Najib Razak, Malaysia’s former Prime Minister, was arrested on Monday, December 10, on what should have been a very special day for his family, his wife Rosmah Mansor’s 67th birthday.
Najib arrived at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) headquarters in Putrajaya at eleven o’clock in the morning of December 10. He was scheduled for an interrogation at the MACC. Within minutes, he was arrested due to the alleged tampering of the final audit report of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), which had been “established to drive strategic initiatives for long-term economic development for the country by forging global partnerships and promoting foreign direct investment.”
Figures central to the 1MDB scandal, such as fugitive Malaysian businessman Low Take Jho (Jho Low) and the former Prime Minister himself are facing charges of corruption and money laundering. Najib himself, as well as Rosmah, faces over 50 charges, including criminal breach of trust.
Najib and Rosmah’s daughter, Nooryana Najwa Najib, took to Instagram in an attempt to comfort her mother, and wish her greetings on her birthday. Posting a photo of a young and vibrant-looking Rosmah carting Nooryana as a young child, the daughter wrote, “I know today is not the easiest day for us but let’s take a moment to thank Allah that we are all healthy, alive and still able to help others in need.”
She then greeted and encouraged her mother. “Happy Birthday to my one and only Mummy. Love will get us through it all.”
Showing that the former Prime Minister and his wife are still popular with some of their countrymen, Nooryana’s post has gotten thousands of likes.
This is not the first time Nooryana has taken to social media to air her feelings concerning her parent’s situation. When Rosmah was arrested in October, Nooryana wrote,
“I can accept taking action on a man who was in power but putting the women in his life in harm’s way is going too far. Two weeks ago you raided his mother’s house and today you remand his wife and plan on charging her the same day her husband is due in court.
I suppose tomorrow makes for a great picture and media circus…. The dreaded call came in at 4am. Too sad to cry, too angry to scream, I just got up, took wuduk and prayed tahjud for Mummy.
I pray that Mummy remains calm and composed because knowing her she’s probably worried about everyone at home. I know she’s wondering – ‘How’s Gina taking it? I hope she still goes to class today. Is Adam ok?’
Mummy, even if you can’t hear me, please know that I am fine. I will get out of bed and go to class and Adam will be patiently waiting for you on FaceTime. Please try to eat and get some rest tonight.
No matter how hard the circumstances are, I will always stand by the woman who gave birth to me, wiped my tears away when I was down, slept with me when I was sick and taught me how to stand on my own two feet.
In your words this morning mummy, inshallah, we will persevere.”
As it turned out, Najib was home to celebrate Rosmah’s birthday after all, since the MACC released him on bail after a few hours. The amount of bail that Najib paid has remained undisclosed. He left the MACC headquarters shortly after 1:30 pm.
On Tuesday morning, December 11, the former Chief Executive Officer of 1MDB, Arul Kanda Kandasamy, was also arrested by the MACC. He and Najib will face charges on Wednesday, December 12.
For Alpha JWC Ventures, the investment into Base marks the Jakarta-based venture capital firm’s entry to Vietnam
Base Co-Founder and CEO Hung Pham
Vietnamese software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup Base has raised a US$1.3 million pre-Series A funding round co-led by Alpha JWC Ventures and Beenext.
Existing investors 500 Startups and VIISA also participated in the funding round, which the startup said is the “biggest ever” raised by a B2B startup in the country.
In a press statement, Base said that the new funding will be used to support its regional expansion plan.
“Our first priority within this funding is to acquire more talents for product development and build a solid pedestal for our strategic expansion in Southeast Asia in mid-2019,” said Base Co-Founder and CEO Hung Pham.
“With our products, solid team, and strategic investors, we are positive that we can be the leading SaaS platform in the region in the near future,” he stressed.
The company has developed over 20 apps that cover two verticals: human resources and productivity.
Its apps include job application tracking system Base E-Hiring, task and project management platform Base Wework, and internal request management platform Base Request.
While each application on Base platform can work separately on a standalone basis, they can also communicate freely with each other via internal APIs.
