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Malaysia must accede to Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

Excellencies, Esteemed Colleagues, dear Friends,

I would like to thank the organizers for inviting me to address the distinguished audience at this important meeting, which has great potential to further the participation of the Asia-Pacific region in the Rome Statute system, and in particular to encourage Malaysia and Indonesia to accede to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

As a member of PGA, I would also like to thank the present EU Ambassador His Excellency Luc Vandebon for the support given to PGA by the European Union.

The Asia-Pacific region is clearly the most underrepresented region in the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties. Of the 53 countries of the Asian Group of States, merely 19 are party to the Rome Statute of 17 July 1998 and only one has ratified the Kampala amendments of 11 June 2010.

It is crucial that we, the elected representatives of our nations, take decisive actions to further the universality of the Rome Statute in the Asia-Pacific and by joining a global movement of 123 States Parties to contribute to ensuring that the worst crimes known to humanity are not tolerated and impunity is no longer awarded to the perpetrators of those crimes. Continue reading “Malaysia must accede to Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court”

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Malaysia cabinet reshuffle saps confidence

Nyshka Chandran
CNBC
30th July 2015

The hasty top-level reshuffle by Malaysia’s embattled Prime Minister Najib Razak in the wake of a corruption scandal will do little to encourage foreign investment amid an already tense political backdrop and a sustained currency crisis, analysts warn.
Announced on Tuesday, the Cabinet reshuffle involved the sacking of Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin after he called on Najib to explain the controversy surrounding a Wall Street Journal (WSJ)report earlier this month that revealed nearly $700 million from quasi-sovereign wealth fund One Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) was deposited into the Prime Minister’s personal bank accounts. The accusation is particularly explosive given that 1MDB is in debt to the tune of $11 billion.

The Prime Minister has denied accepting money for personal gain and is reportedly considering a defamation lawsuit against the WSJ.

Tuesday’s reshuffle also saw cabinet posts given to four senior members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) – the group overseeing the 1MDB parliamentary investigation. Continue reading “Malaysia cabinet reshuffle saps confidence”

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Malaysian cabinet reshuffle: Shrewd move or political gamble for Najib?

Channel News Asia
30th July 2015

Amid sackings, step-downs and new appointments following the 1MDB saga, Channel NewsAsia’s Insight explores the prime minister’s motivation and game plan.

KUALA LUMPUR: In the weeks since the Wall Street Journal reported on the investigation of Malaysia’s troubled state wealth fund, 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), significant cabinet changes have been made by Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Amid allegations that US$700 million (RM$2.7 billion) from companies linked with 1MDB was transferred to the prime minister’s account, Mr Najib on Monday sacked his deputy prime minister, Mr Muhyiddin Yassin, following his public remarks on the ongoing investigation.

On Tuesday, Malaysia’s Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail had his tenure terminated with immediate effect, citing health reasons. Mr Patail, who headed the special task force investigating the allegations concerning 1MDB, suffers from a kidney ailment and was set to retire in October.

As electoral reform group, Bersih, demands Mr Najib’s resignation, analysts speaking to Channel NewsAsia’s Insight try to make sense of Najib’s game plan, his motivations, and what is in store for the Malaysian prime minister and his party. Continue reading “Malaysian cabinet reshuffle: Shrewd move or political gamble for Najib?”

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Malaysia’s first family are under the spotlight as David Cameron flies in

As David Cameron arrives to talk trade, Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak’s bank accounts, his wife’s handbags and her son’s Hollywood deals are making the headlines

By Philip Sherwell, Asia Editor
The Telegraph
30 Jul 2015

David Cameron might have hoped that his few final hours in Malaysia at the end of a four-day, four-state whirlwind trade tour of South East Asia would have been the chance to start winding down before heading home.

Instead, he finds himself flying in to a deepening controversy on Thursday as a multi-million dollar scandal engulfs his host Najib Razak, the prime minister of the former British colony.

Nor is it just Mr Najib who is under attack from his foes in Malaysia amid allegations that he ended up with $700 million in his personal accounts from a state investment bank that he founded.

The Malaysian leader’s wife Rosmah Mansor has been derided for her alleged penchant for luxury and free-spending ways – claims that her husband has dismissed as political assaults.

And Riza Aziz, her son from her first marriage and Mr Najib’s step-son, is also a staple in the gossip as well as financial pages.

