismail was doing a good job, alienating the rural people from the urban population as well as making Malays suspicious of their Chinese neighbours.

Most people imagine that the agriculture minister is not an attractive post, as the portfolio conjures up images of dirt-streaked farmers wading in muddy fields, and sun-baked, weather-beaten fishermen struggling to land their catch.

 Previous experience showed us that the tourism minister was good at projecting an image of a jet-setter, criss-crossing the globe in first class and enjoying herself at choice tourist locations abroad.

 A former women, family and community development minister had been an expert in acquiring luxury condominiums.

 The defence minister could buy submarines, accompanied by attractive models. Most of us have to make do with shopping in the local pasar, hounded by scruffy, toothless immigrants begging for money.

More important than trade or defence

 The Malaysian cabinet secretly views the agriculture portfolio as one which is more important than trade or defence. The post is critical, although its primary objective is not to promote agriculture.

 The object of the portfolio is to manage information and inject just enough money to please the rural masses. The effect is made complete when mainstream media, like TV3, lull the housewives into a stupor, interspersing propaganda programmes with soap operas to further dull their minds and fill the void in their lives.

In truth, Umno Baru ministers have convinced themselves that agriculture is a dead duck. Agriculture took a back seat during Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s (left) era. This former prime minister dragged Malaysians, kicking and screaming, to embrace heavy industries like steel and car-making, at the expense of agriculture.

 We are now a nation which is heavily dependent on food imports. Our food security is non-existent and we do not produce enough to feed ourselves. The once-thriving “rice bowl of Malaya” has become a begging bowl. One rice crony shows his allegiance to his political masters at the expense of Malaysian farmers and the rakyat.

 So, here are more questions for the propaganda minister:

 First, there is much idle land among the Malay community. Why can’t Ismail gather the great minds in the syariah legal fraternity and other departments, to address the issue of Muslim inheritance laws, where many people own one (small) plot of land?

 One person may be prepared to till the land, but all his relatives will want a say in the land use, and a share in the profits. With several owners staking a claim, who wants to farm the land and make it productive again?

 Second, Ismail is not doing anything to address the lack of young farmers. The 2004 Agriculture Ministry statistics stated that 70 percent of farmers were over 45 years old, and 45 percent were over 55 years old.

 What do current statistics show? What steps have Ismail taken to halt the exodus of the young to the towns? What measures are there to make farming and agriculture attractive career options?

 If anecdotal evidence is to be believed, many teenagers in the Felda settlements do badly in their studies, have a high incidence of drug-taking and other immoral activities, and feel that life holds little promise for them. They gravitate to the cities, only to become Mat Rempits, and remain disillusioned.

‘Jihad’ used to see Chinese as the enemy

 Third, Ismail is not ashamed of being racist and divisive. He uses choice words to alienate the Malays. For example, he used the word “jihad” among the rural people, to work up sentiment against the non-Malays.

 One agricultural expert said, “Many people believe that the use of the word ‘jihad’ is to make the Malays see the Chinese as the enemy.

“At agriculture exhibitions in Serdang, it is alleged that rural folk are transported, in specially laid on coaches, with the slogan ‘Jihad potong orang tengah’, painted beside images of Najib and Ismail. This propaganda is to remind the rural people that the middlemen were the Chinese.”

Fourth, PAS’ Kuala Terengganu MP Raja Kamarul Bahrin Shah Raja Ahmad (left) recently questioned Ismail’s statement about reducing the role of middlemen in the fishing industry, when the main emphasis should have been to increase the fishermen’s incomes.

 He mentioned 23 cases in Dungun, where contractors had failed to distribute RM500,000 of state aid to the fishermen.

 He criticised Ismail’s cruel joke of wanting to increase the income of the fishermen from five to 20 percent, and asked if he was aware of a study on Terengganu fishermen by the Khazanah group – which said that after 10 years, the income of the fishermen had only increased from RM400 to RM414.

 Raja Kamarul blasted Ismail for failing to help the local fishermen, whose biggest problem was the encroachment of Vietnamese fishermen into Malaysian fishing grounds.

 It appears that Ismail Sabri is a better propaganda minister than he is an agriculture minister, and thus should be sacked immediately.

 MARIAM MOKHTAR is a defender of the truth, the admiral-general of the Green Bean Army and president of the Perak Liberation Organisation (PLO).

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 17 February 2015, 7:11 am and is filed under
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Call on all Pakatan Rakyat leaders and supporters to save Pakatan Rakyat from latest UMNO/BN wiles by uniting behind a Eight-Year PR Roadmap to save Anwar

I call on all Pakatan Rakyat leaders and supporters to unite to save Pakatan Rakyat from the latest UMNO/Barisan Nasional (BN) wiles to sow discord and  distrust among Pakatan Rakyat parties and leaders with the agenda to divide and destroy the most formidable challenge the ruling coalition had ever to face in its history.

The latest UMNO/BN gambit is to fully exploit Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s five-year incarceration and the passing of Tok Guru Nik Aziz resulting in two by-elections, the Permatang Pauh parliamentary and the Kelantan Chempaka State Assembly by-elections, with UMNO staying out of the Chempaka by-election but going all out in the Permatang Pauh parliamentary by-election.

This will be a  revival  of the plot by certain UMNO schemers and  strategists to promote the UG  concept or  “unity government” of UMNO and PAS, but which have not been able to make much headway to date because of the staunch and  uncompromising opposition from Nik Aziz.

To these UMNO schemers and strategists, the death of Nik Aziz brings new hope for their dormant “UG” conspiracy.

I am very intrigued however as  what the promoters of “UG government” really meant, when it is obvious to all that there is no unity in UMNO itself, with former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir going all out to topple Datuk Seri Najib Razak as Umno President and Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Be that as it may, we need  not hide the fact that PR is facing our greatest crisis since our formation seven years ago, and many are asking whether PR can survive intact or will disintegrate and disappear from the political arena.

I call on PR leaders and supporters to exert every effort to save PR from disintegration for its embodies the best hopes of Malaysians for change and improvement of the quality of life of all Malaysians – which was why a majority of 52% of the electorate voted for PR in the 13th General Elections and why Datuk Seri Najib Razak is the first minority Prime Minister in Malaysia.

When I visited Alor Star last Thursday morning, I suggested an eight-year Pakatan Rakyat Roadmap to save PR from disintegration, a re-commitment by all the three component parties of DAP, PKR and PAS to reaffirm  the  two fundamental principles which had been the secrets of the PR success in its first  six years – strict adherence  to the PR Common Policy Framework which had formed the bedrock common principles of the three component parties in the coalition, and the operational principle of consensus regarding the Pakatan Rakyat Leadership Council as the highest policy-making body for PR.

If we stay loyal to  these two fundamental principles, I am confident that PR will be able to grow from strength to strength to fulfill the hopes of generations of Malaysians for change and Malaysia’s rendezvous with greatness, and take PR to Putrajaya to form the new Malaysian government in the 14th General Elections.

There is now an added reason why PR must remain as solid as ever – as this is the only way to save Anwar from 10-year oblivion from the political scene plotted by UMNO schemes and strategists, i.e. five years of jail sentence followed by another five years of disenfranchisement of his civil rights, where he could not stand for elective office or even to exercise his constitutional right to vote.

Anwar has exhausted the judicial process with the Federal Court’s shocking 5-0 unanimous verdict dismissing his appeal and sending him back to jail for the fourth time in his life.

However, in a parliamentary democracy, final powers rest with the ordinary people through their vote in the general elections, and this is where People’s Power in the 14th General Elections in three years’ time can result in Anwar’s earlier release from jail and even allow him to meet his destiny as Prime Minister of Malaysia – if the voters of Malaysia  exercise their constitutional and democratic right to oust the UMNO/BN coalition through the ballot box and install a new Pakatan Rakyat federal government of Malaysia.

My proposal of an  eight-year commitment by the three PR component parties to continue to uphold the two fundamental principles of PR common policy framework and the operational consensus mechanism is for PR to “return to basics”, and to put aside whatever differences we have for the next eight years, as we had done in the first six  years.

The eight years is derived from three years to the 14GE from now  and the five years after the 14GE, as PR must make a commitment to Malaysians as to the policies we are committed to implement if PR achieve power in Putrajaya after the 14GE.

It is most unfortunate that I do not have the opportunity to discuss with Nik Aziz my proposal of an Eight-Year Roadmap for PR not only to save PR but also to save Anwar, as the former Kelantan Mentri Besar passed away the same night after a prolonged illness.

I have no doubt however that Nik Aziz, as an architect of PR and whose unswerving support was one of the major factors for PR’s stunning success in the 2008 and 2013 general elections,  would have given his final backing to the Eight-Year PR Roadmap, even if he had some initial reservations about political parties putting aside policy differences and issues not agreed in the PR Common Policy Framework until after 2023.

One such major issue will be the hudud question.

In May 2012 in Hulu Terengganu, PAS President Datuk Sri Hadi Awang said hudud could only be implemented if there are adequate conditions (hudud hanya dilaksana jika cukup syarat), where he gave the examples that if there is no minimum wage provision or resolution of the unemployment problem, the conditions for implementation for hudud do not exist.

This is what PR parties agreed in the PR Common Policy Framework (CPF) and why PR leaders and supporter should “return to basics for PR” and  reaffirm commitment to the PR CPF not only to save PR but also to save Anwar.

