28 May 2022, 09:31 Kuching
28 May 2022, 02:31 London
The cabinet has decided to send Water and Environment Minister Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man to the 26th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland.
He will also ratify for Malaysia two declarations to protect the environment, which have already been signed by more than 100 countries.
Putrajaya had been noticeably absent during the first two days of COP26, which was attended by major world leaders.
Tuan Ibrahim’s ministry in a statement today said the minister will sit in the high-level segment of COP26 on Nov 9 and 10 and will deliver a national statement.
During his visit, he will ratify the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forest and Land Use, which pledges to halt and reverse deforestation and land degradation by 2030.
Apart from up-grading to a gas guzzling Vellfire (luxury cars being clearly a priority for the clerics of PAS at this time of Covid related financial hardship) one wonders what if anything the cleric cum politician Tuan Ibrahim cares or knows about the environment?
What we do know is that Malaysia under the present coup government stubbornly ignored this eleventh hour major international conference on tackling the global climate crisis throughout the first week, not even sending a minister to attend, let alone a head of government.
Despite intense lobbying by more responsible governments it has been observed that Malaysia has so far also even failed to sign up to the extremely tame commitment to cease logging in ten years time.
Now, it appears, the UMNO/PAS coup mongers in KL have belatedly looked up from their efforts to grab as much from the public purse as possible to realise it all looks rather bad. Perhaps the diary secretary at Tuan’s eco-ministry had forgotten to mark the conference in?
So, they must have asked themselves, who is the ‘environment’ chap they can possibly send to catch up with events and lead on Malaysia’s own ‘policy agenda’ on the matter? As we are now of course reminded, this particular juicy portfolio has gone to the number two at PAS, an Islamic scholar from Pahang whose party has mainly shown itself preoccupied with implementing backward and sadistic punishments against non-conformists.
Before he rushes off to represent Malaysia at this long-planned event therefore, it would be nice if Tuan Ibrahim could demonstrate that he at least understands the science behind climate change, let alone how the consequences (such as flooding) are presently affecting great swathes of Malaysia itself and threaten hunger and a collapse of farming in the very near future for the next generation in his home state.
Statements such as the one reported below offer slender grounds for confidence:
The government will carry out carbon trading carefully so that such activities do not affect the country’s greenhouse gas emissions commitment, said Environment and Water Minister Datuk Seri Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man. [Malay Mail]
Does he understand a word of the PR gobbledygook contained in the statements (see below) uttered from his government’s newly minted ‘Malaysian Climate Change Action Council (MyCAC)’. If so, could he translate the waffle into a meaningful statement on Malaysia’s plans for action?
Another approach is the development of a “green recovery plan” agenda such as the “Green New Deal” so that Malaysia will become a hub in the field of green economy, services and technology, and will foster green lifestyles in all walks of life through the concept of planetary health towards holistic sustainable development, he [Tuan Ibrahim] said.
One other approach is the strengthening of the country’s climate change governance through the involvement of all stakeholders, and the implementation of various programmes to drive the climate change agenda by mobilising manpower resources and financial allocations, he [Tuan Ibrahim] said.
That all this and more is reported to be achieved by MyCAC through just two meetings a year is the strongest indication as to the actual level of the present Malaysian government’s actual commitment towards restraining the greedy resource extraction that has destroyed one of the most abundant natural environments on the planet in just half the lifetime of Tuan Ibrahim (essentially the period of his political career).
As environment minister there is little evidence he has shown any interest in the matters in his portfolio. Indeed, as opposition politicians had pointed out, at the major global launch of COP last week he was still back in Malaysia harping on about one of his party’s long-standing obsessions, namely alcohol, instead.
Likewise, as an active politician over many years in Pahang he has presided apparently uncaring over the devastating destruction of his state, through greedy timber extraction and mining and plantation grabs that have profited his party and ruling elites at the expense of the poorest rural and indigenous communities.
