Malaysia’s curious corruption case

By: Simon Wilson

Money Week

06/02/2016

A state fund transferring a $681m donation to the PM’s account, dissenting ministers sacked and $4bn misappropriated – Malaysian democracy is under threat, says Simon Wilson.

What’s going on in Malaysia?

The government of Prime Minister Najib Razak has been rocked by a huge corruption scandal that gets more bizarre with every new twist, threatening to blow a hole in Malaysia’s credibility with international markets. At its heart is a state investment fund known as 1MDB, set up at Razak’s behest shortly after he came to power in 2009, and whose advisory board he chairs. Its purpose

was to borrow money so that it could attract foreign investment to stimulate Malaysia’s economy.

But according to The Wall Street Journal, which has been at the forefront of investigating and reporting the scandal, while 1MDB was good at borrowing money, it has been less adept at actually investing it. In early 2015, it defaulted on payments on the roughly $11bn it had raised from international investors, setting off alarm bells and sparking investigations into the fund.

What did they discover?

Here’s where it gets odd. In July 2015, Malaysia’s then attorney-general, Abdul Gani Patail, who had set up a special task force to investigate the claims, announced that his team, including police, central bankers, and the country’s specialist anticorruption unit, had uncovered a paper trail suggesting that $681m had been transferred in 2013 from the coffers of the state investment fund into the personal bank account of Prime Minister Najib himself. It also found evidence that Najib had received $14m from another government-owned firm called SRC International (a subsidiary of 1MBD until 2012).

Presumably Najib resigned?

You might have thought so – and many Malaysians would have agreed. Last summer, tens of thousands took to the streets of Kuala Lumpur in rare mass demonstrations, calling for him to quit. Najib, however, had other ideas. The attorney-general was obliged to retire on “health grounds”.

The deputy prime minister, who had criticised Najib’s handling of the crisis, was sacked, along with several other dissenting Cabinet ministers. Having thus shored up his position, Najib then got some good news: the anti-corruption body said it had found evidence to support his claim that he hadn’t stolen the money from 1MDB. Instead, it said, the money had been sent to Najib from an unnamed Middle Eastern monarchy – later revealed to be Saudi Arabia.

Was it some kind of bribe?

To find out, the new Najib-appointed attorney-general, Mohamed Apandi Ali, launched an investigation into why the Saudis were sending $681m to a foreign head of government. Last week, he concluded: “I am satisfied that there was no evidence to show that the donation was some form of gratification given corruptly”.

Instead, it was a “personal donation” from the Saudis to Najib. In any event, said Apandi, the prime minister had later returned $620m (though he declined to say why). As for the $14m from SRC, Najib hadn’t known about that money – any money that he’d spent had been the Saudi money, not the SRC money. Everything was above board, no action would be taken against Najib – and the matter was now closed.

Yet something still seems amiss?

Quite a few people think so. Influential former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad (from the same ruling UMNO party as Najib) continues to call for him to step down. A source at the Malaysian anti-corruption commission says they were surprised by Apandi giving Najib the all-clear – they had recommended he be charged with criminal misappropriation.

The Swiss authorities have launched a criminal investigation into allegations of fraud committed in Switzerland in connection with 1MDB; the Swiss say they have found “serious indications” that about $4bn was misappropriated. In America, the FBI is investigating, according to The Wall Street Journal. And Singapore says it is freezing a large number of bank accounts on suspicion of money-laundering linked to 1MDB.

Why does all this matter?

The scandal is eroding confidence in an economy already vulnerable to the oil-price slump, a tumbling currency and ballooning debt. What’s at stake is “whether one of southeast Asia’s leading nations, and a strategic ally of the US and Europe… can maintain its equilibrium as a prosperous, free-market democracy that blends an adherence to moderate Islam with an internationally recognised legal system”, says the FT.

Democracy in Malaysia already looks tattered, with UMNO tightening its grip on the state, and an opposition leader in prison on trumped-up charges of sodomy. Now “Kuala Lumpur risks reinforcing an impression that its democracy is being shredded by a self-serving Malay elite. Najib is already vulnerable to such charges.”

What did the $681m pay for?

According to a “well-placed Saudi source” cited by the BBC’s security correspondent, Frank Gardner, the $681m paid to the Malaysian prime minister was to help him shore up his ruling party against the threat from Islamist extremists. In particular, it was to help UMNO win the 2013 elections amid fears over the rising global influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, which at that time – spring 2013 – had taken power in Egypt.

At the Malaysian election, the opposition alliance included the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), whose founders were inspired by the Brotherhood (regarded by the Saudis as a terrorist organisation). This explanation seems plausible, but does leave a question unsolved: why did Najib give back $620m?

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 7 February 2016, 10:47 am and is filed under
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Mystery of Najib Razak’s $990m donor deepens in Malaysia

Lindsay Murdoch

Sydney Morning Herald

February 7, 2016

Bangkok: Mystery has deepened over the circumstances in which almost $US700 million ($990 million) was secretly deposited in the personal bank account of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.

The country’s attorney-general, Mohamad Apanda Ali, has declared the money was a donation from one of the nine sons of the late Saudi king Abdullah, but insists the motive is nobody else’s business.

“Why are people asking for the reason for the donation? You have to ask the donor. He has billions in his coffers … if he wanted to give the money, what’s the problem?” Mr Apandi told the Sin Chew Daily newspaper.

Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir says he does not think the money came from the Saudi government or that it was a political donation.

“It is a private Saudi citizen, I believe, and the funds went into an investment in Malaysia,” Mr Jubeir told The New York Times.

The Times also quoted one member of the Saudi royal family and one associate of the family as saying the money had come from a Saudi prince and confirmed it was not a donation.

The associate questioned the reported sum but said it was part of a business deal.

For months Mr Najib has ignored the demands of opposition MPs to explain how he came by the money, which if it was a political donation would be one of the largest ever known.

“The matter has been put to rest,” Mr Najib said late in January, after Mr Apandi cleared him of any wrongdoing. “It is time for us to reunite and move on.”

The Wall Street Journal has reported the money flowed to Mr Najib’s accounts through an anonymous British Virgin Islands company and a Swiss private bank wholly owned by an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund that is intertwined with Malaysia’s heavily indebted sovereign fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), which Mr Najib established in 2009 and still oversees through chairmanship of an advisory committee.

Mr Apandi has claimed that Mr Najib returned  $US620 million of the “donation” five months after it was sent in 2013, but refuses to provide any further details, fuelling speculation in Malaysia, where Mr Najib remains in office with the support of powerful division chiefs of his ruling party who have reaped the benefits of money politics over decades.

“There is no explanation as to how this huge sum of money was moved into Najib’s accounts, the banks used by these Arabs, the sources of the fund, the business of the donor,” said Mahathir Mohamad, a former Malaysian prime minister who has become one of Mr Najib’s fiercest critics.

Mr Najib, the 62-year-old British-educated son of a former prime minister who has been a close ally of successive Australian governments, has denied any wrongdoing as allegations have swirled around 1MDB – allegations that are now the subject of investigations in Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States.

The Swiss attorney-general’s office said last week its investigators had found serious evidence suggesting that  $US4 billion had been misappropriated from Malaysian state-owned companies.

Swiss authorities said some of the money was transferred into bank accounts of former Malaysian officials and former and current officials from the United Arab Emirates.

Singapore said last week it had seized a large amount of bank accounts in connection with its investigations.

Malaysia’s opposition MPs have demanded that Mr Apandi prove that 1MDB funds were not used as Mr Najib’s political slush fund.

Mr Najib’s administration has intensified a crackdown on its critics that has already included sacking the previous attorney-general, who had been investigating the prime minister, and the removal of ruling party members seen as disloyal to Mr Najib.

Mr Apandi said his office is looking to amend the Official Secrets Act 1972 to include life imprisonment and 10 strokes of the cane as punishment for leaking official secrets.

He said journalists who refuse to reveal their sources will be considered as collaborators with a potential saboteur.

“I am serious, no kidding,” Mr Apandi told the Sin Chew Daily. “We have too many leakage [sic] of secrets in Malaysia.”

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 7 February 2016, 12:56 pm and is filed under
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No End to Scrutiny Over Millions Sent to Malaysian Leader’s Accounts

By AUSTIN RAMZY

New York Times

FEB. 5, 2016

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — After Malaysia’s attorney general cleared Prime Minister Najib Razak of corruption charges involving hundreds of millions of dollars that ended up in his bank accounts, Mr. Najib issued a statement of his own.

“The matter has been comprehensively put to rest,” he said last week. “It is time for us to unite and move on.”

That has not happened.

Instead of answering the questions about the money and its possible links to a heavily indebted Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, the attorney general’s announcement has only sharpened them.

“It’s not logical at all,” said Azral Shah, 28, a computer network analyst taking a cigarette break outside a Kuala Lumpur high-rise this week. “I’m not sure what is the true story, but most of the nation doesn’t think that what they are telling us is true.”

But his statement has been overshadowed by fresh doubts, from Malaysia to Saudi Arabia.

“There is no clear explanation as to how this huge sum of money was moved into Najib’s accounts, the banks used by these Arabs, the sources of the fund, the business of the donor,” Mahathir Mohamad, a former Malaysian prime minister who has become one of Mr. Najib’s harshest critics, wrote on his blog.

In Saudi Arabia, Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said that he accepted the attorney general’s opinion that there had been no wrongdoing, but he also said that he did not think that the money had come from the Saudi government or that it was a political donation.

“It is a private Saudi citizen, I believe, and the funds went to an investment in Malaysia,” he said in an interview on Thursday.