[Speech at the second DAP SSS (Sympathy, Support and Solidarity) Anwar Ibrahim ceramah at Han Chiang School Hall, Penang on Monday, February 16, 2015 at 10 pm]

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 17 February 2015, 10:09 am and is filed under
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Former students of Najib’s alma mater tell him to stop extremism

The Malaysian Insider

16 February 2015

Another group of Malaysians has penned an open letter to Datuk Seri Najib Razak calling for an end to extremism, this time by 58 former students of St John’s Institution in Kuala Lumpur, where the prime minister himself had studied.

The alumni of the renowned mission school from the class of 1975 urged the country’s leadership to take a strong position against racism, religious bigotry and extremism, and themselves pledged to “always walk on the path of moderation”.

“As patriotic citizens we will not allow any form of destructive extremism, divisiveness and racial or religious turmoil to be planted in our country.

“In this context too, we plead with our leadership, rulers and law-abiding citizens to stand up against extremism,” the 58 Johanians said in their open letter, which carried all their names.

The group expressed concerns that extremist views were increasingly widespread and said it was “not the way forward for Malaysia”.

“We believe that any form of extremist viewpoints as championed by those bent on racism and religious bigotry should be condemned,” they said.

The group also said that Malaysia would be disadvantaged politically, economically, financially and socially, if extremism was allowed unabated, and noted that Malaysia enjoyed a degree of harmony, progress and moderation that had given the country a “lead advantage” in the region.

Stressing that the way forward for Malaysia was moderation, they urged leaders from both sides of the political divide and from civil society to keep Malaysia a “nation of moderates”.

The
letter by the St John’s alumni
 echoes another open letter to Najib written last year by
a group of prominent retired Malay civil servants
, now known as the G25.

The 25 eminent Malays took a stand for moderation and urged the government to allow rational dialogue on Islam and its position in the country and application in law and public policy. The group is now in the midst of seeking a meeting with Najib.

The 58 Johanians said the Federal Constitution should be upheld as a “sacred covenant” that cemented the bonds of nationhood between all Malaysians.

They also lauded the diversity of Malaysia’s multi-religious heritage, cultures and traditions, which they said were “tested, proven and vibrant” in preserving moderation.

“Our rich heritage has also proven (to be) the success factor throughout our history of nationhood, and we Johanians stand by it,” they said. – February 16, 2015.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 17 February 2015, 7:52 am and is filed under
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From Sodomy I to Sodomy II – Malaysia regressing to the darkness and repression 17 years ago when the country should be moving forward to greater freedom, justice, prosperity and confidence after the passage of almost two decades

Wishing all Malaysian Chinese as well as Malaysians, regardless of race or religion, a Happy Chinese New Year as it is now a festivity celebrated by all Malaysians regardless of race and religion.

Chinese New Year, which begins on the second new moon after the winter solstice,  has been described as the most important holiday for Chinese people worldwide.

In China, it is marked by the world’s largest annual human migrations with 2.8 billion trips made across the country in the mass exodus of students, migrant labourers, factory workers and office employees making their long journeys home to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

Chinese New Year in Malaysia  has become a very Malaysian affair, despite its ethnic origins and associations.

In Malaysia, the Chinese New Year is also marked by major human migrations, but not confined to the Chinese as it affects other ethnic groups as well.

Many issues will jostle for top attention among Malaysians during the Chinese New Year.

The following are likely to be the top Chinese New Year conversation topics by Malaysians, regardless of race and religion, viz:

Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s return to incarceration for the fourth time in his life after the Federal Court’s dismissal of his appeal and upholding the five-year jail sentence passed on him. From Sodomy I in 1998 to Sodomy II in 2015,  Malaysia has regressed to the darkness and repression 17 years ago when the country should be moving forward to greater freedom, justice, prosperity and confidence after the passage of almost two decades.

Malaysia is again in the international doghouse for failure to meet minimum universal and international standards of a truly independent judiciary and a just rule of law as Malaysia had not been the subject of such universal condemnation of so many foreign governments and international human rights organisations over the Federal Court’s decision on Anwar’s appeal in the past one week.

Agriculture and Agro-Based Industries Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri’s racist call to Malay consumers to boycott Chinese businesses and the impotence and lack of political will and commitment to 1Malaysia by the Najib premiership to resolve the issue in a  satisfactory and acceptable manner despite the passage of  some three weeks.

Former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s intensification of  his  campaign to topple Datuk Seri Najib Razak as Prime Minister of Malaysia and UMNO President. People are speculating whether Najib could survive as PM till the end of the year, or even by mid-year or even earlier.

The fate of Pakatan Rakyat, whether with Anwar back in jail and the death of Tok Guru Nik Aziz, the PR component parties could take stock, regroup and reunify to “return to the basics” to be guided by the two fundamental principles of PR Common Policy Framework and consensus operational principle which had brought success to PR in the 12th and 13th General Elections, or whether PR would explode and disintegrate because of the lack of political will and purpose to envision a common  longer future  of a united, ethical, harmonious, just and  prosperous Malaysian nation.

The continued educational, economic and environmental decline in the country and the unchecked  deterioration of all the indices of good governance, threatening to end up with Malaysia as a basket case joining the ranks of the “failed states”.

Rearing of the ugly heads of extremism, bigotry and intolerance in the public domain,  with the voices of moderation remaining muted and silent, resulting in the country seeing the worst racial and religious polarization in the nation’s history.

Unchecked corruption, greed and abuses of power in top decision-making circles.

The implementation of GST on April 1.

The Sarawak state general elections and the redelineation of electoral constituencies by the Election Commission.

In pondering long and hard about these and other issues concerning the future of our beloved nation, Malaysians should reaffirm their resolve and  commitment not to be by-standers but to play an active and  important role to shape destiny of our nation.

Happy Chinese New Year of the Goat for Malaysian Chinese and all Malaysians.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 17 February 2015, 4:46 pm and is filed under
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Revolt Against Corruption Triumphs in Delhi

By John Elliott

Newsweek

2/16/15

The swearing in over the weekend of social activist and anti-corruption campaigner Arvind Kejriwal as chief minister of Delhi marks the latest stage of a dramatic country-wide rejection of the way that India is governed, which has been building up over the past four years.

This is not a single tidal wave threatening to overwhelm the country, but it does stem from a new, young and aspirational India which wants governments that genuinely offer the prospect of change and economic growth. It threatens crony corrupt politicians, who for decades have been more concerned with self-aggrandisement and milking administrations than with governing constructively in the interests of the people who elected them.

Uniting castes, classes, religions and regional interests, it led last year to the election of Narendra Modi as a presidential-style prime minister, and last week to Kejriwal’s surprise  landslide victory that has created excitement in the city. In both cases, voters’ hopes are based primarily on the leadership ability and drive of one man–even though fulfilling the electorate’s expectations is a near impossible task.

This leads inevitably to questions about where the revolt against the way India has been governed will be heading if the two men fail. Cynics suggest that voters will turn back to traditional politicians and parties–including even the discredited Gandhi dynasty’s devastated Congress Party. Sceptics see growing social unrest, fueled by increasing unemployment, especially among the young.

The four years of rebellion to the status quo began in April 2011, when Anna Hazare, a Mahatma Gandhi look-alike social campaigner, led countrywide mass demonstrations against corruption. Accompanied by Kejriwal, his primary demand was for the creation of a national Lok Pal or anti-corruption ombudsman–which the highly corrupt and traumatised Congress government agreed to do, but never implemented.

Next came mass street protests against rape at the end of 2012, which frightened the government enough for demonstrators in central Delhi to be attacked with water cannons, and then to the rape law being strengthened.

Both sets of protests stemmed from more than anger about widespread corruption and assaults on women. They showed that the tide was turning against tolerance of rampant graft, poor governance, indifferent national and local bureaucrats and politicians, widespread police brutality, and an ineffective legal system.

Kejriwal broke from what became known as the Hazare movement and set up the AAP in December 2012, offering a new style of party free from the corruption and crony capitalist vested interests that dominate virtually every other political party in India.

In December 2013, AAP won a surprisingly high 28 of the 70 seats in Delhi’s assembly elections. Kejriwal formed a minority government that resigned after 49 days, having focussed more on staging street level protests than governing.

Modi’s damaged image

The next stage came in the general election last May, with the landslide victory by Modi’s presidential style campaign for his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He was seen as the only leader who could bring about dramatic changes in the way India is run, but after eight months he has become better known for high-profile sloganeering, and for self-aggrandisement that ranges from a rock-star-style performance for 18,000 adulating Indian Americans in New York’s Madison Square Gardens to wearing a pin-stripe suit with the stripes containing his full name when he met President Obama recently in Delhi.

Modi is perceived to have failed so far, which is somewhat uncharitable because the government has made progress in many areas–for example this week with India’s first online auction of coal mine licences.

Such progress however has to be offset against activities by other branches of the BJP’s fervently Hindu nationalist Sangh Parivar family of organizations, which have pursued strong Hindu-centric policies including mass conversions. There have also been attacks on Christian premises in Delhi.

This is not the prime ministerial style, nor the India, that Modi was elected to create, and that is the key reason why Kejriwal has been given a second chance by the Delhi electorate to improve life in the city.

Kejriwal and his party have changed their approach and become more serious and constructive than they were a year ago, but their task is massive in this city of some 16 million people. They have to sort out failings in water supplies (60 percent of the people have no piped water), electricity (there are widespread power cuts), grossly inadequate waste management and poor health and educational services.

They have also promised that water will be free and that subsidies will halve electricity prices–neither of which the government can afford to finance (as Modi indirectly pointed out in a speech on Monday), even if Kejriwal achieves his aim of cutting costs by curbing corruption. There is also to be free city-wide wi-fi availability and 1.5 million CCTV cameras in every lane and road, and an improved Lok Pal (parliament) anti-corruption ombudsman.

