Saturday, December 31, 2011
HAPPY 2012
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Merry Christmas
Friday, December 23, 2011
Khir Toyo: What sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Borrowed Money,Borrowed Time: Walking The Tightrope In Kuala Lumpur
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Malaysia's Mahathir Defends Sarawak Chieftain
Charges of looting Sarawak could just be electioneering, he says
Malaysia’s former Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, has defended Sarawak’s embattled chief minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, questioning calls by international NGOs for investigations of Taib’s vast fortune.
"When an election is near, you get funny things like this coming out," Mahathir told reporters at a press conference Tuesday. "If it is just a political game to try and undermine somebody's political image then I think it is not right."
If the allegations are true, the 86-year-old Mahathir said, the authorities could be expected to take action. In May, Swiss authorities announced they were investigating accounts held in Swiss banks by the Taib family for evidence of corruption. Shortly after that, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission announced it would also investigate Taib’s holdings, although observers in Kuala Lumpur said it was unlikely that the MACC would follow through, Indeed, one source told Asia Sentinel recently that the investigation had “gone cold.” A Taib spokesman said the funds had been legitimately deposited and that there was no evidence of criminality.
Many political observers expect Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak to call national elections in the early part of 2012, possibly in March. Sarawak, the country’s largest state, is key to efforts by the Barisan Nasional, the country’s ruling national coalition, to maintain a healthy majority in parliament. Both Najib and Mahathir earlier this year reportedly tried to dissuade the scandal-ridden chief minister to quit before state elections.
When Taib refused to step down, both had to criss-cross the state, campaigning for Taib’s coalition. However, the coalition produced a two-thirds majority in the state assembly. Although he had publicly offered to step down, the magnitude of the victory impelled him to stay in power.
Mahathir’s defense of Taib was generated by the fact that on Tuesday, NGOs from six different countries issued a joint letter demanding that Malaysia’s sultan appoint a royal commission of inquiry and that authorities arrest and prosecute Taib and 13 members of his family for massive fraud, theft, corruption, illegal appropriation of land and abuse of public office. They allege that the looting of Sarawak’s rich timber and other natural resources has earned Taib’s family billions of US dollars through investment in as many as 400 companies in 25 countries.
They also demanded that a multi-agency task force be appointed to attempt to repatriate the vast sums from other countries to the people of Sarawak.
Research released earlier this month by the Switzerland-based Bruno Manser Fund said official documents show the Taib family stake in 14 Malaysian companies alone is worth US$1.46 billion. The fund has uploaded all of the documents onto the Internet. They can be found here. Billions more are believed to be held in other countries.
The fund said its research only covers publicly available information from Malaysia’s Registry of Companies and other official documents and the total of all of the Taib family’s holdings could run well in excess of that amount.
“Not counting their more hidden wealth, this puts the Taib family firmly into the category of one of the richest families in the world and makes them far richer than the Queen of England (whose assets are a mere half billion pounds),” the fund said.
In all, according to the fund, named for a Swiss environmentalist who disappeared in Sarawak in 2000 while trying to aid the Penan tribe, the family also has stakes in companies in Australia (22 companies), Bermuda (1), the British Virgin Islands (7), Brunei (1), Cambodia (1), Canada (9), the Cayman Islands (1), Fiji (3), Hong Kong (7), India (2), Indonesia (3), Jersey (1), the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (1), Labuan (1), New Zealand (5), the People’s Republic of China (2), the Philippines (1), Singapore (2), Sri Lanka (1), Thailand (2), the United Arab Emirates (1), the United Kingdom (4), the United States of America (6) and Vietnam (1).
Allegations are that as chief minister, Taib granted timber access permits to a plethora of companies, most of them owned by ethnic Chinese, that denuded much of the state of its tropical rainforest. The two NGOs previously reported that Taib's children are the shareholders and directors of numerous companies controlling residential and commercial buildings in Canada, Australia, Britain and the United States together worth hundreds of millions of US dollars. Many of the assets came into their possession when they were in their early 20s and were still college students with no visible access to legitimate resources to invest.
Taib has been chief minister, finance minister and planning and resources management minister of since 1981 and he hardly conceals his vast wealth, riding around the capital of Kuching in a cream-colored Rolls-Royce sedan.
