Our comment

Flouting all good advice the Minister for Primary Industries is continuing to throw good money after bad as she follows her predecessors from BN in insisting there is nothing that is not perfect about Malaysia’s mass monoculture oil palm plantation business.

Unlike those BN predecessors, Ms Kok has no vested interest in continuing with such nonsense (or we sincerely hope not), yet tragically she has turned herself into a banner waving junior cheerleader for a rich and powerful set of businessmen, who don’t need her to wage their battles but are only too relieved not to be dealing with a real minister in charge.

They send her lists of events to chant at and keep her busy.

In fact, this minister’s actual job is to regulate powerful lobbies such as these and to look out for the wider public interest of all Malaysia’s people, including those vulnerable native communities whose lands were stolen by these conniving billion dollar companies.

Yet, just like her BN predecessors, instead of standing up for the wider public, particularly in Sarawak, this minister has chosen to become a puppet to the powerful and a lobbyists’ lackey. Like an obedient lamb she is now pouring yet further public money into more pointless propaganda of the sort long ignored by all sensible observers, who have just suffered months of toxic haze – just one of the by-products of this industry’s greedy, careless practices.

Thanks to this RM27 million dedicated to “fighting NGOs”, campaigners who highight the dangers of eco-destruction and stand up for communities who lost their lands (and would really benefit from the careful distribution of RM27 million) can expect more of the treatment they became used to for years under BN.

Greenwash galore and villification by low-life PR companies, paid to smear, lie, hack and disinform are the stock in trade of such propaganda campaigns. Such attacks on those who speak the truth about this business do nothing to change minds and waste money that could be spent improving lives.

Malaysians need policies to combat haze, combat corruption, combat environmental devastation and deforestation by this rampant cash crop.

Malaysians need a minister who works with Malaysians in mind and not the next likely employer in the private sector.

Our comment

Hadi is like a bald old cockerel in the farmyard, crowing loudly on the same old tune whilst UMNO warlords throw him their remaining stolen dedak.  Others will be happy to flap around him for as long as the dedak keeps coming.

His sort of boastful ‘learning’ ignores the fact that he flies in airplanes, travels in cars, enjoys aircon and had his heart fixed thanks to international science and cooperation, none of which he has a clue about.

He is ‘superior’ because he says so, but must forgive the rest of the world for having a bit of a laugh about it.

Meanwhile, the great religions of the Middle East (Judaism, Christianity and Muslim in chronological order) share fundamental principals along with their joint heritage. They encourage civilised and humble decency towards fellow beings, not the crowing boastful supremacist nonsense of the kind he specialises in.

Hadi should probably spend less time strutting about and more time re-reading his religious books as his years advance.

Our comment

It was sad to see a supposed cultural celebration for Malays hijacked by a bunch of political humbugs seeking to disguise a record of theft and abuse of power.

If these issuers of demands for superior status abided by just a few of their own proclaimed principles then there would be no problems of poverty in Malaysia.

Meanwhile, for the sake of the country’s independent future the next efforts should be for all sides to work to celebrate Malaysian Unity – a unity that seeks to respect and uplift all Malaysians, including the most impoverished, who are mostly the indigenous peoples and East Malaysian peoples whose resources have contributed so much to the prosperity of the nation and the lives of urban dwellers.

Bigotted and divisive politics will weaken, corrupt and endanger the country once again. In 2018 it escaped by a whisker total economic catastrophe and resulting subjugation to a nearby super-power with strategic ambitions trampling on its independence, thanks to just such humbug thievery.

Nothing dignified about that.

Our comment

Dr Mahathir is to be commended for articulating aspirations to conserve Malaysisa’s forests, which most Malaysians also hold in deep affection. That provides great hope of good intentions that might just rescue the handful of renaining Malaysian tigers and the habitat they depend on, along with the tattered remnants of the East Malaysian Borneo Jungle.

However, an in-built refusal to accept any form of criticism direct or indirect is part of his powerful character it would appear and there seems to be a willingness on his part (encouraged by those with vested interests around his government) to conclude that the chorus of ecologically concerned people and global scientists who are raising concerns about the deforestation of Malaysia’s precious landscape are doing so just for the sake of it – or to be mean to Malaysians or competitive on behalf of industries they have no connection to.