“We spend the last two years building a special model capable of integrating various apps into a centralised place. Each app will be the best solution for a single business function, and blended together to become a powerful workplace for enterprises,” Hung Pham said.
The company named VIB Bank, VP Bank, McDonald’s, MK Group, The Coffee House, and VinCommerce as their users.
For Jakarta-based venture capital firm Alpha JWC Ventures, the investment into Base marks its first entry to Vietnam.
“With our second fund, we want to make a bigger impact in the regional tech scene, while also maintaining our influence in Indonesia. After Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia, we believe Vietnam can be the next up and coming tech giant in the region, and Base is at the forefront of the country’s tech revolution,” said Alpha JWC Co-Founder and Managing Partner Chandra Tjan.
Singapore – It is now not an uncommon occurrence when a fresh graduate makes a career choice not related to his field of study such a law major turning pâtissier or an engineer becoming a real estate broker.
The current trend among young Singaporeans today is being open to forging their own career journeys not related to what they’ve studied in the university or past work experience.
A survey conducted in October by recruitment firm Monster.com showed that 79% of Singaporean respondents are willing to take on a job not within their expertise.
Monster.com has also started a campaign called “I made the switch” wherein a total of 2,400 respondents coming from Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines were asked about issues on career transformations across Southeast Asia.
The results showed that due to an increase in curiosity and ease of exploration methods, 53% of fresh entrants to the workforce wanted jobs outside their fields of study. Furthermore, for people who are already in the middle of their careers and were willing to make the switch, 36% said that the reason would be based on personal fulfillment and passion while 34% said that the change would happen because of their need for higher income earning jobs.
Founder and CEO of recruitment and training firm ACI HR Solutions, Mr. Andrew Chan confirmed that “A trend among the younger professionals in the 21st century is to favour jobs that offer more work-life balance, resulting in the rise of flexibility as a criterion in employment.” This characteristic is a very common behaviour of millennials in our generation.
The Harsh Reality
Aside from the willingness to make a switch in careers, recent events may point out an underlying issue that would spark such a readiness within the fresh graduates today.
In order to paint a picture of reality, let us portray a common scenario happening today. For instance, Daniel (a fictional character), having just graduated from a prominent university in Singapore wants to get ahead on his job searching and starts giving out his resumes to companies in the country. He graduated with a Business Management course so the positions he was aiming for were sales, marketing and administrative-related roles. He walks into an interview and was asked for his previous work experience. Daniel just graduated and therefore he had none. This became such a repetitive scene that he found himself still without a job after one year and 80 applications have passed.
With more and more fresh graduates being faced with this “experience-needed requirement” when applying for a job, they are forced into taking internships or contract positions instead. Another option would be making a switch and choosing another career, as mentioned earlier.
The National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and the Singapore Management University (SMU), in its annual surveys or recent graduates, released that only 78.4 percent of graduates in 2017 managed to secure full-time jobs within six months from graduation. This was the lowest percentage in 10 years.
Because no one can wait around 6 months to one year without a steady flow of income, the trending workaround for a scenario such as this would be freelancing or part-time jobs. These two options still guarantee a source of income plus more time to pursue other activities. The much-required work-life balance that millennials seek could also be achieved by taking freelance work.
Photo: YouTube screengrab
A sense of accomplishment and passion fulfillment have become necessities when paving a career that it pushes financial and job security lower down in the list.
Young professionals today are not afraid of making big career changes with most venturing into entrepreneurship. Because of the many opportunities that support start-ups like e-commerce sites or work-from-home options like freelance writing, such a change is not difficult to do.
National University of Singapore Tan Ern Ser observed that the generation today would rather do something they find meaningful or are interested in rather than be tied up to an office job with the same routine from 8am-5pm with no room for autonomy.
Unlike the previous generation of employees where job security and tenure were important goals in a career, professionals today expect fulfillment and continuous growth to be present in their current work experience, otherwise, it would not be hard for them to look elsewhere.
Singapore sovereign wealth fund chief executive and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s wife. Ho Ching, appears to have recently written two separate poems – one on flooding in Singapore and the other on what people can do to reduce their environmental impact. Both poems were shared on her Facebook page, yesterday.
