Oil rises on Goldman forecast, signs producers complying with cuts

By Scott DiSavino | NEW YORK

Reuters

Dec 16, 2016

Oil rose on Friday, edging closer to new 17-month highs, after Goldman Sachs boosted its price forecast for 2017 and producers showed signs of adhering to a global deal to reduce output.

Brent futures rose $1.19, or 2.2 percent, to settle at $55.21 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude rose $1, or 2 percent, to settle at $51.90 per barrel.

That put both contracts on track to rise for a fourth week in the last five, with Brent up around 23 percent during that time and U.S. crude up about 20 percent.

The premium of the Brent front-month over the same U.S. contract closed at $2.26 a barrel, its highest since the end of August.

“We’re up today because Goldman Sachs bumped up its oil estimates and the Russians said their oil companies would reduce output,” said Phil Davis, managing partner of venture capital fund PSW Investments in Woodland Park, New Jersey.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to reduce output by 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) from Jan. 1, its first such deal since 2008. Russia and other non-OPEC producers plan to cut about half as much.

Those deals, clinched over the past two weeks, have boosted expectations that a two-year supply overhang will clear soon and prices remain near highs last seen in July 2015.

Russia said on Friday that all of the country’s oil companies, including top producer Rosneft, had agreed to reduce output.

Other oil producers including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have notified customers that they will cut from January.

“While the market will eventually need to see some evidence of an actual reduction in output, talk of production cuts and notices of lower allocations sent to refiners are sufficient to support market sentiment for now,” Tim Evans, Citi Futures’ energy futures specialist, said in a note.

The prospect of lower production led U.S. bank Goldman Sachs to raise its WTI price forecast for the second quarter of 2017 to $57.50 per barrel from $55.

However, there are doubts about the willingness of other OPEC members to reduce output.

Iraq, OPEC’s second-biggest producer after Saudi Arabia, has signed new deals that will increase sales to Asian customers such as China and India despite its commitment to reduce output by 210,000 bpd.

Libya, which is allowed to ramp up production as part of the OPEC deal, is close to increasing output crimped by unrest after a group of oil guards said they reopened a long-blockaded pipeline linking some of the country’s biggest oilfields.

In the United States, meanwhile, energy companies this week added oil rigs for a seventh week in a row, extending a seven-month drilling recovery, according to data from Baker Hughes.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 17 December 2016, 12:02 pm and is filed under
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Guardian ranked second most secure online news site

Alex Hern

Guardian

16 December 2016

The listing, produced by the Freedom of the Press Foundation, was topped by the US site The Intercept

The Guardian has been listed as the second most secure news publication on the web, according to a ranking produced by the American non-profit Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Points were awarded for supporting technologies which protect the privacy and security of visitors, with a focus on using HTTPS, a web protocol that allows for encrypted connections.

The ranking was topped by the US news site The Intercept, created by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. It gained the highest score of A+.

The Guardian, rated as A- along with TechCrunch and ProPublica, scored highly for having a valid HTTPS version of its website, and for defaulting to that connection for all visitors.

The ranking also awarded points for enabling HSTS (HTTP Strict-Transport-Security), a feature which ensures that repeat visitors cannot be forced onto an insecure copy of the website by a “man in the middle” attacker. With HSTS enabled, web browsers know to never accept insecure versions of the website, providing added protection to readers who fear eavesdropping.

The Intercept was the only site to use HSTS preloading which give it its A+ score. Preloading involves passing the HSTS information to a trusted authority like Google or Mozilla so that it can be loaded into the browsers of web users who have never even visited a particular site, ensuring that even their very first visit does not run the risk of eavesdropping.

Freedom of the Press Foundation said that only 28% of news sites offer an HTTPS connection, and just 14% default to it. It awarded a grade of F to those that did not use HTTPS. The Guardian’s switch to HTTPS as default was made in late November, after six months of testing to ensure no disruption to readers.

“By using HTTPS, internet service providers (ISPs) are not able to track the pages our readers are accessing,” wrote Mariot Chauvin and Huma Islam, two members of the Guardian’s digital development team. “It means we protect the privacy of our readers when accessing content that may disclose political opinions, faith, sexual orientation or any information that may be used against them. It matches our core values. We believe that protecting our visitors is good internet citizenship.”

The Freedom of the Press Foundation called on all publications to protect reader privacy: “With HTTPS enabled by default you can protect reader privacy, improve your website’s security, better protect your sources, prevent censorship, improve your search rankings, provide a better user experience, see your website loading speeds potentially increase, and avoid Google shaming.” Since 2014, Google has been ranking secure sites slightly higher in its search results.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 18 December 2016, 3:53 am and is filed under
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Must Pakatan Harapan win Putrajaya before Penang International Airport ceases to be a “pasar malam antarabangsa Pulau Pinang” just as Penang only stop being “garbage dump of the Orient” when it is ruled by a DAP-led state government?

I was piqued by an Internet news item that “Shenzhen Airport, via its official Weibo account, stated it expects to welcome its 40th millionth passenger for the year on 15th December 2016”, the first time the airport’s annual passengers  have exceeded 40 million, and  I wondered what were the air passenger traffic for Malaysia for the major airports, particularly Penang International Airport.

I found that according to Ministry of Transport’s annual transport statistics,  total air passenger traffic (excluding transit passengers) in the past ten years had slightly doubled from 42.9 million in 2006  to 85.9 million in 2015.

KLIA  claimed the bulk of the air passenger traffic, from 23.6 million or  55.2% of total air passenger traffic  in 2006 to 48.6 million or 56.6% of  total air passenger traffic in 2015.

Kota Kinabalu International Airport occupied second place, with 3.86 million passengers or 8.99% in 2006 to 6.57 million or 7.64% of total air passenger traffic in 2015.

Penang International Airport (PIA) leapt from fourth place with 3.09 million passengers or 7.2% in 2006 to 6.25 million or 7.27% of total air passenger traffic in 2015.

Kuching International Airport slipped from third place in 2006 to fourth place in 2015, with 3.1 million or 7.2% in 2006 to  4.76 million or 5.5% of total air passenger traffic in 2015.

The fifth to eight places for air passenger traffic in 2015 (compared to their 2006 data) are as follows:

2015

2006

5

Subang

3,059,035

83,502

6

JB (Senai)

2,581,986

1,308,386

7

Langkawi

2,336,177

932,094

8

Miri

2,241,913

1,518,568

In my political work particularly in the past two decades, I have virtually travelled to all the airports in the country maintained by Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd  except the small and out-of-the-way  airports in Redang and Tioman.

As a regular air traveler, I can say without fear of contradiction that the eye-sore of the list of airports in the country is the Penang International Airport which the Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng  said only last month is in danger of turning into a busy “pasar malam” if the much-needed expansion plans are not forthcoming.

Taking into account transit passengers, the passenger traffic handled by Penang International Airport last year reached 6.26 million passengers, and would have gone past the 6.5 million passenger capacity this year for Penang International Airport – which is only targeted to be achieved four years later in 2020.

The tardiness in planning ahead of time  for PIA is most inefficient, incompetent, irresponsible and  completely unacceptable, especially as Penang contributes RM7 billion annually to the Federal government in taxes and duties.

In response  to a media last month quoting the Transport Minister Datuk Sri Liow Tiong Lai as saying the application to upgrade the PIA could not be considered due to “allocation constraints experienced by the federal government”, Guan Eng said he had previously asked Putrajaya to expand the PIA  to handle at least 10 million passengers per annum.

He warned that “if we are another year late to expand the airport, it would be like a night market. Hence, we would have to change the name of the airport to ‘Pasar Malam Antarabangsa Pulau Pinang’.”

Not only the people of Penang, but Malaysians who use the Penang International Airport would agree with Guan Eng that the PIA is bursting at its seams hitting 6.5 million passenger capacity in 2016 and not in 2020, and it is a greatly disappointing that  the Federal Government is not prepared to expand PIA but  willing to provide funds to expand in other states where capacity is yet to be reached.

MCA President and Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai is exacting his  petty political revenge for the MCA being reduced into a “7/11” political party in the last general elections, where MCA only won seven parliamentary and eleven state assembly seats – with MCA  having to beg for Ministerial and Deputy Ministerial appointments based on UMNO charity giving out Senatorial sinecures.

Liow is guilty of the most contemptible abuse of power in denying needed funds for Penang International Airport expansion, as he is punishing the people and state of Penang for the political failure of MCA.

Liow should know that he should be Transport Minister for all Malaysians, and not just for a  “7/11”  political party.

Everyone in Penang  and  Malaysia, should demand that Liow and the entire MCA leadership must  be held responsible for the injustices of  withholding funds for the expansion of the PIA to sabotage the economic development of Penang.

Unless Liow stop his  petty, small-minded, vengeful and vindictive punishment of the people and state of Penang in  denying funds for the  expansion of  PIA, which has reached its capacity of 6.5 million passenger traffic in 2016 and not in 2020, all right-thinking and justice-minded  Malaysians throughout the country should teach Liow and MCA a  lesson in democracy in the 14th General Elections.

Wherever Liow and the MCA Ministers and leaders go, Malaysians should question them to justify their petty and small-minded vengeance  in denying funds for the expansion of PIA which had already reached its capacity of 6.5 million passenger traffic.

Must Pakatan Harapan win Putrajaya before Penang International Airport ceases to be a “pasar malam Antarabangsa Pulau Pinang” just as Penang only stop being “garbage dump of the Orient” when it is ruled by a DAP-led state government?

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 18 December 2016, 8:31 am and is filed under
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Predicting Malaysia’s next election date

Reme Ahmad and Lim Ai Leen

Straits Times Singapore

DEC 18, 2016

Likely slots are in April, May, Oct, say analysts, after ruling out no-go months

Will Malaysia’s general election be held in April or May next year? Or will it be held much later in October?