Either Mahathir is right, together with Teresa Kok in claiming that somehow the world’s most massive palm oil plantations have been created without destroying vast tracks of jungle (in defiance of all logic and evidence) or the mass of contrary statistics available from all the world’s scientific organisations are correct instead. Take these as a small example:

So, who is telling the truth? The fact is that solid statistics are simply not being produced by the Malaysian federal government to substantiate its claims, which are based on feedback from state governments that are not revealing proper data:

“Where is the data coming for forest cover of over 50%? There is no distinction between virgin forest and scrub. When we ask for it there is no proper data available. We should be able to have the raw data and verify it – we go out to the field in any state and walk the with Orang Asli and we know what is going on and it is not true”, says Saha Deva A Arunasalam, Vice President of the Malaysian environment group PEKA who joined colleagues in showing solidarity for the climate march in London last week.

The complaint is justified. Just because an area is green on the map, even green from the sky or not officially designated as ‘urbanised’ or ‘agricultural’ does not mean that it has not been logged for all its worth and destroyed both as a habitat and as a living carbon-extracting proper forest. It could just as well be scrub, as much of Malaysia now is.

That such remarks from the PM have come after weeks in which Malaysians have suffered choking toxic fumes created from the now routine burning of these ‘forested areas’ has pitched practical experience as well as logic against a bunch of vague statistics that are completely unverified and unscrutinised.

So, let’s get the data properly nailed down, checked and placed transparently in federal hands. Next, let’s all work together to help Dr Mahathir and Malaysians fulfil their aspirations to revitalise their hugely valuable jungle zones and prevent a handful of greedy and rapacious loggers (with the local politicians in their pockets) from cleaning out the fragments left of what was – just 50 years ago – the world’s most bio-diverse region of the planet.

Our comment

When the Taib family muscled in on the cable business to set up this enterprise back in 2009, the game plan was to scoop up all the profits transporting vast quantities of hydro-power commissioned by the Chief Minister out of the public purse.

Taib’s son Abu Bekir was covertly sitting on no less than 42% of the shares (illegal in the case of a publicly listed company) when we exposed the fact back in 2010.

No surprise that Taib as Chief Minister then proceeded to push all the contracts he could the way of the company, fawning in the flattery of courtiers who knew he liked to be called CEO of the state.

In fact, the Taib’s are magnificent thieves, but have shown absolutely zero skill when it comes to productively managing commercial enterprises. Take one look at the awful record of another of Abu Bekir’s companies, Titanium Management over its failure to complete the huge bridge building contract handed him by his Dad at around the same time.

Of course, he was paid off handsomely for his failure – Daddy made sure of that. However, there is no reason whatsoever for Bank Negara Malaysia to step in to help this other predictably failing venture. If the Taib’s have discovered their dams have few customers and Sarawak Cable can’t make money then they have plenty of their own looted cash to bail out the company and it is this that should be used.

No more public money federal or state should be channelled into this greedy family. It is time for the forces of law and order to reverse the entire process and get all this stolen money back.

Our comment

Nice try Abang Jo.

Whilst UMNO and PAS continue to splash stolen cash stoking divisive bigotry in their gambit to entice people to forget theft and betrayal in favour of hateful racism, he is trying a different version of the same game in Sarawak.

He is seeking to portray GPS as ‘independent’ and rubbish parties that seek to enhance equality, bring social justice as being ‘outsiders’.

The present toxic nature of UMNO/PAS can never appeal to East Malaysia, however Sarawak’s current rulers cannot disguise their own past actions.

The leaders of GPS jumped to KLs tune for decades (they still do) and handed away virtually all Sarawak’s oil revenues in a dark pact that gave them free rein to rape the state of its timber and native lands and hand out contracts to themselves.

It was Abang Jo’s party that changed the state land codes time and again so politicians and their cronies could seize Native Customary Lands and it still is his party that is continuing to refuse to reform those land grab laws.

Now they have run out of revenues from timber, plantations, botched industrialisation and all the rest, these same Jackanapes are now finally playing catch up by asking for more oil revenues.

Where do Sarawakians think that money would go were these scoundrels from GPS to get their hands on it?

To ordinary Sarawakians? To improve services?

It is time Sarawak showed these thieves who is boss and voted them out – and the next lot too if they don’t immediately carry out their promises to undo the greed and corruption of 50 years of Taib Mahmud and his grasping family and hangers on in GPS.

Our comment

Sarawakians Are Poor Because Of Exploitation By PBB & Partners

Abang Jo opines that the cashless Sarawakian poor should not be described as being in poverty by the UN because ‘they have land’ and they just need ‘education’ on how to ‘monetise’ it.

