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The colourful family and friends of 1MDB

BY KHAIRIE HISYAM | KiniBiz
DECEMBER 15, 2015 8:00AM

From its inception to the present-day state of disarray, 1MDB counts an interesting – and colourful – group of people who are either directly involved in its operations or who are linked to the company in some manner.

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Controversial 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) has a “triple-tier” corporate governance structure, with a board of advisors chaired by the prime minister himself in addition to having a board of directors overseeing the senior management team.

That adds another shade of perplexing contradiction in light of the company’s dodgy dealings and controversial decisions in the past. KINIBIZ examines in no particular order some important characters involved:

Jho Low, the dealmaker Continue reading “The colourful family and friends of 1MDB”

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Are Malaysians striving after the pinnacle of success or staring at the abyss of a failed state?

In his Christmas Message, the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak called on Malaysians to celebrate the festive season and welcome the New Hear with a brand new resolution and personal mission to bring Malaysia to the “pinnacle of success”.

It is indeed deserving food for thought for Malaysians in the last week of the year to ponder whether Malaysians are striving after the pinnacle of success or staring at the abyss of a failed state if present national trajectories are not corrected!

I don’t think there are many Malaysians who would regard 2015 as a successful year for the country, bowed and beaten in the past 12 months by a host of political, economic, good governance and nation-building crisis to the extent that astute observers of the national scene are even warning about the coming of the “perfect storm”.

The first step for Malaysia to shake out of this impending “perfect storm” is to end the denial syndrome paralysing the nation’s leaders, making them dream about “pinnacle of success” when we should staring at the the “abyss of a failed state” – as just a year ago, it would have been unthinkable that the Malaysian ringgit would have fallen by a fifth of its value to struggle between RM4 to RM5 to a US dollar, but which has now sadly come to pass. Continue reading “Are Malaysians striving after the pinnacle of success or staring at the abyss of a failed state?”

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Our freedom to celebrate diversity

COMMENTARY
The Malaysian Insider
24 December 2015

Today is Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) birthday and Malaysia is one of the rare Muslim countries to celebrate the occasion with a public holiday thrown in. Not many celebrate it, let alone gazette a holiday for it.

Unlike Christmas, which is celebrated worldwide except in two countries this year and forever – Brunei and Somalia. It would appear that public celebrations of Christmas and in the case of Somalia, New Year, is inimical to their beliefs.

That is their excuse. And the limit to their citizens’ freedom and rights.

But we in Malaysia are a lot more fortunate. We have the freedom to celebrate diversity, celebrating Christmas and New Year despite the views of a narrow section of public that wishing Merry Christmas is not quite kosher. Continue reading “Our freedom to celebrate diversity”