All this would be difficult enough to achieve if Kejriwal’s government controlled all the services, but it does not. Power is shared with the central government, which controls the police and law and order through a lieutenant governor reporting to the Home Ministry, and land acquisition and planning, which is run by the central government’s (deeply corrupt) Urban Development Ministry. Capital cities in some other countries have similar arrangements designed primarily to protect the operations of central government from the vagaries of state-level politics.

There have been calls for many years for Delhi to become a full state. The BJP saw it as a vote winner among the Delhi electorate and included it in its general election manifesto last year, but did not have it in its “vision document” for last week’s elections, presumably because it did not want to risk an AAP administration having control over government offices and residential accommodation. Kejriwal however lodged the claim with Modi, when the two had tea on Saturday.

How Modi responds to this and to his government’s overall relations with the Kejriwal administration will in many way define his prime ministerial legacy. Will he co-operate, as he needs to do with all state chief ministers irrespective of their political party, or will he try to undermine Kejriwal and others that are not in the BJP?

His personal mission is to build a strong India, and that includes tackling all the issues of governance, infrastructure and public services that need urgent attention in Delhi and the states. And that surely should lead him as the country’s leader to co-operate with Kejriwal.

John Elliott’s new book is IMPLOSION: India’s Tryst with Reality (HarperCollins, India). This article first appeared at ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com.

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Spyware Embedded by U.S. in Foreign Networks, Security Firm Says

By NICOLE PERLROTH and DAVID E. SANGER

New York Times

FEB. 16, 2015

SAN FRANCISCO — The United States has found a way to permanently embed surveillance and sabotage tools in computers and networks it has targeted in Iran, Russia, Pakistan, China, Afghanistan and other countries closely watched by American intelligence agencies, according to a Russian cybersecurity firm.

In a presentation of its findings at a conference in Mexico on Monday, Kaspersky Lab, the Russian firm, said that the implants had been placed by what it called the “Equation Group,” which appears to be a veiled reference to the National Security Agency and its military counterpart, United States Cyber Command.

It linked the techniques to those used in Stuxnet, the computer worm that disabled about 1,000 centrifuges in Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. It was later revealed that Stuxnet was part of a program code-named Olympic Games and run jointly by Israel and the United States.

Kaspersky’s report said that Olympic Games had similarities to a much broader effort to infect computers well beyond those in Iran. It detected particularly high infection rates in computers in Iran, Pakistan and Russia, three countries whose nuclear programs the United States routinely monitors.

Some of the implants burrow so deep into the computer systems, Kaspersky said, that they infect the “firmware,” the embedded software that preps the computer’s hardware before the operating system starts. It is beyond the reach of existing antivirus products and most security controls, Kaspersky reported, making it virtually impossible to wipe out.

In many cases, it also allows the American intelligence agencies to grab the encryption keys off a machine, unnoticed, and unlock scrambled contents. Moreover, many of the tools are designed to run on computers that are disconnected from the Internet, which was the case in the computers controlling Iran’s nuclear enrichment plants.

Kaspersky noted that of the more than 60 attack groups it was tracking in cyberspace, the so-called Equation Group “surpasses anything known in terms of complexity and sophistication of techniques, and that has been active for almost two decades.”

Kaspersky Lab was founded by Eugene Kaspersky, who studied cryptography at a high school co-sponsored by the K.G.B. and once worked for the Russian military. Its studies, including one describing a cyberattack of more than 100 banks and other financial institutions in 30 countries, are considered credible by Western experts.

The fact that security software made by Kaspersky Lab is not used by many American government agencies has made it more trusted by other governments, like those of Iran and Russia, whose systems are closely watched by United States intelligence agencies. That gives Kaspersky a front-row seat to America’s digital espionage operations.

The firm’s researchers say that what makes these attacks particularly remarkable is their way of attacking the actual firmware of the computers. Only in rare cases are cybercriminals able to get into the actual guts of a machine.

Recovering from a cyberattack typically involves wiping the computer’s operating system and reinstalling software, or replacing a computer’s hard drive. But if the firmware gets infected, security experts say, it can turn even the most sophisticated computer into a useless piece of metal.

In the past, security experts have warned about “the race to the bare metal” of a machine. As security around software has increased, criminals have looked for ways to infect the actual hardware of the machine. Firmware is about the closest to the bare metal you can get — a coveted position that allows the attacker not only to hide from antivirus products but also to reinfect a machine even if its hard drive is wiped.

“If the malware gets into the firmware, it is able to resurrect itself forever,” Costin Raiu, a Kaspersky threat researcher, said in the report. “It means that we are practically blind and cannot detect hard drives that have been infected with this malware.”

The possibility of such an attack is one that math researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a branch of the Commerce Department, have long cautioned about but have very rarely seen. In an interview last year, Andrew Regenscheid, a math researcher at the institute, warned that such attacks were extremely powerful. If the firmware gets corrupted, Mr. Regenscheid said, “your computer won’t boot up and you can’t use it. You have to replace the computer to recover from that attack.”

That kind of attack also makes for a powerful encryption-cracking tool, Mr. Raiu noted, because it gives attackers the ability to capture a machine’s encryption password, store it in “an invisible area inside the computer’s hard drive” and unscramble a machine’s contents.

Kaspersky’s report also detailed the group’s efforts to map out so-called air-gapped systems that are not connected to the Internet, including Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, and infect them using a USB stick. To get those devices onto the machines, the report said, the attackers have in some cases intercepted them in transit.

Documents revealed by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden detailed the agency’s plans to leap the “air gaps” that separate computers from the outside world, including efforts to install specialized hardware on computers being shipped to a target country. That hardware can then receive low-frequency radio waves broadcast from a suitcase-size device that the N.S.A. has deployed around the world. At other times the air gaps have been leapt by having a spy physically install use a USB stick to infect the adversary’s computer.

Basing its estimate on the time stamps in code, the Kaspersky presentation said, the Equation Group had been infecting computers since 2001, but aggressively began ramping up their capabilities in 2008, the year that President Obama was elected, and began doubling down on digital tools to spy on adversaries of America.

While the United States has never acknowledged conducting any offensive cyberoperations, President Obama discussed the issue in general in an interview on Friday with Re/code, an online computer industry publication, describing offensive cyberweapons as being unlike traditional weapons.

“This is more like basketball than football, in the sense that there’s no clear line between offense and defense,” said Mr. Obama, himself a basketball player. “Things are going back and forth all the time.”

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Standing ovation for Nurul Nuha at maiden ceramah in Penang

BY LOOI SUE-CHERN

The Malaysian Insider

17 February 2015

Nurul Nuha Anwar received a standing ovation and cheers when she arrived at her first ceramah in Penang last night.

The crowd of more than 500 people stood up and clapped when they saw her walk into the Han Chiang school hall, where a tribute was being held for her father.

PAS deputy president Mohamad Sabu, who was addressing the crowd, had to stop when Nurul Nuha, the second daughter of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, walked in.

They cheered loudly, drowning out Mohamad, better known as Mat Sabu.

Nurul Nuha, the soft-spoken 31-year-old, stumbled a little at the beginning of her maiden speech in Penang, her father’s home state, but the crowd cheered her on.

She began by telling the crowd she had a message from her father.

“I send my Papa’s greetings to all of you in Penang… he asks that you do not despair, and not give up the fight against corruption, tyranny and oppression.

“He is still in high spirits and we hope you will pray for him and help him keep the struggle alive.

“Papa is detained because he speaks the truth and he fights against the regime… his message is clear. We will fight until we have a better country,” she said, adding that her family missed Anwar, his voice, jokes and hugs.

She paused a while to ask for some water. Nurul Nuha then told the crowd that she was no politician and did not have the stamina to give long speeches.

Nurul Nuha, who heads the “March to Freedom” campaign to free Anwar, also urged the people to join the campaign and send postcards with messages of encouragement to her father in the Sungai Buloh prison.

“This campaign is not just to free my father. It is also to free all from injustice,” she said.

Anwar was sentenced to five years in prison last week after failing to overturn his sodomy conviction. Without a royal pardon, he will lose his Permatang Pauh parliamentary seat.

DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang said Malaysia had gone backward with Anwar’s second sodomy conviction.

He urged the people to use their democratic power to save Anwar by taking Barisan Nasional out of Putrajaya in the next general election.

“That is our battle cry. Topple Umno, topple BN and free Anwar Ibrahim,” Lim told the crowd.

“He will carry out his destiny to be the prime minister of Malaysia,” he said at the “Solidarity with Anwar” tribute.

To achieve that, he said all Pakatan Rakyat leaders have the duty to save PR and keep the coalition together.

DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said the Permatang Pauh by-election, which would take place when Anwar is disqualified as MP, would not be easy.

He urged the people to teach BN a lesson in the polls and give Anwar victory.

“It won’t be easy but we will work hard and persevere,” he said, also warning that Umno would try to split PR.

Mat Sabu said PR had lost three leaders in less than a year – DAP national chairman Karpal Singh who was killed in an accident in April, Anwar who was sent to prison last Tuesday, and PAS spiritual adviser Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, who died at age 84 last Thursday.

“Without them, will PR fall? No!

“Umno keeps playing up this story because they know if PR falls, they will be safe. If we are united, out you go, BN.”

Mat Sabu said BN was in trouble with its main component parties Gerakan, MCA and MIC losing their ground.

“Nik Aziz said years ago that without MCA and MIC, Umno itself will be finished.

