Malaysia set to let UAE off the 1MDB hook

Closed door settlement could result in a hugely diminished payout without scandalous details ever aired in an open court

When the Malaysian government announced a US$3.9 billion settlement deal with Goldman Sachs in July, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin used the opportunity to reiterate his administration’s commitment to recovering assets linked to the sprawling multi-billion-dollar 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal.

Prominent detractors, though, panned the deal, despite it paving the way for the largest yet recovery of pilfered state funds, with Goldman committing to a $2.5 billion cash payout and a guarantee to return at least $1.4 billion in assets linked to three bond transactions worth $6.5 billion that the US investment bank had structured and arranged for 1MDB.

Leaders of Malaysia’s previous Pakatan Harapan (PH) government, which oversaw charges brought against Goldman and its executives, have suggested that Malaysia was shortchanged in the settlement, which also saw pending criminal charges against the bank dropped. To critics, the outcome amounted to a veritable slap on the wrist.

Reports indicate that another such settlement is in the works, this time with an Abu Dhabi state investment fund over 1MDB-related transactions linked to a legal challenge filed by Malaysia in a London court. Observers say the settlement could lead to a smaller-than-expected payout without details of the controversial case ever being aired in an open court.

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.

Malaysia’s shapeshifting politics signal trouble ahead

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin's tenure could be brief with shifting political winds and snap polls on the horizon

Six months since his appointment as Malaysia’s premier, Muhyiddin Yassin now finds himself between a rock and a hard place. With his ruling coalition of convenience mired in internecine strife, a new party launched by his bitterly estranged predecessor, Mahathir Mohamad, threatens to weaken further his standing ahead of anticipated snap polls.

Though a general election is not due until late 2023, speculation is rising that a vote could be held within the next six months. Electoral considerations have already forced Muhyiddin to find new footing within a tangle of overlapping political alliances as he seeks a racially inclusive strategy to broaden his party’s appeal.

While Muhyiddin’s popularity has grown on his perceived as competent handling of Covid-19, open divisions in his informal Perikatan Nasional (PN) governing pact, the pandemic’s economic fallout and discontent over controversies involving ministers flouting virus control measures have ended his political honeymoon.

With a mere two-seat parliamentary majority, Muhyiddin found himself up against a wall when leaders from the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the largest bloc in his coalition, said they would not formally join the PN coalition following the sentencing to jail of former UMNO leader and ex-premier Najib Razak for corruption in late July.

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.

Singapore’s migrants still captive to Covid-19

Migrant workers ringfenced in overcrowded dormitories continue to bear the brunt of the city-state’s viral outbreak

Passing their days within a ringfence, Singapore’s foreign workers have spent the past four months coping with fears of contracting Covid-19 and the associated dread of being quarantined in perpetuity.

Confined to the cramped living conditions of their dormitories, signs abound that the pandemic has taken a heavy toll on the mental health of low-paid laborers in the island republic, which nonetheless has earned global praise for its comprehensive coronavirus handling.

Mass dormitories housing some 323,000 foreign workers emerged as the epicenter of the city-state’s outbreak after being put on lockdown in April when clusters were first identified. While cases remained low among the population at large, infections in the dormitories rose dramatically and pushed Singapore’s caseload to one of the highest in Asia.

Singapore’s total number of Covid-19 cases now stands at 56,099, with dormitory infections accounting for around 95% of the total caseload. The asymmetric impact of the outbreak, moreover, has spotlighted the need for broader reform of dormitory standards and the uncomfortable realities of severe inequality in the wealthy city-state.

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.

Cause for contempt of Malaysia’s politicized courts

Malaysia's politics descends into duel of tit-for-tat corruption charges that threatens to strain judicial credibility

When Najib Razak became the first former Malaysian prime minister ever to be convicted for corruption, the Pakatan Harapan (PH) opposition coalition that brought the charges against him while in power hailed the verdict as a “big victory” for Malaysians.