Taib, his four children, eight siblings and his first cousin Hamed bin Sepawi have stakes in 332 companies worth several billion US dollars in Malaysia, the report says. “The Taib family’s share in 14 large companies’ net assets alone has been calculated at US$1.46 billion (RM4.6 billion). The three largest Taib family-linked companies are the 84 percent Taib-owned Cahya Mata Sarawak (net assets RM2.4 billion), the 25 percent Taib-owned Custodev Sdn Bhd (net assets RM1.6 billion) and the at least 35 percent Taib-owned Ta Ann Holdings Bhd (net assets: RM1.4 billion). Read more.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Malaysian Winter,Money Can't Buy Me Love
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
The Grinch - Stole Malaysian Christmas
It’s farcical, but carol singing is a national security issue in Malaysia from this year.
Prime Minister Najib Razak’s spanking new Peaceful Assembly Bill 2011 that was passed last month has bared its teeth and caused astonishment and fright in equal measure.
The law is being put to use to control Christmas carollers and the places they visit during the run-up to Christmas, making them spies and government informers all rolled into one.
According to Christian groups in the country, they have been notified of strict new conditions imposed that they need to satisfy before they are granted a police permit to visit households and sing Christmas carols.
The new rules have alarmed civil and religious rights activists and church carolling groups are in a quandary over how to fulfill the conditions to gain the police permit needed to go carol singing.
Catholic Bishop Paul Tan Chee Ing described the new conditions as turning the country into “very nearly a police state”, local news portal, Malaysiakini reported.
“The Peaceful Assembly Bill 2011 is vexing if things have come down to this,” the bishop who is head of the Catholic Church for the Malacca-Johor diocese and president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Malaysia told the portal this week.
Up to last year, carolling groups visiting Christian homes during the Christmas season were required to apply for a police permit for the visits and approvals were never a problem.
However, under provisions of the recently passed, highly controversial Peaceful Assembly Bill, Christian authorities must furnish the names of the main occupants of homes the carollers intend to visit.
“If parish priests have to furnish the names of the main tenants, then we have become very nearly a police state. This is a bureaucratic requirement that is so vexing,” said Tan.
“We are a church that periodically conducts a census of our members, but we do not go around asking our members details of where exactly they stay and if they own their residences or are merely tenants.
“We generally know where they stay but we don’t keep a ledger of their addresses. We don’t snoop and we respect the privacy of individual members of our congregation. We don’t believe we should be Big Brother or Nanny to them,” he added. Read more.
Mahathir:If It Ain't Broke,Don't Fix It
The people should continue supporting the Barisan Nasional (BN) government as it has proven itself capable of fulfilling the needs of the people, former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said on Sunday.
He said since after the country's independence, the BN goverment had struggled for the people's well-being regardless of race.
"Why should we change the government for another party? There are people who ask for the government to be changed, accusing the BN of being evil, thieves, robbers, corrupted and so on, but the other parties have not been tested like we (BN) have.
"There is an English saying which means that we should not repair something which is already in a good state because a worse thing can happen.
"It's the same with support for BN....its balanced policies for all races are seen as good.
"Hence, there is no need to change the current government to one whose ability to take care of the people's welfare is highly suspect," said Dr Mahathir at a talk event between the Ampang Umno division and the former premier at Dewan Datuk Setia Mufti Suib in Ampang, near here.
Later when asked by reporters on the government's proposal to amend the Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA) 1974, Dr Mahathir said the Act was created in the interest of Malay undergraduates.
"At that time, there were many more Malay undergraduates actively involved in politics than those from the other races. Hence, the Act was implemented to ensure that they (Malay students) fully focus on their studies to succeed in education.
"There were not that many highly educated Malays at the time and if the Malay students were preoccupied with politics, when would they be able to study?
"I was also active in politics when I was young but left it for almost six years to concentrate on my (medical) studies," he said.
On Nov 24, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak announced in the Dewan Rakyat that the government would be amending the UUCA to allow undergraduates to be members of political parties.Bernama
Monday, December 12, 2011
Malaysian Sideshows
While there is that motion picture-like air of a “coming to a polling booth near you, the nation’s next blockbuster – the 13th General Election” – in the rapidly changing Malaysian state of Sabah, the people remain unmoved and cynical.