That is a question that only Prime Minister Najib Razak can answer.

He has started beating the drum for the polls, sending politicians and analysts scrambling in search of clues.

A quick way to predict likely election dates is by first eliminating the traditional no-go months in Malaysian politics.

Datuk Seri Najib would then only have the leftover months and weeks to choose from, say analysts and politicians.

In Malaysia, the general election has not been held during the fasting month, for example, or in the weeks after it, when the Malay Muslim majority celebrate the Hari Raya Aidilfitri festival.

Another period that is generally avoided is during the monsoon months at the end of the year, when many districts in the east coast states are flooded.

A quick glance at next year’s calendar shows as many as seven months when PM Najib is unlikely to call for the polls.

These would be in January, February and March, and then also not in June or September, and not in November and December.

The clear slots to hold elections in the first half of next year are seen in April and May, before fasting starts on May 27, political watchers say.

While both former premier Mahathir Mohamad and Mr Najib have held by-elections during the fasting month, a full-blown general election has never been held in Malaysia during the holy Islamic month, when Muslims refrain from eating and drinking between dawn and dusk.

For the second half of the year, a window is available around late July to early August. But the period favoured by most analysts and politicians is the slot in October.

At the Umno annual assembly two weeks ago, Mr Najib said in Bahasa Malaysia that the general election will be called “tidak lama lagi” – literally meaning “not long more” or soon.

Plenty of excitement was generated by those words when he opened the assembly on Dec 1, especially after national news agency Bernama reported Mr Najib as saying that the nationwide polls “will come any time soon”.

But an aide to a senior minister said the words meant that “polls would be held several months later and not in a few weeks’ time”.

The actual date is up to Mr Najib alone to pick, because in Malaysian politics, the Prime Minister has traditionally assumed the sole right to decide when to call the polls. The good news for him is that the opposition remains deeply divided.

Opposition Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), now an ally of Mr Najib’s Umno party, is likely to create three- cornered fights that will be detrimental to the other opposition parties.

It remains unclear how far the two new Malay-based parties will attract rural Malays, the backbone of Umno. Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia is led by Tun Dr Mahathir, and Parti Amanah Negara by former leaders of PAS.

“Socially, Najib will continue stressing Malay unity and supremacy alongside the predominance of Islam,” said Dr Mustafa Izzuddin, a fellow at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. “He will call for the elections when he believes the above twin emphasis has helped to consolidate the ground support of the Malays to win him the elections.”

Like in the last two general elections, Chinese Malaysians who want more reforms and accountability from Mr Najib are widely expected to remain supporters of the opposition camp, though they will avoid Islamic party PAS.

Many political watchers expect Mr Najib to call the general election in October.

Malaysia will host the South-east Asia Games in August, where it aims to get many gold medals. The government will then celebrate the country’s 60 years of independence on Aug 31, followed by Mr Najib presenting an early election Budget in October. The Budget is traditionally unveiled in the third week of October.

“Success in the SEA Games, big celebrations and Budget goodies; the narrative will be, if you want all these, vote us back in,” said analyst Amir Fareed Rahim of KRA Group consultancy. The general election might then be held in late October and into early November, he said.

Still, despite the heated speculation, a key factor is Mr Najib’s reputation as a cautious politician, making it possible that, like in 2013, the public could see months of on-again, off-again election guesswork.

Dr Wong Chin Huat, a fellow at think-tank Penang Institute, said: “Najib is not known to be decisive. If things are uncertain, he will delay and wait. He is not a risk-taker.”

After all, time is on his side. PM Najib has until August 2018 to call for the polls.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 18 December 2016, 7:26 pm and is filed under
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Salleh has lost the right to demand answers when he, as Minister for Communications and Multimedia, failed to answer  numerous questions about government scandals and failings

Recently, the Minister for Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak indulged in spree of questions directed at the Opposition, Pakatan Harapan and PPBM.

It is a pity that Salleh did not realise that he has lost the right to ask questions when as Minister for Communications and Multimedia, which included the role and responsibility of the former Ministry of Information, he had failed to answer numerous questions about government scandals and failings.

If there is any Ministry which is assigned the responsibility of defending the government, it is Salleh’s Ministry, but realizing that much as he wanted, he is just incapable of defending the indefensible, Salleh is subtly trying to transform his Ministerial portfolio of answering questions on behalf of the government into one of asking questions about the Opposition.

In terms of Ministerial KPIs, Salleh is a big flop.

If Salleh expects  answers to his questions, let him perform his Ministerial duty to answer questions about government scandals and failings, starting with the following five:

Question One:
 why the government’s conspiracy of silence over the international multi-billion dollar 1MDB kleptocratic money-laundering scandal when there is breaking news all over the world  several times a week for the past many months about it.

Last Friday, for instance, a second banker in Singapore was jailed in connection with the 1MDB money-laundering investigations in Singapore.

In Thailand, a Swiss IT expert, Xavier Justo, jailed for three years last August for attempting to blackmail his former employer PetroSaudi International, a Abu Dhabi oil firm involved in the  1MDB money-laundering dealings, is expected to be able to celebrate Christmas with his family in Switzerland as he is among the thousands of Thai and foreigners granted a royal pardon by the new Thai king, Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradevarangkun.

Early this week, a US federal judge in Los Angeles, California rejected a move by family members of Penang billionaire Jho Low to claim assets seized by the US government in its probe into the international  1MDB kleptocratic money-laundering scandal.

But there is only thundering silence in Malaysia, the home of international 1MDB kleptocratic scandal.  Can Salleh answer: Who is “MO1”?

Question Two:
 Can Salleh explain and justify the shameful conduct of  the Malaysian Parliament and the UMNO General Assembly in failing  their national responsibility to rebut and refute Malaysia’s international ignominy and infamy of being regarded worldwide as a “global kleptocracy”?

This would not have happened under the first four Prime Ministers – Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak (Najib’s father), Tun Hussein and Tun Mahathir who led the Federal Government in the first 46 years of the nation’s history.

In the eighties, the father of Independence and Malaysia,  Tunku Abdul Rahman worked with DAP for a more democratic, clean and responsible government.

Tun Razak would have no truck with any kleptocracy, and all Malaysians should know of the “swimming pool” story told by Nazir, the younger brother of the Prime Minister, to illustrate how his father, Tun Razak, was selfless in his dedication to nation-building and feared the corruption of absolute power.

Nazir illustrated Razak’s frugality and integrity with the  “swimming pool” episode, recounting the failed attempt of the Razak children to ask their father for a swimming pool to be built at Seri Taman, the Prime Minister’s residence, and the “lecture” they received from Razak about the important distinction between public office and private use.

Razak told his children that anything spent on the proposed swimming pool in the Prime Minister’s residence would have to come from public funds, and there was no way he was going to allow the state coffers to be depleted on something as frivolous as a swimming pool.

Tun Razak was concerned about “what the people would think” if he used public funds to build a swimming pool in his official residence for the use of his children, but his son, Najib, as the sixth Prime Minister, was not perturbed as to what the world would think with Malaysia dubbed as a global kleptocracy!

What a difference between the father and the son.

Tun Hussein’s commitment to fight corruption is legendary, which can be testified by his son, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein – but again, what a difference between the father and the son.

Tun Mahathir’s opposition to the 1MDB scandal needs no introduction.

Clearly, the sixth Prime Minister of Malaysia is doing something which the first four Prime Ministers would never dreamt of doing – in allowing Malaysia to be regarded world-wide as a global kleptocracy.

Can Salleh explain why?

Third Question:
Was Najib or UMNO/BN government responsible for the  expensive, glossy and multi-coloured 20-page publication, entitled
“1MDB PASCA LAPORAN AUDIT NEGARA DAN PAC – SAMAN DOJ (JABATAN  KEHAKIMAN AMERIKA SYARIKAT) MERAGUKAN”
distributed as an anonymous booklet at the UMNO General Assembly?

The booklet raised doubts as to whether “MO1” was the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak although a senior Cabinet Minister had identified “MO1” as Najib in a BBC interview.

The booklet  even alleged that the biggest US DOJ kleptocratic lawsuits to forfeit US$1 billion 1MDB-linked assets in the United States, United Kingdom and Switzerland was the result of complaints lodged by former UMNO leader Datuk Khairuddin Abdul Hassan.

Are the questions, assumptions and assertions made in the 1MDB booklet distributed anonymously at the recent UMNO General Assembly the official positions of the UMNO/BN government, and if not so, why the booklet was allowed to be distributed at the UMNO General Assembly?

Fourth Question:
 Why the Prime Minister and UMNO President, Datuk Seri Najib Razak had acted in a most irresponsible manner when through his UMNO Presidential Speech on Nov. 30, he launched a Nazi-style “Big Lies” propaganda offensive against the political opposition, plunging Malaysian politics into an era of fake news, false cartoons and fake allegations.

One such UMNO  Nazi-style “Big Lie” propaganda is the allegation that  DAP and myself are anti-Malay and anti-Islam and that if UMNO loses the 14th GE, the Malays will lose political power to the  Chinese who will dominate politics in Malaysia.

I have been in politics for 51 years. Can Salleh cite or uncover a single instance or example in my more than half a century of political life to substantiate the UMNO falsehoods that DAP and I are anti-Malay and anti-Islam?

Or will Salleh accept that the inability of the UMNO Government and leadership to cite any such instance  as the strongest proof of DAP’s commitment for more than half a century to the Malaysian Dream of a nation for all Malaysians regardless of race or religion – and that the DAP is not anti-Malay or anti-Islam?

