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Raqqa activists reveal details of French airstrikes on Syria

Kareem Shaheen in Beirut
Guardian
Monday 16 November 2015

French warplanes have launched 30 airstrikes on more than a dozen Islamic State targets in Raqqa, activists in the Syrian city have said.

The raids were France’s first retaliation to Friday’s coordinated attacks in Paris claimed by Isis, in which at least 129 people were killed.

Residents said the targets bombed in the de facto capital of the militants’ self-proclaimed caliphate included the local Isis political office, the southern entrance to the city and a military camp.

“The French airstrikes were precise and targeted Daesh positions,” said one activist, using an Arabic acronym for Isis. “They hit Isis headquarters and camps that have ammunition warehouses as well as vehicles and [Isis] members.” Continue reading “Raqqa activists reveal details of French airstrikes on Syria”

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1MDB May Have Violated US Election Laws

Asia Sentinel
November 16, 2015

Some of the money shoveled into US consultancy may have ended up in US political campaigns

Records compiled by the Sarawak Report, the UK-based news site run by Clare Rewcastle Brown, indicate that the state-backed 1Malaysia Development Bhd. investment fund may have violated US Federal Election Law by channeling money to a well-connected US lobbying firm, which subsequently poured money into the 2014 electoral campaigns of at least seven Democrats.

The vehicle was DuSable Capital Management, incorporated in Delaware, which features some of the US’s weakest corporate registration laws, on May 9, 2013. DuSable was the brainchild of Frank White Jr., the National vice-chairman of President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign and co-chair for the president’s 2013 Inauguration Committee, and Shomik Dutta, a former hedge fund executive and fellow political campaigner. In effect, White was formerly the president’s chief fundraiser after having sold his own IT support company to go into political campaigning.

DuSable registered as a foreign agent for the government of Malaysia five months later, on Sept. 9 with its sole registered client 1MDB and the government of Malaysia. Continue reading “1MDB May Have Violated US Election Laws”

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Abdelhamid Abaaoud named as alleged mastermind of Paris terror attacks

Jon Henley in Paris
Guardian
16 November 2015

French intelligence officials have named the alleged mastermind of a deadly string of suicide bombings and shootings in Paris as the Belgian extremist Abdelhamid Abaaoud, after French police made more than 20 arrests and seized arms and ammunition in a series of anti-terror raids across the country.

A major raid was also underway in Brussels aimed at arresting Salah Abdeslam, one of the three French brothers living in Belgium alleged to have been involved in the attacks.

As details emerged of an elaborate international terror operation run from Syria and carried out by a sleeper cell based in Belgium, officials told French media Abaaoud, seen as one of Islamic State’s most active operatives, was “investigators’ best bet” as the main organiser of the attacks, which killed at least 129 people on Friday. Continue reading “Abdelhamid Abaaoud named as alleged mastermind of Paris terror attacks”

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Serially late – 1MDB’s tale of missed deadlines

Anil Netto
Aliran
15 Nov 2015

If you are late for school but if you have a good reason, you may be excused.

But if you are habitually late, say, more than three times in a short space time, then your excuses may wear a little thin. You could end up in detention class or whatever they call it these days. In earlier days, it could even have meant the rotan!

According to the Companies Commission of Malaysia, a “company’s financial statement need (sic) to be tabled (at the AGM) within six months after financial year ended.”

And then, Section 165 of the Companies Act 1965 requires all companies to lodge the annual return (which includes the financial statements and the auditor’s report) within one month of the AGM.

Of course, the company can apply for an extension under Section 143(2) and/or section 169(2) of the Act if it has a special reason for not holding the AGM in time. The registrar will then have to assess if the reason is valid.

One experienced company secretary told me, “The registrar is now very strict about these deadlines.”

So, what happens if a firm is habitually late? What happens if it misses the usual deadline for tabling or submission of accounts, not once but five times?

Let’s take a look at a company which has been very much in the news. Continue reading “Serially late – 1MDB’s tale of missed deadlines”

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If Arul can so easily explain away the RM50 billion 1MDB scandal at the UMNO briefing on Saturday, are Cabinet Ministers so intellectually-challenged that none of them could explain it to Parliament for the past month?

In the past two days, the UMNO/BN owned or controlled media and their legion of cybertroopers have been carrying glowing reports about what a superb performance the 1MDB CEO Arul Kanda Kandasamy gave at the briefing for UMNO divisional leaders at the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) on Saturday about the 1MDB scandal, and that the participants, which included representatives from NGOs and government agencies, were satisfied with Arul’s explanations which gave “a better picture of the real situation”.

The immediate question that comes to mind is whether the Cabinet of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is so intellectually-challenged that none of the Ministers could explain the intricacies and complexities of the 1MDB scandal to Parliament for the past month, when Arul could so easily explain away the RM50 billion 1MDB scandal at the UMNO briefing to its divisional leaders and pliable NGOs at PWTC last Saturday – as if Arul is such a superb performer that he is capable of getting birds to eat food from his hands?

Nobody disputes that Najib’s Ministers are intellectually-challenged – otherwise why did a former Prime Minister and a former Finance Minister agreed in unison that the present batch of Ministers are “half-past six” or “deadwood”, but surely they are not so intellectually challenged that they could not do what Arul did so easily!

Arul did put up a virtuoso performance last Saturday, but not as a solid management expert explaining how a government company had landed up with over RM50 billion debts (a figure quoted by Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin his last speech as Deputy Prime Minister which Arul, Najib and all Ministers have studiously avoided reference in the past four months), but as a conjurer trying to put up the most convincing illusion tricks like “rabbit disappearing” or “bird flying out of empty hat” in a magician’s repertoire. Continue reading “If Arul can so easily explain away the RM50 billion 1MDB scandal at the UMNO briefing on Saturday, are Cabinet Ministers so intellectually-challenged that none of them could explain it to Parliament for the past month?”

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Anwar can be treated overseas – if the authorities agree!

by P Ramakrishnan
Aliran
15th Nov 2015

Is it a fact that Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim cannot receive medical treatment abroad?

Is it a fact that the law does not allow prison inmates to do so?

Utusan Malaysia has reported quoting Supri Hashim, the Prisons Department deputy director in charge of prison policy, as having stated “that Section 37 (1) of the Prisons Act 1995 clearly stated that a prisoner could only be treated in government hospitals, and not private hospitals, let alone overseas.” (Malaysian Insider, 10 November 2015)

But Section 37(1) does not seem to support his contention. At best, it is only his opinion and it is a matter of his interpretation of Section 37 (1). That is all – and nothing more! Continue reading “Anwar can be treated overseas – if the authorities agree!”