Most of Pahang’s once valuable natural resources (which could have been profitably sustained for the people of the state) now lie in ruins and vast numbers of species have been wiped out across Malaysia before they could even be recorded and their potential properties identified. Just for quick profits for a privileged elite.
Erosion and flooding and deadly pollution in Pahang and elsewhere have been the consequence of the wholesale replacement of natural forests with monoculture oil palm plantations and careless industry. Wildlife has all but disappeared in just a few years and the indigenous people’s protests have fallen on deaf ‘religious’ ears as their suffering increases.
Tuan Ibrahim either fails to understand how on present trends these consequences will get exponentially worse for the coming generation or unethically he fails to care.
Meanwhile, no expense is clearly to be spared on Tuan Ibrahim’s fancy transportation so doubtless he will be assigned first class airline seats to Glasgow, where he is now belatedly going to sign the ‘Zero Deforestation Deal’ that represents just the tiniest commitment to tackling the behaviour of Tuan Ibrahim’s own state government over the past many years.
One thing this veteran politician cum religious leader does probably understand is that after 2030 it will not be him who is around to have to worry about implementing it.
Bribing electors comes under Voter Fraud – Penalty One Year In Jail
What further shame can the leadership of Malaysia’s fractious Coup Coalition heap upon its people?
Here is the former Prime Minister, Mahiaddin, whose campaign has just been fined together with his rival Najib Razak after the pair of these dirty old men took their electioneering into the Malacca market places at a risk to public health and contrary to their own laws.
So, what is he doing now? According to our own eyes he is handing a RM50* note to a passing voter – described as being a poor old man who is seeking cheap food stuffs. This is a crime on the part of the former prime minister known as electoral bribery and it comes under voter fraud, which in the UK at least would land him with a year in jail.
Perhaps ‘Moo’ has an excuse? Is he paying the motorcyclist for an illegal lift on the back of his bike or for some goods he brought to market?
In which case, how does he explain his crew of assistants one of whom is rifling through to extract another RM50 from a bundle that he appears to be clutching in a plastic holder and the other who is taking apparent notes on the identity of the recipient of this election ‘goody’?
Malaysians ought to take note that these handouts by their appallingly corrupt and embarrassing politicians are not the personal donations of the likes of Muhyiddin, pulled from their own pockets thanks to their fat salaries, but invariably stolen public money filtered into their party machinery for this very purpose amongst many others.
If Moo wishes to correct Sarawak Report on that assumption, then he can do so . Is it fake note handed out for fun? Can he trace the money to his private accounts? In either case, there is a hygiene matter. Once again this two faced PM who kept his people under a pointless and ineffective lockdown for several months is breaking his own rules and threatening public health by handing out grubby notes to people in a market place.
If Malaysia’s corrupted authorities won’t take action the people of Malacca ought – on polling day.
[*Or is this a mere cheapskate RM5 note to buy a vote? Moo is an old guy, BN’s Awang Tengah can tell him how prices have risen.]
Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has demanded the government explain several “off-budget” expenditures while debating Budget 2022 in the Dewan Rakyat today.
He named several projects, including the nationwide 5G rollout, the possible revival of the High-Speed Rail (HSR) project and attempts to privatise the Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport in Subang, Selangor.
Citing 1MDB which incurred RM32.3 billion in debts to the government, he said the public may be forced to foot the bill for these projects.
“The government has said these off-budget (projects) would not involve government allocation, but in the end, they may go back to the government.
It was Anwar who first raised the alarm on the original 1MDB farrago and its suspicious nature way back before the perpetrator of that theft, Najib and his UMNO party, framed him and then forced the overturn of a verdict of innocence on those trumped up charges.
Now the guilty men are back, not by popular demand but thanks to a corrupted over-turning of the elected government with the primary purpose of evading the genuine charges laid against them.
However, close on the heels of that motive has been the natural determination of a highly corrupted band of mafia politicians to once again make as much money as they possibly can whilst their hands are back on the levers of power.