Another example of UMNO Nazi-style “Big Lie?” propaganda is the fake Cabinet line-up on the social media entitled
“Barisan Kerajaan Baru 2017 – Pakatan Harapan DAP/PKR/PAN/PPBM”
, with me as Prime Minister-cum-Finance Minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamad as Deputy Prime Minister, PKR President Datuk Seri Dr. Wan Azizah Ismail as Woman and Family Development Minister,    Amanah President Mohamad Sabu as a  Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of “Agama Islam & Hubungan Antara Agama”  and President of PPBM,  Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin as Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of “Integrasi Nasional & Pengurusan Prestasi”.

The whole objective of the fake Cabinet line-up was to buttress the Nazi-style propaganda offensive of lies and falsehoods that the DAP is the “master” and the other parties, PKR, Amanah and PPBM, are subordinates, stooges or subservient to DAP.

Another false cartoon of  such Nazi-style “Big Lie” propaganda portrayed  the  DAP as the “master agent” directing PKR, Amanah and PPBM for a mastermind – financier George Soros.

This is the reason for the circulation of  fake  cartoon, entitled
“War of PRU 14”
, picturing financier  George Soros as the mastermind funding  all the Opposition parties in Malaysia, with me representing DAP as Soros’ chief agent yelling  “READY TO ATTACK” while directing Azizah of PKR, Sabu of AMANAH and Tun Mahathir of PPBM to go to “war”.

Is Salleh prepared to denounce such Nazi-style “Big Lie” falsehoods  and fake  cartoons against the political opposition?

Fifth Question:
 Will the Programme for International Student  Assessment (PISA) 2015 be the  second international infamy which Malaysians have to suffer in the year 2016, after being regarded worldwide as a global kleptocracy?

Can Salleh explain why the Malaysian government tried to cheat in PISA 2015, regarded as the world’s school report, resulting in Malaysia’s exclusion and disqualification from the official PISA 2015 rankings – one of three countries to suffer such shame and ignominy in PISA 2015?

This is the first tranche of questions Salleh will have to answer before he could restore his right to ask questions and expect answers.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 18 December 2016, 5:04 pm and is filed under
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British embassy questioned whether Malaysian PM cleared of corruption

Oliver Holmes, South-east Asia correspondent

Guardian

19th December 2016

Exclusive: diplomatic cable said an investigation into mysterious $700m found in Najib Razak’s bank account had not absolved him of corruption

The British embassy in Kuala Lumpur has questioned a claim by the Malaysian prime minister, Najib Razak, that his country’s anti-graft agency had cleared him of corruption, according to a diplomatic cable seen by the Guardian.

Malaysia’s anti-corruption commission (MACC) said in August last year that its investigation had found that nearly US$700m had been deposited into Najib’s personal bank account from unnamed “donors”.

It did not elaborate on the donor or why they transferred funds to Najib’s private accounts but said the money was not from the debt-laden state fund 1MDB, which had been the focus of the scandal.

Five days later, Najib told members of his ruling party that the MACC had cleared him of corruption allegations.

But a diplomatic telegram sent to London from the British High Commission in the Malaysian capital suggested the embassy queried that claim.

“Najib announced the MACC had exonerated him of corruption and the funds in his bank account were a donation from the Middle East and not from 1MDB,” it said.

“There has been no official MACC statement to this effect.”

Opponents of Najib, who denies taking money for personal gain, say the funds may have originated from 1MDB but were laundered internationally. Malaysia’s attorney general said in January 2016 that the money was a gift from the Saudi Arabian government.

The UK has been criticised for not speaking out more firmly against one of the world’s biggest financial scandals. Former British prime minister David Cameron was chided for meeting Najib shortly after the story broke last July.

The British cable was released under a freedom of information request made by the Guardian but was heavily redacted to include mostly factual reporting of events in Malaysia.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said the redactions were made as some of the information may “prejudice relations between the United Kingdom and other states if it was disclosed.

“In this case, the release of some information within diptel [diplomatic telegram] reporting could harm our relations with Malaysia.”

Najib sought to contain the greatest threat to his power by suspending two newspapers, removing a deputy who openly criticised him, and sacking the country’s top attorney, who had been leading the official investigation.

The man he replaced him with closed the case and ended the MACC investigation in January by clearing Najib, to the anger of opposition figures.

While Cameron’s staff said he had pressed Najib over claims he had stolen government money, the regional trip was intended to boost trade ties and coordinate efforts to fight ISIS.

However, several countries are conducting publicly-declared investigations into the alleged misappropriation of billions of dollars siphoned from 1MDB, which has debts of over US$11 billion and whose advisory board Najib chaired.

Switzerland said the sum suspected to have been stolen from 1MDB amounts to around US$4bn, some of which was transferred to accounts held in Switzerland by various former Malaysian public officials.

And the US attorney general announced it “seeks to recover more than US$1bn laundered through the United States”, the largest corruption investigation in the country’s history.

Najib contends the allegations are part of a opposition-led campaign to force him from office. 1MDB has also denied transferring funds to Najib.

The US investigation details a complex network of international transactions it says were used to launder money from 1MDB into high-end real estate in New York and Los Angeles, a US$35m jet aircraft, and paintings by Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet.

Funds are also alleged to have been diverted to make the 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street, a Hollywood production about a corrupt stockbroker played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

The MACC has since announced it will cooperate with the FBI.

“The Department of Justice will not allow the American financial system to be used as a conduit for corruption,” US attorney general Loretta Lynch said.

The US complaint document alleged Najib’s stepson Riza Aziz bought a luxury home in Belgravia, London for £23.25m using diverted funds. It said misappropriated monies were also used to buy nearly £2m in services from a UK-based interior decorator.

The UK is reported to have started its own investigation, although this has not been officially confirmed.

The Guardian opened freedom of information requests into potential 1MDB investigations in the UK with the Home Office, HMRC, the Metropolitan Police, and the Serious Fraud Office during the past year.

All have been rejected.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 19 December 2016, 7:49 pm and is filed under
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Civil society demands that the government stops harassing and stigmatising NGOs

―  Hakam & civil society NGOs

Malay Mail Online

December 15, 2016

DECEMBER 15 ― 1. We, members of Civil society (represented by the organisations listed below) are greatly concerned by the recent developments pertaining to the arrest of Puan Maria Chin Abdullah under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012, the summoning of activists from Suaram, Lawyers for Liberty and Empower for investigations, the police raid and seizure of the offices of Bersih and Empower and the numerous news reports making allegations against various organisations in respect of the foreign funding, including the Malaysian Bar Council.

2. We are also perturbed by news reports of the Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi announcing the formation of a task force to probe into NGO funding and accusing them of enticing revolutions to topple the present government and news reports of Deputy Home Minister Datuk Nur Jazlan’s reply to the numerous concerns regarding local human rights issues raised by Maina Kiai the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association in his recent visit to Malaysia.

3. The recent events and published news reports give the impression that the authorities are out to discredit and demonise human rights activists and civil society organisations who have voiced criticisms and dissent against the government.

4. Of particular concern is the stigmatisation of the receipt of foreign funding by civil society organisations, stating that this is tantamount to “treason” and/or “interference of foreign bodies” which threatens the nation. Allegations that such funding are used to topple the government are preposterous. Funding of civil society activities in areas of education, advocacy, monitoring and campaigning for strengthening of our democratic process are legitimate activities.

5. Civil society in Malaysia who voice criticism of public affairs often face difficulties in raising funds locally, as donors (both individuals and body corporates) are fearful of repercussions. Statements discouraging support have been made by the authorities from time to time. Government funding is rarely available to NGOs that have openly voiced criticism of the government and its work.

6. Civil society has a vital part to play in democratic and developmental processes in Malaysia, alongside government agencies and business corporations.  The role of activists in promoting the common good has been duly recognised by the Court of Appeal recently. The existence of civil society and the work of activists should not be threatened by limitations and restrictions on funding.

7. Freedom of association is guaranteed under the Federal Constitution (See: Article 10). The freedom of association encompasses not only the right to form and join any associations but also to seek, receive and use resources ― human, material and financial ― from domestic, foreign, and international sources for activities of the associations (See: Article 13, Declaration of Human Rights Defenders adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, A/RES/53/1999).

8. We wish to state categorically that as members of civil society, which may from time to time voice our concerns about public affairs, we are not “traitors” to the nation. Dissenters ought not be treated as enemies of the state. For a true parliamentary democracy to exist, we must be free to voice our concerns.

9. As civil society groups which advocate for transparency and accountability, we remind the government that our accounts are made available through the filing of yearly returns.

10. We urge the government to respect the role that civil society plays in our country’s democracy and in nation building.  We also urge the government to stop the harassment of activists and NGOs through threats of arrests, raids and seizures. NGOs have the same rights as businesses and government to receive foreign funding, and should not be stigmatised for it.

This memorandum was submitted by (in alphabetical order):

1. Aliran

2. Amnesty International – Malaysia

3. Anak Muda Sarawak

4. Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM)

5. Angkatan Warga Aman Malaysia (Wargaaman)

6. Association of Women Lawyers

7. Malaysia Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ)

8. Centre to Combat Corruption & Cronyism (C4)

9. Community Action Network (CAN)

10. EMPOWER

11. ENGAGE

12. Himpunan Hijau

13. IKRAM

14. Islamic Renaissance Front (IRF)

15. Jaringan Orang Asal SeMalaysia (JOAS)

16. Jaringan Rakyat Tertindas (JERIT)

17. Kesatuan Mahasiswa Malaysia (KMM)

18. Lawyers for Liberty (LFL)

19. LENSA

20. Malaysia Youth and Students Democratic Movement (DEMA)

21. Malaysian Indians Progressive Association (MIPAS)

22. Malaysian Indians Transformation Action Team (MITRA)

23. Malaysian Physicians for Social Responsibility

24. Malaysian Youth Care Association (PRIHATIN)

25. Movement for Change Sarawak (MoCS)

26. Oriental Hearts and Minds Study Institute (OHMSI)

27. Partners of Community Organisation (PACOS)

28. Penang Indepedent Schools Education Society

29. People Welfare and Rights Organisation (Power)

30. Permas

31. Persatuan Hak Asasi Manusia (HAKAM)

32. Persatuan Pengguna Klang

33. Persatuan Rapat Malaysia (RAPAT)

34. Persatuan Sahabat Wanita

35. Selangor Pusat Komas

36. Research for Social Advancement (REFSA)

37. Rise of Sarawak Efforts (ROSE)

38. Sisters in Islam

39. Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram)

40. Tenaganita

41. Tindak Malaysia

42. Tobpinai Ningkokoton Koburuan Kampung (TONIBUNG)

43. University of Malaya Association of New Youth (UMANY)

44. Women’s Aid Organization

                This entry was posted on Monday, 19 December 2016, 5:37 am and is filed under
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Second tranche of five questions for Salleh to answer before he can restore his right to demand answers from others

Yesterday, I said that the Minister for Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak has lost the right to ask questions and demand answers from others, when he as Minister which incorporated the Ministry of Information of the past, had failed to answer numerous questions about government scandals and failings.