“Umno’s weapon is racism… apa Cina mau, boycott peniaga Cina (what more do the Chinese want, boycott Chinese traders),” he said.

Mat Sabu warned the people that falling for Umno’s racist games would only give the party life.

“In the Permatang Pauh by-election, Umno will play the race card again.

“PAS will work hard. PAS will support PKR’s candidate whoever the party decides to field,” he said as the majority-Chinese crowd applauded him. – February 17, 2015.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 17 February 2015, 7:31 am and is filed under
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Will Cabinet meet tomorrow to resolve once and for all Ismail Sabri’s racist call to Malay consumers to boycott Chinese businesses or will the Cabinet play truant and will not meet at all or will meet but evade the issue?

Will the Cabinet meet tomorrow to resolve once and for all the Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri’s racist call to Malay consumers to boycott Chinese businesses which had dragged out for two-and-a-half-weeks without acceptable solution and conclusion or will the Cabinet play truant on the ground that it is Chinese New Year Eve and will not meet at all or will meet but evade the issue?

I do not know whether to laugh or to cry when it was reported that Ismail Sabri had said he would not attend the Chinese New Year event held in his Bera constituency in Pahang as  the “brouhaha” over his racist fulminations calling on Malay consumers  to boycott Chinese businesses has yet to die down.

He claimed that he had received a tip off that if he attended the Chinese New Year event, DAP supporters may attend too and some may throw objects at him.

This is his second  reckless and irresponsible statement in a matter of weeks, reinforcing the question as to his fitness to continue as a Minister for all Malaysians in a plural nation like Malaysia.

It reminds of the Chinese idiom of “mouthing blood to smear people”, a most despicable and dishonourable act by anyone, not just by a person holding the  high status of being a Cabinet Minister of the land!

Bera DAP officials were spot-on when in their denial that  there were any such a plot and  accused Ismail of being  guilty of “yi xiao ren zhi xin du jun zhi zhi fu” (gauge the heart of a gentleman with one’s own mean measure).

Ismail has again made history, but a most dubious and dishonourable one, of being the first Minister in the country who dare not grace the festivities of another community because of his most recent racist fulminations which were rightly regarded as a baseless and unsolicited slur and attack on the Chinese community, when the problem of price increases is not an ethnic question and should not be seen from any racial lens.

Is Ismail proud of being the first Minister who dare not show his face at a Chinese New Year event because of imaginary fears of being thrown objects, despite having bodyguards and escorts at public expense?

This is a tragedy of the utter failure of Malaysian nation-building after 58 years of the nation’s Merdeka – further proof that the country is going backwards instead of going forwards.

Ismail has still to  retract and apologise for his racist statement calling on Malay consumers to boycott Chinese businesses or be removed from Cabinet, although the issue is no more about Ismail but how and why the 35-Minister Cabinet could sanction, condone and defend Ismail at the first meeting on the issue and continue to be indecisive and useless in unable to take a stand on  the great issues of Right and Wrong.

It is not worth wasting any more time or arguments to try to convince Ismail Sabri that his cant and hypocrisy is completely unacceptable and intolerable  to right-thinking Malaysians, and his claim that he does not regret or apologise for his racist statement calling on Malay consumers to boycott Chinese businesses, but only regret that responses to  his statement had taken a racial slant is not adding salt to injury.

In other words, he is claiming that everybody else is wrong, except him!

I do not think Ismail Sabri could convince primary school students with such illogic, shallow and ridiculous arguments.

The bigger question is why the 35-Minister Cabinet could not grasp what even primary school children can see immediately, that Ismail had been guilty of irresponsible racialism when he called on Malay consumers to boycott Chinese businesses.

If Ismail is not prepared to retract and apologise for his racist call on Malay consumers to boycott Chinese businesses, the country should move on – not to forget about the subject, but to demand full explanation from all the other Cabinet Ministers, whether UMNO, MCA, MIC, Gerakan or the Sabah and Sarawak BN component parties,   and the Prime Minister to explain how they could sanction, condone and defend Ismail’s rabid racialism.

Ismail and the entire 35-Minister Cabinet have only themselves to blame if the Ismail Sabri episode competes with other issues like Anwar’s jailing as one of the top conversation topics during the forthcoming  Chinese New Year holidays.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 17 February 2015, 1:21 pm and is filed under
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With old guards bowing out, how will Barisan and Pakatan change?

BY ANISAH SHUKRY

The Malaysian Insider

17 February 2015

Old guards in Malaysia’s political parties are slowly leaving the scene paving the way for younger leaders to come forward, but between the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) and the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR), the pace of rejuvenation differs vastly.

Both sides have hugely respected and influential stalwarts but the number has dwindled down to one each – in BN, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah is the sole veteran still in active politics as Gua Musang MP and in PR, Gelang Patah MP Lim Kit Siang is still DAP adviser.

In PR, there is potential now for younger leaders to rise and develop even more responsibilities with the passing of PAS’s Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat and DAP’s Karpal Singh, as well as the incarceration of PKR de factor leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

In BN, party’s top posts are filled with second-generation leaders, such as Datuk Seri Najib Razak, the Umno president and prime minister, and Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, an Umno vice-president and defence minister.

But the crucial difference between the two coalitions was that with BN, the party’s rejuvenation process seems to have come to an abrupt stop with Najib’s generation, while in PR, younger leaders continue to join the coalition and rise up the ranks, analysts said.

“In PR, the passing of Nik Aziz and Anwar’s incarceration do give room for new leaders to come forward, like PKR’s Mohamed Azmin Ali, Nurul Izzah Anwar and Rafizi Ramli,” Ibrahim Suffian, the director of independent pollster Merdeka Centre, told The Malaysian Insider, referring to PAS spiritual adviser Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat and opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

“But in BN, although there is some semblance of desire for change and to allow younger leaders to come forward, the party is still largely in the hands of longstanding leaders and the process of transition is not happening,” he said.

He said that while PR’s doors have always been open for new blood to come forward, the same could not be said for BN, where power among the incumbent leaders was guarded jealously and former politicians still held sway over the party.

“BN did try to field younger candidates in the last general election, but they all lost out.

“At this point, the only way younger leaders would play an active role in the party is for BN to lose the elections.

“The older leaders who occupy the powerful positions are working very hard to keep the power in their hands,” said Ibrahim.

On the other hand, PR was more open to younger talent because it was still trying to break BN’s stranglehold on power.

“This leads to more changes in leadership, especially the lower- and middle-party structure. I think this increases the potential for young people to be given a chance to move forward.”

Old guards still influential

Despite the gradual passing of the old guard, the party culture may not change so soon.

Ibrahim said that both coalitions were still largely under the sway of veteran politicians.

Dr Lim Teck Ghee, the director of the Centre for Policy Initiatives, agreed, adding that Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Anwar still exerted influence over their respective coalitions and remained a factor in Malaysian politics.

However, both played different roles, with Dr Mahathir seemingly breaking ranks from BN in criticising Najib, and Anwar focusing on making sure PR remained intact.

Lim said even as the old guards phased out from both parties, some things would remain the same in PR and BN in that views on ethnic and religious sentiments would still shape the party culture.

“Authoritarianism, bad or mis-governance, corruption are out – young voters are idealistic and want more from their leaders.

“At the same time, the young vote will be wooed for its ethnic and religious sentiment by both first- and second-tier leaders.

“So while there will be some changes in style and substance, much will remain the same,” he said.

In the case of BN component parties, he said even the “so-called new guard” may be out of touch with reality because of the privilege and affluence of these parties, having been in power for a long time.

“BN’s component parties have been stuck with the same faces who have made their way up the political ladder over the years by mouthing the same ideas and rhetoric, and by sticking closely to the party line.

“If they had stepped out of line by not sticking to the script, they would not have made their way up the ladder,” Lim said.

In contrast, PR was able to attract new faces because it did not have the baggage of history as a relative newcomer to the political arena.

“Also, being in the opposition has meant that individual members in PR can articulate their own views on developments more freely and with less concern about their own position or other possible repercussions,” Lim added.

Attracting the young

Professor Dr Arnold Puyok, a political science lecturer from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak concurred, saying that while PR had its old guards, their influence was not as deeply entrenched as with BN.

“The new and young leaders in PR are also given the opportunity to thrive without much control by the ‘seniors’,” he said.

Beyond the age factor, what mattered most to the electorate were ideas offered by politicians, Ibrahim said.

“What really is important is the authenticity of the leaders’ ideas, the genuineness of their struggle and their ability to articulate public concerns.

“Content is far more important than the actual age of the person. We have a very young electorate now and they want politics of ideas and policies, rather than personalities.”

DAP veteran leader Lim Kit Siang told The Malaysian Insider that now was the time for the younger generation to come forward and assume responsibilities in the party.

“I think this is a good opportunity for the older generation to give way to the post-Merdeka generation. And to be more in touch with the hopes and aspirations of the youth,” said the Gelang Patah MP.

On the eve of his incarceration last week, Anwar, who is the PKR de facto chief, had also conceded that the future of the opposition coalition lay with its younger leaders.

“Sometimes, the older leadership is dragged down by issues that are old and outdated… it is important that we give way to the young leadership in PR, because they are more forward looking,” Anwar had told more than 1,000 supporters in Dataran Petaling Jaya.

“We should ensure that this new and young group can see the future of Malaysia with confidence, and not with outdated mindsets that can pit one against each other.”

Last year, Najib had similarly called for the young to be given the opportunity to be in the Umno leadership, but Khairy Jamaluddin, who is the party’s Youth chief, had noted that the president’s calls for rejuvenation was threatening to split the party apart.