One member of the royal family and one associate of the family, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the money had come from a Saudi prince and confirmed that it was not a donation. The associate questioned the reported sum but said the funds were part of a business deal.

The attorney general’s decision shut down an investigation by Malaysia’s anticorruption commission, leading the panel to seek a review of the ruling, and the country’s former law minister filed suit to reverse it.

The decision has not stopped international inquiries. Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States are investigating transactions involving the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB. Mr. Najib set up the fund and is the chairman of its advisory board.

The Swiss attorney general’s office said on Friday that its investigation had found serious evidence that suggested that $4 billion had been misappropriated from Malaysian state-owned companies. Some of that money was transferred into bank accounts of former Malaysian officials and former and current officials from the United Arab Emirates, the Swiss authorities say.

The announcement said the Swiss were looking into several business deals between United Arab Emirates state-owned companies and 1MDB, as well as allegations involving a small oil company called PetroSaudi that carried out a joint venture with 1MDB.

On Monday, Singapore said it had seized “a large number of bank accounts” in connection with the investigations.

Opposition politicians in Malaysia have demanded that Mr. Apandi, the attorney general, prove that 1MDB was not used as Mr. Najib’s political slush fund.

The question for Mr. Apandi was “how did he satisfy himself that, even if the funds deposited into the prime minister’s personal bank accounts came from the mysterious Arab donor, the money did not originate from 1MDB?” said Tony Pua, an opposition member of Parliament from the Democratic Action Party.

Mr. Apandi, appointed by Mr. Najib in the summer, has declined to answer questions or release details of his investigation. “I stand by my decision,” he said by text message. “No further comment.”

Nor has Mr. Najib publicly explained the money, though he has said that he had done nothing wrong and took no money for personal gain. The Swiss attorney general’s office said he was not one of the officials identified in their investigation.

Mr. Apandi has said that his office will cooperate with the Swiss inquiry, though some Malaysian officials complained that the Swiss announcement could strain bilateral ties and create bias in the news media. 1MDB says that it has not been contacted by foreign legal authorities, but it would cooperate with any investigation.

But if Mr. Apandi’s version of events is true, that raises other troubling questions.

A political donation of $681 million, equal to about 2.6 billion Malaysian ringgit, would be an exorbitant sum in Malaysian politics. An American presidential campaign costs about $1 billion. Malaysia has less than a tenth the population of the United States.

Such a large donation would not necessarily be illegal. Malaysian law restricts candidates for Parliament to about $50,000 a campaign, but there are no limits on spending by political parties or curbs on overseas funding.

If the donation was aboveboard, it may have taken a circuitous route. Malaysian investigators said the $681 million was transferred to Mr. Najib’s accounts in two deposits from a British Virgin Islands-registered company through a Swiss bank owned by an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, according to published reports.

The funds arrived in 2013, when Mr. Najib’s party, which has led Malaysia since its independence from Britain in 1957, faced a powerful election challenge. What some analysts have described as an orgy of campaign spending helped the party win a tight race.

Members of Mr. Najib’s cabinet have previously described the funds as political donations, and at least one prominent party member has acknowledged receiving funds from Mr. Najib.

“By the very fact that his party members have admitted they got a lot of money from the prime minister to run their campaigns, it’s an admission that they are privy to sources of funding, which they have not disclosed,” said Terence Gomez, a professor at the University of Malaya who researches money in the nation’s politics. “Now it’s been exposed, and we find out that a foreign country is supporting the prime minister and the party.”

At the same time, the attorney general suggested that Mr. Najib did not need $681 million for the election since he returned most of it. Mr. Apandi did not say how, when or to whom the money was returned, nor what Mr. Najib did with the remaining $61 million.

In his news conference, the attorney general also addressed another deposit in Mr. Najib’s account, about $13 million that was transferred from SRC International, a former subsidiary of 1MDB now owned by the Finance Ministry, which Mr. Najib controls. Mr. Apandi said that there was no evidence Mr. Najib “had any knowledge” of the deposit.

Mr. Najib has not commented on the transaction.

Mr. Apandi raised more questions after he briefly waved a copy of his investigative report before reporters. Cameras flashed, photographs were scrutinized, and it appeared that an additional $8 million from SRC flowed into one of Mr. Najib’s accounts in 2014.

Neither the attorney general nor Mr. Najib have explained that transaction.

“They’ve stopped caring about whether the story makes any sense,” said Ambiga Sreenevasan, a lawyer and former president of the Malaysian Bar Council. “They just want the image of closure.”

Despite public concerns, Mr. Najib seems to have consolidated his position, last year dismissing a deputy prime minister who raised questions about the 1MDB scandal. Likewise, Mukhriz Mahathir, the son of Mr. Mahathir and a leading critic of Mr. Najib, was ousted on Wednesday as the top official of a federal state, in what he called retribution for publicly criticizing Mr. Najib.

But the slowing economy, the low price of oil and a recently introduced tax on goods and services as well as the continuing 1MDB scandal have dampened broader public support, said Ibrahim Suffian, director of the Merdeka Center, an independent polling agency in Malaysia. Mr. Najib is likely to face a tough challenge to retain his position in elections expected in 2018.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 7 February 2016, 5:51 am and is filed under
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Would a person like Najib have  survived as China’s top  leader with two mega scandals swirling around him causing the country to be named No. 3 in world’s “worst corruption scandals in 2015” and the subject of investigation by seven different countries, including by US FBI,  whether he is a kleptocrat?

The Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali allowed a rare but very insightful though  frightening peep into his mind in his interview with
Sin Chew Daily
 today.

Apandi’s interview deserve fuller dissection and analysis, but for the immediate moment, what warrants immediate response is the revelation that the Attorney-General is mulling laws to increase the punishment of those who leak state secrets and journalists who report, and that the Attorney-General’s Chambers is proposing to amend the Official Secrets Act 1972 to include life imprisonment and 10 strokes of the rotan as punishments.

Apandi said: “In some countries, the leaking of official secrets is a serious offence, like in China where it carries the death sentence.”

Apandi  insisted that should journalists protect or refuse to reveal the sources by invoking journalistic ethics, they will be considered collaborating with a potential saboteur.

“We may charge journalists who refuse to reveal their sources.

“I am not joking. If I have 90 percent of evidence, I will charge the journalist, editor, assistant editor and editor-in-chief. I am serious, no kidding. We have too many leakage of secrets in Malaysia.

“The right to know is not granted by the constitution.”

This must be the first time the Attorney-General of Malaysia expressed admiration and envy for the laws and system in China, as it had never been done by his predecdessors.

I have often  been accused of being a “communist”, when I never expressed or entertained such a notion as advanced by Apandi. Will the UMNO chauvinists and extremists now accuse Apandi as a “communist”?  Apandi is of course no “communist”.

But what immediately came to mind when I read Apandi’s justification for draconian amendments to the Official Secrets Act quoting the Chinese “death sentence” for leaks of official secrets is whether a person like the  Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak would have  survived as China’s top  leader with two mega scandals swirling around him causing the country to be named No. 3 in world’s “worst corruption scandals in 2015” and the subject of investigation by seven different countries, including by US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI)  whether he is a kleptocrat?

Would Apandi dare to say that a top leader with Najib’s twin mega scandals, particularly the mysterious RM2.6 billion in his personal banking account – whether  as a donation or otherwise, as this issue has become increasingly murkier with conflicting versions as to its real nature –   would have survived the Chinese communist system to remain in the top leadership hierarchy?

If  Apandi’s retrogressive proposals make  to the statute books, it will ensure that in less than a decade, Malaysia will be overtaken by China in the annual Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in both ranking and score, and Malaysia can forget about the target under Najib’s National Transformation Programme for Malaysia to be in the top 30 countries in the TI CPI by 2020.

The trend in the TI CPI ranking and score in  the 21-year series of TI CPI from 1995-2015 shows there is already  no reason or ground for anyone to believe that the target of Malaysia being ranked in the top 30 of TI CPI in 2020 is a realistic or achievable one.

But Apandi’s proposal will ensure, as surely as the sun rises from the east, that within a decade, Malaysia will be  overtaken by China in both TI CPI ranking and score.

If the first TI CPI in 1995, Malaysia was ranked No. 23 out of 41 countries with a score of 5.28 out of 10, while China was  ranked as the second last in the list  (No. 40) with CPI score of 2.16 out of 10  (i.e. hovering in the lowest 90 percentile of the CPI score).

However, in the last 21 years, while Malaysia achieved the dubious distinction as one of the few countries which had been downgraded both in TI CPI ranking and score (Rank No. 54, Score 50/100 in TI CPI 2015),  China had made quantum leaps of improvement in the fight against corruption to gain the TI CPI rank of No. 83 and score of  37/100 for TI CPI 2015.

The question that must be addressed immediately is whether the AG’s Chambers have the sanction of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet to consider amending the Official Secrets Act to increase penalties to include life imprisonment and 10 strokes of the rotan as well as to widen its ambit so as to be able punish journalists and editors.

Let the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, in his Chinese New Year Open House visits tomorrow, declare without equivocation whether Apandi had his authority and sanction to make the OSA even more draconian and repressive, which will cast a long shadow on press freedom and democratic liberties in Malaysia.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 7 February 2016, 3:17 pm and is filed under
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Thanks to Najib, the focus before, during and after the  Chinese New Year of Monkey 2016 firmly and solidly on Najib’s world-class twin mega scandals

Far from having been resolved and ceasing to be issues, thanks to the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, the focus of Malaysians before, during and after the Chinese New Year of Monkey 2016 is firmly and solidly on Najib’s world-class twin mega scandals on the RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM55 billion 1MDB.