“It may be a new election but like some movies the plot never changes … in Sabah it will be the same old story,” volunteered a middle aged man, on his way to drop his family of four off at a cineplex in Kota Kinabalu, the state capital, to watch the latest offering.
Like him, the nagging question on most locals’ minds as they prepare to countdown to elect a new government and Parliament anytime between now and 2013 – will the vote be entirely free and fair across the whole country and especially in their state?
Known as the Wild East because of its freewheeling business, land grabs, government wheeling and dealing, vote buying, illegal immigrants and a basket-full of shady deals, Sabah is no stranger to controversy and skullduggery.
The sudden interest by the ruling coalition government to form a parliamentary committee to look into how to make elections freer and fairer, is seen as a side show, judging from the small talk in coffeeshops.
Already Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak pledge to give Malaysians the “best democracy in the world” is ringing hollow. His dramatic announcement that draconian laws like the Internal Security Act that allowed detention without trial and another that required a police permit for five or more people to gather in a public place has turned out to be a mere publicity exercise.
True, the two laws will be repealed but they are being replaced by even more stringent, all-encompassing regulations. One of them is a spanking new Peaceful Assembly Bill that belies its name.
In Sabah they have a name for this. They call it “wayang”, which is loosely translated as “show”.
“They are just playing for time,” said John, a father of two who considers himself a politically savvy Sabahan no different from many of those of his generation who were born in the 1980s and who have a healthy distrust of promises by government.
“Why now all of a sudden? They don’t know about this before, meh?” he asks and smirks as he says: “They must form a committee first, mah.” His sarcasm is not lost on his wife and his in-laws who giggle as they enjoy a Sunday evening out.
The words ‘committee’ and ‘committee meeting’ have a quirky meaning in the state and it is unfortunate the ‘Parliamentary Select Committee on Electoral Reforms’ has that tag.
Talk of a RCI (Royal Commission of Inquiry) into how illegal immigrants acquired citizenship and voting rights over the last two decades has also met with skepticism.
“Umno has already said there is no need so what are they (Sabah-based political parties such as PBS, Upko, PBRS and LDP) talking about,” asked a local engineer who requested anonymity because he is working for a company that has government-linked contracts.
“They can’t even agree among themselves such an important issue and they call themselves a coalition? The right brain disagreeing with the left brain … how can?”
He believes that the Umno-led Barisan Nasional ruling coalition is attempting to pacify a more demanding public for as long as it can ahead of the next election but will ultimately do nothing to resolve the issue that is at the heart of Sabah’s future.
“They will still use the phantom voters … they can’t help it … that is the only way they can win. All the marginal seats are theirs (BN),” he says.
Pessimism about ever having a clean and fair election runs deep.
Kanul Gindol, a political operative, spoke plainly of the despair when he told Maximus Ongkili, the chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Electoral Reforms during a public hearing here last week, that the only panacea to their problem would be to invite international observers during the elections.
He said allowing recognised international observers would go a long way towards helping regain public confidence in the electoral process.
Dr Chong Eng Leong, a political activist who has chronicled the various stages of a virtual takeover of Sabah by illegal immigrants with the help of politicians, was another who alluded to how the electoral system had been subverted to favour the government.
Maximus, who is the Minister of Science, Technology, and Innovation and a member of PBS-led government who were kicked out of power by Umno in 1994, is well aware of how the voter rolls have been manipulated by the coalition but has gagged himself since the party rejoined the BN and he was given a federal cabinet post.Read more.
British PM Cameron's Fiasco
- Allegra Stratton, political correspondent
- guardian.co.uk,
Nick Clegg promised to rebuild the government's shattered relationship with the rest of Europe and risked opening a coalition rift by going public with his "bitter disappointment" at David Cameron's decision to block a new EU agreement.
The deputy prime minister said Britain risked becoming "isolated and marginalised" from the European mainstream and, along with seniorLiberal Democrats, spent the weekend contacting European leaders in a "strategy for re-engagement to recover lost ground", according to a senior government source.
Several high-profile figures, including the former leader Paddy Ashdownand the party president, Tim Farron, joined Clegg in a wide-ranging attack on Cameron's resort to a British veto.
