Category Archives: Malaysia

Malaysian foreign minister says concerns remain about Aukus pact after meeting with Penny Wong

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Saifuddin Abdullah points to risk of regional arms race but pledges increased trade and cooperation on cybersecurity with Australia

Malaysia’s foreign minister, Saifuddin Abdullah, has said that his country’s concerns about the Aukus nuclear submarine pact remain unchanged, after a meeting in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday with his Australian counterpart, Penny Wong.

Saifuddin told reporters he communicated Malaysia’s ongoing concern about the security deal between Australia, the UK and the US during a “very candid” discussion with Wong on her first visit to the Malaysian capital as Australia’s foreign minister.

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Malaysia’s ‘mystery hybrid monkey’ could be result of habitat loss

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Researcher says proboscis monkey may have mated with silver langur when unable to reach female of own species

The emergence of a “mystery monkey”, believed to be a rare hybrid of two distantly related primates, highlights the importance of protecting habit connectivity, according to a researcher who studied the animal.

The female monkey first attracted attention in 2017, when photographs taken of it along the Kinabatangan River in Sabah, Malaysia, were uploaded to social media wildlife photography groups.

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‘Like McDonald’s with no burgers’: Singapore faces chicken shortage as Malaysia bans export

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Move to ease inflation threatens city-state’s de-facto national dish of poached chicken and rice

Supplies of Singapore’s beloved de-facto national dish, chicken and rice, are under threat after neighbouring Malaysia banned exports of the meat in an attempt to ease domestic price increases.

The Malaysian prime minister, Ismail Sabri Yaakob, announced last week that the country would block exports of 3.6 million chickens a month from 1 June to stabilise supply at home. The ban is expected to lead to price increases and shortages in Singapore, which relies upon Malaysia for a third of its poultry imports.

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‘Relentless’ destruction of rainforest continuing despite Cop26 pledge

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Tropics lost 11.1m hectares of tree cover in 2021, including forest critical to limiting global heating and biodiversity loss, finds World Resources Institute

Pristine rainforests were once again destroyed at a relentless rate in 2021, according to new figures, prompting concerns governments will not meet a Cop26 deal to halt and reverse deforestation by the end of the decade.

From the Brazilian Amazon to the Congo basin, the tropics lost 11.1m hectares of tree cover last year, including 3.75m ha of primary forest critical to limiting global heating and biodiversity loss.

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Outcry as Singapore executes man with learning difficulties over drugs offence

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Campaigners decry ‘broken system’ in Singapore that disproportionately punishes drug mules rather than those who coerce them into work

A man with learning difficulties has been executed in Singapore for attempting to smuggle a small amount of heroin, despite repeated pleas for his life to be spared, in a case campaigners have described as a “tragic miscarriage of justice”.

Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam, a Malaysian national, was arrested in 2009, aged 21, for attempting to carry 43g of heroin – about three tablespoons – into Singapore. He was sentenced to death the following year, and then spent more than a decade on death row.

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Boy, 14, missing in Malaysia diving trip believed to have died

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Adrian Chesters, a Briton who was rescued on Saturday, says his son Nathen died while they were adrift

The 14-year-old son of a British man is believed to have died following reports that he went missing on a diving trip in Malaysia.

Adrian Chesters, 46, reportedly told the Malaysian coastguard his son Nathen, who has Dutch nationality, had died while they were adrift. Following a dive off the coast of Mersing, in the southern state of Johor, on Wednesday, the group surfaced but were unable to find their boat.

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Two divers from UK and France found adrift off Malaysia but boy, 14, still missing

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Three divers and their instructor had been unable to find their boat after surfacing

A British man and a French woman were rescued in Malaysia on Saturday three days after going missing while diving, but the Briton’s son was still missing, police said.

The trio and their instructor got into trouble on Wednesday after they surfaced from a dive near a southern island but could not find their boat.

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Ex-Goldman banker Roger Ng found guilty in billion-dollar 1MDB scandal

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Ng, 49, found guilty of helping to embezzle money earmarked for development in one of biggest frauds in financial history

The former Goldman Sachs executive Roger Ng has been found guilty of helping to steal billions of dollars from Malaysia’s 1MDB sovereign wealth fund after a lengthy trial brought by US prosecutors, who described the fraud as one the largest financial scandals in history and who hoped to show that individuals are always at the center of corporate wrongdoing.

A New York jury found Ng, 49, once Goldman’s top investment banker in Malaysia, guilty of helping his former boss Tim Leissner embezzle money intended for development to benefit Malaysia’s poor from a fund connected to Malaysia’s then prime minister, Najib Razak, and then to launder the proceeds while bribing officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi.

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Two Britons are among four tourists missing after diving trip in Malaysia

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The group, which also includes a French woman and a Norwegian woman, disappeared during diving training off the southern town of Mersing

Malaysian authorities were searching on Thursday for four Europeans, including two Britons, who disappeared during diving training off a southern island.

The divers are a 46-year-old British man, a 14-year-old British boy, an 18-year-old French woman and a 35-year-old woman from Norway.

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Singapore appeal court upholds death sentence for intellectually disabled man

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Outcry over drug smuggling case of Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam, who has IQ of 69 and could be executed in days

A man with learning disabilities who has spent more than a decade on death row could face execution within days after Singapore’s top court dismissed his last-ditch appeal, in a case that has drawn global condemnation.

Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam, a Malaysian national, was arrested in 2009 for attempting to smuggle 43g of heroin – about three tablespoons – into Singapore.

Nagaenthran, who was 21 at the time of his arrest, has said he was coerced into carrying the package, which was strapped to his thigh, and did not know its contents at the time.