He has emerged as a major Hollywood film producer with multi-million property deals in Manhattan and Los Angeles since becoming close friends with a Malaysian playboy investor during their education in London. Continue reading “Malaysia’s first family are under the spotlight as David Cameron flies in”

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The troubles of Malaysia’s prime minister continue

Economist
Jul 30th 2015 | SINGAPORE | Asia

Najib Razak sacks five ministers, including his deputy

HOW many lousy weeks comprise an annus horribilis? If current conditions continue, Najib Razak, Malaysia’s prime minister, will find out. For months Mr Najib has been buffeted by allegations of corruption at a state investment fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), which he set up six years ago. Earlier this month the Wall Street Journal reported that some $700m from companies associated with 1MDB was paid into what investigators believe are his personal bank accounts. (Mr Najib vigorously denies any wrongdoing.)

On Monday Mr Najib seemed to get a rare bit of good news: Malaysia was bumped up from the bottom to second-to-last of four tiers in America’s Trafficking in Persons report, which ranks governments on their efforts to combat people smuggling. But he did not get to enjoy that news for long. Critics pointed out that, earlier this year, graves were discovered in traffickers’ camps near Malaysia’s border with Thailand, and just this week reports emerged alleging that migrants were forced to work without pay on palm-oil plantations. Some believe that the elevation stemmed not from actual efforts to fight trafficking, but from America’s desire to pass smoothly the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade deal currently being negotiated among a dozen Pacific countries including Malaysia. Continue reading “The troubles of Malaysia’s prime minister continue“

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Mahathir On Anwar, Islam, Malays In Business And The Press

Chris Wright
Forbes
JUL 28, 2015

These days, feeling that the press is no longer marching to his tune, Mahathir communicates to the world through a blog, Chedet.com – a name taken, he tells me, from a childhood nickname conferred upon him by his sisters.

It is a consistently strident piece of work, as one would expect, with a tag-line: “Blogging to unblock”. In it, until recently beneath the incongruous herald of a pizza delivery ad, he rails against the issues of the day, from Kuala Lumpur traffic to intervention in Syria, from the nature of modern Islam to racial polarization and the endless question of the Malaysian national car. The English language entries alone in the second half of 2014 have taken on deforestation and the logging trade, the nature of state education, monetary handouts and national economics, ISIS, American foreign policy, British jihadists, the bombing of Gaza, Malaysian tourism, Formula One, the privatization of Malaysian Airlines, censorship of the internet, the Jews and the history of Israel, the oil price, the nature of an Islamic state, and Joe Biden (a piece that concludes: “America is a land stolen from the Red Indians through genocide. Americans should really bow their heads down in shame forever”).

They take an ordered, numbered form, not always reaching an obvious conclusion but never short of a boisterous opinion. Thus does Mahathir put his country and faith to rights, shouting not from a rooftop but from a desktop, to the masses of the net. The top-flight Malay establishment tolerates him politely, accepting the voice of a man who is part of much of their history even if no longer directly relevant to its present. Continue reading “Mahathir On Anwar, Islam, Malays In Business And The Press”

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My hopes for Gerakan Harapan Baru

Rama Ramanathan
The Malaysian Insider
30 July 2015

Disgruntled members of PAS, Malaysia’s sole Islamic political party, are working to form a new political party. There has been some debate over whether the word “Islamic” or the word “Muslim” should be in the name of the new party.

The debate is academic, since the two words will not be permitted by the Registrar of Societies. Indeed, some years ago Malaysia’s Malay political party, Umno, agitated to remove the word “Islam” from the name of PAS (“Parti se Islam Malaysia”) and to forbid the use of the words Islam or Muslim in the name of any political party in Malaysia.

Umno has made no effort to include an Islamic element in its name. Umno is aggressively race-based, presenting itself as defender of the Malay race. Nevertheless Umno does claim it is a party of Muslims. The claim is legitimate since Malays are required by the Federal Constitution to profess the religion of Islam. Continue reading “My hopes for Gerakan Harapan Baru”

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Can the prime minister survive?

– Greg Lopez
The Malaysian Insider
30 July 2015

The president of Umno is always the prime minister of Malaysia. It is Umno who decides who becomes the prime minister. Leadership crisis in Umno always has serious implications to national leadership and Malaysia.

The leadership crisis within Umno occurs almost every decade. The outcomes of these leadership crises are balanced as the context is important in determining the survival of the incumbent.

The first leadership crisis happened almost as soon as Umno was established.