There are not only no signs that Najib’s twin mega scandals will end as the premier issues any time soon, all indications point to the reverse – that the twin mega scandals would bulk ever bigger in magnitude and impact to haunt and hound the future of Malaysia as the fulcrum of the country’s multitude of political, economic, good governance and nation building crises.

Almost every day, new angles are surfacing to decry the dismal failure to give full and satisfactory accountability so as to put to rest Najib’s twin mega scandals, which only serve to highlight the great  gulf between the profession and reality of Najib’s National Transformation Programme objective of  “1Malaysia. People First. Performance Now”.

In the past 24 hours, the questions that surfaced include:

1.	How can Malaysians believe that Najib’s RM2.6 billion “donation” came from a Saudi Arabia “royal” donor when the Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said he believed the money was from a private Saudi and was for an investment?

2.	Johor UMNO is the first state to accept the Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali’s decision of January 26 exonerating Najib of any criminal wrongdoing in the RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM42 million SRC International scandals.  How can the reasons that the country must “make a closure and move forward” be reasons for accepting the AG’s exoneration decision, instead of getting to the bottom of the truth of the scandals?

3.	How can opposition to the Attorney-General’s proposal to increase penalties under the Official Secrets Act 1972 to include life imprisonment and 10 strokes of the rotan to deter whistleblowers and journalists from future exposes like  Najib’s twin mega scandals instead of ensuring that there could be no repeat of such mega scandals be slammed by the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi as “actions by certain parties who are trying to politicise the AG’s decision to review the penalties under the OSA”?  Apandi’s proposal is in fact the most politicised proposal of the Chief Legal Officer of the land! Former Attorney-General Tan Sri Abu Talib Othman is right, Malaysia must move with the times towards more transparency and greater freedom of information, not secrecy.

4.	How can the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairman Datuk Hasan Arifin unilaterally and arbitrarily announce  the closing of the PAC investigations into 1MDB after testimony by two more witnesses next week, when many key  witnesses, including the two most important individuals, have not been summoned? The two most important witnesses for the PAC investigations into 1MDB are none other than Najib himself and the Penang-born billionaire Jho Low.

Najib cannot escape from the twin mega scandals, which have already brought infamy to Malaysia by ranking the country third in the world’s “worst corruption scandals in 2015” and the country’s plunge in the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2015 by four places to No. 54 from No. 50 last year.

There is only one patriotic task before Najib and Apandi, not to find ways to prevent expose of future mega scandals but to ensure that mega scandals cannot happen in Malaysia – by getting to the bottom of Najib’s twin mega scandals through a Royal Commission of Inquiry by conducting a public probe by independent and credible Commissioners for the whole truth of the twin mega scandals to be  told to Malaysians.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 8 February 2016, 10:06 am and is filed under
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IMF report on Malaysia, politically correct but revealing

– Ramon Navaratnam

The Malaysian Insider

9 February 2016

The preliminary International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff report on the Malaysian economy was published by the press on February 5.

The report followed intense IMF annual consultations held between January 11 and 22 in Kuala Lumpur and Kuching. Pity Sabah was left out.

The IMF report was too politically correct but nevertheless revealing.

IMF mission chairman Dr Alex Mourmouras in his press release subtly suggested that the Malaysian economy faced multiple shocks including “political developments and capital outflows”.

Both these factors reveal that in addition to external problems, there are also serious internal issues within our power to control and overcome.

But how much have we done to overcome these critical domestic issues?

IMF, like the World Bank, is a highly competent international institution. However, they both suffer from the challenges of wanting to tell the whole truth but in subtle and polite ways, and yet revealing the real issues and problems facing member countries like Malaysia.

It’s a difficult assignment, and as a result, their important messages to us are often not pointed enough. Hence they often don’t get through to the recipients and policymakers effectively enough to encourage stronger economic policy responses. We have to read the IMF reports between the lines and see through to ascertain what messages they truly want to convey to us.

The latest IMF report left the following messages behind for us to ponder and to follow up on in our own policy reviews, practices and action plans:

1. Firstly, IMF commended Malaysia for “maintaining macro economic and financial stability, while making significant progress in improving the foundations for substantial economic growth over the medium term”.

But IMF does not specifically mention what the “significant progress” was. Was it the introduction of the goods and services tax (GST) and the reduction of subsidies? Was this sufficient or was IMF being subtle and polite? IMF should be bold and say so. Then we can be clear and follow.

Also, what about the more significant fundamentals that are necessary to improve our economy, like fully adopting the New Economic Model, reducing inflation, arresting the rapid decline of our ringgit and improving our competition and productivity and our labour force etc?

2. The IMF statement mentions that “although growth has slowed down to about 4.4%, the downside risks predominate”. IMF again does not point out clearly what these predominant risks actually are. Do they relate to the debilitating racial, religious undercurrents and the current financial scandals that have badly undermined business confidence and raised the deficit trust?

IMF has to be more definitive in its remarks and not keep us guessing at their subtle and polite, politically correct statements.

3. Inflation is such an important socioeconomic threat to our incomes, and the social well-being, especially of the poor and the lower-middle income groups. Indeed the bottom 40% of our people face severe financial hardships as prices steadily go up.

Yet IMF casually dismisses this critical factor by stating that “inflation should rise temporarily”. How long can temporary be? The same argument was used about our long-drawn ringgit decline. Bank Negara said the ringgit fall would be temporary. But the fall continues indefinitely. So how temporary is temporary?

Inflation is debilitating and can cause social instability and even some social unrest. But IMF does not give us solutions to consider, although it has had world-wide experience in dealing with inflation.

Even if IMF has given some ideas, can’t they be made transparent to the public who suffer and can’t easily fly away from the scourge? Here IMF should have also consulted the representatives from the rakyat and leading NGOs instead of mainly consulting politicians and officials?

4. IMF said “protecting the budget should be a top priority and applauded the authorities’ determination, to adhere to the federal government’s deficit target of 3.1% of the of GDP for 2016”.

This is also politically correct and subtle. But could IMF have advised that this target need not be cast in stone and that some relaxation can be allowed within reasonable limits? Why does IMF take the easy standard approach of “one size fits all”? Can IMF be more innovative and pragmatic, please ?

5. On its response to capital outflows, IMF says politically politely that ” Bank Negara has allowed the ringgit to depreciate”.

Honestly, could BNM have done anything else? Could BNM have resisted and arrested the depreciation and if so for how long? Come come, IMF, please be more forthcoming and open with your members all over the world to safeguard your reputation that has often been battered before.

6. Finally , IMF again subtly and politically correctly “welcomed plans to strengthen anti-corruption measures and confidence in official institutions”.

This could have been the most crucial recommendation of IMF, particularly at this juncture  of our economic history. But IMF  has again chosen to be too soft, subtle and politically correct, to make a more bold and significant recommendations to improve our macro economic policies on a sustainable basis. We need more transparent dialogue that is more revealing.

We see that the IMF team has serious constraints. But we can only hope that the IMF board of directors in Washington, when they consider this IMF preliminary staff report next month, will ensure that the final IMF report is:

1. More balanced and pointed and constructively critical and less politically correct

and that

2. The report’s analysis and recommendations will have a longer term perspective to encourage the structural reform that the IMF report has too subtly called on Malaysia to adopt and permanently pursue.

In the meantime, happy Chinese New Year and may the Year of the Fire Monkey bring us a better bag of tricks to enable all Malaysians to look forward to a brighter year ahead! – February 9, 2016.

* Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam is chairman of Asli Center of Public Policy Studies.

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Is the 30-man demo at the Penang Chief Minister’s Chinese New Year Open House yesterday the first “handiwork” of the new czar of UMNO cybertroopers,  Ahmad Maslan?

The 30-man demo at the Penang Chief Minister, Lim Guan Eng’s Chinese New Year Open House at the SPICE Arena in Penang yesterday is most intriguing not only as a “no brainer” but whether it is the first “handiwork” of the new czar of UMNO cybertroopers, Ahmad Maslan.

An “intelligent” person would not have anything to do with such an unMalaysian demonstration.

Firstly, it crossed the line which should not be violated by anyone who claims to be a Malaysian by showing open and extremist  contempt for another Malaysian’s  racial or religious festivities and sensitivities, as this is the first known such demo  since Merdeka in 1957 at the Open House festivity whether Prime Minister, Chief Minister or Mentri Besar to celebrate Chinese New Year or Hari Raya Aidilfiltri.

Secondly, the grounds for the protest were so outrageous and  preposterous that no top UMNO or Barisan Nasional dare to seen publicly associated with them, as nobody in sane mind would have any respect for such personalities.

Such demonstrations are  in fact an attack on the competence, efficiency and professionalism of the Prime Minister, the entire police, Special Branch, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), Bank Negara and the Attorney-General’s Chambers that they did not know about the scandal of RM1.2 billion donation from Israel to the DAP for the 13th General Election in exchange for an Israeli naval base in Port Dickson.

If there is any iota of truth in the RM1.2 billion  allegations first made by political charlatan, one Razali Abd Rahman,  the Prime Minister, the entire police, Special Branch, the MACC, Bank Negara an AG’s Chambers would be guilty of gross dereliction of duty and negligence  not to know anything about them or not to take any action although the preposterous allegations first surfaced four years ago.

In the event, the authorities had all the resources  and time to check on the bona fides of Razali, who even had to temerity to claim that he was the “former special officer” of the Penang Chief Minister, Lim Guan Eng when he was never in such or any other capacity employed by the Penang Chief Minister.

