Malaysia Goes After a Whistle-blower

http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4672&Itemid=178

Written by John Berthelsen

Monday, 09 July 2012

Malaysia Goes After a Whistle-blower    Bourdon and Gabriel say they've got the goods Companies commission investigators show up at NGO's door Suaram, the Kuala Lumpur-based human rights NGO at the center of attempts to break open a corruption case over Malaysia’s 2002 purchase of French submarines, has been given seven days by officials of the Companies Commission to hand over an array of documents covering its expenditures from 2008 to 2011. Cynthia Gabriel, director for the organization, told Asia Sentinel that  Suaram would comply although the NGO is taking advice from lawyers on strategy. The authorities sought to raid Suaram last week but were turned back, once because their warrant wasn’t signed and a second time because they arrived at the Suaram headquarters after everybody had gone home. The visits followed several days of stories in ruling party-controlled newspapers demanding to know why Suaram was registered as a company rather than an NGO, and what it had done with earnings it posted since 2009 although that seemed to be a deflection against damning documents.that showed that top government officials had been complicit in bribe charges for two decades. The visits by the Companies Commission investigators were characterized as “harassment, pure and simple, as a way to distract the public from the ongoing Scorpene probe in France,” Gabriel said. “Further to this, we have nothing to hide. We audit our accounts yearly.” The visits – the first in Suaram’s 23 years of existence – appear to be a fishing expedition to try to find out where the NGO gets enough money to hire French lawyers to pursue a government scandal, and more particularly whether any of the money is coming from the Pakatan Rakyat coalition headed by Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim. The Commission’s other priorities? In the meantime, the Companies Commission investigators have been so busy seeking to investigate Suaram that they have neglected to investigate two other companies – Perimekar Sdn Bhd, which somehow became important enough to win a €114.96 million commission on the sale of the submarines despite the fact that it did no business the year before it won the commission, and Terasasi Hong Kong Ltd, which received another €36 million from the French defense contractor despite the fact it only existed as a name on a wall in a Hong Kong accounting office. Both companies were headed by Abdul Razak Baginda, then the head of a think tank called Malaysia Strategic Research, which was closely connected to the United Malays National Organization. Razak Baginda was one of then-Defense Minister Najib Tun Razak’s best friends. Two years ago, Suaram hired a team of Paris-based lawyers headed by William Bourdon to investigate the French defense giant DCN and its subsidiaries on suspicion it was involved a web of corruption. The story has been told in voluminous detail in 133 documents submitted to a French prosecuting court. The documents describe a long tangle of blackmail, bribery, influence peddling, misuse of corporate assets and concealment, among other allegations. The documents, written in French, were described in a story published in Asia Sentinel on June 25 and uploaded onto the Internet here. Increasing fire from government blogs, papers Suaram has come under increasing fire since Bourdon and his colleague, Joseph Breham, began to publicize a series of allegations related to the documents in May. Pro-government bloggers have repeatedly accused Suaram of being in Anwar’s employ, have questioned the veracity of the documents and whether they existed and whether French authorities in fact are even going to move the case forward. Questioned by the opposition in Parliament, Defense Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi took the floor briefly almost at midnight on June 26 to say Suaram was wrong to say there was a trial taking place in France’s Tribunal de Grande Instance over the sale of the subs, although neither Suaram nor Asia Sentinel had said a trial was taking place. There is an investigation taking place, however, and it was those investigators who confiscated hundreds, perhaps thousands of documents from DCN and its subsidiaries in raids on April 7, 2010 to present to the investigating magistrate. Ahmad Zahid also said that the Defense Ministry had no information on allegations confidential documents of the procurement of the submarines were sold to Thint Asia (Thales International) by Terarasi (Hong Kong) allegedly for €36 million although Asia Sentinel was able to obtain the information from the documents, which are on line, and from the Hong Kong Registry of Companies. "The ministry also does not have any information on the alleged payment from Thales International Asia to Terasasi (Hong Kong)," he said. As Asia Sentinel reported, at least one secret diplomatic cable shows that some of the misdeeds appear to have taken place with the knowledge of top French and Malaysian government officials including then-foreign Minister Alain Juppe and with the consent of former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. The documents were presented to the French Prosecuting Magistrate at the Court de Grand Instance de Paris in May and June of 2011. Harassment: Not a new tactic It is not the first time the Malaysian government has sent investigators after those calling attention to massive corruption on the part of the government and its cronies. For example, when Ramli Yusuff, the director of Malaysia's Commercial Crime Investigation Department, sought to bring Tajudin Ramli, a crony of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, to justice for looting Malaysian Airline System (MAS) of tens of millions of dollars, it was Ramli who was pursued by the Malaysian Anti-Crime Commission rather than Tajudin despite abundantly clear evidence of the charges. Ramli and his lawyer came under fire that nearly ruined their careers and almost put them in jail. Likewise, Lim Guan Eng, now the chief minister of the state of Penang, was arrested in 1994 after pointing out that the former chief minister of Malacca, Rahim Thamby Chik, had been absolved of charges of statutory rape after having had sex with an underaged girl and in fact had had the girl arrested after her parents complained. Lim was ultimately sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for sedition for bringing up the charges, was disallowed from standing for election to public office for five years and he was made ineligible to contest the 2004 Malaysian general election.