Leaders from Umno’s Islamic Department left in 1951 to form the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party of Tanah Melayu, now known as the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party or PAS. Continue reading “Can the prime minister survive?”

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Is Apandi as the new Attorney-General going to be Najib’s hatchet man to usher a new dark age subjecting national institutions to a second wave of attacks or will he be sentinel to ensure an “enlightened and democratic” Malaysia

The first statement of the new Attorney-General, Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali is to justify the removal of his predecessor Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail as constitutional and according to law.

Apandi said his predecessor’s rank is not reduced in any way. Are we having two Attorney-Generals in Malaysia – Apandi with all the powers and perks of the office, and Gani, enjoying all the perks but not the powers of Attorney-General?

Apandi said Article 145(6) of the Federal Constitution requiring the setting up of a tribunal for the dismissal of the Attorney-General in the like manner for the removal of a Federal Court judge does not apply, relying fully on Article 145(5) that states that the Attorney-General holds office at the pleasure of the Yang di Pertuan Agong.

I will leave it to the lawyers to address nettlesome question whether Gani’s sudden and summary sacking as Attorney-General on Monday is constitutional or not.

However, in an era when the Government knows best is over, which Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had fully acknowledged when he became Prime Minister more than six years ago, Malaysians are entitled to a full explanation why Gani had been treated so shabbily and humiliatingly that he had been sacked suddenly and summarily after serving for nearly 13 years as AG and will retire in two months’ time on Oct. 6 when he celebrates his 60th birthday.

Gani would not have been taken by surprise by his termination as Attorney-General on Monday if he had applied for early retirement.

Wasn’t he entitled to the basic courtesy of being informed that his tenure as Attorney-General was being terminated, if “health problems” were the real reasons for the termination? Continue reading “Is Apandi as the new Attorney-General going to be Najib’s hatchet man to usher a new dark age subjecting national institutions to a second wave of attacks or will he be sentinel to ensure an “enlightened and democratic” Malaysia”

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Ransacking Malaysia: the Najib Corruption Dossier

by BINOY KAMPMARK
CounterPunch
JULY 28, 2015

He is, like many of his colleagues in the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), a stubborn barnacle. The Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has struggled cleaning up the mess that ensued after revelations that he has been effectively ransacking the Malaysian state during his time in office. Pity a country with natural resources, and government policies that pride connections over industry; sleeping partners over industrious ones.

The so-called 1MBD revelations have done much to tarnish, and possibly sink Najib in the kleptocratic maelstrom. The 1Malaysia Development Bhd, Fund or 1MDB, has been riddled with rotten apples, and there always was a looming question as to whether one of them came from the PM’s office. Najib, for one, founded the body while heading its board of advisors. During the course of his stewardship, the government investment fund accumulated a weighty $11 billion in debt. Promised ventures have not taken place: the failure to develop the Tun Razak Exchange project, and the lack of promised contributions from partners.

After some investigative digging on the part of the Sarawak Report and Wall Street Journal, a link was supposedly established between Najib’s personal accounts held at AmPrivate Banking in Kuala Lumpur and the 1MDB money trail. Amounts totalling $US681,999,976 (RM2.6 billion in local currency) was wired from the Singapore branch of the Swiss Falcon private bank owned by Abu Dhabi fund Aabar into the AMBank account on March 2013 ahead of the General election. Such is the nature of “strategic partnerships”.

Then came the amount of RM42 million stemming from the notorious SRC International Sdn Bhd, another company with links to 1MDB. The money also happened it find itself in Najib’s accounts and came from unaccounted funds provided by the public pension fund KWAP.

The exposure has produced more than a flutter in Malaysian politics. Malaysiakini mocked the prime minister’s reaction to questions on the scandal as he left an open house gathering with former prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi: “Okay lah.”[1] Continue reading “Ransacking Malaysia: the Najib Corruption Dossier”

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Malaysia’s mess is Mahathir-made

Dan Slater
East Asia Forum
29 July 2015

At least embattled Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is right about one thing. The current mess in Malaysian politics is the making of his greatest nemesis, Mahathir Mohamad, who led the Southeast Asian nation with an iron fist from 1981–2003. What Najib fails to fathom is that Mahathir has not produced this mess by criticising his leadership, but by paving Najib’s path to power in the fashion he did during his decades in office. Mahathir may believe that he can end the crisis by bringing Najib down. But history should judge Mahathir himself as the author of a long national decline that has culminated in this latest crisis.