For this Malaysians have sadly to thank their Agong, who chose not once but twice to assist this return to office by siding with the corrupted parties who lost GE14 and appointing secondary figures to lead the country instead of the person chosen by the electorate on the winning mandate at the head of the largest coalition, namely Anwar. The Agong is the Sultan to Najib’s home state and his family has done ‘good business’ under UMNO, hence an inevitable and very unfortunate perception of self-interest pervades this perverse employment of his powers of appointment.
Gracefully accepting the opposition role, Anwar and PH are now striving to abide by the Agong’s own requests (presently directed from his extended London holiday base) to work with his chosen party on the budget. However, once a thief as the saying goes. The Red Flags emanating from UMNO’s present budget finances (advised as they are by arch-kleptocrat Najib himself) bear all the same hallmarks of the original MO (modus operandi).
Except, this time the sums are even greater. 1MDB had only filched some $2 billion dollars (RM8.5 billion) within its first two years. However in the same time frame, Anwar warns us, 5G/5MDB (5 Malaysia Digital Blueprint) has already squandered a projected RM18 – RM28 billion on a project that market experts seem agreed is doomed to failure.
Like 1MDB the UMNO government backed project is being presented as ‘off budget’ (and therefore conveniently kept from scrutiny by MPs) but Anwar rightly warns that like 1MDB this project and its ‘losses’ will ultimately be laid at the door of the taxpayer once more. Same politicians, same financial expert (Najib) same MO.
And this is, of course, not the only vast extra expense that has bloated the cost of the budget by RM100 billion in unexplained and unscrutinised ‘off-budget expenditures’. There are a multitude of similar huge projects presented as ‘private enterprise’ but which are in fact the playthings of politicians at the public’s expense. Railway lines to nowhere, frigates which have never floated, grand infrastructure that crumbles before it is built – all excuses to lose money? Of course, they are. Leopards don’t change their spots.
Expect Najib, once he has persuaded his Sultan/Agong into pardoning his thefts (which would appear to be his plain objective) to swiftly set about his other favourite tactic… the jailing of the opposition leaders who raise awareness about the corrupt practices of himself and the UMNO party.
Pekan MP Najib Abdul Razak stressed that the withdrawal of Malaysia’s review application on Pulau Batu Puteh in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) should be investigated.
According to the former prime minister, the country had acquired at least three new pieces of evidence on the matter which led the cabinet at that time to appeal the decision on Pulau Batu Puteh.
“I am very dismayed why the seventh prime minister cancelled our appeal to ICJ as if we have purportedly accepted the decision of ICJ as final but there is a clause in the statute of ICJ that we can appeal with new evidence.
When the UMNO Conman isn’t flouting Covid rules by campaigning under false pretences he finds distractions to posture over. A top favourite for him and his party is the continual harassment of local Chinese citizens and allies, whilst they themselves are diving into the pocket of China itself.
Hence the latest decision to dig up a matter that has been already settled under international law in order to set up a squabble with Singapore. Yet, at the same time, day after day this government is failing to stand up to the harassment of Malaysia’s own Petronas by aggressive Chinese military vessels as it seeks to go about rightful exploration in Malaysia’s domestic waters. Not a squeak has there been on this from Najib nor from UMNO.
Thus, whilst Najib seeks to blame party boy Jho Low for his own gross corruption and to vilify Malaysian Chinese who have lived peacefully for generations in places like Malacca he has proven himself to be at the same time the secret agent of the Chinese state.
To wit, stealing from his own country whilst prime minister and funnelling the cash through Chinese state front companies placed himself and his country into the controlling palm of his creditors who had thus compromised him totally.
What better foreign agents than a corrupted prime minister and corrupted political party who have sold out their own people in return for the services of a foreign power?
Najib Abdul Razak is applying for leave at the Court of Appeal to temporarily release his passport so that he could fly to Singapore to be with his daughter, who is expected to give birth there.
The former prime minister’s counsel Nur Syahirah Hanapiah today confirmed that they filed the application at the Court of Appeal recently.
“That is correct,” the lawyer said when contacted by Malaysiakini today…..