Easy to get nobel prizes

 Just follow the Israeli example. I read an article in Metro about how difficult it is to get high ranking in QS university rankings. The QS rankings are based on the following:

1) Number of lecturers, no PhD required. Is it so difficult?

2) Number of foreign lecturers.

3) Number of foreign students.

4) Number of citations, i.e. quotations of papers published in Scopus but Scopus is expanding its lists of journals to include open journals, just like Google Scholar h-index.  Is it difficult to quote our colleagues works? Better still, just do what the Israeli do, i.e. give longer Sabbatical leave for lecturers so that they can get friends from outside to share research and thus get quotations from them or vice versa.

If you achieve all these, nobel prizes will be very easy indeed. If Israel with a population of 5million, many of who are Arabs, how can Sabah with a population of 3.5 million cannot compete with Israel in producing nobel prize winners?

 http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/article3620867.ece

A science enigma in Israel

R. PRASAD

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Dan Shechtman won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2011. Photo: R. Prasad

In all, Israel has produced ten Nobel Laureates, of which four were in Chemistry in recent years. Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, where Nobel Laureate Dan Shechtman works, is the first and smallest university in the country. Dr. Shechtman won the Noble Prize last year for chemistry for his discovery of quasicrystals.

It has another distinction as well. “Technion – Israel Institute of Technology has three Nobel Laureates in Chemistry,” said the Laureate to The Hindu during an interaction with journalists at the recently concluded 62nd Nobel Laureates Meeting dedicated to physics from July 1 to July 7 at Lindau, Germany.

Prof. Ada Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2009, two years before Dr. Shechtman.

Despite being a small country, how has it managed to produce so many Laureates? “I don’t know the answer,” he said frankly. “I think we do good work. I think we encourage young talented people to go to science.”

Though he was at a loss to pinpoint the reasons, he did throw some light to what may be the factors facilitating his country’s success. “We have very good scientists in Israel. We publish many papers in many reputed journals,” he noted.

But the distinguishing factor that emerged is the way the scientists interact with their counterparts based in other countries. “We are encouraged to travel to other laboratories in the world,” he said. To facilitate this interaction, very vital for science, the scientists are allowed to avail sabbatical for period extending up to 6 to 7 years. “Every summer, if you want to go and work somewhere, they allow you [to go]. So we have many contacts in the world,” he revealed.

In fact, it was while Dr. Shechtman was on sabbatical at John Hopkins University and working with the National Bureau of Standards in 1982 that he discovered the existence of quasicrystals.

Availability of liberal funding is another critical factor. Scientists have several sources of funding to turn to — industrial, defence, government and binational funding. The binational funding comes from binational agreements — Israel-Germany, Israel-United States, Israel-England and others.

Another peculiar aspect is that the government does not fund universities directly. Instead, it provides fund to intermediate bodies, which in turn fund the universities. “So the government is not directly involved. We [are in touch with] the intermediate bodies and it is excellent,” he underlined.

“A good scientist who writes a good project proposal has a good chance of securing funding,” he said. “In my department, there are 16 faculty members and everyone has a nice chunk of research funds.”

But there are problems and all is not conducive to people taking up research. “There are many scientists who cannot find jobs in Israel,” he said. “Israel is a start-up country. Everybody thinks of starting a start-up. The number of start-ups in the country is enormous. The spirit of entrepreneurship is fantastic.”

According to him everybody communicates with everybody else in Israel. “Communication is good for science. People need to talk,” he said. “All these don’t answer your question [of how a small country is able to produce so many Nobel Laureates]. I understand that. I don’t know what the reason is.”

Sixteen students from India participated in the 62nd Nobel Laureates Meeting at Lindau. The German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) sponsored their visit.

(This Correspondent was one of the two journalists from India who participated in the 62nd Nobel Laureates Meeting at Lindau, Germany, at the invitation of the German Research Foundation (DFG) Bonn.)

Keywords: Technion, Dan Shechtman, Nobel Laureates Meeting, Lindau, Nobel Prize, quasicrystals, Isarel scientists,

Why the Republicans keep on lying and wanting to repeat Bush mistakes

The Republicans keep on wanting to repeat the failed Bush policies of
taxing the poor more than the rich and removing all controls to the
point of allowing the loan scandals to destroy the world's economy.