Khairy told the Umno general assembly in November that many party leaders now viewed the youth with hostility and feared they would be replaced by the younger generation.

Najib’s bid to attract younger leaders does not reflect on his choice of ministers – the present average age of the Malaysian cabinet is 58.5 years, with more than half the Cabinet older than 60. – February 17, 2015.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 17 February 2015, 10:34 am and is filed under
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Wong Chen: Why you should sign the petition!

By Martin Jalleh

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 17 February 2015, 4:35 pm and is filed under
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Anwar will not be forgotten

– P. Ramakrishnan

The Malaysian Insider

18 February 2015

We are here to send a clear message that opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim will not be forgotten. What he stood for and fought for will not be forgotten. The injustice and abuse that was inflicted on him will not be forgotten.

If anything, all this will be remembered and kept alive. And someone will pay for it. There is no doubt about it.

Whether inside or outside prison, Anwar is a force to be reckoned with. Charismatic and effective leaders will not disappear from the consciousness of the nation or from the memory of grateful citizens.

They locked up Gandhi and Martin Luther King many times. But they could not stifle what they stood for; they could not prevent their ideas and struggle from perpetuating on their own steam.

You can imprison a man but you cannot imprison his spirit; you cannot imprison his ideas; you cannot imprison the ideals he stands for.

So it will be with Anwar! No force or power can halt this determined struggle to bring about a change in government.

Why Anwar was targeted relentlessly?

It was GE12 in 2008 that put the fear of the people into the hearts of Umno and the BN. Never in their wildest dreams did they think that their two-thirds majority would ever be denied. Neither did anyone for that matter! That was their unchallenged political domain for more than half a century.

When this happened, their worst nightmare began to haunt them. For the first time, they trembled and realised that they could be displaced from their seat of power. For the first time, they really feared that Putrajaya was under serious threat. The unbelievable was staring at them as a real possibility.

They got the fright of their lives. This man, this Anwar, would spell their doom and they would be forced to make way for Pakatan Rakyat to take over Putrajaya!

He had to be silenced; he had to be put away for good. That was when the despicable plot was hatched.

According to available records, Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan  was met by a police personnel from the Prime Minister’s Department.

Two days later, on June 24, 2008, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s ex-aide Khairil  Anas accompanied Saiful to the then deputy prime minister Anwar’s residence in Taman Duta. They met for twenty minutes.

Shafee was there on that day and at that time. He claimed that he was in one corner of the house and did not participate in the discussion. Don’t you draw any conclusions; it was a sheer coincidence!

Then on June 28, 2008, Saiful made his police report that he was sodomised by Anwar on June 26, 2008. This incident was supposed to have taken place two days after meeting the DPM.

I don’t want to make any inference; I don’t want to implicate anybody; I don’t want to impute anything. I’m just stating what was reported. That is all.

On 8 March 2013, the father of Saiful publicly admitted that Anwar’s second sodomy charge was an “evil political conspiracy” involving his son. This was mentioned at a press conference, as reported.

According to Azlan Mohd Lazim, “the conspiracy was planned by a special officer in the Prime Minister’s Department and was engineered to tarnish Anwar’s image with another sodomy charge…”

“Everything was planned in great detail by a special officer in the PM’s Department,” he alleged.

“Even the script I read during the press conference after Anwar’s sodomy acquittal last year was prepared by this officer.”

Azlan apologised to Anwar and his family over the incident, admitting the episode had put them through much pain and suffering.

Azlan added that his sudden defence of Anwar, five years after Anwar was charged in court, comes after years of compiling information on the case, both during the sodomy trial and from details delivered to him from outside informers.

He said the truth was finally clear to him.

But strangely and inexplicably, on May 1, 2013, this very Azlan retracted his apology to Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, saying his son Saiful Bukhari’s sodomy complaint against the opposition leader was not a plot.

“Today, I retract my apology to Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and stress that my son’s sodomy case is true.”

“It isn’t a political conspiracy,” he told a press conference at a hotel.

However, he did not retract the role played by the special officer from the Prime Minister’s Department. There was no mention of that.

Coincidentally, police personnel from the Prime Minister’s Department were also involved in the murder of Mongolian woman Altantuya Shariibuu. But I am not saying anything to link these two cases in any way. It is just a coincidence, I suppose!

Anwar’s guilty verdict was world news. The reaction was one of disbelief.

The court’s decision was immediately criticised by the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Germany, and Switzerland, among others, as well as the European Union.

They all concluded that the verdict raised major questions about the independence of the Malaysian judiciary.

Inter-Parliamentary Union observer and Queen’s Counsel Mark Trowell, who was also an observer for Lawasia and the Australian Law Council, described the judgment as “superficial, failing to adequately deal with key issues brought up by the defence team”.

In the most damning statement of all, Trowell said, “If the court had proper regard to the facts and the law, Anwar Ibrahim should never have been convicted.”

Shafee had taken all of them to task and had said that they would eat humble pie when the full judgment was released.

Shafee lambasted the foreign dignitaries and correspondents for criticising the verdict. Shafee called on all these good people to read the full judgment to understand the verdict.

But Shafee should not believe that he is the only brainy one around and that the rest are unable to comprehend the judgment. Let’s not forget that diplomatic people, foreign dignitaries and correspondents had diligently followed the case and they are very familiar as to what transpired in the court. They had witnessed how Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram effectively demolished and shredded the prosecution’s arguments until they had no leg to stand on.

In an unprecedented departure from the norm, in an unethical and unprofessional manner, the de facto Deputy Public Prosecutor, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, accused the imprisoned Anwar of hiding behind a skirt.

Someone rightly observed that it was offensive to accuse Anwar of “hiding behind a skirt”. He noted “hiding behind a skirt” was far better than “chasing after a skirt”.

Shafee gloated that if Anwar had been on the witness stand his torrent of questions would have been so relentless that Anwar would have been cut to pieces.

He boasted, “I think he would have fainted in the witness box because he wouldn’t be able to explain a lot of things…”

When Anwar is behind bars and defenceless to rebut and reply, there is nothing heroic about Shafee’s gloating. Will he take on Anwar in a public debate and face him like a gentleman and argue his case?

In fact, I would, on your behalf and on behalf of all the Friends of Freedom and Justice in Malaysia, like to throw this challenge at Shafee: Would you dare take on Anwar in an open debate? Would you have the gumption to face Anwar and take him on? That would be a courageous thing to do unlike the vile attack directed at Anwar when he is not able to respond.

I ask again, “Would you dare?”

If you dare not, then you should stop making all these villainous and vicious attacks to vilify him. It does no credit to you; it does not enhance your reputation; it does not glorify you.

But, in all fairness, I must refer you to another debate on July 15, 2008, between Communication and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek and Anwar. Malaysians still remember the frothing Shabery Cheek at the debate!

There is one common factor between 1998 and now. When Anwar was first arrested and locked up in 1998, he was cowardly assaulted by the Inspector-General of Police, who almost beat him to death.

And now, soon after his imprisonment, Anwar is being assailed by another cowardly onslaught, this time verbally.

Both were intended to inflict maximum pain and damage to Anwar.

Friends, they have done everything to humiliate, disgrace and silence Anwar. But Anwar will not be forgotten. That much we owe to him and the nation.

Friends of Freedom and Justice, we must not only free Anwar; we must free the nation from the shackles of tyranny. We must not only free Anwar, we must also free ourselves from the oppression and the suppression. Let the bells of freedom ring to high heaven.

Let the word go forth from here and now: we will not be cowed; we will not be bullied; we will not be intimidated!

There will be no escaping from the verdict of the people come GE14 for the Barisan Nasional (BN). This unjust and unfair treatment of Anwar will be the undoing of the BN.

The BN should take notice. Imprisoning Anwar Ibrahim will not safeguard its fortune or future. The BN has brought upon itself its own destruction by hounding this man for almost 17 years. There is a price to pay for it. It will be paid!

The struggle for freedom comes with a price. The struggle for justice comes with sacrifice. This struggle will continue uninterrupted, unperturbed and unimpeded until a new dawn shines on Malaysia welcoming the establishment of a new government. – February 18, 2015.

*P. Ramakrishnan is an executive committee member of human rights group Aliran.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 18 February 2015, 12:09 pm and is filed under
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Controversial Malaysian Investment Fund’s Computer Records Wiped Off

By Our Correspondent

Asia Sentinel

February 15, 2015

All computers and servers at 1Malaysia Development Bhd, the troubled investment fund backed by Malaysia’s Ministry of Finance, were called in and wiped clean just before the end of last year, the investigative blog Sarawak Report reported on Feb. 13.

1MDB employees told the blog that all computers and records at the fund were called in and cleaned, including personal computers and mainframe servers, supposedly because the fund’s system was hacked.

The chief economic advisor of the fund, which was started in 2009, is Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.  It reportedly faces RMB43 billion (US$12.01 billion) in debt and has been unable to meet loan payment dates several times. It was forced to go to Bank Negara, the country’s central bank, to ask for an extension in the payment dates, raising concern that its financial problems could threaten the entire Malaysian banking system. The bulk of the loans were made by the government-linked Malayan Banking Bhd or Maybank, and RHB Bank.

Sources confirmed the story to Asia Sentinel but the reason for the action appears unclear. It may stem from the fact that Sarawak Report, which is published by Clare Rewcastle Brown, announced last September that she had access to the fund’s emails.

