How a lie could bring down Singapore’s opposition

Singapore’s opposition Workers’ Party is ensnared in a controversy that could see its leaders fined and jailed

Less than 18 months after making historic electoral gains, Singapore’s largest opposition party, the Workers’ Party (WP), has been shaken by a controversy that threatens its credibility and puts its leadership at risk of being sanctioned with fines or jail by the city-state’s legislature, where the ruling party commands a supermajority.

The scandal has dominated political headlines in Singapore since November 1, when WP lawmaker Raeesah Khan admitted she lied in parliament about accompanying a sexual assault victim to a police station where the latter was allegedly mocked and treated insensitively by a police officer handling her complaint.

After sharing the anecdote in August during a debate on women’s empowerment, Raeesah came clean three months later, confessing she did not follow the victim to the police station, but heard the account in a sexual assault survivors support group she was part of, nor did she have the victim’s consent to share the account publicly.

Raeesah, 28, said she attended the group session because she had been sexually assaulted at the age of 18 while studying abroad. Telling the complete story, she implied in a tearful speech, would have required publicly outing herself as a sexual assault victim, an experience she had not told her parents about at the time.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Omicron stalks SE Asia’s post-Covid hopes and dreams

Caseloads and deaths are down and reopening gathering pace but the new highly contagious variant could scupper those plans

Southeast Asian nations have been eager to leave behind a year that saw record-high Covid-19 caseloads, skyrocketing death rates and economically debilitating lockdowns. With rising inoculation rates recently stabilizing the situation across most of the region, the rapid global spread of the vaccine-eluding Omicron variant threatens to reverse those gains.

The emergence of the highly mutated pathogen, first identified in South Africa and classified as a "variant of concern" last month by the World Health Organization (WHO), is stoking fears of a pandemic resurgence as several global countries, most notably the United Kingdom, face runaway transmissions linked to the ultra-contagious strain.

Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand have each detected Omicron cases, raising the specter of new waves of infections and hospitalizations, a scenario that threatens to delay or reverse reopening plans, prolong travel curbs and new rounds of economic and social pain after two years of widespread suffering.

A University of Hong Kong preliminary study showed the Omicron variant infects around 70 times faster than the Delta and original Covid-19 strain. The study found that the variant replicated less efficiently – more than 10 times lower – in the human lung tissue, which may signal a lower severity of disease, particularly among the vaccinated.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Ruling leaves Najib on the hook for 1MDB

Court rejects ex-premier’s appeal of a landmark corruption conviction in decision that deems his actions a ‘national embarrassment’

A landmark corruption conviction against former prime minister Najib Razak was unanimously upheld by Malaysia’s Court of Appeal on Wednesday (December 8), a ruling that could slow the ex-leader’s political comeback ambitions and sow new divisions in the ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) where he remains highly influential.

The appellate court dismissed the former premier’s appeal to reverse a guilty verdict handed down last July in relation to the misappropriation of 42 million ringgit (US$9.9 million) from SRC International Sdn Bhd, a now-defunct investment vehicle of the scandal-plagued 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state fund.

Najib, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing, was sentenced to 12 years in prison and handed a 210 million ringgit ($49.7 million) fine on seven charges encompassing abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering. Appellate court Judge Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil said he agreed with the High Court’s earlier conviction and sentencing.

But the former premier’s avenues for appealing his guilty verdict are not yet exhausted. Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, Najib’s lead defense counsel, said his case would be appealed next at the Federal Court, the country’s highest and final appellate court. The Court of Appeal then granted a further stay of execution for Najib’s sentencing and conviction.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.