So, a vote for Najib now is also a vote for Soros...

 

If BN's attacks on alleged links between human rights NGO Suaram and billionaire currency trader George Soros hold true, then a vote for Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak is a vote for Soros as well, Pakatan MPs said today.

"I want to see how the mainstream media takes up this issue. As we know there was a secret meeting, where Najib asked for Soros' support for his global movement of moderates.

"So, if Soros is the bogeyman, then a vote for Najib is a vote for Soros too," PAS' Kuala Krai MP Dr Hatta Ramli (left) told Malaysiakini.

Hatta stressed that Pakatan Rakyat wouldn't want to play on the issue.

However, since the Soros link has been played up by the BN, it now appears that "their own weapon has turned upon them".

"So, they now have to explain to the rakyat."

Hatta said this when asked to comment on the quiet chat Najib reportedly had with Soros at a posh hotel in New York, just before his inaugural address to the United Nations General Assembly two years ago.

Hatta said this when asked to comment on the quiet chat Najib reportedly had with Soros at a posh hotel in New York, just before his inaugural address to the United Nations General Assembly two years ago.

PKR's Batu MP Chua Tian Chiang told Malaysiakini that Najib's meeting with Soros was a hallmark of BN's "hypocrisy".

"From what we know, Najib met Soros and said that he was a moderate hard-pressed by an extremist opposition at home and wanted to get into the financier's good books.

"Utusan Malaysia and all others are saying that Suaram is a traitor, but former PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad met Soros and Najib too met Soros... maybe other ministers met him too."

What they did, Tian Chua said, was to brand the human rights NGO Suaram as a traitor for having alleged links with the financier as a "short-term survival propaganda".

He argued that the attack would not have taken place if Suaram never took its complaint about corruption in the purchase of Scorpene submarines from French shipbuilder DCNS to France's judiciary.- malaysiakini

Pemimpin NGO 'belum baca' laporan Najib jumpa Soros

MP Sabak Bernam diperintah jalani hukum penjara hari ini

 UMNO Sabak Bernam MP's jail sentence starts today...

The Shah Alam High Court has upheld a six year jail sentence and a RM400,000 fine handed to Sabak Bernam MP Abdul Rahman Bakri and his aide Rosli Busro for making false claims.

Judge Akhtar Tahir also rejected an application for a stay of execution and ordered the sentence to be carried out immediately.

It is understood that Abdul Rahman's lawyers will file a written application for a stay.

On March 1, Sessions Court Judge Azhaniz Teh Azman Teh had handed down the sentence after finding Abdul Rahman and Rosli guilty of eight charges of making false claims for programmes which never took place, amounting to RM80,000.

Abdul Rahman was accused of committing the offence before 2008, when he was then the Sungai Air Tawar state assemblyperson, while Rosli was accused of abetting him.

According to Bernama, Judge Akhtar ruling had dismissed the defence counsel's argument that statements from two key witnesses - Mohd Harmizar Sulaiman and Rizam Ismail - should not be accepted by the court on grounds that they were accomplices.

"I have read the statements by the two witnesses and I don't consider them to be accomplices. They are followers or people who follow whatever sought by the first accused (Abdul Rahman) and the second accused (Rosli).

"Even if both witnesses were accomplices, their statements were corroborated by statements from other independent witnesses.

"Because of this, it is my view that the Sessions Court judge did not make a mistake in admitting statements from both witnesses. It is clear from their statements that the accused intended to make a false claim," said the judge.

'It was a false claim'

Akhtar said the matter was proven when the monies received were not used for their intended purposes and were instead used for personal matters.

"The defence counsel also submitted that the claims were not false because the programmes were held but not in the areas stated in the claims. However, I am more inclined to state it was a false claim.

"In this appeal, I am satisfied that the Sessions Court judge did not make any mistake in finding the two accused guilty of all charges and the sentence is commensurate with the crime and the position held by both accused.

"In view of this, the appeal against the conviction and the sentence is denied and sentence upheld," said the judge.

Abdul Rahman and Rosli are represented by Muhammad Shafee Abdullah and Badrul Munir Mohd Bukhari, while the respondents are represented by Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission prosecution unit chief Abdul Razak Musa and deputy public prosecutor Mohd Zaki Salleh.

Abdul Rahman, 47, was accused of using dubious claims documents to obtain allocations for a series of programmes which never took place.

He was charged with committing the eight offences at the Sabak Bernam district office between Jan 21 and Feb 12 in 2008.

Under Section 11(c) and Section 16 of the Anti-Corruption Act 1997, Abdul Rahman can be jailed up to up 20 years and fined not less than five times the value involved or RM10,000, whichever is higher, upon conviction.

Rosli, 44, is accused of being an accomplice in all the charges.

In May 2008, Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim told the state legislative assembly that 90.2 percent of the RM29,542,000.09 allocation by the state government for the year been disbursed before March.

After Pakatan Rakyat took over the administration of Selangor in March, state assemblypersons found that the allocations, RM500,000 for each constituency, had mostly been used up.

At the time, Pakatan accused BN of abusing the funds for electioneering.- malaysiakini

 

Najib bertemu Soros di New York...

Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Najib Razak telah mengadakan pertemuan peribadi dengan jutawan George Soros - individu yang dilihat oleh penyokong setia Umno sebagai musuh nombor satu - di New York dua tahun lalu.


Pertemuan tersebut -  yang mula-mula didedahkan minggu lepas oleh ahli parlimen Subang, R Sivarasa semasa berdebat dengan Ketua Penerangan PERKASA, Ruslan Kassim -  berlangsung di sebuah hotel mewah - Hotel Plaza di Manhattan.

Malaysiakini telah mengesahkan pertemuan Najib-Soros dengan satu sumber yang mempunyai pengetahuan langsung mengenainya.

Pertemuan perdana menteri dengan Soros, yang dituduh membiayai NGO Malaysia untuk perubahan rejim, berlaku pada 27 September 2010.

Dipercayai sekurang-kurangnya seorang pemimpin tinggi Umno hadir di pertemuan tersebut.

Najib, yang menjadi perdana menteri pada tahun 2009, menyampaikan ucapan sulungnya di Perhimpunan Agung Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu (PBB) di New York pada hari yang sama beliau bertemu dengan Soros.

Dalam ucapan di PBB itu, Najib mencetuskan 'gerakan global moderat' untuk menebus semula agenda keamanan dan pragmatisme.

Di luar perhimpunan agung itu, Najib juga bertemu dengan Setiausaha Agung PBB, Ban Ki-moon dan mengadakan perbincangan dengan beberapa ketua kerajaan.

Antara mereka yang mengiringi Najib dalam lawatan itu ialah isterinya, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor; Menteri Luar Datuk Anifah Aman dan Duta Malaysia ke Amerika Syarikat, Datuk Jamaluddin Jarjis.

Soros, seorang peniaga mata wang kontroversi dan seorang dermawan, telah dipersalahkan sebagai punca konflik kewangan yang melanda Malaysia semasa krisis ekonomi tahun 1997-98, dan baru-baru ini, didakwa pula mahu menjatuhkan BN dengan membiayai NGO antikerajaan.

Sejak beberapa minggu lalu, sekumpulan penulis blog prokerajaan dan akhbar milik Umno, Utusan Malaysia, mengecam NGO, termasuk badan hak asasi manusia, Suaram dan gerakan reformasi pilihan raya, BERSIH, kerana menerima pembiayaan daripada Open Society Foundation Soros.

Malaysiakini juga, turut menjadi sasaran ekoran hubungannya dengan MDLF, sebuah dana pelaburan yang memiliki 29 peratus kepentingan dalam portal berita bebas itu. MDLF mengumpulkan modal dari bank, kerajaan dan agensi-agensi pembiayaan, yang termasuk yayasan Soros.

Pada hari Ahad, bekas perdana menteri Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad turut sama menuduh Malaysiakini bersekongkol dengan Soros untuk perubahan rejim bagi "meletakkan calonnya sebagai perdana menteri dan menteri-menteri dalam kerajaan Malaysia".

"Pandangan saya tentang Soros ialah dia masih seorang penyangak mata wang dan dia sebatikan kejahatan ini dengan menggunakan wang untuk meletakkan orang sepertinya untuk memerintah negara-negara yang disasarnya. Dan Malaysia jelas salah satu sasarannya," tulis Dr Mahathir dalam New Straits Times.

Dengan menyambungkan dua titik berbeza, beliau membuat kesimpulan liar bahawa "satu undi untuk pembangkang adalah undi untuk Soros."

Ironinya, ketika Dr Mahathir menjadi perdana menteri, Bank Negara Malaysia menceburkan diri dalam spekulasi mata wang yang berisiko tinggi - dan ia kerugian sejumlah RM5.7 bilion kepada orang-orang seperti Soros pada awal tahun 1990-an.

Bulan lepas, Malaysiakini mendedahkan bahawa Dr Mahathir, meskipun bermusuh dengan Soros, telah menulis kepada jutawan itu memintanya menyokong projek Forum Keamanan Global untuk mengharamkan peperangan sebagai satu cara bagi menyelesaikan konflik manusia.

Menurut majalah mingguan antarabangsa Economist, menjelang pilihan raya umum ke-13 yang dilihat teramat penting, Umno dan media yang menyokong Umno menyerang mana-mana organisasi yang dianggap bersimpati kepada pembangkang.

"Semua cerita lama yang tidak berasas mengenai pelbagai kumpulan yang dikatakan dibayar oleh Zionis, Amerika atau George Soros, seorang pembiaya asing, telah dikeluarkan semula," katanya dalam satu artikel yang disiarkan awal minggu ini.

"Ia tidak jelas sama ada fitnah sumpama itu masih mendapat tempat di hati pengundi di Malaysia,  terutamanya di kalangan umat Islam. Semua ini pastinya merupakan tanda-tanda terdesak."- malaysiakini

Najib met Soros in New York...

Prime Minister Najib Razak had a private meeting with billionaire financier George Soros - the man seen by the Umno faithful as enemy no 1 - in New York two years ago.

The hush-hush meeting, which was first revealed last week by Subang parliamentarian R Sivarasa during his debate with Perkasa information chief Ruslan Kassim, was held at the luxury Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.
Malaysiakini has confirmed the Najib-Soros meeting with a source who has direct knowledge of the event.

The prime minister's meeting with Soros, who is accused of funding Malaysian NGOs to push for regime change, took place on Sept 27, 2010.

It is believed that at least one other top Umno leader was present at the get-together.

Najib, who became prime minister in 2009, made his maiden speech at the UN General Assembly in New York on the same day he met with the billionaire financier.

In his UN speech, Najib mooted a 'global movement of the moderates' to reclaim the agenda for peace and pragmatism.

On the sidelines of the general assembly, Najib also met with UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and held talks with several heads of government.

Among those who accompanied Najib on that trip were his wife Rosmah Mansor, Foreign Minister Anifah Aman and Malaysian ambassador to the United States Jamaluddin Jarjis.

Umno's whipping boy

The man whom Najib met has been one of Umno's favourite whipping boys.

Soros, a controversial currency trader and philanthropist, was blamed for bringing financial ruin to Malaysia during the 1997-98 economic meltdown, and more recently, for seeking to oust BN by allegedly funding anti-government NGOs.

Over the past few weeks, a gaggle of pro-government bloggers and Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia have blasted NGOs, including human rights group Suaram and polls reform movement Bersih, for receiving funding from Soros' Open Society Foundations.

Malaysiakini, too, came into the line of fire over its links with MDLF, an investment fund that owns a 29 percent stake in the independent news website. MDLF raises capital from banks, governments and funding agencies, which included Soros' foundation.

On Sunday, former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad joined the chorus by accusing Malaysiakini of working with Soros to engineer a regime change so as to "put his nominees as prime minister and ministers in the Malaysian government".

"My view of Soros is that he is still a rogue currency trader and he compounds this evil by using the money to put his kind of people to rule the countries targeted by him. And Malaysia obviously is one of his targets," Mahathir wrote in New Straits Times.

Connecting two disparate dots, he came to a wild conclusion: "A vote for the opposition is a vote for Soros."

Rogue central bank

Ironically, when Mahathir was prime minister, Malaysia's Bank Negara was known as a rogue central bank for dabbling in high-risk currency speculation - it lost a whopping RM5.7 billion to the likes of Soros in the early 1990s.

Last month, Malaysiakini revealed that Mahathir, despite his animosity with Soros, had written to the billionaire for his support to lend his name to the former premier's Global Peace Forum project to outlaw war as a means to solve human conflicts.

According to international weekly Economist, politics in Malaysia has increasingly turned toxic in the run-up to the crucial 13th general election, with Umno and Umno-friendly media attacking any organisation deemed sympathetic to the opposition.

"All the old canards about these sorts of groups being in the pay of Zionists, America or George Soros, a foreign financier, have been trotted out," it said in an article that was published earlier this week.

"It is not clear whether such slanders still impress Malaysia's voters, especially its Muslims. They are certainly a sign of desperation."- malaysiakini

 

cheers.