One businessman said the decision to clean out the files could also pertain to a later defamation lawsuit filed against Taek Jho Low, the young tycoon who convinced Prime Minister Najib to create the fund. Low is being sued by businessman and publisher Tong Kooi Ong, who was the subject of anonymous blog attacks after his publication, The Edge, carried extensive and biting coverage of 1MDB’s crisis ridden business affairs.  If Tong’s lawyers were to file a motion for discovery to obtain the fund’s internal emails, they are now gone

The order came as a surprise move by management, sources told Sarawak Report.  The staff members said  they were contacted directly by phone or in person and told to take their computers immediately to the IT section in order to be wiped. None of the instructions were delivered by text or email, leaving little record of the blitz, which took place in the space of just a few hours.

The result is that there are few records left available to show what has been going on at the beleaguered fund and this is widely believed amongst staff to be the reason.  One of them sent out this message on the day it happened, which was Friday 19th of December, a fortnight before the departure of the previous CEO Mohd Hazem Abdul Rahman:

“1MDB has been collecting employee laptops and company-issued hand phones today. Staff were contacted in person or by phone call and informed to hand them in to IT. No emails or text messages were sent. On asking the reason for the hand-in staff were advised that there has been a hacking attempt and that therefore the company is collecting all laptops and handphones in order to (wipe the discs clean) before they are returned. Parallel to that the main servers are being wiped. If you try to email a 1MDB employee now the email will bounce back as undeliverable. Obviously the reason given is incredulous[sic] to say the least.”

IT experts told Sarawak report that the excuse of a hacking attempt is rarely a reason for wiping information from servers.

This snap decision to expunge all past records and emails from all staff computers and handheld devices as well as the organization’s mainframe computers will inevitably raise questions about whether management were trying to conceal potentially embarrassing information before the handover.

Numerous questions have been asked for several months from all quarters about the hundreds of missing millions from the fund, which were raised from public borrowing.

In September, Sarawak Report disclosed that it has been given access to emails, which indicated the extent of the involvement of tycoon Jho Low in 1MDB’s decision-making processes. An emailed directive was later sent out to all staff confirming the situation that all data pre-19 Dec. 2014 is no longer retrievable.

“It is an internal email” one staff member told Sarawak Report. “It says that as part of the wipe all 1MDB HQ emails have been re-configured. All emails prior to 19DEC14 are permanently wiped”.

1MDB has been the subject of considerable speculation of more thanUS$1 billion, which is said is in a redeemable Cayman Islands account, having been allegedly repaid to the fund by the company PetroSaudi, which originally received the loan.

The former CEO of 1MDB claimed at the end of last year that this money was being repatriated to help fund pressing debt repayments to Malaysian banks on the billions borrowed.  When he took over the job in January the new CEO was first quoted as saying that all the money had indeed been returned.  However, the fund has acknowledged the money has not been returned, allegedly because the low level of the dollar makes it a bad time to attempt to return the money .

Instead, business tycoon Ananda Krishnan is being pressured to stump up RM2billion to prevent 1MDB defaulting on its loans on Feb. 18, which would plunge the Malaysian economy into crisis.  The escalating crisis has led to an increasingly poisonous atmosphere politically. Both opposition politicians and increasingly leaders from Najib’s own United Malays National Organization are demanding accountability and an explanation as to how such a vast debt could have accumulated out of borrowings in just five years.

In particular, former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and his close friend and ally, the former Finance Minister Daim Zainuddin, have been leading critics inside UMNO. Surrogate bloggers closely allied with Mahathir have been saying Najib must go.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 18 February 2015, 10:37 am and is filed under
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DAP’s SSS (Support Sympathy Solidarity) Anwar Ceramah has 3SAVE objectives – to save Anwar from prison, to save Pakatan Rakyat from disintegration and to save Malaysia from becoming a “failed state”

This is the third DAP SSS (Support Sympathy Solidarity) Anwar Ibrahim Ceramah, the first in Taman Cheras Jaya in Selangor on Sunday and the second at the Han Chiang School Hall in Penang last night.

DAP proposes to organize hundreds of SSS Anwar ceramahs, vigils, gatherings and events throughout the country in the next three years before the 14th General Elections with 3Save objectives – firstly, to save Anwar from prison, secondly to save Pakatan Rakyat from disintegration and thirdly, to save Malaysia from becoming a “failed state”.

Anwar has exhausted the judicial process and lost out when the Federal Court returned a shocking 5-0 unanimous decision to dismiss Anwar’s appeal, as even the most pessimistic about Anwar’s chances believing that he would lose in the Federal Court appeal had expected either a 3-2 verdict or at worst a 4-1 decision.

Everybody was floored by the  unanimous 5-0 decision.  There were not only no dissenting judgment, there was no other judgment from the five-member Federal Court quorum, apart from the single judgment by the  Chief Justice, Tun Arifin Zakaria!

Anwar may have lost in the courts of the Malaysian judiciary, but he has won two battles in the first week of his five-year jail sentence – firstly, the court of public opinion in Malaysia and secondly, the court of international opinion, as it  will not be  easy to find another Federal Court judgment in the past two decades which had met with such instant universal condemnation, not only inside the country but  also outside.

Foreign governments like United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Germany,  Switzerland (which declared that it would raise Anwar’s jailing at the next meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva), the European Union; international legal, parliamentary and human rights organisations like the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, International Federation for Human Rights, LAWASIA and the Law Council of Australia and international press like Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the Economist have all spoken up to condemn the Federal Court decision.

Anwar’s case ranks with two other cases in Malaysia as the top trio which embodied the greatest travesty of justice.

The second case is the murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu.

The latest news in Malaysiakini today is about  former police commando Sirul Azhar Umar, who is a fugitive in Australia  from the hangman’s noose after being found guilty together with another former police commando Azilah Hadri,  of the 2006 murder of Altantuya, whose remains were blown up with C4 explosives.

Malaysiakini reported that in a telephone conversation, Sirul said he  is considering the possibility of “telling all” about the murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu, as he was “acting under orders” in the murder of Altantuya and “the important people” with motive to murder Altatunya “are still free”.

Although the courts did not establish the motive for the murder of Altantuya when convicting Sirul and Azila of the murder and handing down the death sentence for both, public interests demand that the motive for the Altantuya be probed and established as both police commandos have not known Altantuya in the first place and have no motive of their own to kill her.

I belive that most  Malaysians believe  that if Sirul and Azila have to be sent to the gallows for the murder of Altantuya, it will be a gross travesty of justice if the “mastermind” of Altantuya’s murder  gets away scot-free as  this “mastermind” must join Sirul and Azila in the death row.

The third case is the death of DAP aide Teoh Beng Hock at the MACC headquarters in Shah Alam on July 16, 2009, which remains a mystery as nobody believed that Beng Hock had any cause or reason to commit suicide by jumping off the 14th floor of MACC headquarters to his death.

I stand by what I said at Teoh Beng Hock’s  fifth death  anniversary, that he was killed by person or persons unknown and his killers are still large, and justice demand that Beng Hock’s killer or killers be identified and brought to justice.

The first objective SSS Anwar campaign is to “Save Anwar” who is facing ten-year political oblivion, i.e. five years of jail sentence followed by another five years of disenfranchisement of his civil rights, where he could not stand for elective office or even to exercise his constitutional right to vote.

If the voters stand united and vote out the UMNO/Barisan Nasional from Putrajaya in the 14th General Election and the Pakatan Rakyat forms the new Federal Government of Malaysia, then the conditions will be there for  Anwar to regain his freedom and even to fulfil his destiny as the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

The second SSS Anwar objective is to “Save Pakatan Rakyat”. UMNO strategists see the death of Tok Guru Nik Aziz, as the opportunity to revive their “Unity Government” (UG) proposal to destroy the Pakatan Rakyat, as during his lifetime Nik Aziz had uncompromisingly opposed any idea of UG.

This is why UMNO and BN leaders want the Chempaka by-election to be uncontested purportedly as a mark of respect for Nik Aziz while they will go out in the Permatang Pauh parliamentary by-election in Penang.

This is indeed a most astounding turn of events, for UMNO to talk about showing respect to Nik Aziz when for 23 years, UMNO and Barisan Nasional had discriminated against the PAS Kelantan state government in terms of infrastructure development, and the most heinous example is the denial of RM12 billion oil and gas royalty to the Kelantan State Government from 2005.

If UMNO really respects Nik Aziz, then Najib should immediately announce the return of the RM12 billion oil and gas royalty to the Kelantan State Government.

The return of RM12 billion of oil and gas royalty to Kelantan State Government would work out to returning RM7,000 per capita to the 1.7 million population of Kelantan, which is not a small amount considering that the per capita GDP at current prices of Kelantan is  the lowest and poorest in the country – in the region of  RM10,000.

The return of RM12 billion oil and gas royalty to Kelantan is more meaningful than just UMNO staying out of the Chempaka state assembly by-election in Kelantan, as ther latter will only allow the UMNO conspirators to continue to hatch their strategies and plots to divide and destroy Pakatan Rakay by luring PAS with the temptations of “Unity Government”.

I remain very intrigued however as  what the promoters of “UG government” really meant, when it is obvious to all that there is no unity in UMNO itself, with former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir going all out to topple Datuk Seri Najib Razak as Umno President and Prime Minister of Malaysia.

In fact, many are openly asking whether Najib could survive this year or even mid-year as Prime Minister in view of escalation of the internal UMNO campaign to bring him down from the highest office in the land.

To save Pakatan Rakyat, I have mooted the proposal of an Eight-Year PR Roadmap where the three PR component parties of DAP, PKR and PAS “return to basics” and reaffirm commitment to the two fundamental principles which had been the secrets of the PR success in the 2008 and 2013 General Elections – strict adherence  to the PR Common Policy Framework which had formed the bedrock common principles of the three component parties in the coalition, and the operational principle of consensus regarding the Pakatan Rakyat Leadership Council as the highest policy-making body for PR.