Ho Ching posted the first poem on flooding in Singapore around 9am as she shared a Facebook post by the Public Utilities Board informing the people of the agency’s inspections of drainage systems near construction sites as the Northeast Monsoon season nears.
Urging netizens to be prepared for a “wet wet monsoon” and “fast flash floods”, Ho Ching hoped that everyone would keep safe and well:
The second poem, on environmental impact, was published just after 12pm yesterday afternoon. Sharing an article by the Guardian on how global investors are calling on governments to take action to cut emissions, Ho Ching wrote:
On Sunday, Hussin said that Singapore will get “pain by a thousand cuts” for its position on the maritime dispute with Malaysia. To this, Kausikan commented saying that Hussin’s reaction was very typical. In a Facebook post, he wrote, “Very typical — what they expect is subordination of our interests to their interests”.
“They have not given up, and never will, trying to tame or domesticate (menjinakan) Singapore, because unless they do so, the intrinsic short-comings of a system based on the dominance of a particular race will be highlighted, particularly since we do better with a different system”, Kausikan said in his Facebook post.
The piece written by Rais directly addresses Kausikan’s post and he started by saying, “Since, Kausikan, by some strange twist of logic, averred that my op-ed, which urged Singapore to be calm, is “atypical” of how Malaysia wants to “domesticate” or “menjinakkan” Singapore, as a Malaysian I am obliged to reply”.
He also added, “He is also a washout precisely because in his rebuttal of Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah, the foreign minister of Malaysia, he doesn’t even know all members of the current Malaysian Cabinet do not smoke cigars; unlike the previous ones who did”.
The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) formally arrested Arul Kanda Kandasamy, the former Chief Executive Officer of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) group, on Tuesday, December 11, at 10:30 am, over the tampering of the 1MDB audit report.
This was confirmed by Arul’s lawyer, Datuk N. Sivananthan, who also said that Arul Kanda will be charged on Wednesday, December 12.
Sivananthan told the press gathered at MACC headquarters that Arul Kanda is to be detained overnight by the MACC. He also said, “They (MACC) will be producing him in court tomorrow (Wednesday) morning to be charged along with (former Prime Minister) Datuk Seri Najib (Tun Razak).”
It is unknown whether anyone else will face charges along with Najib and Arul Kanda. Najib was arrested yesterday but was released on bail after a few hours.
The former CEO of 1MDB will most likely face just one charge under Section 23 of the MACC Act. He went to MACC headquarters on his own volition at 9:30 this morning, having been scheduled for an interrogation by anti-graft officers, donning in a black cap in order to escape media attention. He was spotted while registering at MACC headquarters, however.
Tan Sri Dr. Madinah Mohamad, the Auditor-General, said late in November that an alteration had been made on the 1MDB final audit report, namely portions of the report that mentioned Low Taek Jho (Jho Low), the Malaysian financier who is a key figure in the 1MDB scandal.
Dr. Madinah said that orders to remove references to Jho Low originated from Tan Sri Shukry Salleh, the principal private secretary to then-Prime Minister Najib.
Tan Sri Dr. Ali Hamsa, once former Chief Secretary to the Government, entered MACC headquarters earlier today as well. While Dr. Ali was reportedly not at MACC headquarters to be questioned over the tampered audit report, he has been interrogated over this issue in the past.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in 2015 that it will phase in and make more stringent personal loan restrictions. The restrictions to be implemented on the borrowing limit on unsecured credit facilities which was phased in over four years to give affected borrowers more time to gradually reduce their debts, will be tightened with effect from 1 June 2019.
MAS announced in September 2013 that it planned to prohibit financial institutions (FIs) from granting further unsecured credit to a borrower whose outstanding unsecured debt across all FIs exceeds 12 times his monthly income for three consecutive months.
The more stringent personal loan restrictions in the form of borrowing limit applies only to interest bearing balances incurred on unsecured credit facilities such as credit cards and unsecured personal loans. This includes amounts rolled over on credit cards and balances outstanding on unsecured loans that accrue interest.