Earlier this morning, the Kuala Lumpur High Court allowed a similar application for Najib’s wife, Rosmah Mansor, for temporary access to her passport, so she could be in Singapore and give mental and moral support to Nooryana Najwa.
After failing to flee straight after the election (as they were stopped by angry crowds) the couple now seem set to get away thanks to the new coup government.
After months during which every image of Rosmah Mansour would have served well to illustrate a fairy tale involving a wicked witch, the ex-PM’s wife presented a picture today of benign, gleeful elation.
She looked like someone who has just broken out of jail – or the very near threat of it. Which most in Malaysia are pretty sure is now indeed the case.
The reason? Unlike most small time crooks, who languish on remand behind bars for months and years in Malaysia, this woman who stands accused of stealing millions from Sarawak schoolchildren has been offered her passport to travel out of the country on a specious excuse.
Apparently, again unlike other Malaysians, her daughter must give birth in Singapore and her mother must be there. For this reason the court has returned Rosmah’s passport – and interrupted her criminal trial to boot.
Many will conclude that this was the reason that the UMNO/PN coup took place in the first place. Since the return to power of this scandal torn political party (by overturning the democratic vote) all the charged kleptocrats from amongst its ranks have one by one managed to get their prosecutions dropped, delayed or frozen.
By this very same afternoon the convicted Najib had himself put in his own petition to the court on the exact same grounds. He too must be in Singapore to hold his daughter’s hand as she produces her second child – passport please, now that we have the precedent!
After all, Najib has already seen his appeal put on permafrost (in the very manner that the former PM Mahiaddin openly predicted that the judiciary could be influenced). As everyone knows a similar petition exists for Najib’s ex-deputy, Zahid Hamidi, whose ‘bad neck’ can only be attended to in Germany, despite the jaw-dropping list of charges he is facing in Malaysia.
Call Malaysians cynics, but they only expect to see these fellows back from their foreign trips if the decline of law and order under UMNO descends even further – to the extent that such crony criminals would feel secure to swan around free despite the devastating crimes they stand accused of.
This they know is entirely possible, because if these two birds fly the coup it will leave the present majority of five government even more exposed than it already is – MOU or no MOU. Therefore, citizens should prepare for dozens more charges to be dropped whilst these brave MPs are waiting it out in hospitals abroad, in order that they can return to vote free men!
Romen Bose worked as a Political Communications Consultant for former Malaysian Premier Najib Razak for six years and was a close confidante to decision makers in the upper echelon of the country’s political elite.
Romen was present during the major controversies that hit the Najib Razak administration, witnessing first-hand how the country’s leadership reacted to the disappearance of MH370 and the step by step actions of its topmost officials, as well as classified covert actions taken to retrieve the remains of Malaysian victims following the shooting down of MH17.
In Final Reckoning, the author gives a blow-by-blow account of how the 1MDB scandal rocked the Government and the attempts by the country’s top politicians and their advisers to contain and explain it away. Through numerous conversations with key players and his presence at various top secret meetings following the global investigations into the scandal, Romen pieces together for the first time how a sitting Prime Minister became the unwitting patsy of a mastermind who had managed to pull off the single biggest con of the century. In doing so, Romen tells the story of an ultimately futile scramble to try and preserve a crumbling political legacy that had long been out of step with the realities of a new Malaysia.
Payment from 1MDB stolen money of RM655,000 to author Roman Bose
It is a wise maxim to declare one’s interest in matters of opinion, should one have one. In this case the author Romen Bose who has chosen to write this upcoming promoted book about Najib Razak and his nemesis of 1MDB had himself worked for the disgraced ex-PM as his ‘media warfare’ and ‘monitoring expert’ for several years, pushing the BN government spin against factual reporting by the likes of Sarawak Report and the rest of the world media.
For this act of deception he was highly paid and with stolen money from the very heist he claims to give the inside story about.
MACC documents citing the distribution of stolen 1MDB money from Najib’s personal KL accounts show that the convicted felon ex-prime minister paid Romen Bose RM 655,000 out of that stolen loot.