To be sure, Najib’s fingerprints are all over the current mess. The proximate source of the crisis has been the collapse of Najib’s pet sovereign-investment company, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). This has caused Malaysia’s stock market and currency, the ringgit, to plummet in turn. All this has transpired amid credible allegations that the prime minister siphoned an eye-popping US$700 million into his personal bank account.

But this road toward ruin commenced with Mahathir, not Najib. Continue reading “Malaysia’s mess is Mahathir-made”

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5 Reasons Why Obama Should Steer Clear of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak

Charlie Campbell
Time
July 28, 2015

Washington is having serious trouble finding dependable allies in Southeast Asia

The U.S.’s “rebalancing” toward Asia has two main pillars: being a counterweight to China and securing a free-trade deal called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. If Washington is to succeed on both fronts, it needs as many friends in the region as it can win. The U.S.’s newest ally is Malaysia, this year’s chair of the 10-member Association of Southeast Nation, collectively a growing market, and, on the surface, a modern, democratic, Muslim country. In April 2014 U.S. President Barack Obama paid an official visit to Malaysia, the first sitting President to do so in decades, and, later in the year, played golf with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak when both were on holiday in Honolulu. This November, Kuala Lumpur will host the next East Asia Summit and Obama is due to attend.

But recently, all the news coming out of Malaysia is negative. After becoming embroiled in a corruption scandal, Najib on Tuesday sacked his deputy and Malaysia’s attorney general in an apparent purge of critics. British Prime Minister David Cameron is facing a domestic backlash for pushing forward with a visit to Kuala Lumpur this week despite the snowballing controversy. Here are five reasons why Obama might want to break from Cameron by giving Najib a wide berth. Continue reading “5 Reasons Why Obama Should Steer Clear of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak”

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Why sacking Muhyiddin riskier than sacking Anwar Ibrahim

– Shahrul Yusof
The Malaysian Insider
28 July 2015

I remember it was in early September 1998, when TV3 broke the news about then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad sacking his deputy, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

It was during my summer holiday and I was back home with my family. Immediately after that I rang my friend Yazid in the UK and told him about the news.

Surprised he certainly was, and immediately conveyed the message to my other friends who were in England, and within a few days news reached everyone in the mosque there.

Six hours ago, I woke up at 6am in Manchester and grabbed my phone and to my surprise, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin was out.

My Facebook timeline flashing with news after news about the sacking. Here in the UK, at the same time, Malaysian’s were already in chapter 4 of the chronological discussions, and it was less than an hour after Najib’s press statement. Continue reading “Why sacking Muhyiddin riskier than sacking Anwar Ibrahim”

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Najib Razak is hardening Malaysia’s democratic political arteries

by Greg Earl
Australian Financial Review
29 July 2015

Malaysia was once the beacon of modernity in post-colonial south-east Asia, but it is now increasingly at the front line of an unnerving decline in government stability across the region, with Thailand under persistent military rule, Myanmar winding back an open election and Indonesia turning distinctly economic nationalist.

And, after sacking his independent-minded deputy on Tuesday, Prime Minister Najib Razak​ is looking a lot like Monty Python’s Black Knight as he refuses to acknowledge that his country is facing big questions over its ability to deal with corruption scandals.

He’s now sacked the man who might have replaced him, removed the minister overseeing an investigation getting too close to home, closed the country’s most innovative newspaper and is threatening to sue The Wall Street Journal just when US officials are doing their best to keep Malaysia inside the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade zone. And that’s not counting dismissing the relentless campaign by former strongman Mahathir Mohamad to tear down all his successors.

But reshuffling his ministry on Tuesday to neuter potential rivals and a corruption investigation, Najib scarcely even conceded a flesh wound. Continue reading “Najib Razak is hardening Malaysia’s democratic political arteries”

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The elephant in the room

Khairie Hisyam Aliman
Malay Mail Online
July 27, 2015

JULY 27 — On Sunday, Barisan Nasional strategic communications director Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan published a 26-point comment on his Facebook page on the suspension of The Edge and the scandal around 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

In that posting Datuk Abdul Rahman, also the federal housing minister, makes a long argument for the suspension and other things. You can read it here.

But the heart of the current scandal remains simple.

As BN’s strategic communications director Datuk Abdul Rahman would surely be strategically well aware of the best and most strategic question to strategically answer in order to strategically kill most of the speculation going around on the current scandal, which has evolved beyond just 1MDB.