These stringent personal loan restrictions aim to help individuals avoid accumulating excessive debt.
MAS said that following further consultations with the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) and Credit Counselling Singapore (CCS), and feedback from the public, it had decided to give over-extended borrowers more time to adjust to the new measure.
MAS will therefore phase in the borrowing limit over four years:
24 times monthly income from 1 June 2015;
18 times monthly income from 1 June 2017; and
12 times monthly income from 1 June 2019.
With the more stringent more stringent personal loan restrictions FIs will not be allowed to grant further unsecured credit to an individual whose unsecured borrowings exceed the prevailing borrowing limit for three consecutive months.
MAS acknowledged that the vast majority of unsecured borrowers in Singapore borrow within prudent limits, but that a small proportion of borrowers has accumulated significant unsecured debts. Citing data from FIs and Credit Bureau Singapore as of end February 2015, MAS said that 32,000 borrowers will be affected by the borrowing limit on 1 June 2015. They make up 2% of the total unsecured credit users.
MAS said that their borrowings pose no risk to the banking industry, and that the FIs’ aggregate non-performing loan ratio is low, at 1.1% as of end December 2014.
MAS reminded borrowers of personal loans to take active steps to manage their unsecured debts so that they do not become unsustainable. Although most borrowers do not spend or borrow beyond their means, some may need help to reduce their debts gradually.
MAS encouraged those who may be affected by the more stringent personal loan restrictions to act early and approach your FIs or CCS for assistance.
For a transition period, FIs will have the flexibility not to suspend credit for borrowers whose outstanding unsecured debt already exceeds 12 times their monthly income before 1 June 2015. Each application will, however, be assessed on an exceptional and case-by-case basis, subject to the FI’s credit assessment. The grace period is up to end May 2019.
Loans for medical, education or business purposes do not count towards the borrowing limit and need not be suspended when the borrowing limit has been exceeded.
What this new stringent personal loan restrictions means is, if you exceed the industry-wide borrowing limit for 3 consecutive months, you will generally not be able to:
charge new amounts to your existing credit cards and/or other unsecured credit facilities with all financial institutions;
obtain credit limit increases on your existing credit cards and/or other unsecured credit facilities with all financial institutions; and
obtain new credit cards or other unsecured credit facilities from any financial institution.
The borrowing limit will start at 24 times of your monthly income from 1 June 2015 to 31 May 2017, and will be progressively lowered to 18 times of monthly income from 1 June 2017, and 12 times of monthly income from 1 June 2019.
This stringent personal loan restrictions does not apply to:
unsecured loans for needs-based purposes (e.g. business, medical and education);
borrowers with annual income of $120,000 or more; and
borrowers with net personal assets exceeding $2 million/
If your income has changed, MAS encourages you to update your income records with your financial institutions. This will help avoid any inadvertent suspension of your credit facilities as a result of outdated income information.
The stringent personal loan restrictions does not require affected borrowers to pay their existing debt immediately, but if they need assistance in reducing their existing debt, they may approach their financial institutions to work out repayment solutions.
An illustration of how this may affect you:
Peter’s monthly income is $5,000. 24 times of his monthly income is $120,000.
Peter has five credit cards with financial institution A, B, C, D and E with outstanding balances of $20,000 each.
He also has two unsecured credit lines with financial institution F and G with outstanding balances of $20,000 each.
Peter’s total interest-bearing outstanding balances across the financial institutions are therefore $140,000 – exceeding 24 times of his monthly income.
If based on Peter’s income records with the financial institutions, his total interest-bearing outstanding balances in March, April and May exceed 24 times his monthly income, his credit cards and unsecured credit lines will be suspended by all seven financial institutions by end June.
Peter will not be able to charge new amounts to his credit cards and unsecured credit lines until he reduces his interest bearing outstanding balances to below 24 times his monthly income and after financial institutions uplift the suspension based on credit assessment according to the latest income document submitted by Peter.