So, when he advertises his upcoming book as an account as to how “a sitting Prime Minister became the unwitting patsy of a mastermind” over this “Con of the Century” readers are advised to take his version of events with a very large pinch of salt.
After all, Najib is back in the money and Bose is clearly back earning it in the same capacity as communications cheerleader he was in before.
Penguin ought to be ashamed of publishing such propaganda when the same outfit quivered in fear to publish books by the likes of Sarawak Report who exposed the criminality in the first place.
So much for the publishing industry’s contribution to free speech and promotion of the truth in the 21st century.
Awang Tenga (who is also Second Minister of Urban Development and Natural Resources) reminded NCR landowners not to be greedy when asking for their land to be surveyed.
“Please, do not make false claims over the boundaries just because you wanted to have a bigger size of land when the perimeter surveyed carried out”(sic)
“If the proof of land is authentic, the authority will have not problem to approve but sometimes, there are some people who are greedy and want their land to be surveyed beyond the original boundary”, he pointed out.
Pot bellied Awang Tengah is famous in Sarawak as the personification of personal greed and kleptocratic politics.
No one need be in doubt as to how his political position has acquired him great wealth (despite years on a modest ministerial salary which precludes him dealing in business or indulging in conflicts of interest). After all, he boasts one of the largest houses in Kuching.
Tengah has been caught on camera walking through the market place handing out RM50 note bribes to stall holders and he has been the subject of a massive legal action accusing him of conspiracy to defraud over RM285 million which he has yet to settle.
He is notorious in one of the most notoriously corrupt regimes in the world, so for him to dare accuse the impoverished native people he has cheated of being greedy as they fight for the recognition of their lands is beneath contempt.
For years his government has raped the resources of their lands in the name of modernisation, progress and development and left the Dayak amongst the poorest and most backward people on the planet, despite the vast natural wealth of the lands wrested from their control.
As their lives have become harder with their lands stripped bare around them and their waters polluted, Awang and his pals have got fatter and richer…. and richer. Make your conclusions as to who has the right to lecture others on greed.
Former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin today revealed he had been told that much of the furniture in Seri Perdana had been removed as it was claimed to be owned by Najib Razak.
“Based on the report I received, the Prime Minister’s Department also recommended the purchase of furniture as much of the furniture assets in Seri Perdana which were claimed to be owned by the sixth prime minister had been removed,” Muhyiddin, who served 17 months at the top office, said in a statement calling for the details of repair works at the prime minister’s official residence to be made public.
Yesterday, Najib questioned the RM38.5 million spent by the government to carry out repair and renovation works at the sprawling complex in Putrajaya.
Taking a swipe at Muhyiddin, Najib also said the building was still in good condition when he left it in May 2018, adding that the RM38.5 million bill was not justified during the time of the pandemic.
So nice to know that the ideological allies in PN (the ideology being greed) are so happily united on the subject of their serial pillaging of public property.
They are agreed, from their own testimony, that they belong to a cabal of thieves, whilst blaming each other for misdeeds.
Najib has queried the outrageous sum spent by Mahiaddin on doing up his prime ministerial quarters (clearly these men’s wives are designed to go on shopping trips together) – specifically a shocking RM38.5 million ‘touch up’ job whilst thousands hungered during Covid.
And ‘Moo’ has riposted that the spend was needed because Najib walked off with most of the furniture before he dived out the place having lost the election in 2018.
Somehow PH survived the intervening period under these Spartan conditions, leading one to assume the elderly Dr Mahathir depends on less luxurious surroundings to perform his duties.
What all this squabbling and bickering yet again reveals is that what unites these ‘allies’ together in PN is merely their thirst for the spoils of office and their expert abuse of power.
They are like hyenas who have joined in a pack to hunt down their prey (namely the Malaysia’s public assets) but who then snarl and turn on one another as they seek to gnaw the last piece of flesh from bones they have already all but stripped bare.
Umno secretary general Datuk Ahmad Maslan has been acquitted and discharged of his money laundering and giving false statements to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) charges.