I put to him the first tranche of  five questions for him to answer to perform his Ministerial duty before he could start  asking questions and demanding answers from others.

Today, I am putting forward to him the second tranche of five questions to answer in the process to  restore his right to demand answers from others.

My second tranche of five questions are:

Question 6 –

In early October, the country  was convulsed by reports of the rampant corruption in the Sabah Water Department, especially the revelation that 60 per cent of the RM3.3 billion earmarked by the federal government to improve water supply to residents, including those in remote areas in the Sabah State, had been “siphoned off” by corruption.

Would Salleh agree that the 60% corruption at the Sabah Water Department, for which no one has yet been charged in court for corruption, is proof that Malaysia is not serious about combating corruption, even less so  with regard to  grand corruption affecting top political and government leaders.

Can Salleh explain why  China is catching “tigers” and Indonesia “crocodiles”, but Malaysia has not been  able to catch a single “shark” at the national level  in the war against grand corruption?

Question 7:

Former finance minister Tun Daim Zainuddin has  called for  a key planning unit, the Special Economic Committee, set up by the Prime Minister in August last year, to be replaced, saying it has failed.

Daim had  suggested instead setting up an economy management squad to replace the Special Economics Committee, tasked to do immediate and medium-term planning to strengthen the country’s economic fundamentals, which should comprise professionals with high technical skills,  efficient and dare to speak the truth, and enjoy the trust of  the rakyat and investors.

Daim said, as of now, the level of confidence among the people towards the government was at an all-time low and that without their confidence and support, solving national issues would be difficult.

Daim referred to the 2016 Edelman Trust Barometer research findings which  showed that the Malaysian  general public’s trust towards the government was only at 39%, while for the educated public it was at 34%.

Daim said this “deficit” in trust stemmed from the lack of integrity and moral bravery among the leaders and elite,  which  escalated after the people felt that  immediate action had not been taken against those involved in corruption and bribery.

Does Salleh agree, and if not, why not.

Question 8:

Does  Salleh agree that the police and the Attorney-General should stop selective prosecution and discriminatory law enforcement?

The latest example is the persecution of cartoonist Zunar – whose real name is Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque – who had faced repeated arrests throughout this career over his cartoons that are critical of the government.

He is also facing nine charges under the Sedition Act 1948 since last year.

What type of a  society the UMNO/BN government  is building in Malaysia when, as said by prominent cartoonist Ujang, whose real name is Ibrahim Anon and known for his work in the popular cartoon magazine Gila-Gila and Ujang,  cartoonists are regarded as more dangerous than robbers?

Would Salleh support the recent call by NGOs and the civil society that the government should stop its campaign “to discredit and demonise human rights activists and civil society organisations who have voiced criticisms and dissent against the government”, which had resulted in the arrest of Bersih Chairperson  Maria Chin Abdullah under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012, the summoning of activists from Suaram, Lawyers for Liberty and Empower for investigations, the police raid and seizure of the offices of Bersih and Empower and the numerous news reports making allegations against various organisations in respect of the foreign funding, including the Malaysian Bar Council?

Recently, DAP MP for Segambut Lim Lip Eng against the son of former Inspector-General of Police, Abdul Rahman Mohd Hanif Omar for lodging false police reports in making baseless allegations that foreign funds were distributed to the fictitious  “Red Bean Army” (RBA), purportedly controlled by DAP, but no police action had been taken!

Does Salleh agree that there had been too many cases of selective prosecution and selective police investigation which is a further cause of loss of confidence in the present  government to uphold the rule of law impartially and professionally?

Question 9:

Does Salleh agree that based on the statements yesterday by  two UMNO leaders, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Jamil Khir Bahrom and Deputy Minister for International Trade and Industry, there is a political conspiracy between UMNO and PAS not only against the various State Governments but also against  the other 13 component parties in the Barisan Nasional to support  PAS President, Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang’s private member’s bill to amend the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act (Act 355), and to explain the reason for such UMNO betrayal of the fundamental consensus principle with the other 13 Barisan Nasional component parties.

Question 10:

Does Salleh agree that the refusal of the Transport Minister, Datuk Liow Tiong Lai to support immediate expansion plans for Penang International Airport although it is bursting at its seams having reached 6.5 million air passenger traffic capacity in 2016 instead of in 2020, smacks of irresponsible Ministerial abuse of power to wreak petty vengeance against the DAP-led Penang State Government  for MCA’s dismal “7/11” performance in the 13GE, and that the Cabinet should immediately allocate a supplementary vote for expansion of PIA to cater for 10 million passengers?

                This entry was posted on Monday, 19 December 2016, 6:23 am and is filed under
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SINGAPORE – Casualties from the 1MDB fallout

The Newspaper, Singapore

Dec 17, 2016

2 JAILED

Yak Yew Chee, 57

Jailed 18 weeks, fined $24,000

*The former managing director of BSI Singapore was the relationship manager for Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho.

*Pleaded guilty in November to two counts each of forgery and failing to report suspicious transactions.

*Also offered to give to the State $7.5 million of the bonuses he received from BSI.

Yvonne Seah Yew Foong, 45

Jailed 2 weeks, fined $10,000

*A director at BSI Singapore, was the next most senior banker on Yak’s team.

*Pleaded guilty to three charges of aiding in forging documents and failing to report suspicious transactions.

2 CHARGED

Yeo Jiawei, 33

Charged with a total of nine counts, including obstruction of justice, money laundering, cheating and forgery.

*Said to be a central player in facilitating illegal transactions involving 1MDB, the former BSI Singapore banker stood trial over 12 days to four charges of tampering with witnesses. The verdict is expected next Wednesday.

*Other charges against him will be dealt with in April next year.

*Prosecutors say Yeo made
$24 million in the space of just
15 months from the illegal dealings.

Kelvin Ang Wee Keng, 34

Charged with corruption, case pending.

*Accused of giving $3,000 to a research analyst to expedite preparation of a favourable valuation report to be issued by his equity research firm.

*Had held the position of associate director at NRA Capital between August 2008 and October 2015 and is currently research head at Phillip Securities.

*Said to have dealt extensively for over two years with Yeo and some others implicated in “improper dealings”.

2 BANKS CLOSED

BSI Singapore

*For the first time since 1984, the Monetary Authority of Singapore forced a bank to shut down in May for 41 breaches of anti-money laundering rules, including failure to conduct enhanced customer due diligence on “high risk accounts” and to monitor suspicious customer transactions. MAS also fined BSI $13.3 million.

Falcon Private Bank

*MAS pulled the Swiss merchant bank’s licence in October over “serious failures in anti-money laundering controls and improper conduct by senior management at the head office in Switzerland as well as the Singapore Branch”. It was also fined $4.3 million by MAS.

4 BANKS FINED

Standard Chartered Singapore

*Fined $5.2 million by MAS for 28 breaches linked to anti-money laundering laws.

Coutts Singapore

*Fined $2.4 million for 24 breaches.

UBS

*Fined $1.3 million for 13 breaches.

DBS

*Fined $1 million for 10 breaches.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 19 December 2016, 8:50 am and is filed under
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Worst BN crisis since 1973 – leaders of other BN component parties should cancel their year-end holidays overseas to requisition emergency meeting of  BN Supreme Council to establish whether UMNO has smashed BN consensus principle into smithereens

The cat is  out of the bag. UMNO leaders were determined right from beginning to outfox the other 13  Barisan Nasional component parties on Hadi’s private member’s bill and the strategy of how UMNO is going to support Hadi’s private members bill was  revealed by two UMNO leaders yesterday.

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Jamil Kamil Khir Bahrom said Hadi’s Private Member’s Bill to amend the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act (Act 355) enabled the government to circumvent the due constitutional process, as requiring consensus from all states, the National Islamic Council and the Rulers’ Conference.

Jamil explained: “You can’t bring it to the Rulers Conference if you don’t have consensus from 14 states, but a private member’s bill requires only one state or one person to table it.”

Jamil made this shocking admission at the Umno Overseas Club Alumni annual general meeting in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.Jamil said that when Hadi’s private member’s bill  motion moves to the second reading stage, it would be taken over by the government and read out by him.

What Jamil did not mention was that this UMNO strategy to support Hadi’s private member’s bill not only tried  to circumvent the constitutional process to secure the consensus from the 14 states and the support of the National Islamic Council and the Rulers’ Conference, it was also a ploy to circumvent the Barisan Nasional consensus of all the 14 BN component parties for any policy or measure to be adopted in the name of Barisan Nasional Government.

This ploy to circumvent the Barisan Nasional consensus and for the UMNO leadership to outfox the leaders and Ministers from the other 13 Barisan Nasional component parties – whether MCA, Gerakan, MIC or the Sabah and Sarawak component parties of Barisan Nasional – was confirmed by another UMNO leader, the Deputy Minister for International Trade and Industry, Datuk Ahmad Maslan, at the same function.