The purpose of regurgitating the preposterous allegations that  DAP had received RM1.2 billion donation from Israel in exchange for a Israeli naval base in Port Dickson is the same as the Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali announcing that he is proposing amending the Official Secrets Act (OSA) to increase criminal penalties to deter whistleblowers and journalists from exposing malpractices and abuses of power like Najib’s twin mega scandals.

There is now  a growing desperation not only among Najib’s legal officers led by Attorney-General but also Najib’s political and  propaganda arm which include the legion of UMNO cybertroopers that the image they have painstakingly built up about Najib’s innocence in the twin mega scandals have no public traction or national and international credibility whatsoever.

Hence the need to distract public attention by investing and regurgitating in  preposterous allegations like  RM1.2 billion Israeli donation to DAP to counter the bad publicity accruing to the  Najib government over the RM2.6 billion “donation” scandal.

Except that the RM2.6 billion “donation” scandal is fact and not fiction, as even Najib has admitted to the deposits of the RM2.6 billion into his personal banking accounts, while the RM1.2 billion Israeli donation to DAP is a downright lie made up out of whole cloth.

Ahmad Maslan, as the new UMNO IT chief, which made him the czar of UMNO cybertroopers, had good reason to hide his hand though he is highly suspect  in orchestrating UMNO cybertroopers to stage the demo over the RM1.2 billion Israeli “donation” lie and falsehood  at the Chinese New Year Open House of the Penang Chief Minister yesterday.

Or will Ahmad Maslan deplore the demo at the Penang Chief Minister’s Chinese New Year Open House and send a clear directive to UMNO cybertroopers to stop retailing lies and falsehoods about the concocted Israeli’s RM1.2 billion “donation”  to DAP?

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 9 February 2016, 3:15 pm and is filed under
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Let the Cabinet meeting tomorrow be a showdown over  whether to give sanction to AG Apandi to draft amendments to  increase penalties under the OSA to deter whistleblowers and journalists from combatting corruption, particularly grand corruption

Malaysians are aghast at the reaction of the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Zahid Hamid who seemed to side with the Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali who wants to amend the Official Secrets Act (OSA) to impose heavier punishments on  whistleblowers and journalists to deter them from  leaks to combat corruption, particularly grand corruption in Malaysia.

Zahid even slammed those who opposed and criticized Apandi for gunning for whistleblowers and journalists, accusing them of “trying to politicize” the Attorney-General’s interview with Sin Chew Daily where he announced proposals to increase penalties under the OSA 1972 to include life imprisonment and 10 strokes of the rotan to deter whistleblowers and journalists for leaking and publishing information about corruption.

Zahid said the Attorney-General’s decision should be respected, adding:

“The AG’s agenda is to enforce the law and not to politicise an issue and be inundated with the politicised interpretation of the issue, and this should not be seen as a political issue by anyone, including the opposition.”

Zahid cannot be more wrong.

Apandi’s proposals should be pilloried and castigated to the maximum extent possible by all national stakeholders as they signal a dangerous lurch towards dictatorial rule in the country and go against everything that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, had promised when he became the sixth Prime Minister some seven years ago.

Is Zahid unaware of Najib’s  pledge to make Malaysia “the best democracy in the world” and in particular, the Prime Minister’s statement in September 2011 about the “political transformation” his  government was undertaking from the aspects of human rights because of  “the increasing maturity of the people”.

Now that Zahid is the Deputy Prime Minister, it may be useful for him to read up on Najib’s various pledges and promises of reform he made in his first six years as Prime Minister.

One of the Ministers whom Zahid should consult on the Attorney-General’s  announcement is the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of  integrity and good governance, Datuk Paul Low, who said yesterday that whistleblowers who expose corruption or fraud should be given protection, like exemption from prosecution  in the OSA.

A week ago, Tunku Makhota of Johore Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim suggested that removing a few ministers who are considered “a joke” was the first step to improving the administrative system.

In his Facebook post, Tunku Ismail wrote: “Our country needs intelligent ministers who can serve the people, not to serve their own pockets. I pray that our political situation in this country and the education system will improve for the benefit of the people.”

I thought of TMJ’s  post when I read the comments of some Ministers to the Attorney-General’s outrageous proposals.

One Minister said that there is no “absolute freedom” in this world be it for members of the public or members of the media, when supporting Apandi’s proposals to amend the OSA for stiffer penalties for whistleblowers and journalists who report news based on leaked documents.

This is one of the dumbest statements ever made by a Minister.

As far as I know, no one had ever advocated “absolute freedom” in Malaysia.

I challenge this Minister to cite chapter and verse as to who had ever advocated “absolute freedom” in Malaysia?

I would refer this Minister and all Cabinet Ministers to my speech in Parliament 36 years ago  in October 1979 when I advocated amendments to the OSA by cutting back on its “catch-all” provisions which provided criminal penalties to  protect all government information from disclosure, by the enactment of a Freedom of Information Act to require the government to make records available to the public except in cases of national security or personal information.

It is a pure figment of imagination of Ministers that those who advocate an open and democratic government and the enactment of a Freedom of Information Act are demanding “absolute freedom”, and it is sad and pathetic that after nearly six decades of parliamentary democracy, there are Ministers who are not “intelligent” enough to understand that the arguments for open, accountable and democratic governance are not arguments for “absolute freedom”.

The statement by this Minister that other countries don’t have breaches of secrecy is even more startling, confirming the Tunku Ismail’s pungent criticism that Malaysia needs “intelligent  ministers”.

Another minister’s comment on the same issue falls into the lament by Tunku Makhota Johor about the need to have “intelligent” Ministers.

This Minister said that Apandi’s proposal to review the penalty under the OSA proves that the leakage of government secrets is becoming more serious, and that such acts can jeopardise national security.

Can this Minister explain how the leakage of Najib’s world-class RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM55 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals could  “jeopardise national security”?

Apandi and these Ministers have completely missed the real point at issue, that the problem the country is facing is not the increase in the  leakage of government information but the rise in corruption and the  increase in severity and scale of mega scandals which have given Malaysia the bad name of being third in the world’s “worst corruption scandals in 2015” and caused Malaysia to plunge four places to No. 54 in the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2015 as compared to No. 50 last year.

What a patriotic Attorney-General and Ministers should be concerned about is Malaysia’s deterioration in the TI CPI, especially when the Malaysian government had once failed its earlier target to rank the  country among the top 30 least corrupt countries in 2008 under the National Integrity Plan, and is likely to fail a second time under  the latest National Transformation Programme objective of being among the top 30 countries of TI CPI by 2020.

Instead of being concerned about Malaysia’s backsliding in the battle against corruption, which is one of the six National  Key Result Areas (NKRA) of the National Transformation Programme, the Attorney-General and the Ministers are instead  obsessed with Najib’s twin mega scandals.

Instead of ensuring  full and satisfactory accountability for  the  twin mega scandals to prevent any future recurrence, the Attorney General and the Prime Minister are  doing their utmost to ensure that such mega scandals could not be exposed  in the future!

Apandi may have Najib’s full blessings to tinker with the OSA to increase penalties to deter whistleblowers and journalists from combatting grand corruption in government, but has the Attorney-General the sanction and authority of the Cabinet to go down such an undemocratic and dangerous path?

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Azalina Othman has accused the PKR MP for Pandan, Rafizi Ramli of being so afraid of the proposed OSA amendments that he is starting an online campaign to stop it.

Azalina said that rather than taking his campaign online, Rafizi should debate the issue in Parliament if the amendments to the law were tabled in the Dewan Rakyat.

But before the battle for an open and democratic government as well as for  integrity in public life is waged in Parliament, the proposed OSA amendments must first pass the Cabinet line.

The Cabinet meeting tomorrow should stop Apandi in its tracks and send a clear message that he does not have the sanction or authority of the Cabinet to draft amendments to the OSA to increase penalties to punish whistleblowers and journalist for leaking or reporting information about corruption, fraud or other malpractices in government.

Let the Cabinet meeting tomorrow be a showdown between those who want an open, incorruptible and  democratic government and those who do not mind worsening corruption in Malaysia but want a more draconian OSA and other repressive laws to deter whistleblowers and journalists from exposing corruption and mega scandals, in particular grand corruption, in public affairs.

Paul Low, who joined Cabinet in May 2013 to promote integrity and good governance, must take a stand.

If he cannot get the Cabinet tomorrow to send out a clear message that the Attorney-General has no Cabinet sanction or authority  to draft amendments to the OSA to punish whistleblowers and journalists for information leaks to combat corruption, particularly grand corruption, he and other like-minded Ministers should submit their resignation from the Cabinet to strike a critical blow for the battle for  integrity, accountability and good governance in Malaysia.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 9 February 2016, 5:00 am and is filed under
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Hasan Arifin should explain whether he had received any directive to wrap up PAC’s 1MDB investigations and submit a favourable  PAC report to the March Parliament after the adverse national and international firestorms to the AG’s exoneration of Najib and announcement to make OSA even more draconian?

Something happened in the 17 days between January 21 and Feb. 7 that transformed the  “cari makan” Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Datuk Hasan Arifin, from a laggard dragging his feet on the PAC’s 1MDB investigations and even saying that the PAC cannot keep its deadline to submits its 1MDB report to Parliament next month  into to a “speedster” who want  the PAC investigations to be wrapped up this month so that the PAC report could be submitted to the March meeting of Parliament.

The only thing that is relevant to the Prime Minister Datuk Najib Raza’s twin mega scandals that happened during this period were the two actions by  the Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali firstly, his announcement on January 26 exonerating Najib of any criminal wrongdoing and that no charges would be brought against him in both the RM2.6 billion donation and RM42 million SRC International scandals and secondly, his interview with Sin Chew Daily on 6th February where he made the shocking disclosure that the Official Secrets Act (OSA) would be amended to impose heavier penalties on whistleblowers and journalists to deter them from leaks of government information to combat corruption, particularly grand corruption.