High Court judge Datuk Ahmad Shahrir Mohd Salleh made the decision today after the prosecution told the court that they had withdrawn the charges against the former deputy finance minister.
The law firm representing Ahmad, Messrs Shahrul Hamidi & Haziq, issued a statement about its client’s acquittal.
It said the prosecution had withdrawn the charges against the accused as he had paid a RM1.1 million compound.
Ahmad Maslan’s strutting behaviour mimics that of a man who has been vindicated of false accusations! There is none of the humble shame of a man forced to pay a fine of over a million, but who has thankfully escaped the lock up.
Maslan is acting joyful and triumphant as if he were a man who had to fight to save his good name. Perhaps, nay doubtless, he will start to portray himself as exactly that.
He isn’t innocent, as everyone knows. He has merely been let off by a government that is based wholly on corrupt practice, comprised of parties united only by a corrupt agenda.
Everyone now from the top to bottom in the PN coalition is motivated by a desire for personal gain in in many cases a desire to get off the hook over their previous corruption and misdeeds.
One by one they are letting themselves off. That’s the deal.
Meanwhile, the people at the bottom suffer in myriad ways oppressed by further restrictions against their freedoms disguised as ‘Covid’ measures, but as much designed to silence their dissent.
PN are now raping the country. Just to provide the bigger picture as this latest small fry escapes his penalty, Malaysia has the national humiliation of going into the global Climate Conference COP next month as one of the countries with the worst deforestation records on the planet and yet the logging continues.
Through his own Instagram page this heir to the sultanate of Johor has chosen to express his love and concern for his people in an interesting way – by posting video highlights of his recent holiday.
Owing to the ravages of Covid most Malaysians aren’t getting holidays at the moment, but the ‘Crown Prince’ is evidently willing to give them a vicarious glimpse of what a nice time he can have instead. This is no snap-shot: it is a lingering, glossy, professional film job, set to music with areal shots and snappy edits.
It was good of the CP to think of his people in this way. He plainly wants them to know how much he appreciates the fine life he lives off the lands they share – a life that the vast majority of his ‘subjects’ could never experience given the unfortunate poverty of most of his social underlings in this well resourced state.
Some might call this showing off and a wee bit tacky for a man who presumably considers himself part of the global royal elite (most inherited monarchies tend to play down the ostentation for reasons that barely need a mention here). However young Johor clearly reckons he knows what his people enjoy to see: he kicks off his holiday video with a full martial display as casually dressed he brushes past the salutes of smart uniformed guards and ascends his gold painted private jet.
We are given a peek inside, just so we can see how grand it is? Forget five to a row, think five servers per passenger and to hell with the carbon footprint.
Cut to the holiday island arrival. The prince descends from his luxurious trip in his swimming trunks, exposing a physique that can only be described as well fed. How happy his subjects must feel given such opportunity to view their highness in the fullness of his hefty health, all funded by the taxes on their hard work.
Hard work is not what the Prince now treats his fan club to, of course. Although all that posing in front of posh beach mansions, at pool bars, 6 star suites, the decks of yachts, spas and loungers was probably a bit of an effort, which they can thank him for.
It was clearly all done to let his subjects know that he really loves indulging in trashy luxury symbols and wants them to have the second hand pleasure of watching him at it.
It is the sort of well-worn fantasy stuff that snootier circles would describe as ‘poor people’s porn’ (most people with wealth, relevance and taste enjoy more subtle pleasures). However, the caring crown prince is not too proud to dish it out in dollops to stoke the fantasies of those left hungry, tired and brow-beaten back at home, for whom a few moments of carefree leisure and luxury would indeed be a pleasure to enjoy.
He gave them fodder for their dreams, which for them will never of course come true. How kind of him. It ought to make them happier to pay their taxes next time round.
Funnily enough, the same Crown Prince reportedly caused some consternation not long ago uttering a view in a KL social club “I can’t stand to be around all these poor people” before he left. He must been feeling so sorry for them.