If we stay loyal to  these two fundamental principles, I am confident that PR stands a good chance of replacing UMNO and BN in Putrajaya in the 14th General Elections, creating the conditions for saving Anwar to enable him to meet his destiny as the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

The third SSS Anwar objective is to “Save Malaysia” from joining the ranks of a “failed state”.

Two days ago I met a Malaysian returning home from Singapore for the Chinese New Year holidays. There are about 400 employees in the  Singapore office of Microsoft, and 80 per cent of them are Malaysians.

Other countries are scouring the world for talents to lure them to contribute to their national development, but for decades Malaysia had been driving away our talents and youths overseas because they cannot find comparative employment and recognition in their own country.

The continued educational, economic and environmental decline in the country, the worsening of racial and religious polarization with the rise of extremism, bigotry and intolerance  and the unchecked  deterioration of all the indices of good governance, are threatening to turn Malaysia into a new “failed state”.

We must not allow this to happen as Malaysia continues to hold the promise of greatness with the human talents from a plural society and the natural resources that we are blessed with – which is why Malaysians must unite for the third SSS Anwar  objective to “Save Malaysia”.

(Speech at the third DAP SSS (Support Sympathy Solidarity)  Anwar ceramah at Gurun, Kedah on Tuesday, 17th February 2015 at 10 pm)

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 18 February 2015, 5:58 am and is filed under
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In the court of public opinion, is Putrajaya or Umno fighting Anwar?

COMMENTARY BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER

18 February 2015

There is a very fine line, between defending one’s party and excoriating political opponents in the battle for the hearts and minds of the electorate. And all the more so when it comes to a criminal case.

Sixteen years ago, the prosecution led by then Attorney-General, Tan Sri Mokhtar Abdullah and aided by Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail, presented the state’s evidence against Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and got him convicted and jailed for sodomy and abuse of power.

Umno and specifically then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was blamed for that episode. It cost the ruling Umno and Barisan Nasional (BN) Terengganu in the 1999 general election.

But there was no roadshows to debunk political conspiracy theories by Anwar’s supporters. None. The prosecutors did their job and that was that, no matter the international outrage, public opprobrium and the weekend public protests.

Last week, the Federal Court upheld the Court of Appeal’s verdict to convict and jail Anwar for five years in another sodomy case. Again, Anwar said it was a political ploy to keep him and Pakatan Rakyat (PR) from capturing Putrajaya.

Again, there was international outrage, public opprobrium but not much public protests as most vented their spleen online and got back to their ordinary lives.

But this time, it was Umno lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah who led the prosecution at both the Court of Appeal and Federal Court levels. And this time, Umno decided to take Shafee on a roadshow to explain the verdict.

This time, Umno has crossed the fine line between defending the party against charges of political conspiracy in the case and prosecuting Anwar in the court of public opinion.

Anwar has been charged, convicted and jailed. Yet, why is there a need to get the deputy public prosecutor to explain the case to all and sundry? And even to diplomats?

The latest venture reeks of a government and a party that is not sure what their roles are in a judicial prosecution.

Putrajaya has presented its case and convinced the judges of Anwar’s guilt in both the Court of Appeal and Federal Court. Is there a need now to trot out the prosecutor and do the same in public?

Or even worse, cast aspersions to what the defence did or did not do in the trial?

Is that even the job of a public prosecutor, to further prosecute or persecute an accused beyond the law courts?

The late A-G Mokhtar Abdullah did not have to go beyond the courts to convince anyone that Anwar was guilty of a crime. His job was just to convince the judges.

His successor Gani decided to appoint Shafee to convince the judges in the appeal process in the second trial.

Shafee succeeded. So why does he have to present his case to the public now? Does he or Umno think it is a phyrric victory and therefore, they need to court public opinion now?

Shafee has done his job as deputy public prosecutor in the law courts, but taking his prosecution and the judgment on a roadshow just undermines his work.

It speaks of a party and a prosecutor trying too hard to finish off Anwar.

And it speaks of a generation of politicians and lawyers who do not have the finesses and intelligence of their predecessors in arguing a case in either the court of law or public opinion.

It also just furthers and fuels political conspiracies that Anwar had spoken of in the trial. Instead of putting Anwar away from the political stage, Umno and Shafee might have just revived the PKR chief’s career and appeal among a new generation of voters. – February 18, 2015.

– See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/in-the-court-of-public-opinion-is-putrajaya-or-umno-fighting-anwar#sthash.6pwpPToq.dpuf

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 18 February 2015, 6:07 pm and is filed under
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Malaysia’s retreat from modernity

Rakyat Times/The Australian

18 February 2015

While Malaysia’s charismatic opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was being jailed for five years for sodomy on Tuesday last week, the country’s Prime Minister, Najib Razak, was participating in the nearby launch of an index to assess levels of compliance to sharia law.

Najib said he hoped the government’s own sharia observance would become “a culture of collective practice”.

Two years ago he became the first non-Arab government head to visit Gaza. At a joint press conference with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, Najib said he came “to express my solidarity with the Palestinian people”.

A few weeks earlier, he had told a New York audience: “The problem in today’s world is not between Christians, Muslims or Jews but it’s really between the extremists and democracy.”

He said “moderation is, you know, based on certain principles and very sound values, like justice. It calls for us to be bold enough to occupy the centre stage and the moral high ground.”

He responded in part to the recent Charlie Hebdo slayings: “If you criticise other religions because of freedom, it will have severe repercussions.”

Anwar’s jailing – widely condemned by foreign governments including Australia and the US, and by legal and human rights organisations – raises questions about which is the real Najib, the real Malaysia, about how moderate, democratic and ultimately modern the country truly is.

The tragedies of Malaysia Airlines flights MH370 and MH17 served to distract international attention, for a time, from such issues and to attract sympathy instead for the government there. But Anwar’s case is refocusing interest in Malaysia’s governance and sparking a re-examination of where Southeast Asia is heading.

By some measures it is only Indonesia and The Philippines, out of the 10 countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, that today are unequivocally democratic in their governance, countenancing changes in administration following elections.

They are outnumbered by the robust democracies of north Asia – Japan, South Korea and Taiwan – and by those of south Asia – India, Pakistan and, especially triumphantly this year, Sri Lanka.

The notorious trail of charges that are exposing those Southeast Asian fault lines began when Anwar was first accused of sodomy in September 1998. This happened within days of his sacking as deputy prime minister by then all-powerful prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. He was jailed for this offence and for corruption, and spent five years in solitary confinement before being released when the Federal Court overturned his sodomy conviction in 2004.

In 2008 he was charged again with sodomy under a private prosecution led by Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, a lawyer closely associated with Umno, the party that has dominated the ruling coalition since the country’s independence from Britain in 1957.

Anwar was acquitted in 2012 but the government won on appeal, which in turn was appealed, and the conviction eventually was affirmed last Tuesday by the Federal Court.

Despite this constant drumbeat of prosecutions, Anwar constructed around his own People’s Justice Party (PKR) an opposition coalition – the Pakatan Rakyat or People’s Alliance – that has provided the most effective challenge to the ruling Umno party in Malaysia’s history. This coalition won a majority of votes at the general election in mid-2013 but was denied victory by a pro-rural gerrymander that ensured the Umno-led coalition, the Barisan Nasional, retained office.

During the election campaign Najib, seeking to cement crucial middle-class votes, had pledged to repeal the notorious Sedition Act imposed in colonial days by Britain. After retaining power, he announced the act would stay, and has used it more than 20 times to charge people for expressing “seditious” anti-government views, including in cartoons.

The director of Malaysian group Lawyers for Liberty, Eric Paulsen, said after being charged under the Sedition Act earlier this month for tweeting that the Islamic authority (Jakim) within the Prime Minister’s department was “promoting extremism” through its widely distributed Friday sermons, “We must be holding the world record for sedition charges.”

But it is becoming a leviathan task for the government to seduce or to suppress irritatingly oppositionist thinking and views.

University of NSW emeritus professor of sociology and anthropology Clive Kessler says this is in part because the government “has always seen national society as consisting of a number of culturally distinct, socially separate segments, and which has sought to keep things that way, speaking in a different voice to each of these components of the mosaic”.

Now, though, in the age of the internet, it must communicate publicly, crossing those barriers and exposing its views – including those of Jakim – “for all to see and hear”.

Criticism is also crossing boundaries. For instance, Christopher Leong, president of the Malaysian Bar, picked apart the Anwar trial after the verdict. He said it was notable that Anwar had not been charged with sexual coercion, which is provided for under the penal code. The government, however, issued a statement after the verdict claiming that the case involved “serious sexual assault”.

Instead, Anwar has been prosecuted twice and now jailed for five years, as well as being disqualified from parliament for a further five years, for what Leong described as “an alleged offence of sexual acts between adults – what seems, on its face, to be a victimless offence” – which Anwar denies took place.

The charge, Leong said, was based on a Penal Code provision “that has rarely been used”, concluding “it is a strange world that we live in”.

This is a world in which, increasingly, it is opposition leaders who are better known, especially internationally, than more authoritarian government leaders.

Aung San Suu Kyi is famous, Myanmar’s President Thein Sein certainly not. Yingluck Shinawatra is much better known than Prayut Chan-o-cha, the army chief who seized power and removed her in Thailand. In Hong Kong, student protest leader Joshua Wong has become a more famous figure internationally than government chief executive CY Leung. And Anwar is better known than Najib.