In both instances, Apandi ignited two international firestorms within a fortnight and Malaysia’s international image and credibility had never been reached such a low ebb in the nation’s 59-year history.

Hasan Arifin should explain whether he had received any directive to wrap up PAC’s 1MDB investigations and submit a favourable PAC report to the March Parliament after the adverse national and international firestorms to the AG’s exoneration of Najib and announcement to make the OSA even more draconian?

Hasan’s fervor in wanting to wrap up the PAC’s investigations into 1MDB and the comments by the Deputy Foreign Minister and a former PAC member, Reezal Merican Naina Merican, that the release of the PAC report on the 1MDB in Parliament nextmonth would bring closure to the 1MDB issues are not good signs that the PAC Report on 1MDB would be an independent and credible one?

Why is Reezal so confident that the PAC report on the 1MDB would be a favourable one and would bring closure to the 1MDB issues, when the Prime Minister’s boast in his  2016 New Year Message that the 1MDB issues had been resolved and the Attorney-General’s exoneration of Najib in the RM2.6 billion donation and RM42 million SRC International scandals have failed to end the issues, but generated even more questions about them?

Is Reezal already privy to the PAC Report even before PAC had completed its investigations?

When   Hasan  was elected  as Chairman of PAC at the beginning of the 2016 budget meeting last October, I had said that he should  be armed with the maxim “Let justice be done though the heavens fall” in discharging his duties as he will be faced with  the test whether he is prepared to lead the PAC to serve the higher national interests if this conflict with his loyalty to the party, the UMNO/BN government coalition and the Prime Minister himself.

Hasan  should not have accepted his appointment as PAC Chairman if he is not prepared to rise above party interests if they conflict with national interests, such as to take a stand against the transgressions if any of the Finance Minister-cum-Prime Minister, especially as he seems to be pivotally involved in all 1MDB’s key and strategic decisions.

This is now the time of judgment for Hasan as PAC Chairman as the question foremost in public minds is how the PAC could wrap up its 1MDB investigations when the most important witnesses have not been called, including the Attorney-General Apandi, former Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail, Bank Negara Governor Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz, the Chief Commissioner for MACC, Tan Sri Abu Kassim, the MACC director (special operations) Bahri Mohamed Zin,  the Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar and the former Special Branch deputy director Datuk Abdul Hamid Bador and of course the two most important witnesses for PAC investigations into 1MDB – the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the Penang-born billionaire Jho Low.

Hasan’s insistence on wrapping up the PAC investigations into 1MDB without summoning Najib and Jho Low is not only incomprehensible but most  reprehensible when the PAC under the former Chairman, Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohd had earlier decided on July 24 last year that Low Taek Jho should appear before it on Sept. 8 to testify on the 1MDB scandal.

Furthermore,  Nur Jazlan had said on record that he would summon the Prime Minister as witness before the PAC “if necessary”.

But these two events were before  Najib’s  executive and parliamentary purges which saw the sacking of Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, Senior Minister for Rural and Regional Development, Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal, the Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail, the dissolution of the high-powered multi-agency Special Task Force investigating the 1MDB and the four-month sabotage of PAC investigations into 1MDB, as well as the arrest, instant transfers and general intimidation of independent and conscientious  officers in the major government enforcement agencies.

There can be no doubt that it would be necessary to summon Najib before the PAC as Najib is the only person, apart from Jho Low, who knows the ins-and-outs of the RM2.6 billion ‘donation’ and RM55 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals in the past six years, as Arul Kanda Kandasamy is only the latest ‘operative’ to join the ‘revolving-door’ teams of operatives who had been employed to take orders to run the 1MDB in the past six years.

What boggles the mind is Hasan’s announcement that the PAC would wrap up its 1MDB investigations this week itself, leaving the last two dates of the PAC investigations into 1MDB on Feb. 24 and 25, when the Auditor-General will present the final report on 1MDB.

It would appear that as far as Hasan  is concerned, there would be no more PAC investigations into 1MDB after the submission of the Auditor-General’s final report on 1MDB.

This is a most extraordinary state of affairs, to say the least, for the very purpose of PAC is to conduct further investigations based on the Auditor-General’s Report.

What the PAC should do is to table in the March meeting of Parliament its First Report on 1MDB, accompanied by the Auditor-General’s interim and final reports on 1MDB.

The PAC should present its Second Report on 1MDB based on further investigations on 1MDB based on the Auditor-General’s Final Report.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 10 February 2016, 6:35 am and is filed under
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Thanks to Apandi, Najib will be attending US-ASEAN Summit in California with two dubious  credentials – not only political leader who with largest RM2.6 billion “donation”, but whose government is tightening the screws on OSA

Thanks to Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak would be attending the US-ASEAN Summit with United States President Obama in Sunnylands, California next week (15-16 Feb)  with two,  and not just one, dubious  credentials – not only as the political leader in ASEAN and the world with the largest RM2.6 billion “donation” in his personal banking accounts, but also the leader of a government which is tightening to screws on the Official Secrets Act (OSA) to stop all leaks of official information on corruption, fraud, negligence or abuses of power in government.

In fact, Najib might be very bad influence at the US-ASEAN Summit and international conferences, for some might be tempted to think that if Najib could get away with the RM2.6 billion “donation” scandal in his personal banking accounts without being guilty of any criminal wrongdoing and in tightening the screws on the OSA to prevent any expose on government abuses of power, negligence, fraud or corruption, Najib should be emulated as an   example.

If democracy, human rights and good governance are to be among the topics of the US-ASEAN Summit in Sunnylands, California next week,  Najib is not the best candidate to represent Malaysia.

Najib would be placed in a better position for the US-ASEAN Summit if the Cabinet today had heeded my suggestion that it should take a policy stand to stop the Attorney-General  Apandi in his tracks by making clear that the Attorney-General has no sanction or authority from the Cabinet to  draft amendments to the OSA to increase criminal penalties to  punish and deter whistleblowers and journalists for information leaks to combat corruption, particularly grand corruption.

It is to Malaysia’s shame and disgrace if we are seen as buckling the international trend to combat corruption by tightening the screws on OSA to protect corrupt practices under the guise of “national security”.

It is in fact a service to national security to expose and combat corruption, which undermines public confidence in the governance of the country.

However, from the dismal record of Najib’s Ministers whether in fighting corruption or  upholding democracy, human rights or good governance,  I am quite dubious that the Cabinet meeting had taken any decision to stop the Attorney-General from proceeding with his proposals to draft amendments to increase criminal penalties under the OSA to deal with whistleblowers and journalist.

As it is, the Deputy Prime Minister and two UMNO Ministers have publicly expressed support for the Attorney-General proposals to make the OSA even more  draconian and repressive for whistleblowers and journalists.

What is the stand of the MCA, MIC and Gerakan Ministers as well as the Ministers from the Sarawak and Sabah parties of Barisan Nasional to Apandi’s proposal to tighten the screws of OSA for whistleblowers and journalists to prevent them from exposing corruption and all forms of government abuses of power?

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 10 February 2016, 3:45 pm and is filed under
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The world’s biggest oil trader thinks we may never see $100 oil again

by Will Martin

Business Insider

FEB. 8, 2016

The price of oil might never go above $100 per barrel ever again, and will stay beneath $60 for as long as ten years, according to the boss of the world’s biggest independent oil trader.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Ian Taylor, CEO of Vitol Group said: “It’s hard to see a dramatic price increase. You have to believe that there is a possibility that you will not necessarily go back above $100, you know, ever.”

The price of Brent crude, the European benchmark, peaked at around $140 in 2008 before crashing as low as $45 per barrel in early 2009.

It then recovered substantially, and traded around the $100 mark for nearly three years between 2011 and 2014.

However, since summer 2014, the huge supply glut in global markets, driven by OPEC, has forced prices down as low as $28 per barrel. Right now, both major benchmarks are hovering between $32-35 per barrel.

Much has been written about whether oil has hit a bottom, with some major banks and analysts predicting that crude could fall to as little as $10-20 per barrel. Last month, Credit Suisse said that it doesn’t believe oil has bottomed yet. Taylor told Bloomberg that he is unsure of whether oil has hit its lowest point, but he did predict that prices won’t recover beyond $60 per barrel for as much as a decade.

“We really do imagine a band, and that band would probably naturally see a $40 to $60 type of band,” he said. “I can see that band lasting for five to ten years. I think it’s fundamentally different.”

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 10 February 2016, 10:47 am and is filed under
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Apa dah jadi dengan Negara kita?

Oleh Yunus Tasim

Free Malaysia Today

February 10, 2016

Harapkan pegar, padi dimakan semua. Bila bapak borek, rakyat kan rintik melata!

Apa dah jadi dengan Negara kita?

Bila wang berbillion di katakan derma

Masuk akaun peribadi bukan satu tapi dua

Setelah sekian lama mengarang cerita

Semuanya serba tak kena

Apa lagi untuk diterima dan dipercaya

Tiba-tiba wang dipulang semula

Kepada penderma yang tak tahusiapa

Katanya Arab yang dah kaya raya

Kan lebih baik diberi kepada rakyat yang melara

Apa dah jadi dengan Negara kita?

Bila siasatan mengambil masa lama

Bukan satu agensi, tetapi tiga

Malaysia kan bukan negara Afrika

Serba maju dengan LRT dan lebuhraya kelas dunia

Dengan jargon KPI, ETP, GTP dan NKRA

Maka dengan Peguam Negara ditolaknya

Konon tidak cukup bukti untuk mendakwa

Tanda SPRM tidak cekap kerjanya?