Did RM2.6 billion in money, not units, make its way to personal bank accounts belonging to the prime minister as alleged by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ)?

Yes?

No?

That’s all we need to know first and foremost. We don’t need yet to hear about what the money was or was not used for, if the transfer happened. Nor do we need yet to hear about whether there was personal gain involved, if the transfer happened. Just yes or no for starters. Continue reading “The elephant in the room”

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Why are the lawyers in Cabinet silent about Gani’s sacking as Attorney-General when it is patently unconstitutional and an affront’s to Malaysia’s commitment to uphold the rule of law

Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin accepts that it is the Prime Minister’s prerogative to sack the Deputy Prime Minister and to remove any Minister from the Cabinet.

It is for the court of public opinion and history to judge whether the Prime Minister had made a colossal political blunder or had made a brilliant political move.

But has the Prime Minister the prerogative to sack the Attorney-General, the highest legal officer of the land, on his whims and fancies without regard to due process?

The answer must be a firm “No”, for Article 145(6) of the Malaysian Constitution makes it very clear that the Attorney-General “shall not be removed from office, except on the like grounds and in the like manner as a judge of the Federal Court” and Article 125(3) lays down the procedure for the removal of a Federal Court judge, which requires the equivalent of a judicial tribunal to adjudicate his removal whether on the ground of breach of the code of ethics or of inability, from infirmity of body or mind or any other cause, properly to discharge the functions of his office.

The immediate and instant sacking of Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail as Attorney-General, in the manner of the announcement yesterday morning by the Chief Secretary to the Government, Tan Sri Dr. Ali Hamsa without Gani even knowing about it beforehand is clearly unconstitutional and an affront to a country which upholds constitutionalism and the rule of law. Continue reading “Why are the lawyers in Cabinet silent about Gani’s sacking as Attorney-General when it is patently unconstitutional and an affront’s to Malaysia’s commitment to uphold the rule of law”

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If PAC probe into 1MDB grinds to a halt, it will be best proof that the overriding objective of the Cabinet reshuffle yesterday was to block, frustrate, sabotage or drag out investigations into biggest financial scandal in nation’s history

Any attempt to halt the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) investigations into the 1MDB scandal will be the best proof that the overriding objective of the Cabinet reshuffle, which saw the sacking of the Deputy Prime Minister-cum-Education Minister and the Minister for Rural and Regional Development (one UMNO Deputy President and the other UMNO Vice President) for asking questions about 1MDB which all thinking Malaysians are asking, is to block, frustrate, sabotage or drag out investigations into the biggest financial scandal in the nation’s history.

I am surprised at Datuk Nur Jazlan’s acceptance of the appointment as Deputy Home Minister, for it was only ten days ago that he said publicly that he would rather finish his task as PAC Chairman in the PAC investigations on 1MDB first before accepting any Cabinet appointment.

He even said that this was the first time the chair of the PAC is held by a chartered professional accountant and he wanted to use his experience in politics, accountancy and corporations to steer the PAC especially in the 1MDB issue.

I do not know what made Nur Jazlan change his mind and renege on his public undertaking, especially as he was only offered a Deputy Ministership and not a full Ministerial appointment, but he is guilty of conflict-of-interest when he said yesterday that the PAC probe into the 1MDB is now on hold until the next Parliamentary meeting which is not scheduled to meet until Oct. 19. Continue reading “If PAC probe into 1MDB grinds to a halt, it will be best proof that the overriding objective of the Cabinet reshuffle yesterday was to block, frustrate, sabotage or drag out investigations into biggest financial scandal in nation’s history”

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Facing corruption scandal, Malaysian PM fires officials investigating him

Aljazeera
July 28, 2015

Critics say Najib Razak is trying to avoid prosecution amid allegations that he received $700 million in state funds

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, stung by allegations that he received some $700 million in government money, fired the attorney general who had been investigating him and a deputy who has been among his most prominent critics on Tuesday.

Najib is under increasing pressure over leaked confidential documents that allegedly show the money, from state investment fund 1MDB, went into his personal accounts.

Najib announced over national television Tuesday that his deputy Muhyiddin Yassin will be replaced by Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, a Cabinet member who will also retain his home minister portfolio. Earlier Tuesday, the government announced it had terminated the services of Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail.

Najib said he also dropped four other ministers to strengthen his administration and ensure they can “work as a team.” Continue reading “Facing corruption scandal, Malaysian PM fires officials investigating him”