Amanda Whiting, associate director, Malaysia, of the University of Melbourne’s Asian Law Centre, tells The Australian that the Anwar case underlines how Malaysia’s judges don’t seem to be on the wavelength of “the liberal political and legal philosophy that underpins their own constitution”, which tends to be “misinterpreted or ignored”.

Increasingly, since 2008, she says, Umno “is becoming more authoritarian and also more volatile and defensive. Many of the most draconian laws have gone – sedition is a crucial exception – but the mindset has not changed.”

The latest Federal Court verdict is a shock, Whiting says, “because more appointments to the bench were being made from the private bar and recently several important civil liberties and constitutional rights cases have been decided by High Court judges against the state” – indicating the separation of judicial and executive power survives.

“Yet the decision is also distressingly predictable,” she says, “because historically the apex court of final appeal in Malaysia has been most reluctant to decide a case against the state” – including questions of religious freedom and the rights of religious minorities – “revealing a deep confusion about the judicial role in a constitutional democracy.”

This departure from proper legal process and principles is likelier, Whiting says, because the Umno government “channels political disputes into the courts, thereby inevitably distorting legal institutions and the legal process”, tying up opposition politicians and first-rate litigators – many of whom are also politicians – in protracted and pointless court preparation and appearances. Anwar has featured in more than 50 case reports since 1998; lawyer and politician Karpal Singh, who died in April last year, had been involved in nearly 40 decided cases between 1986 and 2014.

Since Mahathir started trying to “out-Islamise” opposition party PAS, Whiting says, “state institutions have been increasingly stocked with Islamic ‘triumphalists’ who look to the machinery of the state to smuggle in an interpretation of the plainly secular constitution that better aligns with their view that Malaysia either always was, or will in the future be, an Islamic state”.

The result of this last week, as Bridget Welsh, a senior research associate at the Centre for East Asia Democratic Studies of the National Taiwan University, tells The Australian, is that “Malaysia joined the ranks – again – of putting its opposition leader in jail. This is sadly common in Southeast Asia, in Myanmar, and ongoing with the persecution of Yingluck Shinawatra in Thailand.

“These measures reflect a focus on leaders rather than the issues they represent – they put off challenges, but they are temporary measures that indicate weakness, not strength.”

Rule-of-law issues in Malaysia are serious, she says. “There is the perception that the law is applied to suit those in office, not to serve justice. ?Crime has risen and the focus centres on politics rather than public safety.”

This signals the likely end of Anwar ?as a potential prime minister, thus allowing a new generation of younger leaders to rise. It also signals, she says, the difficulties Najib will face at the next polls, with this on his record.

Malaysians, Welsh says, are fed up with politics – “the nastiness of it all, the infighting rather than problem-solving. The country faces real challenges in the economy and governance, which are not receiving their due as a result of this obsession with bringing the other side down.”

Further, she says, “Malaysia’s standing globally took a big hit with this decision. As ASEAN chair and as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, this case will raise questions of hypocrisy.

“Malaysia’s standing in the area of justice and democratic governance has fallen. It has a hard time dealing with being in the shadow of a democratically confident, vibrant Indonesia, which is moving toward reform, albeit slowly” – a trend she no longer observes in Malaysia.

Malcolm Cook, senior fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, says this is a hot topic: “The momentum for democratisation in Southeast Asia that saw The Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia switch to democratic systems, Malaysian leaders post-Mahathir promise to loosen anti-democratic constraints, and Myanmar move away from the junta model, has stalled.

Democratic governments with a credible chance of a change of power through the ballot box is still not the norm for the majority of Southeast Asian countries, though given the size of The Philippine and Indonesian populations it is the norm for the majority of people in Southeast Asia.”

Thailand, for instance, reverted to military rule as the elites refused to countenance a loss of power.

In the case of Malaysia, says Cook, “it is not really a democratic roll-back or reversal but rather hopes dashed that Malaysia post-Mahathir would become a more liberal polity.”

The democratising changes in Myanmar, he says, have been more than cosmetic – “but there are concerns and signs with an election looming that these reforms have slowed down, as well as economic ones. The army is still the real power.”

The election of President Joko Widodo in Indonesia and the roll-back of a last-minute attempt to stop the direct election of candidates for local positions are strong signs, Cook says, that Indonesian democracy is consolidating.

The political class there is broadening, he says, “beyond the traditional elites that still dominate in the rest of the region, including in The Philippines. Indonesia is the beacon in the region – how very different from two decades ago.” – The Australian

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 18 February 2015, 10:21 am and is filed under
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Najib should make a ministerial statement when Parliament reconvenes on March 10 on the actual status, job specification and remuneration paid to former APCO Malaysia boss  Paul Stadlen to mastermind the Prime Minister’s communications

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak should make a ministerial statement when Parliament reconvenes on March 10 on the actual status, job specification and remuneration paid to former APCO Malaysia boss Paul Stadlen to mastermind the Prime Minister’s communications operations.

I have also sent in a specific oral question to the Prime Minister asking him to confirm the veracity of a report in the  Sarawak Report website that Paul Stadlen  is being paid millions of ringgit to mastermind his communications policy, and whether the Paul Stadlen outfit was responsible of the infamous 109-word three-paragraph statement in the name of the Prime Minister’s Office that was issued of February 10 praising the Federal Court’s decision dismissing Anwar Ibrahim’s appeal in Sodomy II, not only within minutes of the two-hour delivery of the judgment  by the Chief Justice, Tun Arifin Zakaria but before the sentence was passed!

Many questions cry out for answer.

Firstly, are there no local public relations and communications experts who could be entrusted with the responsibility of masterminding Najib’s communications policy, especially as it has been reported that Stadlen’s firm was retained by the PMO at a minimum of RM3 million a year and was also commissioned for a 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB)-related project worth another RM1.5 million?

Have we reached a stage where the Prime Minister has lost trust and confidence in Malaysian public relations and communications experts to be his P.R. Guru that he had to depend on foreigners?

Paul Stadlen’s latest masterpiece was supposed to be  the 109-word three-paragraph PMO statement before the conclusion of the Federal Court decision on Anwar’s case, but it has proved to be  the greatest public relations (PR) disaster in the nation’s history as it has only highlighted  the  lack of credibility and integrity in the administration of justice,  particularly on having true independence of judiciary and just rule of law in Malaysia

The 109-word three-paragraph PMO  statement on Feb. 10 said:

“The judges will have reached their verdict only after considering all the evidence in a balanced and objective manner.  Malaysia has an independent judiciary, and there have been many rulings against senior government servants.

“The police report against Anwar Ibrahim was brought by a private individual – Anwar’s employee and personal assistant – not by the government.  As the victim of a sexual assault, he had every right to have his case heard in court.

“In this case, exhaustive and comprehensive due process has been followed over many years. That process is now complete, and we call on all the

parties involved to respect the legal process and the judgment.”

We need not tarry on the multitude of mistakes, false notions and baseless assumptions about the rule of law and independence of the judiciary  in the 109-word three-paragraph statement reducing it to smithereens .

Suffice to say that even the worst enemies of the country could not have conceived of an ultra weapon like the 109-word three-paragraph Prime Minister’s Office statement to discredit the administration of justice, the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law in Malaysia!

The PMO office statement issued before the completion of the “exhaustive and comprehensive due process” in Anwar’s Sodomy II trial is in fact the  “smoking gun” of Executive violation of the doctrine of separation of powers and interference with the judicial independence and the rule of law.

A judgment from  the highest court of the land must be able to stand or fall on its inherent logic and cogency and superiority in its reasoning and arguments, but when the Executive had to be called in to shore up support for it  as calling on Malaysians to “respect the legal process and the judgment”, there is indeed something very rotten with administration of justice in the country!

The PMO communications team, under Paul Stadlen, acted with super-speed to defend the Federal Court’s judgment dismissing  Anwar’s appeal, even before the completion of the Federal Court judicial process.

The alacrity of the PMO statement could only mean one thing, that they were privy or at least were n the know that the Federal Court would dismiss Anwar’s appeal and sent him back to jail.

Under such circumstances, how could  the Malaysian public and the international community have confidence in a  truly independent judiciary and  just rule of law and that Anwar had a fair trial in the courts of the country?

Malaysiakin reported today that in contrast to its “lightning quick response” to the Federal Court’s verdict on Anwar’s appeal, the PMO has gone into hiding and refused to respond to press inquiries about the role, job specification and remuneration for  Paul Stadlen’s outfit.

Why suddenly so coy?

Is it because the 109-word three-paragraph PMO statement, which was supposed a “masterpiece” of PR relations, had proved to be an unmitigated disaster.

As a result, UMNO had to  dredge the bottom of the barrel to sponsor  a national road-show featuring the Prosecutor-on-fiat, Tan Sri  Mohamad Shafee Abdullah to give him licence to make the wildest of personal attacks on Anwar although the Parliamentary Opposition Leader would not able to respond as he is in jail in Sungei Buloh.

It is sad and  shocking that instead of raising the quality and ethics of political debate, UMNO is spearheading the descent to the lowest depths of unethical and most vile personal attacks.

It would appear that unable to destroy Anwar’s character and confidence  in the Sodomy II trial, Shafee is seeking to destroy Anwar’s political credibility and morality  while Anwar is in jail through a  one-sided  UMNO national roadshow of the worst personal assassinations never seen in Malaysia  – which is the basest and meanest personal political attack in nation’s history.

Najib should put a stop to such Shafee’s excesses or  it will finally redound on him.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 18 February 2015, 2:39 pm and is filed under
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