Atau itu memang lakonan yang direka

Untuk mengabui mata rakyat jelata

Apa dah jadi dengan Negara kita?

Bila akhbar Singapura kata itu bukan derma

Tapi wang pelaburan yang tak tahu untuk apa

Anehnya RM2.03bil dipulangkan cuma

Derma? Investasi? Nampak betul bohongnya

Investasi rugi atau harta negara yang bayar selebihnya

Akaun bank Singapura dibekukan semua

Wang dari Pulau Cayman yang tinggal unit sahaja

Negara jadi terkenal kerna nista dan hina

Angkara tipu daya pemimpin durjana

Apa nak jadi dengan Negara kita?

Rasuah disanjung sebagai derma

Salah guna kuasa dibiarkan sahaja

Harapkan pegar, padi dimakan semua

Bila bapak borek, rakyat kan rintik melata

Hingga tak kenal mana musang mana ayam serama

Konon membela bangsa, pengkhianat rupanya mereka

Sampai bilakah si durjana kan menipu kita?

Sehingga kita di alam baka?

Atau anak cucu merempat menjadi bangsa yang hina?

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 11 February 2016, 10:03 pm and is filed under
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How to get rid of monkeys of Putrajaya?

– Bakri Musa

The Malaysian Insider

10 February 2016

I was visiting my old village near Sri Menanti, Negri Sembilan, recently and was struck by an unexpected but common sight. That is, the absence of any fruit trees or vegetable plots around what few remaining houses there which were still occupied.

Such a scene would have been unthinkable during my youth. Then there were always nearly-ripe papayas or bananas ready to be picked for breakfast, and enough long beans in the garden or chickens scurrying around to fill a cooking pot should unexpected guests arrive for lunch.

On querying my few elderly relatives still there and loving the serene kampung lifestyle, they replied that the monyet and kera (monkeys) have descended from the jungle to destroy everything, including the chickens.

Those monkeys have become so brazen and aggressive that my relatives now fear for their safety.

That is one of the many consequences of our having destroyed the primates’ natural habitat through illegal logging and replacing it with the hostile monoculture plantations of rubber and palm oil.

Like displaced people, those monkeys are forced into the kampung to survive and unleash their frustrations. Meanwhile, those loggers and planters luxuriate in their new wealth oblivious of the burden they had inflicted on those monkeys and poor villagers.

Back in the city, I read the daily papers, only to discover that marauding monkeys of another kind have also descended on and ravaged Putrajaya. The Year of the Monkey began early in Malaysia.

The havoc wrecked by the kera in the kampung is readily visible and the damages they inflict potentially recoverable. The critters, too, could also easily be scared away by letting those villagers have shotguns.

Not so with the primates of Putrajaya. The damage they inflict, while not readily visible, appearing only on the computer terminals of banks and other financial institutions, is nonetheless no less devastating, if not much more so.

Worse, it is being borne not only by citizens of today but also generations to come.

Already scholarships for some of our brightest students are being withdrawn for lack of funds. They are our next generation of talent, their dreams crushed at the last minute through no fault of their own. What a loss to the nation!

At least my relatives in the kampung are smart enough to be aware of the menace posed by those monkeys. By contrast many Malaysians, in particular the Malay elite, hold their chief monkey marauding in the nation’s capital and plundering the country’s wealth as the Prince of Putrajaya, perverse though it might seem to the rest of us.

Such obscenity and the perversion of our values are possible only because the Malay elite holed up in Putrajaya and elsewhere have abandoned their souls.

They have unabashedly sold theirs. Their price is pathetically cheap. The leftover crumbs that fall their way after their chief monkey has satiated his gluttony.

When confronted with their chief monkey’s continually changing and contradictory “explanations” to rationalise his gluttony, those little monkeys around him would insist that they have not sold their souls rather that they have merely “loaned” or “sacrificed” them to their “beloved” chief monkey.

Well, monkey see, monkey do. When they see that their chief monkey being “exonerated” upon returning the money it had earlier stolen, the little monkeys around soon get the message. That is, if you get caught stealing, then return the loot, or make a pretence of it. Then it would not be considered a wrong or a crime.

That is the new ethics of those Putrajaya monkeys.

They also have a new religion. That is, if they steal something and not get caught, then the loot is halal. Likewise, if they are caught and then returned the loot, then they have not committed a dosa (sin).

With the loot that they have acquired, if they still harbour a tinge of guilt or remorse, they could “cleanse” themselves by undertaking the haj or umrah, just to be sure.

What a mockery of our great faith of Islam!

Today, our monkey chief has sold, oops, “lent” his soul to the Arabs; tomorrow it would be the mainland Chinese. Who will be next?

The philosopher Hamka related a story of the prophet who encountered a sad young man in the mosque one day. When asked as to the cause, the young man replied that he was deep in debt and unable to repay it.  He now feared for his life.

Whereupon the prophet advised the young man never to be fearful of another mortal. We should fear only Allah.

There are eight ways in which we put ourselves in fear of our fellow human being, the prophet counselled the young man. For brevity as well as relevance, I will mention only the last one.

We put ourselves in the grip of others by being indebted to them. Ah Longs instil fear and dread in their victims. We could spare ourselves such a terrible fate by simply not borrowing or being in debt. That was the lesson the prophet imparted on the frightened young man.

Debts of money or material things are potentially repayable and you would then be freed from the bondage and carry on with your lives. You may have to work very hard to achieve that, but at least it is doable.

There is one debt however, that can never be repaid, the prophet advised the young man, and that is the debt of gratitude.

An ancient Malay saying reflects this wisdom: hutang emas boleh dibayar, hutang budi di bawa mati. A debt of gold is repayable, but you carry your debt of gratitude to your death.

Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad recently expressed his deep regret in having groomed the young Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Mahathir grooved the path for Najib because he (Dr Mahathir) felt he owed a huge debt of gratitude to Najib’s father, Tun Razak, who “rehabilitated” Dr Mahathir when he was in the political wilderness after being expelled from Umno in the early 1970s.

It looks like Dr Mahathir will carry to his grave not only his huge debt of gratitude to Razak but also the burden he has imposed upon the nation for being instrumental in Najib becoming prime minister.

Najib, in turn, owes a huge debt of gratitude to the Arabs for their generous “donations” before the last elections, and to the Chinese for currently bailing out 1MDB by buying its generating plants.

I could not care less what burden Najib would carry to his grave, but I am concerned with the huge burden he has imposed and continues to impose on Malaysians of today and on their children and grandchildren.

The kera in my old village could easily be gotten rid of by giving those villagers rifles. Getting rid of the monkeys of Putrajaya is more problematic. – www.bakrimusa.com, February 10, 2016.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 11 February 2016, 4:54 pm and is filed under
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Malaysia’s sovereignty lies somewhere between A-G and IGP

– Sir Wenger Khairy

The Malaysian Insider

11 February 2016

For the last 58 years, brave men in uniform fought and died to protect the sovereignty of the country. By the term “sovereignty”, I mean the power or authority of the country.

If the country is invaded by the Royal Sulu Army, or if the communists attack and set fire to villages and plantations, it is quite clear to see that those two agents were engaged in acts that challenge the sovereignty of the country.

The same is true if a political leader engages in corrupt acts and there is no action taken against the leader. This is because the leader breaks the laws of the land and challenges the power and authority of the Parliament and the Yang DiPertuan Agong, as the supreme authority in the country.

While the act of engaging in corruption may not result in the immediate loss of life, it exposes the country to ridicule on the world stage and in the process of covering up corruption, people get killed. At the same time, the country’s name is being “thrashed” as high officials are willing to make up stories in order to pervert the truth.

This was particularly struck home during a conversation I had with a German banker from a leading international financial institution, when he sarcastically emphasised that Datuk Seri Najib Razak was innocent by repeating the fairy tale told by Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali about a RM2.6 billion donation from the Saudi royal family to a good and sincere Prime Minister, who subsequently returned billions back to the same royal family.

Such is the reputation of Malaysia. People do not respect the country anymore.

And as Tan Sri Muhiyiddin Yassin said, it is the people who suffer. Do not be surprised that Malay ladies are now working as high-end maids for the rich Sheiks in Saudi Arabia. This was indeed another shocker!

We all know the cause of the problem – but what is the solution.

The answer: two public offices as prescribed in the Constitution.

The first being the office of the Attorney-General of Malaysia.

The second, the position of Inspector-General of Police (IGP).

If good and sincere people occupy these two offices, this nightmare scenario that is currently engulfing the country gets solved immediately.

I personally think there is no gain in an open fight between the royalty and Umno –  the ties between both run deep and both are important foundations of the larger Malay society.

However, changing a couple of public officials should not be too much of a hassle. After all, Umno is united behind Najib, and the party has also not publicly stated that they are united behind Apandi or the IGP, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar.

So if they were “gently” persuaded to resign their offices as an act of patriotic duty, so as to be replaced by people of a higher calibre, I doubt Umno would at all mind.

After all, politics is the art of the possible. By thinking laterally, one can find that the path that is possible works well with all parties concerned. – February 11, 2016.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 11 February 2016, 8:33 pm and is filed under
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Raped and plundered

Azrul Mohd Khalib

Malay Mail Online

February 11, 2016

FEBRUARY 11 ― Those were the two words which came to my mind when I first saw and heard what had happened. I wish it was an exaggeration. But it really wasn’t.

The Lynas debacle was a picnic compared to the fallout from uncontrolled and unregulated bauxite mining. You have to see it with your own eyes and listen to the stories from those living there to know, to understand and to even believe what the hell is going on in Kuantan.

