Day: March 12, 2015

On February 10, former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohamad quoted Shakespeare’s Hamlet on “something is rotten in the state of Denmark”, and this sense of “rottenness” in Malaysia is increasingly exacerbated with passing weeks and days.

When the twitter-happy Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar can chop and change on an important issue on police investigations into the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal, something is really rotten in the “state of Denmark” in Malaysia.

On Monday, 9th March, the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar caused quite a media sensation when he announced a high-powered three-agency special task force to investigate the biggest financial scandal in the nation’s history, the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal comprising the police, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and the Attorney-General’s Chambers.

But Khalid, who said the task force would even investigate the Prime Minister, was contradicted by the MACC Chief Commissioner Abu Kassim Mohamed who said on the same day that the MACC would wait for the Auditor-General’s report on 1MDB before starting its own probe.

The MACC Chief Commissioner seemed to be unaware of the three-agency task force on 1MDB which Khalid said was formed the previous week.

The IGP and the MACC should clarify whether there is such a three-agency special task force on the 1MDB or whether it only existed in the imagination of the IGP.

But strangest of all, the very next day, Tuesday, 10th March, Khalid backtracked and announced that the special task force would only start their investigations into the 1MDB after the Auditor-General had completed his scrutiny and uncovered discrepancies and wrongdoings. Continue reading “Something is really “rotten in the state of Denmark” when the twitter-happy IGP can chop and change on an important issue on police investigations into the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal”

BY ANISAH SHUKRY
The Malaysian Insider
12 March 2015

Malaysian universities have once again failed to make the cut in the latest Times Higher Education (THE) World Reputation Rankings 2015, with too few scholars citing the country’s tertiary institutions as being among the best in the world.

The list of the world’s 100 most prestigious universities released today includes two Singapore varsities, and is based on the largest survey of leading academics across the world, said THE rankings editor, Phil Baty.

“As long as academics cite them as being among the very best universities in the world, they will appear in the rankings,” Baty told The Malaysian Insider in an email.

“Unfortunately, not enough scholars around the world named any Malaysian university in sufficient numbers for them to make the top 100. Singapore had two top entries – NUS (National University of Singapore) in 24th place and NTU (Nanyang Technological University) in the 91-100 band.”

Malaysia has never been featured on the list, which is in its fifth year, despite Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh’s recent statement that the country’s universities are world class and on par with varsities in Britain, Germany and Australia.

But unlike Malaysia, those three countries were singled out by THE as having among the highest number of institutions in the World Reputation Rankings 2015.

The US had the most number of institutions at 43, followed by the United Kingdom (12), Germany (six) and Australia (five). Continue reading “Yet again, Malaysian varsities not among world’s top”