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Malaysian government’s ‘gay conversion’ app pulled by Google Play

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App claimed that it could help LGBT+ people ‘return to nature’ but the tech company has now made it unavailable for downloads

An app produced by the Malaysian government that promised to help the LGBTI community “return to nature” has been removed from the Google Play store, after it was found to be in breach of the platform’s guidelines.

The app was first released in July 2016, but attracted fresh attention after it was shared on Twitter by the Malaysian government’s Islamic development department. It claimed the app would enable LGBTI people to return to a state of nature or purity, and that it included an e-book detailing the experience of a gay man who “abandoned homosexual behaviour” during Ramadan.

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‘Women of the wild’: the platform giving India’s nature experts a voice

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Frustrated by a lack of female representation, film-maker Akanksha Sood Singh set up an Instagram account to showcase ‘the untold stories of women working for science and nature’

“I wish these things wouldn’t happen to anyone,” says Akanksha Sood Singh, a wildlife film-maker based in Delhi. “But if it has happened, this is a safe space for women to come and to share their experiences.”

The safe space Sood Singh is referring to is the Instagram account Women of the Wild – India, which showcases “the untold stories of women working for science and nature”. The platform gives them a chance to promote their expertise, but also somewhere to share their experiences of working in what are often male-dominated fields where sexual harassment can often feature.

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1MDB scandal: bribery and bigamy loom large in ex-Goldman Sachs banker’s trial

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Roger Ng pleads not guilty to helping launder millions of dollars looted from Malaysian sovereign wealth fund

On the first day of a trial over the multibillion-dollar looting of a Malaysian government fund, US prosecutors on Monday accused a former Goldman Sachs banker of taking $35m in kickbacks as his defense team slammed the prosecution’s star witness as a bigamist who used their client as a fall guy.

Roger Ng, Goldman’s former head of investment banking in Malaysia, is charged with conspiring to launder money and violating anti-bribery law in his dealings with Malaysia’s 1MDB sovereign wealth fund.

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‘A bad dream’: Nepalis who made UK’s PPE speak out on claims of abusive working conditions

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Glove manufacturer Supermax has repeatedly won NHS contracts during the pandemic, despite claims of forced labour. Now, a group of former workers are seeking justice

“I don’t have any dreams for the future because every dream depends on money,” says Resham, a 45-year-old from Banke, a district in Nepal bordering the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. “Time is passing and I’m getting older. Whatever comes my way, I will face it and go ahead with life.”

Last year, Resham returned to Nepal after spending 10 years working at Supermax, a company producing medical gloves in Malaysia. In October, the US banned imports from Supermax based on evidence “that indicates the use of forced labour”, and the month after, Canada terminated its contracts. The UK, meanwhile, has named the British subsidiary of Supermax as an approved supplier in a new £6bn contract for gloves for NHS workers.

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US bans imports of disposable gloves from Ansell supplier in Malaysia over allegations of forced labour

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YTY Group accused of ‘deception, intimidation and debt bondage’, says it is ‘working to improve conditions of migrant workers’

US authorities have banned disposable gloves from a manufacturer in Malaysia over allegations it uses forced labour, sending the share price of global protective equipment group Ansell into a tailspin.

The customs and border protection unit of the US Department of Homeland Security said it had “information that reasonably indicates the use of forced labor in YTY Group’s manufacturing operations” and banned the importation of gloves made by the company.

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UK faces legal action for approving firm accused of using forced labour as PPE supplier

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High court to review government’s decision to include subsidiary of Malaysia’s Supermax in £6bn ‘framework’ deal for buying gloves

The UK government is facing legal action over its decision to keep using a Malaysian company accused of using forced labour as a supplier of personal protective equipment (PPE) to the NHS.

Lawyers at the London-based law firm Wilson Solicitors have filed for a judicial review of the government’s decision to name the UK subsidiary of the Malaysian company Supermax as one of the approved suppliers in a new £6bn contract for disposable gloves for NHS workers.

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Indonesia relents on plan to push back boat carrying 100 Rohingya refugees after outcry

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Indonesia will now take in the refugees adrift on a stricken boat, instead of towing it into Malaysian waters

Indonesia on Wednesday said it will let dozens of Rohingya refugees come ashore after protests from local residents and the international community over its plan to push them into Malaysian waters.

At least 100 people, mostly women and children, aboard a stricken wooden vessel off Aceh province were denied refuge in Indonesia, where authorities said on Tuesday they planned to push them into Malaysian waters after fixing their boat.

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UK invites south-east Asian nations to G7 summit amid Aukus tensions

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The alliance between Britain, the US and Australia has divided the region and angered China

The UK has invited south-east Asian nations to attend a G7 foreign ministers meeting in Liverpool next month, in a move that risks highlighting concerns that the new alliance between Britain, the US and Australia will fuel a regional nuclear arms race.

States from the Association of South-East Asian Nations are divided on the new Aukus partnership but some, notably Indonesia and Malaysia, have sharply criticised it, and many in the 10-member bloc are reluctant to take sides in the unfolding superpower rivalry between the US and China.

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‘It will be found’: search for MH370 continues with experts and amateurs still sleuthing

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It is the ‘mystery that must be solved’ – seven-and-a-half years after the Malaysia Airlines flight disappeared with 239 people on board

Somewhere in the vast expanse of Earth’s oceans lies MH370, the Malaysia Airlines flight that disappeared on 8 March 2014 with 239 people on board.

Authorities closed the books on the search in 2017, but all over the world people are continuing the hunt. And one day the plane will be found.

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