Sentenced to 12 years behind bars and fined nearly US$50 million in the first of several cases linked to multi-billion-dollar corruption allegations at the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state fund, the landmark ruling vindicated those who had spoken out against rampant graft as Najib’s scandal-plagued rule lurched toward authoritarianism.

By ostensibly allowing the judiciary to operate independently under his watch, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin managed to allay concerns that charges against Najib and other senior leaders from his United Malays National Organization (UMNO) – a linchpin in the premier’s fragile ruling coalition – would be dropped or subverted.

Opposition lawmakers, however, are raising new questions about Malaysia’s legal process following the August 7 arrest of former finance minister and senior opposition leader Lim Guan Eng, with PH leaders labeling bribery charges leveled against him in connection with a $1.5 billion China-linked infrastructure project as barefaced “political persecution.”

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.

Why Malaysia’s Muhyiddin fears a free press

Malaysia's new government is harassing and intimidating journalists in a fierce new clampdown on media freedoms

Advocates are sounding the alarm over a rapid deterioration of press freedom conditions in Malaysia following a series of police raids, arrests and interrogations of whistle-blowers and reporters who risk being jailed for years under draconian legislation often used to target the media.

Six journalists from Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera are among those currently under criminal investigation for alleged sedition, defamation and transmitting offensive content after the network aired on July 3 a documentary chronicling Malaysia’s controversial treatment of undocumented migrants during the coronavirus pandemic.

In a separate case, Steven Gan, the editor-in-chief of the news organization Malaysiakini, widely considered the most popular independent media portal in Malaysia, faces contempt of court charges in connection with reader remarks posted in the comments section of an article that authorities said had threatened public confidence in the judiciary.

“We are already seeing a pattern where media freedoms are really being affected purely through the way certain media outlets or journalists are being targeted,” said Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) executive director Wathshlah Naidu. “This pattern can already show that there is a certain concerted effort by the government.”

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.

The face of Chinese spying in Singapore

Singaporean Jun Wei Yeo faces prison in US for serving as an illegal Chinese agent targeting American defense contractors and lobbyists

An espionage case involving a Singaporean national who recently pled guilty to spying for Chinese intelligence services in a US federal court has stoked concerns that citizens of the ethnic Chinese majority city-state be regarded with greater suspicion by the United States amid a new Cold War atmosphere.

Tasked with obtaining non-public information about politics, economics, and diplomacy, 39-year-old Singaporean academic and doctoral degree candidate Jun Wei Yeo admitted to establishing a fake consultancy and using social networking site LinkedIn to cultivate ties with US military and government employees holding high-level security clearances.

Yeo, a former PhD student at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP), an autonomous postgraduate school of the National University of Singapore (NUS) which trains some of Asia’s top civil servants and government officials, now faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison after confessing to acting as an illegal agent for Chinese intelligence.

Though analysts believe the spying case isn’t likely to have a major impact on Singapore’s ties with either the US or China, most agree that the island-state’s efforts to maintain a delicate diplomatic balance between the two major powers will be more difficult as US-China relations deteriorate sharply ahead of the US presidential election in November.

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.

Malaysia’s Najib sentenced to jail for 1MDB scandal

Ex-premier found guilty in landmark ruling on multi-billion-dollar scam while Goldman Sachs escapes criminal sanction for a fee

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was found guilty and sentenced to prison by a high court judge on Tuesday (July 28) in the first of several trials linked to multi-billion-dollar corruption allegations at the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state fund. The verdict makes the 67-year-old the first and only ex-national leader ever to be criminally convicted.

In a long-sought day of reckoning, the scandal-plagued former premier was ruled guilty on all seven charges that include money laundering, criminal breach of trust and abuse of power in connection with the misappropriation of 42 million ringgit (US$9.8 million) from 1MDB unit SRC International Sdn Bhd, which was funneled into his personal bank accounts.