I was recently in Pahang to participate in a discussion on the issue of corruption in the country. It was apt that the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas) forum was in the one place where the dire consequences of widespread corruption and the failure of regulations and enforcement of laws could be visibly seen, breathed in, and even drank.

Despite a three-month moratorium on bauxite mining currently in place since January 15, it is clear that massive damage to the environment and to the long-term wellbeing of the surrounding communities had already been done.

The landscape around Bukit Goh, on the outskirts of the state capital, currently looks as if a host of monster field rats had burrowed into the land, creating pockmarks and craters, huge mounds of red earth and swathes of land deprived of topsoil. Some parts of this area now resemble a red Martian landscape.

It’s a good time to be in the car wash business in Kuantan. Before the moratorium, cars left outside and exposed would be coated or caked with red dust. All you had to do was look out the window and see the red-tinted leaves of trees and the colour of rust on the road dividers.

The signs of mining were everywhere. Digging wasn’t just happening in the acres of mature palm oil plantations but also behind schools, next to residential areas, near water reservoirs, and even football fields and playgrounds. In some places, people’s houses were not less than 50 metres from where earth moving equipment had dug into the ground in search of ore deposits.

This isn’t mining that was conducted clandestinely in the middle of a dark and remote jungle far from civilisation and somewhere in the rural heartland of Pahang. This is right on the doorstep of Kuantan, the state government’s seat of power, the mentri besar’s office and the royal palace.

To say that there had been very little regulation on the mining activities would be a serious understatement. What had happened to the state authorities, law enforcement, the Department of Land and Mines and the mentri besar?

The mentri besar’s feeble and powerless public statement on being unable to identify and arrest the perpetrators calls into question the impotency of the state authorities in the face of obvious rampant corruption.

The answer to this helplessness and the air of fear, impotency and the impunity of the perpetrators can probably be attributed to the intimidating presence of many yellow coloured signboards erected at different sites to indicate the mining activity and the licence holder. Look at it. Keep your mouth shut, turn a blind eye and don’t even think of complaining.

The environmental toll must be simply staggering.

Red stains and red dust everywhere. Residents spoke of how their furniture and eating utensils were coated in fine red dust, similar to the dust bowl scenes described in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.

The topsoil of a large number of mined areas has been denuded rendering the land unusable for many years to come. During heavy rainfall late last year, rivers and the waters closest to the shore turned a Biblical red due to contaminants from bauxite-rich soil and spillage from lorries transporting the ore to the port.

For months, students and children of the surrounding schools had to endure classrooms exposed to the pollution from the mining areas and the dust and spillage from the movement of the countless lorries used to transport the mined bauxite.

At the peak of mining operations, convoys of up to 80 lorries and trucks were known to be on the road at a time. Hundreds of foreign drivers reportedly had to be brought in to drive more than a thousand lorries, trucks and earthmovers.

Who knows what health consequences the people there have to suffer in the long run?

Strangely enough, the results of government tests on water, soil and air quality in the area have been classified as secrets under the 1972 Official Secrets Act and not permitted for release to the public, despite repeated requests.

Instead, Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) environmental scientists have independently taken water samples from rivers, the sea, water reservoirs and even from the taps homes and found the presence of heavy metals caesium and strontium, and chemicals such as mercury and arsenic. Cases of respiratory related complications and illnesses have been on the slow increase.

It has been estimated that rehabilitation of the affected land will take at least two to three years. But the reality is that no funds have been allocated for this purpose.

There is no political will to require the mining industry to pay for it and if the state government is as helpless as it describes itself in enforcement efforts, you can bet that a conversation on land rehabilitation and conservation would go nowhere.

A massive clean-up operation has been underway since the beginning of the moratorium. Alam Flora and the fire department, among many others, have been scrubbing and hosing down houses, streets, public buildings and even the leaves of trees and shrubbery in an effort to be rid of the red patina which seems to be everywhere.

Will the miners be forced to reimburse the cost of these taxpayer supported services and be slapped with a punitive fine? What happens to the water used to decontaminate and wash off the contaminants? Inhabitants have expressed their worry that the tons of water used to sluice off the red crap from the surface have now seeped down to the water table.

Despite all of this, the inhabitants and people of Kuantan seem to be paralysed by fear and feel as helpless as their chief minister. Lawyers with MNS spoke of their frustration and inability to identify and secure plaintiffs for a case to bring against the perpetrators.

Those approached for their co-operation and assistance would later be “honoured” with visits from Felda officers who would discourage such action insinuating that there would repercussions if they decided to go ahead. Intimidation and the fear of losing your livelihood work well.

The Felda landowners, many of whom took advantage of offers of large sums of money, are themselves not free from fault. After all, they probably thought it was a win-win situation where they would allow for the mining to be done on idle land, still own it and be paid handsomely at the same time.

Whether RM50,000 or a million, it’s a hell of a lot of money for anyone to resist. Quite a few pilgrimages to the Holy Land (umrahs), shiny MPVs and newly renovated houses were funded this way. They bear silent testimony that the settlers bear some responsibility for this orgy.

The kneejerk reaction is to point the finger at capitalism. To declare that what has happened in Kuantan is yet another example of capitalism run amok. But what this actually is are the dire consequences of corruption and the failure of the state to enforce the very regulations and laws that it has set up to govern such activity.

A mind-set that does not take issues of the environment seriously and sacrifices long term consequences for short term gain led to this disaster. Capitalism isn’t a suicide pact.

The annual output of bauxite ore increased dramatically from less than 200,000 tonnes in 2013, to nearly 20 million tonnes last year, with a value of RM46.7 million in royalty to the state government.

Malaysia, maybe even specifically Pahang, somehow within a year became the world’s top producer of bauxite, accounting for nearly half of the supply to China’s aluminium industry. So there is a lot at stake. For some people at least.

When the lorries, trucks and earthmovers are gone, after the air is finally free of the sound of thousands of diesel engines and the dust of red earth settle on the rooftops and interiors of homes, the people and leaders of Pahang need to ask themselves: what’s left and was it worth the pain and suffering caused?

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 11 February 2016, 5:11 pm and is filed under
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The banker at centre of Swiss bank BSI, 1MDB relationship

BY SAEED AZHAR AND ANSHUMAN DAGA

Reuters

Feb 11, 2016

Singapore – A private banker, caught up in Singapore’s money laundering probe linked to 1Malaysia Development Bhd, was a key link between the embattled state investor, a Swiss private bank and a Malaysian businessman connected to the troubled fund.

Yak Yew Chee, a senior banker at Swiss-based BSI Singapore, has emerged for the first time as a key figure in Singapore’s money laundering probe, according to documents released at Singapore High Court last week.

Yak was not personally at the Singapore High Court on Friday, when he sought to unfreeze his Singapore funds to pay taxes and legal fees. His lawyer agreed to withdraw the petition after the prosecutor raised no objection in allowing Yak to transfer S$1.76 million ($1.3 million) from his overseas bank accounts.

In an affidavit filed at the court, he denied any wrongdoing or getting unlawful benefits from managing the accounts of 1MDB or its affiliates.

Yak handled the lucrative 1MDB account after he joined Swiss private bank BSI in Singapore in 2009, a person who worked with him at the bank said. He was on unpaid leave for five months last year while BSI investigated him for alleged misconduct related to client accounts, the court documents say, but did not disclose details of the internal probe. Yak went back on BSI’s payroll in October and was last paid his monthly salary of nearly S$83,000 on Jan 27, according to his court affidavit.

Singapore authorities are conducting a money laundering probe into bank accounts linked to 1MDB, whose activities have triggered legal action across three continents.

Some of the accounts Singapore is probing belong to Yak and have been frozen together with S$9.7 million of his funds, according to the court documents, the first to emerge from Singapore’s probe into 1MDB announced last July. Malaysia said in March 2015 that 1MDB had transferred $1.1 billion from the Cayman Islands into BSI Singapore.

Yak did not respond to Reuters request for comments. BSI declined to comment.

The court disclosures about the money transfers in Singapore linked to 1MDB are another hit to the Malaysian government’s efforts to put a lid on the scandal-hit fund, which is chaired by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Malaysia’s Attorney General last month cleared Najib of any wrong-doing in the case, and 1MDB has denied the graft and money-laundering allegations. But Switzerland’s chief prosecutor said a criminal investigation into 1MDB had revealed that about $4 billion appeared to have gone astray.

EYES ON ASIA

Yak was among 100 Asia-based bankers who left rival RBS Coutts mostly from its Singapore office in late 2009 for BSI, lured by promises of hefty bonuses, three banking sources in Singapore said. It was then the biggest such defection in Asia’s private banking sector, they said.

BSI was turning to Asia at that time amid concerns a wide-ranging U.S. tax investigation into Swiss banks could weaken Switzerland’s wealth management industry.

Yak started with an annual salary of S$500,000. His clients included Brazen Sky Ltd, a financial vehicle owned by 1MDB which was holding $1.1 billion worth of fund units in BSI Bank in Singapore, 1MDB says on its website.

The bank was making between $15 million and $20 million in fees from the Brazen Sky account, said a person familiar with the situation. Reuters could not independently confirm this.

Another client was Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, court documents show. Jho Low, as he is more popularly known, was an adviser to Terengganu Investment Authority, which later became 1MDB, but he never had any position with 1MDB, the Malaysian fund said in a statement. Jho Low did not respond to Reuters request for comment.

Yak said in his affidavit he believed the reason his bank accounts were seized was “due to ongoing investigations into Low Taek Jho”. Singapore’s Commercial Affairs Department declined to comment on whether Jho Low is under investigation.

