Posted on

MACC cancels London interview with PI Bala

By Aidila Razak | Malaysiakini

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) will not record the statement of private investigator P Balasubramaniam in London after all.

Instead, it will submit questions to his lawyers and request that the witness responds in the form of an affidavit, MACC deputy commissioner Mohd Shukri Abdull told a press conference today.

“We will write to the witness’ lawyers tomorrow to inform them of the decision, and to submit the questions,” he said.

He said that the decision was made upon advice from the attorney-general’s chambers, after considering the Eric Chia case where a witness statement recorded overseas was not allowed to be tendered as evidence in the corruption trial.

According to MACC Legal and Prosecution Director Abdul Razak Musa, the decision not to record Balasubramaniam’s statement was also influenced by decisions on Thai pathologist Pornthip Rojanasunand’s testimony in the Teoh Beng Hock inquest.
Continue reading “MACC cancels London interview with PI Bala”

Posted on

Can Malaysia escape a trap of its own making?

By Peter Drysdale | East Asia Forum

Malaysia’s recently presented New Economic Model is, on paper, a hugely ambitious strategy for changing the country’s economic and social direction and, hopefully, its economic and political fortunes.

The government of Prime Minister Najib seems inclined to embrace its principles and try to forge a new direction in Malaysian economic and social policy. In the 1980s Malaysia was among the brightest stars in the Southeast Asian economy, with growth around 8 per cent a year and a huge transformation away from its comfortable plantation and minerals past towards a new industrial future, driven by foreign investment and rapidly growing exports of consumer electronics to regional and global markets. Mahathir reigned supreme, dispensing patronage and securing UMNO’s political base under the camouflage of the long-established New Economic Policy, put in place after the racial disturbances of the late 1960s to lift up the bumiputera Malay population and in the process embedding race-based politics into the fabric of political culture.
Continue reading “Can Malaysia escape a trap of its own making?”