The Republicans keep on wanting to repeat this mistake blaming it on
Obama's policies. Obama policies were working until the US citizens
voted in the Republican congress who passes extensions of Bush tax
exemptions for the rich while blocking taxes for the rich to make them
pay as much as the poorer people.

The blame and want to repeal immediately the Obamacare and yet DO NOT
REPEAL IMMEDIATELY the almost similar Romneycare in Massachusetts.

What I don't like about the comment below are the blatant lies and
arrogant misinformation that it cultivates. In a way it reflects on
the current US voter sentiments who believe that letting rich people
be taxed much less is good for them. It is ridiculous when it is well
proven that it failed miserably during the Bush and Reagan eras.

See my comments marked with quotes " "

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/06/30/president-obamacare-victory-speech-translation/

The president's ObamaCare victory speech -- a translation

By John Stossel

Published June 30, 2012

FoxNews.com

After the Supreme Court approved ObamaCare Thursday, the president
gave a speech. I think it needs decoding.

Obama: Today's decision was a victory for people all over this
country.

It's a victory for central planners, not "people." One thing I've
learned in 42 years of reporting is that centrally planned bureaucracy
kills innovation, increases costs and undercuts personal liberty.

"It may be true in many cases, but not in all cases as compared to no
central planning at all. Cases are disaster reliefs, national defence,
public security and now insurance"

If you're one of the more than 250 million Americans who already have
health insurance, you will keep your health insurance.

Unless your insurance company, like Principal Financial, leaves the
business, because you've made it bad business. Then people lose their
policy.

"This is the crux of the matter. Insurance companies are afraid of
losing to competitors, the government. So strange for Republicans who
believe that competition is healthy for the nation and blaming the
governments are always inefficient. So let Republicans prove it by
allowing Obamacare to test itself. If REpublicans allow Romneycare,
why not Obamacare that is almos the same?

Prove that private insurance companies are ALWAYS MORE EFFICEINT than
government insurance companies."

This law will only make it more secure and more affordable.

It's impossible to do both.
" Only impossible for Republicans who allow only profit oriented
private insurance companies to compete among themselves without any
oversight or checking on their activities and practices"


Because of the Affordable Care Act, young adults under the age of 26
are able to stay under their parent's health care plans…

That will make insurance cost more.

"It will but not that much more."

…A provision that's already helped 6 million young Americans.

And made insurance cost more.
"Optional insurance is much more expensive than mandatory insurance.
More people opt for insurance the costs can be shared among more
people. It may cost more, but it was still affordable to the 6
million. By mandating it, the existing 6 million will experience even
lower premiums because of the economy of scale.

This fact should be well known to anyone who is interested in
insurance, which makes me suspect that this Stossel is lying or
deliberately misinform readers. Alas very common among REpublicans and
unfortunately believed by US voters, who only listen to advertisements
sponsored by rich people and rich insurance companies who benefit the
most from the Republicans of taxing the rich people and companies the
LEAST."



And because of the Affordable Care Act, seniors receive a discount on
their prescription drugs – a discount that's already saved more than 5
million seniors on Medicare about 600 dollars each.

Even rich seniors get a handout. According to Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-
Ala., ObamaCare will cost taxpayers $2.6 trillion in the next 10
years.

"If Republicans want to tax the rich much less than the poor, why the
double standard here. I believe Obama never wanted to tax the rich
more than the poor, just tax them equitably, so naturally, the rich
should also be given access to the benefits just like everyone else,
EQUALLY.

And the figure of the cost is wildly from thin air. It may be more,
but not necessarily this large, but it certainly much less than the
defense spendings that the US cannot afford because it does not
benefit the most US citizens. Healthcare benefits the US citizens much
more, and will help in its defence as well. Sich citizens cannot
defend the county."

These provisions provide common-sense protections for middle class
families, and they enjoy broad popular support.

True, because people like "free" stuff.
"That include Republicans as well."

If you're one of the 30 million Americans who don't yet have health
insurance, starting in 2014 this law will offer you an array of
quality, affordable, private health insurance plans to choose from.

There were already plenty of options for them, including Medicare and
charity. But we in government are only happy if it's all centrally
planned. Now, you'll get to "choose" from a whole "array" of mandated
expensive and mediocre healthcare "options."

"Mandated options are completely different from plenty of options.
These plenty of options do not equate to necessary options. This is
similar to the case of installing safety belts in cars. If it is not
mandated, it will be extremely costly for us to install safety belts
which is essential in saving lives. This Stossel may feel that making
the cost of life saving options so expensive is good for the US,
because the US can spend more on weapons."


They won't be able to charge you more just because you're a woman.

That's right. They'll just charge everybody more in higher premiums
and higher taxes. But that's nuts! Women visit doctors more than
men. They consume more health care.