ROCKETING BONUS

Yak’s career blossomed at BSI Singapore. “He was a big success and the way he brought in business was constantly showcased,” one person who has worked with Yak, told Reuters.

His bonus rocketed from S$649,294 in 2011 to S$10.44 million by 2014, according to his court affidavit.

BSI Singapore was also prospering. Its staff had grown to over 200 by end-2010 from 30 in 2009 to become the Swiss bank’s biggest overseas subsidiary, the bank’s annual report shows. In the 2014 annual report, BSI said its Singapore unit had almost doubled its net profit compared to 2013.

But the relationship between the banker and its star banker appeared to sour last year, the court documents show.

Yak asserted in the court documents that the bank was trying to terminate him and deny him some of the S$8.8 million of bonus that he says has not yet been paid.

BSI declined to comment on any aspect of Yak’s case.

BSI has been put up for sale by its owner, investment bank BTG Pactual, which is rushing to sell assets to raise cash and shore up investor confidence following the arrest of its founder André Esteves in November.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 11 February 2016, 4:43 pm and is filed under
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UMNO defeat in next general election is not only good for UMNO but also good for the country

I cannot agree more with veteran journalist A. Kadir Jasin who said today that defeat in the next general election will be good for UMNO.

I will go one step further and say that UMNO defeat in the next general election is not only good for UMNO but also good for the country.

Kadir Jasin said it is only after UMNO suffers defeat in a general election that it is  likely work towards regaining the prestige it once had.

In an interview with Free Malaysia Today, Kadir Jasin said: “Umno can rebuild itself with a new leadership that opens up opportunities to the younger generation, but it will probably do so only if it loses a general election.

“Without a defeat, Umno will remain the way it is. It will be thinking only of what the party needs to do to stay in power instead of what the public really wants.

“The Malays today are adventurous. They now have the courage to stand up and say that they no longer need to stand under one umbrella.”

Kadir reinforced his argument with examples from recent history which illustrated that political parties that had been dominant for too long would degenerate but would rebuild themselves after defeat. He cited the cases of Taiwan’s Kuomintang, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and India’s Congress Party.

These three parties, he said, chose to heed their wake-up calls and realised that they must fulfil their responsibilities in a democracy.

He said Umno’s reaction to defeat would determine whether or not it could make a comeback.

If Umno could rebuild itself, Malaysia would move closer towards being a democracy with a two-party system.

I welcome Kadir Jasin’s courage to speak  the unpleasant truth, which is an indication that Malaysia is ready for a quantum leap in  our democratic experiment.

Last month, Taiwan elected Tsai Ing-wen of Democratic Progressive Party as President, which marked a third peaceful “turnover” of power through the ballot box – from Kuomintang (KMT) to DPP in 2000, DPP to KTM in 2008 and KTM back to DPP in 2016.

Malaysia has yet to become a normal democratic country, as we have yet to undergo one peaceful “turnover” of power through the ballot box when scholars say that a country cannot claim to be a normal democracy without two peaceful “turnovers” of power through the ballot box.

Will UMNO’s electoral loss in the 14 GE be such an unmitigated disaster than it will end in UMNO’s demise.

I do not believe so. I do not believe UMNO is in such a terminal stage of political cancer that it will die and can never recover if it loses the 14GE.

As Kadir Jasin has rightly argued, other countries in the world provide examples of the resilience of ruling parties which had dominated their nation’s political scenes for decades but which could still spring back to relevance and importance after the shock of their first electoral defeat and rejection in n the ballot boxes.

In fact, it will be good for the soul of UMNO to be defeated in 14GE – as it is the only way for UMNO to get rid of corrupt leaders and to reform to be politically relevant again like what had been experienced by Indian National Congress, Taiwan’s Kuomintang and Japanese Liberal Democratic parties.

This is why UMNO’s defeat in the next general election is not only good for UMNO – allowing UMNO to renew and genuinely reform to give top priority to the people’s rights and interests instead of subordinating them to those of UMNO cronies – but also to the nation, allowing the country to graduate to a higher phase of democracy where the electorate can genuinely exercise the right to choose the government they want through the ballot box.

Even more important for the country, UMNO’s defeat will  SAVE Malaysia from the downward lurch towards a rogue state where there is no  Rule of Law and a failed state where Malaysia is unable to leverage on our abundant human and natural resources and fully exploit our national potentials to become a just, competitive, progressive and prosperous nation because of rampant corruption, widespread socio-economic injustices and nation-building failures.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 11 February 2016, 2:30 pm and is filed under
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‘Vanishing Ice’ Makes Beautiful Bid For Action on Climate Change

By
Rachael Myrow

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Vanishing Ice: Alpine and Polar Landscapes in Art, 1775-2002
, a new exhibition at the David Brower Center in Berkeley, explores the way artists since the late 18th century have depicted the frozen parts of our planet. It’s a show that forces people to stop seeing the polar ice caps as bleak, alien landscapes, and instead as delicate ecosystems full of life and color -– all of it under threat as a result of climate change.

The show features a couple of Bay Area artists, including photographer
Camille Seaman
 of Richmond. Seaman didn’t start out as a climate change activist. As a member of a small Native American tribe on the East Coast called the Shinnecock, Seaman grew up with a healthy respect for nature. But she might have never visited the Arctic if it weren’t for a fortuitous offer from Alaska Airlines when she was flying out of Oakland back in the 1990s: The airline offered the artist a free flight anywhere in its network in exchange for being bumped from a flight. Yes, airlines used to offer that perk.

“I was like, alright, I’ll do it,” says Seaman, who lives in Richmond. “I think a lot of people are offered that chance, but they never actually use the ticket.”

At least, not the way Seaman used it. She chose one of the most remote places Alaska Airlines flies: Kotzebue, a tiny city on the far western coast of Alaska, not far from Siberia.

“I chose Kotzebue because it’s situated on the supposed Bering land bridge,” Seaman says. “I was curious about this idea that we had migrated over this land bridge during the last ice age and somehow populated America.”

Seaman had no idea she was embarking on a 16-year love affair with the Arctic, and then the Antarctic, too. “There are no two icebergs alike,” Seaman says. “They have their own unique personalities. Some do kind of glow like that. Others are like ‘Eeeeeh. Don’t look at me! I’m having a bad ice day!’ They have so much personality.”

Seaman’s photos of icebergs are spectacular, jaw-dropping meditations in shades of blue and gray. The ice often looks lit from within, beckoning the viewer to step inside the photograph. The artist obtained access to parts of the world most people don’t go by traveling with polar expeditions, photographing penguins, icebergs, and over time, climate change, along the way.

“There’s no place for apathy anymore,” Seaman says, her voice trembling with emotion. What started on a whim for the artist became a passion, and then a cause. “I think for too long we’ve allowed ourselves as citizens of this planet to think that it’s a right to be able to do what we want to it.”

Seaman’s photo “Grand Pinnacle,” is just one of the striking pieces in
Vanishing Ice
, a traveling exhibition from Washington State that covers more than 200 years of artistic engagement with Arctic and alpine landscapes.

The curator, Dr. Barbara Matilsky of the
Whatcom Museum
 in Bellingham, Washington, has spent a lot of her career thinking about the way artists like Seaman have followed the work of scientists and popularized their research, “getting people to appreciate the beauty and majesty of these regions,” as she puts it, “so that they would be inspired to protect them.”

The original exhibition, featuring 80 works from artists all over the world, premiered at the Whatcom Museum in March 2014, and has continued on to The El Paso Museum of Art and the McMicael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario.

As with Seaman’s body of work, Vanishing Ice also serves as a record of climate change over the centuries, showing audiences what the world looked like even before cameras came along. “It’s an ‘a ha!’ moment when you see these works,” Matilsky says, “because it becomes very clear that this is just not these sporadic events happening here and there, but the actual results of this climatic phenomenon.”

The David Brower Center in Berkeley is presenting an abbreviated version of the exhibition, featuring around 25 works. But the venue is also hosting a series of related events, like a talk with Matilsky in February, and an evening of music with Other Minds in May, featuring San Francisco composer Cheryl Leonard.

Leonard has written several pieces using natural objects found in polar regions that will be performed at the concert . In Melt Water, her instruments are icicles, hung so as to drip into scientific glass ware.

Like Seaman, Leonard sees her work as a form of documentation, as well as art. “The sonic landscape in these places will change and perhaps these sounds will become extinct,” Leonard says.

Stanford University Professor Jon Krosnick, who’s studied American attitudes about climate change for two decades, believes that Americans are really starting to understand the impact of global warming.

“We’re used to seeing the country split 50-50 on many issues,” Krosnick says. “In about 25 surveys, conducted over two decades, most people believe the earth has been growing warmer over the last century. Between about 75 and 80 percent of Americans say they believe that’s probably been happening.”

Museum curators reflect this shift in awareness, in part, reflecting the interest of artists they build shows around. It’s hard to spit without hitting an exhibition that touches on climate change. Some, like the one at 1337 Gallery in San Rafael, are simply called Climate Change. Others, like The Idea of North, just finished at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, broadly hint at the subject.

Can these public conversations move people to take meaningful action? Krosnick is optimistic in this regard. “The world’s most important photographs are typically pictures that powerfully communicate the agony of people far away from us in a way that makes it human,” Krosnick says. “That highlights the potential for artists to activate our emotions in ways that make a real difference in how we think about very concrete, very everyday issues.”

More Icebergs, Including One That Rolls -> video at bottom of the page (
follow this link
)

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 11 February 2016, 10:08 am and is filed under
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