In mainland Malaysia when flooding strikes the federal and state governments rally to help the stricken victims. However, five days after Long Panai was submerged in Mulu, Baram the Sarawak State Government and local GPS representatives appear to have done nothing and have yet to show their face……
The pro-democracy NGO Engage has generously supported this site, as well as the publishing house Gerabudaya and printing house Violin, who were all sued for a hundred million ringgit each by the Sultanah of Terrenganu. We are now only RM150,000 short of our total target……
Malaysia is one of the five countries that account for the majority of “tainted timber” sold in the EU. Sarawak is the worst offending state according to the NGO report to the EU…
The ITTO (International Tropical Timber Organisation) and Sarawak Forestry Department have turned a deaf ear to complaints by NGOs and native communities about illegitimate logging in the conservation zone – the Penan Peace Park in Baram – funded by international donations and supposedly sponsored by both bodies. Last week the Immigration Dept raided the logging camp that turns out to have been operated by the state government crony Hii family and found at least 10 illegal immigrants working illegally ….
The new Chairman of Britain’s NatWest Bank has reportedly claimed he only spent 1-3 hours a week advising PetroSaudi. However, his own email said the job took up half his time and was his ‘primary commitment” at the time of the PetroSaudi fraud against 1MDB …..
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?……
Reports of illegal logging are rampant in Sarawak and time and again the response of the police, the forestry department, local officials and the state government is to do precisely nothing. Take for example this ongoing destruction by foreign workers for a mystery employer in Ulu Sebauh recorded just this week…..
Swiss 1MDB Prosecutors Spear Tarek Obaid’s Key Defence (that he was instructed by his King) With His Own Words…
After a fractious trial not only have the Swiss prosecutors demanded the maximum sentence be passed on the two PetroSaudi directors but they want them locked up immediately on the grounds they are a flight risk!…..
“It was our money. If the Saudi government wanted to do it this way, so be it.” Obaid stuns the Swiss court with his claim that it was Saudi Arabia that had sanctioned Jho Low’s $150 million in kickbacks which were paid to him by Good Star Limited out of stolen 1MDB money…..
The PetroSaudi boss and alleged mega-fraudster, Tarek Obaid, spent last week arguing in the Swiss Court that he needed protection from Saudi Arabia. A rebuttal by the court has undermined his story….
For a mere 5% levy to the state and its people the timber giant Samling plans to convert poorly producing licensed plantation areas into a ‘profit for doing nothing’ carbon credit scheme. The GPS government has also offered the company a 30 year extension to just ‘sit back and earn’. How come?…..
In high finance you get used to big sums and myriad deals. This could be why Patrick Mahony seemed to struggle to remember the purported $700 million loan he organised to be ‘paid back’ by 1MDB on the first day of the so-called Joint Venture project where he was the Chief Investment Officer ……
Drama as the first day of the Petrosaudi trial extended past 10pm at night amidst unprecedented scenes as the defendants’ lawyers bombarded the Swiss Federal Court with protests and demands for secrecy, claiming an ‘unfair’ prosecution against their wealthy clients…..
This egregious act of judicial overreach poses a grave threat to investigative journalism and media freedom in Malaysia by preserving the culture of fear for journalists and preventing these agents of democracy who serve to inform the public from carrying out their duties. ….
Timber and plantation licences were granted to crony companies on the excuse of progress. The disastrous state of the the interior and neglect of the impoverished peoples whose lands have been wreaked tells a very different story…..
Newly enriched and waging outsized ‘kingmaker’ influence, Sarawak wants more autonomy. All well and good, but first show the state is prepared to take care of its marginalised people and deal with decades of ingrained graft…..
Yet another bank has been fined by the Swiss authorities for failing to flag suspicious transactions relating to the laundering of monies stolen from 1MDB. The revelations from the case have raised new questions about the role of the now notorious FBC Media and a Malaysian director of that company in assisting the fraudulent enterprise…
As thousands of tons of timber have hurtled destructively down river in Kapit over the past few days, provoked by heavy rains, a troubling set of unconvincing denials and changing stories have issued from the Forestry Department. Is there a reluctance to acknowledge uncomfortable truths about logging in the vicinity of the ‘totally protected’ wildlife sanctuary up river from the site?………
As the next set piece trial prepares to open on 1MDB in Switzerland new details are already starting to emerge about the role played by the PetroSaudi joint venture directors in the heist and what happened to the money they allegedly stole…
In the wake of the final passing of Sarawak’s strongman, Abdul Taib Mahmud, the Swiss NGO have issued their own tribute in the form of a documentary about his deeds. The Rainforest Tribunal was made in answer to the defamation lawsuit issued by Taib’s family members who have objected to the NGO’s claims about the Governor’s unexplained wealth and how they benefitted…..
Time to address former Governor Taib Mahmud’s real legacy, namely his billionaire’s hoard of disputed cash and assets, misappropriated thanks to his tragic record of abuse of power, maladministration and railroading of the rights of the people of Sarawak….
Is this a desperate measure to keep the Sarawak Report author out of Malaysia or the start of a new attempt to persuade INTERPOL to help incarcerate her in Malaysia for a ‘defamation’ that never was?…..
As uncertainties fly amidst official silence and the leakage of extraordinary evidence and pictures, some of which are now confirmed, there is one clear demand that should be made FREEZE ALL TAIB ASSETS!….
POLICE RAID DEMAK JAYAH – As the Sarawak Police Issue threats to take action against Sarawak Report over ‘fake news’, Taib Mahmud’s family are circulating the police report on which that ‘fake news’ was based and demanding action to rescue the former Governor from the clutches of his wife…..
TAIB EXCLUSIVE -A full blown family drama has now developed behind the scenes complete with police reports, allegations of a hospital abduction and a shocking ban against visits by his own children or family members to the now plainly dying former Governor Taib Mahmud ….
Did Najib and his lawyers shoot themselves in the foot by pulling their half-baked royal favour in advance of a far bigger sentence now in prospect over 1MDB? Despite the popular fury they will not be happy either. The all important waiver of guilt they had requested was rebuffed at the highest level, along with hopes of instant freedom……
Someone seems to be making major moves to leave Demak Jaya, the private home of the now ex-Governor Taib Mahmud. With still no news of his state of health the question is who is leaving and who will remain?……..
Is Sarawak entering a new era of hope for its people and environment with the departure of Taib Mahmud? One would like to think so… except there are some glaring issues…..
Whilst Governor Taib Mahmud has been unceremoniously replaced, his elderly former henchmen remain well entrenched and have sought to further strengthen their grip on power in Sarawak – all in the name of increasing ‘autonomy’ for the native people ….
Originally planned for February the much delayed prosecution of PetroSaudi’s directors over 1MDB is now scheduled to start on April 2nd in the Swiss courts. That’s just two weeks before the company’s former COO, Rick Haythornthwaite, is due to become the Chairman of one of the UK’s top banks. It should leave plenty of room for embarrassment as observers ask whether he was a complicit or merely an incompetent COO? ……
A new battleground has opened up between the Sarawak political establishment and native communities with the announcement of new ‘green’ dam projects which have prompted a sudden rush to survey and extinguish native land rights in Baram……
Almost ten years after the world was alerted to the Heist of the Century Swiss prosecutors have finally brought to trial two nationals identified at the heart of the conspiracy by Sarawak Report. Whistleblower Xavier Justo has called it an opportunity to show the world that Switzerland is “no longer a harbour for stolen money”……..
The plans for an ‘eco-city’ at Nusantara on the island of Borneo is fraught with environmental risk of global significance. Enthusiasts must hesitate from rushing in the name of progress where scientific experts would fear to tread …..