“After considering all evidence in this trial, I find that the prosecution has successfully proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt,” Kuala Lumpur High Court Judge Mohamad Nazlan Mohamad Ghazali said. Najib’s defense lawyers contended that he was a victim of a scam and are applying for a stay of execution pending the hearing of his appeal.

The former prime minister was sentenced to 12 years in jail and handed a fine of 210 million ringgit ($49.3 million). If Najib fails to pay the fine, he will serve an additional five years in prison by default. “The sentence is not only to punish offenders but to deter other people from repeating the offense,” said the high court judge.

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.

AirAsia in the eye of a Covid-19 storm

Asia's premier budget airline faces severe financial turbulence that won't easily be course corrected

When Tony Fernandes acquired AirAsia nearly two decades ago, the then- music industry executive paid a mere 1 Malaysian ringgit (23 US cents) to take the bankrupt carrier off a state-owned conglomerate’s hands.

Against the odds, Fernandes lifted AirAsia into Southeast Asia's largest budget carrier on a “Now everyone can fly” motto that pioneered the low-cost aviation industry by leveraging strategically into the region’s rapidly-emerging middle class.

But in a world now ill with Covid-19, the opposite is true: one of Asian aviation’s best-known brands now simply aims to stay aloft at a time when everyone, in fact, cannot fly. “This is by far the biggest challenge we have faced since we began in 2001,” Fernandes, AirAsia’s chief executive, said in a July 6 statement.

Lockdown measures and travel restrictions imposed earlier this year in most of AirAsia's key markets, including Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, among others, resulted in the grounding of nearly its entire fleet.

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.

PAP scores pyrrhic victory at Singapore’s polls

Long-ruling party wins big but not as overwhelmingly as expected, casting doubt on PM Lee’s plan to hand reins to new generation leaders

Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) comfortably won a 15th consecutive term in office and retained its legislative supermajority in Parliament at July 10 elections, prevailing handily over smaller opposition challengers that cast their campaigns as a check and balance on the risks of single-party dominance.

Clinching 83 out of 93 parliamentary seats, a majority that ruling parties in more contested democracies would envy, the results represent by any measure a rousing PAP win. But in the context of the ruling party’s past electoral showings, the polls’ outcome marks one of its worst performances since first taking power in 1959.

On the hustings, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong appealed to voters to hand the PAP a “strong mandate” to see through the twin crises of the Covid-19 pandemic and the worst recession in the island nation’s history. With another PAP win a forgone conclusion in the eyes of analysts, the margin of its victory had been the key indicator to watch.

The PAP’s overall vote share fell to 61.2%, a whisker above their record-low general election showing of 60.1% in 2011. Poll results showed a surprise swing for opposition parties, with the Workers’ Party (WP) securing ten seats, the most ever held by non-ruling party’s lawmakers since the city-state gained independence in 1965.

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.

Pandemic poll tests Lee’s mettle in Singapore

PM Lee’s ruling PAP is expected to win again but twin health and economic crises may put his post-election retirement plan on hold

With public health at risk from Covid-19 and job losses mounting amid the worst recession in its history, Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) has appealed to voters to not only renew its rule at July 10 elections but to hand it a “strong mandate” to manage the unparalleled twin crises.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong appeared to equate national unity with voting for the ruling party in a rally speech this week where he said that strong support for the incumbent would show investors and the world that Singaporeans are “united”, while diminished support for the PAP would reveal the electorate to be “fractious and divided.”

“Do not undermine a system that has served you well,” said the premier, secretary-general of the ruling party that has governed the island-nation since 1959. He cautioned Singaporeans not to be “taken for a ride” by smaller opposition parties that want to deny the PAP a legislative supermajority in Parliament and “blank check” to rule.

While Singaporeans are widely expected to return the PAP to power when the city-state’s 2.6 million registered voters cast their ballots on Friday, the challenge brought by the opposition camp over the course of this year’s brief but spirited nine-day campaign period has been unlike any other in the nation’s post-independence history.

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.