Clegg will hold a meeting with business leaders this week to convince them "they had not completely had the door shut", according to an aide. There is growing concern that the 26 EU countries who agreed on greater fiscal integration last week will now be able to strike deals affecting British banks and businesses.
The business secretary, Vince Cable, who warned the prime minister in Cabinet last Monday against the strategy he went on to follow in Brussels, is concerned that global companies including banks and pension funds will now shun investments in the UK, having previously favoured it as a "gateway" to the continent.
Clegg was biting in his critique of developments in Brussels but spoke of correcting the path chosen by Cameron by getting "back into the saddle". "I'm bitterly disappointed by the outcome of last week's summit, precisely because I think now there is a danger that the UK will be isolated and marginalised within the European Union," he told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show.Read more.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Save The Euro But Not The EU
The deal could mark a turning point in the raging euro crisis if it convinces jittery markets that, by way of strict budget rules, member countries can claw their way out of debt woes. It is potentially historic, taking the continent deep into fiscal integration and union as the member states concede sovereignty on taxation and spending to a central authority.
The problem is the E.U. isn't heading into this adventure as one. Ten hours of tense talks failed to persuade U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron to sign up to the pact, and so the other 26 member states agreed to forge ahead on without Britain. Cameron argued that the planned deal would threaten key British interests, including its financial markets and the preeminence of the City of London as Europe's financial capital. And so he vetoed an amendment of the full Union treaty. Hence, the others had to take a different route to an agreement: the intergovernmental agreement they will hammer out by March will be written outside the E.U.'s legal framework.(See "Euro Treaty Takes Shape, But Without Britain.")
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2102019,00.html#ixzz1gCniEfQ7
"Angry Birds" Malaysia's Beacon Of Hope
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Cows And Condos As Election Symbols
Labuan: Independent candidate in the last general election here, Lau Seng Kiat, suggested that the Election Commission (EC) allow cow and condominium to be used as symbols by Independent candidates in the coming general election.
"These two things are now very popular. The cow reflects hard work while condominium reflects prosperity of the nationÉthey are meaningful symbols and appropriate," said Lau, in response to EC's plans to withdraw some of the election symbols.
After the last general election, the EC said some of the symbols used by Independent candidates, such as umbrella, tiger head, scissors and smoking pipe, would be withdrawn.
The symbols considered for replacement were bulb, brief case, television and hibiscus along with the older symbols like fish, rooster, coconut tree and tractor.
In the last election here, Lau, who is now DAP Chairman, used the umbrella as his symbol and collected 2,014 votes, and managed to retain his deposit in the Barisan Nasional's (BN) stronghold.
The cow and condominium have become popular nationwide following the cattle scandal involving the family of Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, who is Women, Family and Community Development Minister and national Umno Wanita Chief.
The issues were connected to the National Feedlot Centre (NFC) run by the Minister's husband and siblings.
Many called it a "cow and condominium" scandal due to the purchase of expensive property by NFL though this was not seen as relevant to NFC's core business.
Commenting on the NFC scandal, Lau said he was delighted that Kinabatangan Member of Parliament Datuk Bung Moktar Radin had boldly criticised the alleged dealings of NFC and repeated his accusation though a few other Umno leaders had defended the Minister.
Lau said it was the Auditor-General's Report that exposed the NFC was in "a mess."
For anyone to challenge this would be tantamount to saying the Report was flawed, said Lau.
Friday, December 9, 2011
UMNO Digging Its Own Grave
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Malaysia's Indian Summer
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Shahrizat:Who Let The Cows Out?
Malaysian Government Securities (MGS) - Conventional | |||||||
MGS Benchmarks | Trading Yields | Total Volume (RM million) | Daily change (bps) | ||||
Tenure | Maturity | Coupon (%) | Low (%) | High (%) | Close (%) | ||
3-year | Aug-2014 | 3.434 | 3.03 | 3.08 | 3.05 | 98.27 | 0 |
5-year | Sep-2016 | 4.262 | 3.24 | 3.26 | 3.25 | 121.57 | 1 |
7-year | Sep-2018 | 3.580 | 3.54 | 3.55 | 3.55 | 170.00 | 1 |
10-year | Jul-2021 | 4.160 | 3.70 | 3.71 | 3.71 | 63.90 | -3 |