Ahmad Maslan said BN  component parties will not be able to object against amendments to the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act (Act 355) once the relevant bill is taken over by the Federal Government as  BN component parties are compelled to support the bill as part of the ruling coalition.

He said: “Before this we hear that MCA didn’t like (the planned amendments) to Act 355. MIC objected, and Gerakan objected too.

“When we asked them why they opposed, they answered ‘How can we not? (The bill) was brought by (PAS president Abdul) Hadi (Awang)’.”

Ahmad admitted the ulterior objective of UMNO’s support for Hadi’s private member’s bill motion was to  cement UMNO’s “unity” with PAS!

I agree with former Law Minister, Datuk Zaid Ibrahim that Jamil is wrong and that whether the  bill is moved by Hadi or Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, the requirements are the same – that the consensus of the states as well as the consent of the Malay  Rulers are necessary prerequisites before such a bill can be passed by Parliament into law, as Islamic laws are under the purview of the states and the Malay Rulers.

But what  should equally be a cause for consternation is the perfidy of certain UMNO leaders who have no qualms in reneging and destroying the much-vaunted principle of Barisan Nasional consensus which proved that Barisan Nasional is a coalition of equals and not a coalition of UMNO hegemony!

The Barisan Nasional is facing its worst crisis since its formation in 1973 – as the Barisan Nasional “consensus” principle  is being smashed into smithereens by UMNO for Hadi’s private member’s bill motion, despite overwhelming opposition by the majority of the other BN component parties.

In this worst Barisan Nasional crisis in 43 years, what should the leaders of the other Barisan Nasional component parties do?

I advise all of them to  cancel their end-of-year holidays overseas and to requisition an emergency meeting of the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council to establish once-and-for-all whether the UMNO leadership has decided to smash the BN consensus principle into smithereens by unilaterally and arbitrarily providing UMNO/BN government support to Hadi’s private member’s bill in the March Parliament.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 19 December 2016, 2:34 pm and is filed under
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After 2 Years, Experts Say MH370 Likely North of Search Area

New York Times

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

DEC. 20, 2016

SYDNEY — For two years, a handful of ships have diligently combed a remote patch of the Indian Ocean west of Australia in a $160 million bid to find Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. On Tuesday, investigators made what was surely a painful admission: They have probably been looking in the wrong place.

The latest analysis by a team of international investigators concluded the vanished Boeing 777 is highly unlikely to be in the current search zone and may instead be in a region farther north. But though crews are expected to finish their deep-sea sonar hunt of the current search area next month, the possibility of extending the search to the north appeared doubtful, with Australia’s transport minister suggesting the analysis wasn’t specific enough to justify continuing the hunt.

The latest twist in the search for Flight 370 highlights the extraordinary difficulty officials have faced in their attempts to find the aircraft based on the faintest scraps of data. All along, officials have said they are not simply looking for a needle in a haystack — they are looking for the haystack.

On Tuesday, the haystack was poised to shift again, with the release of a report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is leading the search for the plane. The report is the result of a November meeting of international and Australian experts who re-examined all the data used to define the search area for the aircraft, which vanished during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board.

Since the plane disappeared, experts have analyzed a series of exchanges between the aircraft and a satellite to estimate a probable crash site along a vast arc of ocean in the southern hemisphere. A deep-sea search of a 120,000-square kilometer (46,000-square mile) stretch of water along the arc has so far come up empty.

In November, the experts went back over the satellite data, along with the results of a new ocean drift analysis of the more than 20 items of debris likely to have come from the plane that have washed ashore on beaches throughout the Indian Ocean. The analysis, based on where the items washed up and when, suggested the debris originated farther north along the arc from the current search zone.

Given the number of aircraft parts found so far, the team concluded that a debris field had floated on the water surface after the plane crashed. So they eliminated areas of the ocean where air crews had searched the surface in the early stages of the hunt.

That left a 25,000-square-kilometer (9,700-square-mile) area immediately to the north of the current search zone as the most likely place where the plane hit the ocean, the report said.

The investigators concluded with “a high degree of confidence” that the plane is not in the current search area. And they agreed the new area needs to be searched.

“The experts concluded that, if this area were to be searched, prospective areas for locating the aircraft wreckage, based on all the analysis to date, would be exhausted,” the report said.

However, a new search would require fresh funding. The countries involved — Malaysia, Australia and China — agreed in July that the $160 million search will be suspended once the current effort is exhausted unless new evidence pinpoints the plane’s exact location.

Australian Transport Minister Darren Chester suggested an extension was unlikely, noting that the latest report does not give a specific location of the plane.

“As agreed at the Tripartite Ministers meeting in Malaysia in July we will be suspending the search unless credible evidence is available that identifies the specific location of the aircraft,” Chester said in a statement. “The search for MH370 has been the largest in aviation history and has tested the limits of technology, and the capacity of our experts and people at sea.”

Malaysia’s Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai did not explicitly rule out a new search, but said in a statement, “We remain to be guided as to how this can be used to assist us in identifying the specific location of the aircraft.” When asked about the search, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson did not comment beyond noting China’s role in the effort so far.

Australian government oceanographer David Griffin, who worked on the analysis of how the debris drifted, said he is confident the plane is in the newly identified search area. And he dismissed the idea that the new analysis means the search to date has been a wasted effort, saying that the current search zone was based on the best available data at the time.

“It could have been where we were searching, absolutely, but the new information does clarify that immediately north is more likely,” Griffin said.

As part of their analysis, Griffin and his team built replicas of the first piece of debris that was found — a wing fragment known as a flaperon that was discovered on Reunion Island off the African coast in July 2015. The team then set the replicas adrift, measuring how fast they traveled and noting how much the wind influences their rate of speed. They then ran computer simulations of how the aircraft parts could have drifted, which helped paint a picture of where they originated.

The newly identified search zone does include an area that was searched very early on in the hunt, but crews didn’t comb a wide enough area to rule it out, Griffin said. “They didn’t go quite far enough away from the arc to cover all possibilities,” he said.

The fact that crews were so close to the area now identified as the likeliest crash site — coupled with the lack of commitment to search the new area — is sure to frustrate families of those on board, who have been pushing the governments to continue searching.

“They should keep searching no matter how much money they will spend,” said Li Jingxin, whose brother was on the plane. “The cost of the search has nothing to do with us relatives. They should also raise the amount of compensation (to families) to make up for the time lost while they searched the wrong place.”

Associated Press reporter Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, and news researcher Yu Bing in Beijing contributed to this report.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 20 December 2016, 7:19 pm and is filed under
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“Once bitten twice shy” means nothing  for leaders of  MCA, Gerakan, MIC and other BN component parties in Sabah and Sarawak who are singing to  a new mantra of  “Once bitten, twice not shy and thrice still willing”

The saying “Once bitten twice shy” means nothing to leaders of MCA, Gerakan, MIC and other Barisan Nasional component parties in Sabah and Sarawak who seem to be singing to a new mantra of “Once bitten, twice not shy and thrice still willing”.

This sums up the sorry saga of the seven-month long Barisan Nasional crisis, which is compounded by the fact that the Barisan Nasional leaders, especially from the 13 other Barisan Nasional component parties, have been acting like ostriches with heads buried in the sand – who do not know or do not want to admit even to themselves that UMNO’s axis with PAS over Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang’s private member’s bill to amend the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act (Act 355) had plunged Barisan Nasional into  its worst crisis since its formation 43 years ago in 1973.

In response to remarks by the Deputy International Trade and Industry, Datuk Ahmad Maslan on Sunday, MCA Secretary-General and Second Minister for International Trade and Industry, Datuk Ong Ka Chuan, declared that any Government Bill to be tabled before the Dewan Rakyat must take into account the Barisan Nasional spirit of consensus.

He  said a final decision of those Bills can only be made after consultation and deliberation among all component parties.

He said: “There is no such thing that Barisan component parties must support the Government Bill.”

It is noteworthy that Ka Chuan was trying to rebut a statement by his own Deputy Minister – clear evidence of the topsy-turvy world  in the political hierarchy in Barisan Nasioanal where  the MCA secretary-general although second Minister for International Trade and Industry is politically subordinate and subservient to the Deputy Minister in his own Ministry, who is just  an UMNO Supreme Council member!

Ahmad  had said that all Barisan component parties cannot object to proposed amendments to the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965 if becomes a Government Bill.

Ahmad was not merely giving his personal view but disclosing an elaborate UMNO strategy to “cement UMNO’s unity with PAS”, and the first step for UMNO support of Hadi’s private member’s bill motion is  a government takeover of Hadi’s private member’s bill when the private member’s motion is passed in the March Parliament – which would be equivalent to the first reading of Hadi’s private member’s bill.

In fact, Ahmad was only fleshing out what the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Jamil Kamil Khir Bahrom had  revealed to the Umno Overseas Club Alumni annual general meeting in Kuala Lumpur, that UMNO had a two-pronged objective in the government take-over of Hadi’s private member’s bill when it moves to the second reading stage:

•	To circumvent the due constitutional process, obviating the constitutional requirement to obtain  consensus from all states, the National Islamic Council and the Rulers’ Conference; and

•	To circumvent the Barisan Nasional consensus of all the 14 BN component parties for any policy or measure to be adopted in the name of Barisan Nasional Government.

Jamil’s disclosure of UMNO’s twin strategy to circumvent firstly, the states and the Malay Rulers is the height of disrespect and contempt by some UMNO leaders for the system of constitutional monarchy entrenched in the Malaysian Constitution and secondly, the circumvention of  the other 13 Barisan Nasional component parties  proof of the highest contempt of some UMNO leaders  for the other BN component parties.

What Malaysians cannot understand is how the leaders of the other Barisan Nasional component parties could be so dumb and dense that thy could not read the UMNO strategy to cement UMNO axis with PAS.

