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Paul Low – where were you when the table was turned, the hunters become the hunted as the Special Task Force probing 1MDB was displaced by a Police Probe on 1MDB Special Task Force?

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Paul Low has vowed to protect the officers of the multi-agency Special Task Force investigating 1MDB, coming from the four key agencies of Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), the Royal Malaysian Police and the Attorney-General’s Chamber (AGC).

He said he had been brought into the federal cabinet specifically to promote good governance and to strengthen transparency and accountability in the government, and in line with this mandate, he assured the public that he would continue to stand firm in protecting these institutions and their respective officers, and will see to it that they are allowed to conduct the investigations until a satisfactory conclusion is reached.

Tragically, Paul Low was completely impotent when the key officials and the multi-agencies of the Special Task Force investigating 1MDB came under assault, with the most important officer, the Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail himself sacked suddenly and summarily, while key institutions like the AGC, MACC and BNM were humbled and intimidated, with the arrest of a former MACC adviser and an officer from AGC by the police today.

Where was Paul Low after making the vow to protect Special Task Force officers? Continue reading “Paul Low – where were you when the table was turned, the hunters become the hunted as the Special Task Force probing 1MDB was displaced by a Police Probe on 1MDB Special Task Force?”

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Is former AG Gani Patail a free man, and if so, why he could not appear in public to explain truth or otherwise of alleged draft corruption charge sheet against Najib?

The newly-minted Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali has dismissed the purported draft of a corruption charge sheet against Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak published on whistleblower website Sarawak Report as false.

When the new Attorney-General could not say a simple “Yes” or “No” whether Gani, who had served as Attorney-General for nearly 13 years and was only about two months away from Oct. 6 when he is reaches 60 years and mandatory retirement, was summarily sacked as AG on Tuesday on July 28, 2015, Apandi is telling all Malaysians that he is capable of varnishing the truth, quibbling and equivocating instead of telling “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”!

Under these circumstances, Apandi’s denial must be taken with a pinch of salt until and unless he could produce the former AG, Gani Patail, to publicly explain the circumstances and the truth or otherwise of the draft corruption charge sheet against Najib. Continue reading “Is former AG Gani Patail a free man, and if so, why he could not appear in public to explain truth or otherwise of alleged draft corruption charge sheet against Najib?”

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Will there be some 20 UMNO MPs and 20 BN MPs from Sabah and Sarawak prepared to join with some 80 MPs from DAP, PKR and Gerakan Harapan Baru to form a new coalition government with a new Prime Minister with new policies to save Malaysia from becoming a failed state?

It is becoming a popular refrain from top government circles in the past few days alleging that there is an international conspiracy plotting the toppling of a serving Prime Minister by “criminalizing” him, as if the Najib government is preparing the ground for a new dragnet of arrests, using Section 124 of the Penal Code on the new-fangled crime of “activities detrimental to parliamentary democracy” which can send a person convicted for the offence to jail for up to 20 years.

The latest person to join in this government chorus is none other than the new Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali who, in his fourth day as the top law officer of the government early this morning, dismissed the purported draft of a corruption charge sheet against the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak by former Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail, published on whistleblower website Sarawak Report, as false.
Apandi went on to declare that the alleged draft corruption charge against Najib point to “a conspiracy to topple a serving prime minister by criminalising him” and warning “stern action against the perpetrators” as “the full force of the law will be applied without exception on any that are found guilty”.

In fact, more than a dozen names have been circulated in the social media in the past few days of persons from the press, Parliament, the “special task force” on the 1MDB which is a multi-agency constituted by Bank Negara Malaysia, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, the Royal Malaysian Police and the Attorney-General’s Chambers alleging that they are going to be picked up in the crackdown on these plotters of the international conspiracy to “criminalise” Datuk Seri Najib Razak and to topple the elected Prime Minister of Malaysia – and it really surprises me that the Inspector-General of Police who have been issuing all sorts of warnings to various quarters in the social media seems to be blissfully unaware of such sites and their activities.

This is why in the past two days, I had specifically asked whether Malaysia is on the brink of a “new Dark Age” and another round of attacks on the independence, integrity and professionalism of the national institutions which had suffered and had not fully recovered from the earlier round of attacks on the national institutions in the country. Continue reading “Will there be some 20 UMNO MPs and 20 BN MPs from Sabah and Sarawak prepared to join with some 80 MPs from DAP, PKR and Gerakan Harapan Baru to form a new coalition government with a new Prime Minister with new policies to save Malaysia from becoming a failed state?”

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The never-ending fight for the facts

Boo Su-Lyn
Malay Mail Online
Friday July 31, 2015

JULY 31 ― When I applied for a job as a journalist, my boss told me that journalism was about reporting the “facts”, not the “truth.”

I didn’t really understand him then. Wasn’t it the same?

But I’ve come to realise that “truth” has its own shade of meaning, a play on passion and emotions, while “facts” are unemotional, leaning neither right nor left. You, the reader, are free to make your own judgment. But with the “truth”, it sometimes comes with the writer’s own judgments.

When we journalists uncover facts ― whether it’s about how the boom in tudung brands shows the trend of conservative Islam in Malaysia, or how public funds are diverted into the pockets of powerful people ― it’s so that people can decide what to do now that they’re better informed.

If Malaysians aren’t comfortable with how religion is encroaching into governance and public policies in a secular country, they can speak up. If they’re perfectly fine with even a seven-month-old baby wearing a headscarf, that’s up to the people. Continue reading “The never-ending fight for the facts”