"that is the idea of INSURANCE IN THE FIRST PLACE. Pooling resources
so that the unlucky ones can get help. The private insurance
companies, in their pursuit of maximising profits, have made it their
priority to insure ONLY THOSE THAT DO NOT NEED INSURANCE, the healthy
ones."

Not charging women more for health insurance is like not charging
Charlie Sheen more for property insurance. People who incur higher
costs pay higher insurance rates or insurance doesn't work.

"Stossel is either ignorant or just lying. Even when death is certain,
some policies still can work by allowing the benefits to be only the
premium paid. Insurance companies do not lose a single cent, only the
profit margin is much less. Insurance companies make the most money by
isuring people who do not need insurance in the first place."

If you're sick, you'll finally have the same chance to get quality,
affordable health care as everyone else.

Quality? Affordable? Without a market, how would we know? Quality and
innovation come from market competition. That pretty much stops with
central planning. Canadians get "free" healthcare, and they have the
privilege of waiting 23 hours to see someone at the ER, as opposed to
the 4 hours Americans have to endure.

"So let the people decide. Let private insurance compete against
government linked insurance schemes. What is so difficult about it?
Are Republicans so afraid that their views are proven to be completely
wrong? At least the current Republicans which is already enjoying a
lot of socialism compared to the even more conservative early US
Republicans and political parties in the undeveloped nations, who have
no socialism or government planning at all."


And if you can't afford the premiums, you'll receive a credit that
helps pay for it.

And you will be taxed for that. The bill raises premiums by up to 50%
-- that's $1,500 for individuals, and $3,300 for families -- according
to a study by Blue Cross Blue Shield (BSBA).

"You will be taxed but you will get a credit also. So what?"

Today, the Supreme Court also upheld the principle that people who can
afford health insurance should take the responsibility to buy health
insurance.

Should take responsibility? No. The Supreme Court ruled that you
must buy insurance because the Feds say so. That's not "can take
responsibility," that's force.

"If you don't wear safety belt, you will be fined. Is that force or
just a responsibility? If you choose to kill someone, shouldn't you
pay for it?"

…If you ask insurance companies to cover people with preexisting
conditions, but don't require people who can afford it to buy their
own insurance, some folks might wait until they're sick to buy the
care they need…

We still will. The penalties cost less than insurance. This will
drive private insurance companies out of business. Then we will be
stuck with government care. Maybe that was the intention all along.

In fact, this idea has enjoyed support from members of both parties,
including the current Republican nominee for president.

True. Although he imposed it only on one state. We have 50.
Experiments at the state level at least allow comparison. And some
freedom. Also, when ObamaCare passed, there was not "support from
both parties." No Republicans voted for the law and Mitt Romney
promises to repeal the law if he gets elected.

"And yet Romney does not want to repeal his version of Obamacare! That
proves a lot about the accusations about people not wanting to pay
insurance."

…I didn't do this because it was good politics. I did it because I
believed it was good for the country.

"And yet you lie and distort facts. It proves a lot about your
intentions"

I believe you. Statists think that big intrusive complex government
micromanagement is a good thing.They think that government can solve
our healthcare problems. I say, "No They Can't."

"You are arguing against proven facts, unlike your lies and
misinformation."

And now is the time to keep our focus on the most urgent challenge of
our time: putting people back to work, paying down our debt and
building an economy where people can have confidence that if they work
hard, they can get ahead.

But ObamaCare works against all those things. It discourages those
who do work from hiring people. It makes it harder to pay down our
debt. This study predicts that the healthcare law will add $530
Billion to the national debt in just 10 years.

"If you really study the statistics, even without Obamacare, the
government healthcare cost will increase similarly. It has nothing to
do with Obamacare then. It is just inflation."

…when we look back five years from now, or 10 years from now, or 20
years from now, we'll be better off because we had the courage to pass
this law and keep moving forward.

"Why don't you give it a chance and see how it works? You may like it
so much you will find that you can't live without it? Is that what you
are afraid? Isn't it better to spend money on health than on luxury?"

We'll be better off if we have the sense to repeal it. Government
doesn't know best. Central planning, federal mandates and government
controls are a fatal conceit of an arrogant political class. Mr.
President, at Harvard Law School, you were taught that you can manage
life though paper and procedure. But that is a lie.

"So you think Harvard University lecturers are all lying?"

John Stossel is host of "Stossel" on the Fox Business Network. He's
the author of "No, They Can't: Why Government Fails-But Individuals
Succeed," "Give Me a Break" and of "Myth, Lies, and Downright
Stupidity." To find out more about John Stossel, visit his website at
johnstossel.com.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/06/30/president-obamacare-victory-speech-translation/#ixzz1zJnwPBUg