What is the use of the MCA Secretary-General and the Second Minister for International

Trade and Industry to mumble that BN consensus is a “must” for government bills – which is already a retreat from the position that BN consensus is a “must” for every BN government action in Parliament and outside – when MCA and the other BN component parties are prepared to be “bitten” again and again?

On 26th  May, without Barisan Nasional consensus or Cabinet approval, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department,  Datuk Azalina Othman Said moved in Parliament a Ministerial motion to give priority to Hadi’s private member’s bill motion.

On 24th November, MCA President Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, the Gerakan President Datuk Seri  Mak Siew Keong and other party chiefs of the other BN component parties were in the Dewan Rakyat to give tacit agreement when Hadi stood up to move amendments to his private member’s bill and the understanding that the Government will take over Hadi’s Bill in the March meeting of Parliament. There was neither Barisan Nasional consensus nor Cabinet decision for this new development on Hadi’s private member’s bill motion.

So am I wrong if I say that the  “Once bitten twice shy” saying means nothing to leaders of MCA, Gerakan, MIC and other Barisan Nasional component parties in Sabah and Sarawak, as they seem to be singing to a new mantra of “Once bitten, twice not shy and thrice still willing”?

But it is not too late for the 14-party Barisan Nasional coalition to prove that it is not a coalition of perfidy but a coalition where the much-vaunted principle of Barisan Nasional consensus requiring the consent of all the 14 component parties before  any BN government policy, measure or stance could be regarded as representing Barisan Nasional had not been smashed to smithereens.

The Cabinet is meeting tomorrow.

It must bring closure to the farce of Hadi’s private member’s bill motion with the Ministers of the other 13 component parties making it very clear that as there is no Barisan Nasional or Cabinet consensus for the BN government to take over Hadi’s private member’s bill, the Barisan Nasional government will not take over Hadi’s amendment bill as Hadi’s private member’s bill motion would not be given priority to be voted upon in the March session of Parliament.

Can Malaysians expect a post-Cabinet announcement tomorrow that as there is no Barisan Nasional or Cabinet consensus, the Barisan Nasional government will not take over Hadi’s private member’s bill in the March meeting of Parliament?

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 20 December 2016, 11:45 am and is filed under
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Third tranche of questions for Salleh – from 1MDB, PISA 2015 to Aleppo

Yesterday, I put to the  Minister for Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak a second tranche of five questions to answer so that he could restore his right to ask questions and demand answers from others, as he had forfeited such right when  as a Minister  responsible for  the portfolio  of information, had failed to answer numerous questions about government scandals and failings.

Today, I put to Salleh a third tranche of five questions for him to answer to perform his Ministerial duty before he could start  asking questions and demanding answers from others.

My third  tranche of five questions are:

Question 11:

One of the questions posed in an electronic media today is as follows:

“If 1MDB is squeaky clean, why are people charged abroad?”

In Singapore, bank officer Yvonne Seah was jailed for two weeks, while her supervisor Yaw Yee Chee was jailed for 18 weeks for abetting businessman Jho Low to launder funds linked to 1MDB.

While the Singapore government has prosecuted the few private investment bankers and closed BSI Bank and Falcon private bank, nothing seems to have happened in Malaysia to the few, untouchable men, namely Jho Low and the prime minister’s stepson Riza Aziz, without whom this massive financial scandal could not have taken place, causing US$3.5 billion to be stolen from the Malaysian people, as alleged by US attorney-general Loretta Lynch.

Can Salleh explain the unending reverberations in other countries of the roiling  international 1MDB kleptocratic money-laundering scandal, when  the Malaysian government continues with its  pretence that there is nothing wrong with 1MDB.

Are Yvonne Seah and Yaw Yee Chee wrongly convicted and jailed in Singapore?

Question 12:

Would Salleh agree that the  Court of Appeal’s acquittal of student activist Muhammad Safwan Anang of his sedition conviction this morning is most welcome and encouraging.

Would Salleh raise at the Cabinet meeting tomorrow on the need for the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to honour his 2012 promise to repeal the archaic Sedition Act and to present such repeal in the March meeting of Parliament?

Meanwhile, the Cabinet should instruct the Attorney-General to stay all prosecutions under the Sedition Act and direct a moratorium on any further use until the repeal of the Sedition Act in the March meeting of Parliament.

Question 13:

Does Salleh agree that Malaysia, whether Cabinet, Parliament, the civil society or the citizenry cannot accept with complacency and equanimity the epithet of a global kleptocracy – defined as a rule by a thief or thieves.

In November 2012, an academician Professor Dr. Syed Farid Alatas warned that Malaysia may descend into a “kleptocracy” if corruption is not addressed effectively and comprehensively.

Four years later, Farid’s dire warning has come to pass.

Would Salleh raise in the Cabinet tomorrow the need for Malaysia to launch an international campaign to rebut and refute the ignominy and infamy of being regarded world-wide as a global kleptocracy?

DAP and Pakatan Harapan leaders are prepared to take part in such an international campaign to rebut or refute the epithet of Malaysia as a global kleptocracy.

There are political leaders in the country who claim they remain committed to combat corruption, but they have no quarrel with Malaysia being regarded world-wide as a “global kleptocracy”, have no concerns about the international 1MDB kleptocratic money-laundering scandal or not bothered who is “MO1”. Does Salleh agree these political leaders are “wolves in sheep’s clothing” in the fight against corruption and even worse, kleptocracy and cannot be trusted?

Question 14:

Two full weeks after the release of the results of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015, the Malaysian Education Ministry is still struggling  how to give a satisfactory explanation as to why Malaysia’s PISA 2015 results had been disqualified and Malaysia excluded from the rankings of PISA 2015 in three subjects (mathematics, science, and reading) tested in what has been described as world’s school  report.

Will Salleh raise this subject at tomorrow’s Cabinet meeting, and tell the Education Minister, Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid that there is no need for the Ministry to crack its head to invent a cock-and-bull story but to just tell the truth and if the Education Ministry was guilty of cheating and trying to get good results in PISA 2015, to admit the transgressions  and to give an undertaking that such dishonesty in PISA tests would not happen again.

Question 15:

Would Salleh raise the recent  spate of international disasters and tragedies like the assassination of the Russian ambassador in Ankara, the suspected terrorist attack in the killing of at least 12 people and the wounding of dozens more when a truck plowed through a Christmas market in Berlin against the backdrop of  the destruction of Aleppo with  hundreds of thousands of civilians killed across Syria in the worst mass slaughter since the genocide in Darfur so that Malaysia can learn the right lessons from such catastrophes and not allow the politics of race, religion and hate to continue to polarize, poison and divide multi-racial, multi-religious, multi-lingual and multi-cultural Malaysia?

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 20 December 2016, 3:15 pm and is filed under
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Answer these first, Kit Siang bombards Salleh with questions

Malaysiakini

20 Dec 2016

Lim Kit Siang has bombarded Communications and Multimedia Minister Salleh Said Keruak with a barrage of questions

This is after the minister questioned whether the opposition could come up with a shadow cabinet and also asked that the opposition explain what it would do if PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim cannot become prime minister.

However, Lim pointed out that Salleh was raising a spree of questions when the minister himself has not been answering for the government’s alleged scandals and failings.

“If there is any ministry which is assigned the responsibility of defending the government, it is Salleh’s ministry.

“But realising that much as he wanted, he is just incapable of defending the indefensible, Salleh is subtly trying to transform his ministerial portfolio of answering questions on behalf of the government into one of asking questions about the opposition.

“If Salleh expects answers to his questions, let him perform his ministerial duty to answer questions about government scandals and failings,” he said.

The veteran leader then proceeded to bombard Salleh with questions on a daily basis since last Sunday.

The following are 15 verbatim questions which Lim had posed:

Question 1:
 Why the government’s conspiracy of silence over the international multi-billion dollar 1MDB kleptocratic money-laundering scandal when there is breaking news all over the world several times a week for the past many months about it.

Question 2:
 Can Salleh explain and justify the shameful conduct of the Malaysian Parliament and the Umno general assembly in failing their national responsibility to rebut and refute Malaysia’s international ignominy and infamy of being regarded worldwide as a “global kleptocracy”?

Question 3:
 Was Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak or Umno/BN government responsible for the expensive, glossy and multi-coloured 20-page publication, entitled “1MDB pasca Laporan Audit Negara dan PAC – Saman DOJ Meragukan” distributed as an anonymous booklet at the Umno general assembly?

Question 4:
 Why the prime minister and Umno president had acted in a most irresponsible manner when through his Umno presidential speech on Nov 30, he launched a Nazi-style “Big Lies” propaganda offensive against the political opposition, plunging Malaysian politics into an era of fake news, false cartoons and fake allegations.

Question 5:
 Can Salleh explain why the Malaysian government tried to cheat in Programme for International Student Assessment 2015 (Pisa 2015), regarded as the world’s school report, resulting in Malaysia’s exclusion and disqualification from the official Pisa 2015 rankings – one of three countries to suffer such shame and ignominy in Pisa 2015?

Question 6:
 Would Salleh agree that the corruption at the Sabah Water Department, for which no one has yet been charged in court for corruption, is proof that Malaysia is not serious about combating corruption, even less so with regard to grand corruption affecting top political and government leaders.

Question 7:
 Does Salleh agree with former finance minister Daim Zainuddin’s call for a key planning unit, the Special Economic Committee, set up by the prime minister in August last year, to be replaced, saying it has failed.

Question 8:
  Does Salleh agree that the police and the Attorney-General should stop selective prosecution and discriminatory law enforcement?

Question 9:
 Does Salleh agree that based on the statements by two Umno leaders Jamil Khir Baharom and Ahmad Maslan, there is a political conspiracy between Umno and PAS not only against the various state governments but also against the other 13 component parties in the BN to support PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang’s private member’s bill to amend the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act (Act 355).