This from the leader of a government that has spent the past five decades stripping that land of timber, destroying it for farming and hunting and passing laws to remove ownership from the native people and place it in the hands of their own family members and crony businessmen.

Have no fear, the BN plunderers have been monetising the stolen land for all its worth, they just haven’t passed any of that cash on to those rightful owners and nor have they been ‘educating’ them on how to get a fairer deal.

On this subject of ignorance and education, Governor Taib Mahmud’s lawyer Alvin Chong was caught on camera sneering at native collaborators in this theft, calling them “one-eyed men in the land of the blind” for signing away land on behalf of their villages for a few thousand ringgit or agreeing to act as proxies for thief politicians and business cronies.

At the same time Taib’s neices claimed the land belonged to the state and the natives were squatters.

The reason Sarawakians are poor is down to the greed of Abang Johari’s boss Taib Mahmud and the whole edifice of rent seekers and thief businessmen (including the present chief minister) whom he has allowed to leech off the people of the state and their battered lands.

He has deliberately kept them ignorant of their opportunities to sustainably manage their lands to produce cash for families, preferring to steal from them instead.

Our comment

Such pompous patronising patriachy from the boyish CM should alert all women what to do with their votes – put them anywhere but PBB.

Who is he to seek a husband’s permission for a candidate to represent her community (no mention of checking out husbands with their wives)?  By extension, these women would have to look for orders from their unelected spouses over which way to vote.

In the modern era, even apparent dinosaurs like this Boy Rider CM must notice women occupy leadership roles successfully all over (including in Malaysia and across the Muslim world) without being treated like children by their husbands.

Women are equipped to do a great deal things more than ‘breastfeeding’ the only activity that springs into the limitd mind of the Sarawak CM – and what’s more they do lots of things at the same time as well.

Women still work in fields producing the family food with babies on their backs, in many places, while their husbands snore under trees. Time for Abang Jo to go find his tree and let women show they can ride motorbikes just like him, lead countries and do anything he can do (often at the same time) and a lot more he can’t.

Our comment

This ex-BN outfit is seeking to impress Sarawakians with a very old story line that they have pulled out time and again for decades – in the same way they have time and again promised ‘progress and development” that has never happened.

These guys posture as ‘independent’ leaders, fighting to ‘keep UMNO out of Sarawak’ and now presumably Pakatan, DAP and Bersatu.  But, the truth of the matter is these Taib cronies have always proved willing to act the catspaw of whoever is in power in the federal governmnent as long as they can be left alone to plunder their own people.

Hence the moment BN lost GE14 they switched sides and pledged support for PH instead – some independence!

What these Taib cronies actually don’t want to see is the Culture of Clean-Up entering Sarawak, They don’t want any investigations or dreaded prosecutions of greedy kleptocrats to start entering their shores as is now happening in the rest of Malaysia, including in neighbouring Sabah, where the people are pleased to see their local crooks being brought to justice.

And heaven forbid there should be any ‘quarrelling’ about who should be leader. What ‘foreign’ nonsense!

In Sarawak Taib decides who is the boss and ultimately it is himself and his ancient team of cronies, who have run the state and helped themselves for decades.

You can’t have anyone challenging the Taib family hegmony or allowing for ‘foreign ideas’ like the principle of democratic change, which was established at the time of independence but conveniently stifled from birth thanks to the ’emergency’ removal of a leader who stood up for native land rights.

So expect ‘immigration power’ to be used to keep out Bersih reformers, anti-corruption NGOs and PH politicians (though supposedly GPS’s federal allies) as well as the likes of Sarawak Report.

However, do not expect to see the removal big time UMNO crooks; dirty western and Chinese businessmen; PAS supremacists in their fancy cars (however much the CM may try to play the religion card) or any other of these sorts of foreign influences, who will remain welcome visitors to help Taib’s people pilfer the last of what is there is left to steal in Sarawak.

Meanwhile, the encroachment of West Malaysian culture and money politics over Sarawak life is something which these ex-BN now GPS leaders have in practice openly funded and encouraged over several decades. So, it is a bit late to pretend otherwise.

Our comment

Once again Najib ascends to the Chairmanship of an Advisory Board. Clearly, the move is UMNO’s idea of a defiant gesture.

Elsewhere it has provoked laughter.

However, there is little to laugh about in such blatant lack of remorse from a party and a man under whose ‘Advisory Board Chairmanship’ billions were looted from public pension and other funds in the name of development.

Clearly, Malaysia has a willing repeat offender on its hands and the courts and voters should judge both with that point in mind.