YB Snowdan Lawan and his GPS colleagues must start by naming and shaming those behind the Balai Ringin disaster and opening a full open inquiry into how it was allowed to happen….

Allegedly, onlookers are wowed and impressed by Sarawak’s ‘green’ policies, including for hydrogen, tree planting, carbon capture and the rest. Yet, right now, what is going on is not green in the least. Less greed and more genuine concern for good governance is needed to drive these plans…….

Native communities in Sarawak, whose lands are immeasurably more valuable in terms of biodiversity than elsewhere on the planet, should take note of what is going on in the United States…….

Swiss court hands down a seven year prison sentence for the PetroSaudi owner Tarek Obaid and six years for his accomplice Patrick Mahony – ten years after Sarawak Report first exposed their crimes against Malaysia……

Local people are being thrown off their agricultural land in order to allegedly expand national parks while, at the same time, genuine forest pledged for conservation is still being left open to timber raiders. As ever, the Sarawak State Government is at the service of the logging tycoons whilst playing only lip service to the desperate current battle to save our human habitat…..

Is it so very surprising that the dirt poor native people, who receive so little from Sarawak’s huge investment budget in the rural areas, are starting to tear down concrete, set up blockades and stand up to plantation owners to make their point?……

Sarawak’s Abang Jo has a golden opportunity to establish his genuine green credentials…. by agreeing to carry out his own idea to establish seven UNESCO biospheres in Sarawak, starting with the Penan Magoh reserve……..

According to the latest information received by Radio Free Sarawak, on 31st July Danum Sinar agreed to set up a negotiation process with the sacked Penan workers in return for a suspension of the blockade.  They have asked for three weeks to arrive at a settlement with the workers and local community……

The Deputy Minister for the Environment cum timber tycoon, Huang Tiong Sii, said he was giving up his directorships of logging firms but not his controlling shareholdings on assuming office. Now, natives in Belaga whose customary rights lands are being logged by a company without notice or their agreement have discovered Huang’s company vehicles are involved in the operation which appears to have received special dispensations from the Forestry Department ……….

Unless GPS investigates these terrifying and dangerous incidents with the severity they deserve, deter those responsible with appropriate fines, and indeed the removal of their timber licences, local people can conclude this government cares not a jot about them but only about the huge ‘donations’ that flow back into their party from these concessions…..

It is not the companies who have made billions out of the forests and plantations (yet bafflingly failed to turn sufficient profits to pay much tax) who are being squeezed to extend the forest base. Quite the opposite.  It is the poorest of the poor who first lost their hunting grounds to logging and are now losing their agricultural plots to ‘reforestation’……

The Sarawak premier practices government by news announcement. Yet, self-serving announcements without proper transparency, access to the full facts or public scrutiny represent the stuff of totalitarian rule. Time and again the reality on the ground has proven to be the opposite of those newspaper claims. If the state wants clean investment and to join the clean energy race then it needs to clean up its act and implement open government…….

For Marie Antoinette her faux pas was to say “let them eat cake”. Abang Jo’s moment of pampered ignorance came with this mocking of the interior communities of his state whom he has claimed cannot be nearly as poor as they are said to be because they use Hilux 4X drive vehicles to get around ………..

Whatever autonomies Malaysia’s federal government may feel obliged to offer the North Borneo states in return for their political support, the human rights of the denizens of Malaysia are its responsibility. If state governments are neglecting those rights by denying statehood the national government should take action…….

The key demands were Local Autonomy, a Dayak Development Fund, a Justice & Reparations Commission, and an Indigenous Council to scrutinise public projects involving state and NCR land areas……

Sheikh Sabah Jaber Al-Mubarak, the son of the Kuwait prime minister of the time, was first exposed as a co-conspirator of Jho Low by Sarawak Report in 2020. Last week the highest court upheld his ten year prison term along with that of his business partner and friend of Jho Low, Hamad Al Wazan, and lawyer Saud Abdelmohsan……

A Welcome Supper on Friday night attended by scores of delegates from native communities and civil society NGOs across Sarawak saw a barnstorming opening to the first Dayak Forum being held in Miri this weekend…..

US DOJ announces another huge tranche of 1MDB cash will be returned to Malaysia by Jho Low as a further settlement over assets seized in the largest ever civil forfeiture case. The 1MDB theft by Low was originally exposed by Sarawak Report, whose editor has been sentenced prison by Malaysia for so-called ‘criminal libel’ relating to the case…..

The dash for cash has always been the clear motive behind the constant demands by GPS for greater freedom from federal oversight… However, before this relentless hunt for extraction moves to its next phase, this state government should be brought to account over how the huge profits that have already accrued are being distributed in Sarawak….

Sarawak’s home grown ‘Asia Pacific Green Hydropower’ conference opens to a select few in Kuching on Monday. But is it merely a platform to announce MOUs behind a stealthy re-introduction of a whole new raft of planned, ‘cascading’ mega-dams across Sarawak’s remaining rivers? The signs say ‘yes’…………

According to the latest report by the Malaysian environmental group RimbaWatch, the vast majority of remaining rainforest under grave threat from timber concessions is based in Sarawak – where the ruling party are pushing harder than ever for autonomy to pursue their cash ambitions. The report released last week identifies that of 3.2 million hectares

1MDB has made its move to recover the $1.83 billion lost in the 1MDB joint venture with PetroSaudi. Success would appear to rely on a civil action that includes the white shoe law firm White & Case as defendants in the case. However, there is competition afoot from an continuing case in the United States to recover the bulk of the PetroSaudi assets made from Venezuela …..

Once again this week, the online Radio Free Sarawak has had reason to cover abuses of what ought to be the democratic appointment of village headmen in rural Sarawak. These strong arm tactics have notably occurred in situations where the headman has stood up for his community against intrusions by logging or other commercial interests into their area…..

The NGO Engage joined forces with press and freedom groups on Thursday to re-launch a fund to protect journalists and civil society campaigners from abusive and oppressive law suits designed to stifle public debate in Malaysia. Thomas Fann, the chairperson of Engage, reminded that the fund was originally launched in 2015 to support those who

The Terengganu Court has demanded Clare Rewcastle Brown should appear in person to make her appeal against a jail sentence that was passed against her in absentia after a trial she was never notified would take place for an alleged crime of defamation for which she is yet to be charged. Can Malaysia sentence you in your absence then challenge you to appear to appeal the sentence?……