With this stringent personal loan restrictions, if your unsecured outstanding balances with any financial institution are more than 60 days past due, you will not be able to:
charge new amounts to your existing credit cards and/or other unsecured credit facilities with that same financial institution;
obtain credit limit increases on your existing credit cards and/or other unsecured credit facilities with all financial institutions; and
obtain new credit cards or other unsecured credit facilities from any financial institution.
This is to prevent debt from spiralling for a borrower who has problems making the minimum payments on his existing debt.
Also, if you do not pay your unsecured debt in full, you will receive customized disclosures in your monthly bills detailing the total amount and time needed to fully pay off your debt if you pay only the minimum payment each month; and the amount of debt that would accumulate by the end of 6 months if you make no payments in the next 6 months.
This is to make the costs of borrowing more apparent to borrowers, and to show how debt can accumulate if monthly bills are not paid in full.
In addition to this stringent measures, in Dec 2017 also introduced a new measure to help borrowers avoid accumulating excessive unsecured debts – the Credit Limit Management Measure (CLMM).
The CLMM will cap the additional unsecured credit that an FI may extend to a borrower whose outstanding unsecured debts exceed six times his monthly income. This measure has taken effect on 1 January 2018 and complements the existing industry-wide borrowing limit.
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On December 9, Singapore’s Ministry of Defence conducted a Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) Open Mobilisation Exercise, calling upon all national servicemen, both active and reserve, to report to the Republic of Singapore Air Force’s air bases. It was an impressive turnout – over 90 percent of servicemen reported to the bases within hours of activation – five of the air force’s fighter squadrons reported to Changi Air Base, Paya Lebar Air Base, and Tengah Air Base.
According to Minister of Defence Ng Eng Hen, the exercise was successful, showing just how ready the SAF is to mobilise. He praised the men and woman of The Republic of Singapore Air Force on a job well done.
“Successful open mobilisation exercise by the Fighter Group from The Republic of Singapore Air Force today. Within a few hours, over 90% of servicemen, both active and NS, have already reported to RSAF’s air bases. Such exercises are important to maintain the SAF’s operational readiness.
Well done, men and women of the RSAF, especially our NSmen!”
The SAF conducts up to 30 Open Mobilisation Exercises a year, with all military units, which are done to maintain operational readiness.
While the other exercises were done quietly without attracting much attention, this latest exercise has garnered a lot of publicity, thanks to the ongoing maritime border dispute between close neighbours Singapore and Malaysia. If Malaysia continues to push into Singapore’s territorial waters at Tuas, Singapore has said that actions will be taken.
The SAF came up with a video, just under 8 minutes, that captures the spirit and dedication of the SAF as well as the importance of needing these exercises.
From the video, it is clear that Singapore is proud of the SAF and confident that they can mobilise quickly and effectively.
At the end of the video, these words flashed up on the screen:
“Our army is to deter aggression, and should deterrence fail, to secure a swift and decisive victory…to defend Singapore’s security and sovereignty.
READY
DECISIVE
RESPECTED”
While the SAF video made Singaporeans proud, it also unknowingly incited a comments war on Facebook, with many Malaysians mocking the pride and readiness of the SAF.
Although many of the original comments on the video have since been deleted, there are still many to choose from.
Here is one of the exchanges on the comments section of the video:
Here is another conversation:
The derision and mockery from the Malaysian commenters was unmissable:
Singaporean netizens fought back in defence:
The current maritime border dispute seems to be on people’s minds:
And there were some voices of reason, calling for peace amidst all the mockery:
This netizens seems to have the right handle on the situation:
Singapore and Malaysia may have more on their hands than just a maritime border dispute. There seems to be discord between the citizens of the normally-close nations.
Are the people’s comments a reflection of what is really going on between the nations?
Racks of raw meat hanged to dry along the air-conditioned vents of a second-storey HDB corridor in Blk 1 Beach Road has disgusted neighbours and prompted the National Environment Agency (NEA) to investigate after residents complained that the meats do not only stink up the whole corridor but also attract pests like flies and birds.