Question 10:
 Does Salleh agree with the refusal of the Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai to support immediate expansion plans for Penang International Airport although it is bursting at its seams having reached 6.5 million air passenger traffic capacity in 2016 instead of in 2020.

Question 11:
 Can Salleh explain the unending reverberations in other countries of the roiling international 1MDB kleptocratic money-laundering scandal, when the Malaysian government continues with its pretence that there is nothing wrong with 1MDB.

Question 12:
Would Salleh agree that the Court of Appeal’s acquittal of student activist Muhammad Safwan Anang of his sedition conviction is most welcome and encouraging.

Question 13:
 Does Salleh agree that Malaysia, whether cabinet, Parliament, the civil society or the citizenry cannot accept with complacency and equanimity the epithet of a global kleptocracy?

Question 14:
 Would Salleh raise the PISA 2015 issue at tomorrow’s Cabinet meeting, and tell the Education Minister Mahdzir Khalid that there is no need for the ministry to crack its head to invent a cock-and-bull story but to just tell the truth.

Question 15:
 Would Salleh raise the recent spate of international disasters and tragedies… so that Malaysia can learn the right lessons from such catastrophes and not allow the politics of race, religion and hate to continue to polarise, poison and divide multi-racial, multi-religious, multi-lingual and multi-cultural Malaysia?

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 21 December 2016, 8:16 am and is filed under
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Don’t just think of our grandkids, but think of  the grandkids of all Malaysians

I must thank the Minister for Tourism and Culture, Datuk Seri Nazri Abdul Aziz for his being so solicitous over my welfare, suggesting that I should be caring my grandchildren in my twilight years.

But Nazri cannot be more wrong, for we should not just think of our grandchildren, but also about the grandchildren of all Malaysians.

In fact, I call on all  Malaysians, regardless of age, to  transcend  race, religion or region, to  be solicitous of the national welfare and should involve themselves in ensuring that the country is a better place of our grandchildren and their children.

I put Nazri’s suggestion on my Facebook yesterday, asking whether I should listen to his advice.

The overwhelming majority, almost  unanimous,  view was in the negative, and some of the  comments are as follows:

Zeus Chng
 Nazri is such a loser! Dr M and Kit Siang are taking care of their grandchildren by ensuring that Malaysia stays relevant and not run by corrupted UMNO n BN! That is the grandest plan of making sure their future great grand children is proud of! MO1’s grandchildren will have no place to hide their face n will be humiliated forever! Trust me on this.

Shyam Lakshmanan
 To all Malaysians, If you care about what happens to your grandchildren and to your children, you have to make a stand against the injustices being meted out by bn-umno. Otherwise the children and grandchildren will have to pay for the excesses of bn-umno.

What will you say to your grandchildren when they are exported to neighboring countries one day as maids?

Ping Lew
 Taking care of the welfare of the nation and ensuring that their birth country is safe and sound IS taking care of your grandkids indirectly. It is a much bigger role than direct grandparenting.

Terry Chia
 They are doing exactly that, they are fighting for all the grand parents of this country to have the government changed for the better for all our grand children to have a chance for a better life in this country.

When I was in school in the fifties, I dreamt of a united, harmonious, democratic, progressive and prosperous Malaysia that can be a model of successful plural nation-building for the world.

We were reaching for the skies, as we saw no limit to the excellence and achievements which Malaysians were capable of.

When I was in Form III in the year of the nation’s independence in 1957, I composed the following poem for my class magazine in Batu Pahat High School:

One for all and all for one

We care not what colour, creed or religion you belong

For aren’t each of us Malaya’s son

Then why let silly racial quarrels prolong?

We will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of Malaya’s Merdeka in less than nine months.

Have our national commitment to be a sovereign, independent, secular, liberal  and democratic state been fulfilled in the past six decades?

No, if we go by the Prime Minister’s UMNO Presidential speech on Nov. 30 where he virtually condemned “secular” and “liberal” as dirty words in Malaysian nation-building – the former the lodestar of the first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman and the latter, a favourite of the second Prime Minister, Tun Razak – Najib’s father – which was why it was highlighted in Rukunegara.

When I was in school, there were no significant religious problems in Malaysia, but today, religious polarization has joined racial polarization as among the greatest threats to the Malaysian nation-building process.

When I was in school, corruption was hardly heard of as a problem, but today, Malaysia has “distinguished” itself as a global kleptocracy, the subject of the largest kleptocratic action by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) with regard to the international  multi-billion dollar 1MDB kleptocratic money-laundering scandal.

When I was in school, Malaysia’s educational system, primary, secondary and tertiary, were among the best in the world.  Today, Malaysia was caught cheating  in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 causing  Malaysia to be excluded in the PISA 2015 rankings for mathematic, science and reading subjects although we  had no difficulties when taking part in the PISA tests, regarded as world’s school report, in 2009 and 2012.

For university education, we had fallen from top world-class standards  to a level where we had to pick and choose university-rankings providers so as to ensure that Malaysian universities are not excluded.

Economically, we have lost our place during Merdeka when we were the most developed country in Asia after Japan, losing out to countries like South Korea and Taiwan which were much poorer than us in the fifties and have now become developed and prosperous nations – not to mention Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong which have so outdistanced us.  More mortifying, Malaysia is in danger of being overtaken by Vietnam and Thailand while other countries like Indonesia, Philippines and Myanmar are closing their gaps with Malaysia.

Malaysia is danger of being stuck in the trajectory hurtling towards a failed and rogue state.

We do not want the grandchildren of Malaysians to grow up to be citizens of a failed and rogue state – this is why grandparents today must do their part to save  Malaysia to avoid such an outcome.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 21 December 2016, 2:32 pm and is filed under
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Fourth tranche of five questions for Salleh from Musa Hitam, 1MDB, Islamic State to Hadi’s private member’s bill

The following is the fourth tranche of my five questions for the Minister for Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak to help him reinstate his right to ask questions and demand answers from others, after forfeiting  such right when  as  Minister  responsible for  the portfolio  of information, he  failed to answer numerous questions about government scandals and failings:

Question 16:

Is the former Prime Minister, Tun Musa Hitam, right when he said at a forum yesterday that only the political bankrupts would use the politics of race and religion as gambling chits in the political arena, and one of the most egregious examples of such reckless exploitation of the politics of race and religion is none other than the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak in his UMNO Presidential Speech on Nov. 30?

Question 17:

Does Salleh agree that one important reason  why the ringgit is likely to end this year as Asia’s worst performing currency for a second year running is because of the international 1MDB kleptocratic money-laundering scandal, hogging the international headlines for the whole year and  the subject of multiple jurisdictions including Singapore, Switzerland, United States, United Kingdom, Abu Dhabi, Australia?

Question 18:

With the revelation by the UK Guardian that the British embassy in Kuala Lumpur had in a diplomatic cable questioned a claim by the Malaysian Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission  had cleared him of corruption, isn’t it time that Salleh get Cabinet approval for a full, accountable, transparent and comprehensive explanation of the international  1MDB kleptocratic money-laundering scandal, telling Malaysians how the government is co-operating with foreign countries and international agencies to get to the bottom of the 1MDB scandal?

Question 19:

With Islamic State claiming responsibility for the Berlin Christmas market attack, which killed 12 and injured 52 after a truck plowed into festive stalls and fairgoers, and absence of signs of abating Daesh threats in Malaysia as policemen, military personnel including commandos, high-ranking civil servants, mosque imams, university professors and students have been arrested for being involved with Islamic State activities, should’nt Salleh propose at the Cabinet that the promotion of inter-religious understanding and harmony should  be given top national priority, involving the discouragement of the politics of race, religion and hatred by all political parties and politicians?

Question 20:

When did UMNO arrive at its strategy to cement the UMNO-PAS axis and unity by giving support to Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang’s private member’s bill to amend the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act (Act 355) through a two-pronged objective, firstly to circumvent the due constitutional process to obtain consent and consensus from all states, the National Islamic Council and the Rulers’ Conference; and secondly, to circumvent the Barisan Nasional consensus of all the 14 BN component parties for any policy or measure to be adopted in the name of Barisan Nasional Government; and whether this is the worst crisis faced by Barisan Nasional since its formation in 1973.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 21 December 2016, 2:23 pm and is filed under
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MALAYSIA’S RINGGIT ROUT RAISES SPECTRES OF 1998 ASIAN FINANCIAL CRISIS

BY BHAVAN JAIPRAGAS

South China Morning Post

20 DEC 2016

Currency hits levels last seen in 1998 as uncertainty over Trump, interest rates and 1MDB scandal create perfect storm – but government denies capital controls could be on the cards

The beaten down Malaysian ringgit is showing no signs of catching a break in the tail end of 2016.

The currency on Tuesday hovered near its lowest level since the height of the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis, as it reeled from a perfect storm of bearish factors including uncertainty about Donald Trump’s impending presidency in the United States, the acceleration of US interest rate hikes and a long-running corruption scandal linked to Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Some observers said the slump – the ringgit is poised to finish the year as Asia’s worst performing currency for a second year running – raised the spectre of a repeat of the controversial capital controls imposed in 1998.

The government has so far swatted away suggestions it will re-introduce such measures.

The ringgit traded at 4.4798 in Tuesday afternoon trade in Asia, according to Bloomberg. It had fallen to 4.4805 on Monday, its weakest point since January 1998.

It has lost six per cent since Trump’s shock victory in the US presidential election on November 8.

“The ringgit, like other emerging market currencies, has been badly hit by the anti-globalisation fears brought on by Donald Trump’s election and the US Fed’s accelerated plans for interest rate hikes,” said Stephen Innes, a Singapore-based senior trader at foreign exchange firm Oanda.

Song Seng Wun, an economist with CIMB Private Bank in Singapore, said “political risks” were exacerbating the ringgit’s slump.

Malaysia – which derives some 14 per cent of its national revenue from energy exports – has seen its economy hard hit by the ongoing global crude oil supply glut that has caused prices to slump.

Its currency has taken a further beating owing to the graft scandal involving its sovereign wealth arm 1MDB. The company is facing money laundering investigations in multiple jurisdictions including Singapore, Switzerland and the US. Najib, who set up the fund in 2009, denies any wrongdoing and insists the government is cooperating with international probes.

“The ringgit’s problems also lie with the fact that the 1MDB scandal has not left the headlines despite a lot of rhetoric otherwise and this is agitating global investors,” Innes said.

Asian countries like Malaysia, India, Indonesia and Thailand have seen their currencies take a beating after the Fed this month signalled plans to accelerate interest rate hikes in 2017. Such a move could induce investors to pull back their investments in these emerging markets in favour of higher returns in the US.

Trump’s election on a platform championing protectionism has also cast a pall over these trade-reliant economies. And economists say his plans for big ticket infrastructure spending could trigger an uptick in US domestic inflation, further compelling the Fed to put up interest rates to control prices. This will worsen capital pull-backs in Asia.

Despite these concerns, Malaysian officials have brushed off suggestions they will re-introduce a currency peg or capital controls.

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad pegged the ringgit to 3.80 to the dollar in 1998, a measure that was kept in place until 2005. Mahathir pinned blame on “rogue speculators” like US billionaire George Soros for the ringgit’s rout during the 1998 financial crisis.

“We shouldn’t panic. We have the ecosystem to make it right. Just do the right thing and make sure political stability is intact,” Malaysia’s second foreign minister Johari Abdul Ghani was quoted by local media as saying on Monday.

“As far as the currency is concerned, we have to look at the fundamentals. If you get the right fundamentals, focus on what we are supposed to do, I think in a matter of time, the ringgit will come back to its original place,” he said.

Malaysia’s central bank in November sought to clamp down on the trading of “non-deliverable forward” (NDF) contracts, where international investors settle bets on the ringgit in US dollars.

This allows foreign investors – who own around a third of Malaysian government bonds – to hedge their exposure to the currency. The central bank has no control over such trades in overseas jurisdictions. It has attempted to make offshore banks guarantee through signed letters that they will not trade the ringgit on NDF markets.

“The central bank is not going to stand in the way of the genuine trading…but they also want to make sure there is a level playing field and that the currency is not hijacked by speculators,” Song, the Singapore-based economist, said.

He said the “fair value” of the ringgit was likely between 3.90 to 4.00 per US dollar, a level unseen since August.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 21 December 2016, 5:30 am and is filed under
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As Najib has failed not only the nine strategic objectives of Vision 2020, but also Rukunegara and bedrock Constitutional principles, his Vision 2050 in NT 2050 cannot be anything exciting to shout about

Today is
Dōngzhì

(literally: “the arrival of winter”)
 or Winter Solstice Festival, where the Northern hemisphere  has the shortest daytime and longest nighttime.

Traditionally for the Chinese, the Dongzhi Festival is a time for the family to get together for the making and eating of tangyuan (湯圓), which symbolizes reunion.

In four days times, Christians in Malaysia will celebrate Christmas.

Just over a week ago, Muslims in Malaysia celebrated Maulidur Rasul and at the end of October Hindus celebrated Deepavali.

This is the best time for Malaysians to reaffirm our uniqueness and strength, which lies in the diversity of our multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-religious society, especially as in recent years, the voices of extremism and intolerance of  the diverse races,  languages, cultures and religions in Malaysia seem to be gaining traction,  causing Malaysians to suffer the worst racial and religious polarisation in the nation’s history.

Malaysians should go back to the founding principles of our Constitution and nation-building process if we want to break away from the present trajectory towards a failed and rogue state – the building of a united, harmonious, democratic, secular, progressive  and liberal Malaysia.

The first  and third Prime Ministers of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman and Tun Hussein Onn, were particularly  concerned that Malaysia should not waver from our founding principle to be a secular nation with Islam as the official religion and freedom of religion in the country; while the second Prime Minister, Tun Razak (Najib’s father) wanted to  highlight Malaysia’s commitment to be a liberal Malaysia, embedding in the  Rukunegara the objective “to ensure a liberal approach to her rich and diverse cultural traditions”.

But the sixth Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, have undone what the first three Prime Ministers had done when in his UMNO Presidential speech on Nov. 30, he virtually turned the two words, “secular” and “liberal”, into dirty words threatening not only the fabric of Malaysian society but the very survival of the Malay race.

This is of course not the case, unless we want to rewrite history and place the first three Prime Ministers in the rogues’ gallery instead of among the pantheon of Malaysia’s national father figures.

Najib has not only failed Rukunegara, which is an important  legacy left the country by his father Tun Razak, he has also failed the Vision 2020 objective presented by the fourth Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir in 1991.

Vision  2020 is aimed at transforming Malaysia into a fully developed nation by the year 2020, not just in the economic sense, but encompassing all aspects of life.

But Malaysia will fail to achieve Vision 2020 with four years left  to 2020 – and  in all the nine strategic challenges outlined by Mahathir in 1991,  viz:

1.	Establishing a united Malaysian nation made up of one Bangsa Malaysia (Malaysian Race).

2.	Creating a psychologically liberated, secure and developed Malaysian society.

3.	Fostering and developing a mature democratic society.

4.	Establishing a fully moral and ethical society.

5.	Establishing a matured liberal and tolerant society.

6.	Establishing a scientific and progressive society.

7.	Establishing a fully caring society.

8.	Ensuring an economically just society, in which there is a fair and equitable distribution of the wealth of the nation.

9.	Establishing a prosperous society with an economy that is fully competitive, dynamic, robust and resilient.

Is Malaysia more united,  harmonious, democratic, secular, progressive  and liberal than in the early decades of the nation’s independence.

The answer on all counts must be a sad “NO”, despite the 1Malaysia objective enunciated by Datuk Seri Najib when he became the sixth Prime Minister in April 2009.

As Najib has failed all the nine strategic challenges in Vision 2020, as well as Rukunegara and the bedrock principles in the Constitution,  his Vision 2050 in National Transformation (NT) 2050 cannot be anything exciting to shout about.

We must  save Malaysia, but to accomplish this goal,  we need a nation-wide movement to launch a national campaign to rediscover our national identity, commitment and nation-building principles as laid out in the Constitution, the Rukunegara and Vision 2020.

(Speech to DAP members and supporters in Ayer Salak, Malacca on Wednesday, December 21, 2016 at 6.30 pm)

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 22 December 2016, 1:18 pm and is filed under
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Fifth tranche of questions  for Salleh from 1MDB, RUU 355 to PISA 2015

My fifth tranche of questions for the  Minister for Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak to help him reinstate his right to ask questions and demand answers from others, after forfeiting  such right when  as  Minister  responsible for  the portfolio  of information, he  failed to answer numerous questions about government scandals and failings, are as follows:

Question 21:

Can Salleh explain why there was no post-Cabinet statement yesterday on the Cabinet position on Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang’s private member’s bill to amend the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act (Act 355), especially after the joint admission by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Jamil Khir Bahrom and the Deputy International Trade and Industry Minister, Datuk Ahmad Maslan on Sunday that the UMNO leadership wanted to force the other 13 component parties to support Hadi’s private member’s bill by a government takeover of the bill in Parliament next March?

Did the Ministers from  MCA, Gerakan, MIC, and the Sabah and Sarawak BN component parties just keep their silence in Cabinet yesterday when they should have spoken up after Jamil and Ahmad Maslan’s revelations?

Question 22:

Does Salleh agree with the Finance Minister II Datuk Johari Abdul Gani that the conviction of former BSI Singapore banker  Yeo Jiawei on witness-tampering charges in relation to Singapore’s investigations into the 1MDB money trail was “very good”? Is this also the position of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak?

As Yeo is the third banker to be convicted in Singapore  of criminal charges in connection with the international 1MDB kleptocracy money-laundering scandal, how can the Cabinet continue to pretend that there is nothing wrong with 1MDB or that the criminal actions and international investigations about 1MDB money-laundering scandal in half a dozen countries has nothing to do with Malaysia?  Did the Cabinet meeting yesterday discuss the latest developments in the 1MDB scandal?

Question 23:

Does Salleh agree that police investigation and action against 91-year-old great-grandfather Tun Mahathir, longest-serving Prime Minister for 22 years, under Section 124C of Penal Code for  engaging in activities detrimental to parliamentary democracy can only shame Malaysia in international society, and whether the Cabinet yesterday had discussed this matter and whether the Police and the Attorney-General Chambers would be informed that they should not subject Malaysia to new embarrassment  and humiliations in the global society with any such actions?

Question 24:

Does Salleh agree with Perkasa president Ibrahim Ali who recently said that 90 per cent of the people rejected Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak although he predicted that BN will retain federal power in the next general election.  On Sunday, former Deputy Prime Minister Tun Musa Hitam returned to his “three options” for Najib to step down as Prime Minister which he canvassed in his recent book “Frankly Speaking”.

Should Najib’s consider resignation as Prime Minister in view of his loss of moral authority and legitimacy because of 1MDB scandal, which catapulted Malaysia into a “global kleptocracy”, and whether this question was ever considered and discussed by the Cabinet?

Question 25:

Why is there no post-Cabinet statement yesterday on Malaysia’s shameful and shocking exclusion from Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 ranking for mathematics, science and reading? Is this because the Education Ministry could not  come out will any credible explanation for Malaysia’s exclusion from PISA 2015 ranking as the Education Ministry  had been caught red-handed trying to cheat and affect results with inaccurate data and sampling?

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 22 December 2016, 2:55 pm and is filed under
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