Two residents who spoke with TNP reporters said that they have taken to avoiding the corridor due to the bad smell and pest problem. One resident said: “I don’t remember exactly how long this has been going on, but it has been years, at least two to three, as far as I remember. They don’t do it all the time, but whenever it is hot or sunny, they usually will do so.”
Another resident added: “It is not the owners of the unit where the vents are, I think. I see people turning the corner behind my flat in the morning with the meat. When the wind blows in my direction, I can smell the stench from the raw, drying meat. It is so unhygienic, who would even eat it?”
Fed up with having to avoid the corridor due to hygiene concerns, residents sent pictures of the drying meat to the Chinese daily. The evening paper found out that the source of the outdoor meat racks is a 60-year-old man who makes and sells meat jerky.
Besides using the air-con vents at the second-storey of the HDB block, the senior citizen also dries strips of meat on trays that are placed across overturned plastic stools on the ground floor of a nearby block. Some residents have also alleged that the man dries his meat at Blk 6 Beach Road.
Telling the Chinese daily that he sun-dries the meat daily, the meat manufacturer added that he can get the meat 80 per cent dry by his methods on good days. Once the meat is dry, he cooks and sells the meat on the street or to a store at Golden Mile Complex.
According to the Chinese daily, the Golden Mile Complex store typically sells 20-30 boxes of the meat jerky daily and has been selling the meat jerky for about a year and a half. While admitting that they are not aware of how the meat jerky is manufactured, the store owner told the paper that they are now planning to stop selling it.
Regular customers, however, do not seem to see what the fuss is about. A 27-year-old foreign worker who is a returning customer told the daily: “These meats are manufactured by a Thai woman in her forties using methods similar to those used back home. When eaten, it tastes especially of home.”
Meanwhile, the NEA is looking into the incident and said that it will take firm action against anyone who flouts the Environmental Public Health Act that it administers. The statutory board told TNP:
“(We) received feedback on the drying of raw meat at Blocks 1 and 6 Beach Road in front of air-conditioning compressors and along a corridor respectively, and the sale of this meat after being processed.
“NEA will not hesitate to take firm action against anyone found to be in violation of the Environmental Public Health Act. We would also like to advise members of the public who come across food prepared in poor hygiene conditions to not purchase it, as the food may be unsafe.”
In the event that our forces might be required to take up arms, however unlikely, it’s good to know that there are many citizens who are willing to fight for the country.
This, apparently, includes one 73-year-old man and his 5 SIR friends. The unnamed gentleman had been “an army regular in his younger days,” Tan said in a comment.
Desmond Tan took to Facebook to post a photo of an elderly gentleman on Monday, December 10. He said that the uncle wanted his MP to assist him in writing a letter to Singapore’s Ministry of Defense (MINDEF) to ask the ministry to make use of not only his services but those of his presumably like-minded friends if they were needed in case of war.
Tan added that he did neither believed nor wanted to see Singapore in such a situation, but he was obviously heartened by the elderly man’s show of unity with the nation.
Here is the text of Tan’s post in full:
“73 yrs old uncle wants the MP to help write a letter to mindef requesting mindef to mobilise him and his 5 SIR buddies if Singapore goes to war.
I do not think we will and do not wish to see Singapore going to war, but if it ever happens. I guess it is not about how many fighter jets or RSS we have, but it is the unity of our people (18 to 80 yrs old) that will see us through…”
Tan’s post, quite understandably, has garnered a lot of likes and shares, as netizens have expressed admiration for the older man’s heart and spirit.
The man’s attitude was certainly inspiring, and apparently he’s not alone. A woman named Jane Pak commented, “My hubby (64yrs) said the same thing the other day.”
Others were inspired by the older man.
Another man named Anwar Tahir said, “I am 63… count me in,” while netizen Gavin Neo commented, “Recall me and I will report within 45mins once I settled my kids at home.”
Rick Tan, “I not that old. In the 50s, count me in.”
Even 82 year old Simon Goh chimed in,“I too will join him if required. I am his senior at 82+. I am able to handle weapons and most important I am very healthy, strong and mobile.”
The derision and mockery from the Malaysian commenters was unmissable:
This netizens seems to have the right handle on the situation:
