Monday, June 3, 2019

India joins club of corruption tainted DCNS/Naval Group submarine contracts -Australia remains the only country where there was no corruption involved............

by Ganesh Sahathevan

DCNS's Philippe Japiot charged with corruption, spent much time in Australia before the award of the Australian AUD 50 Billion contract



And from India

3 Companies, 3 Directors In Common — One Link To French Sumbmarine-maker. Was Loss-making Company Taken Over By Offset Partner To Benefit Rahul’s Partner Ulrik?

Written By Shawan Sen | Mumbai | Published: May 04, 2019 17:36 IST

Hack:

  • Republic Media Network has accessed more documents on the companies which were merged with Flash Forge India Private Ltd which won a Scorpene submarine offset deal under the UPA
  • All the companies involved are in some way or the other linked to Ulrik McKnight who co-owned Backops Limited with Rahul Gandhi before the UK-based companies dissolution about a decade ago
Following sensational newsbreaks regarding Congress president Rahul Gandhi's link to the UPA-era Scorpene submarine deal via his UK company business partner Ulrik McKnight, Republic Media Network has accessed even more documents on the web of companies which were merged with Flash Forge India Private Ltd, the offset partner of French company DCNS which bagged the defence deal. All the companies involved are in some way or the other linked to Ulrik McKnight who co-owned Backops Limited with Rahul Gandhi before the UK-based companies dissolution about a decade ago

The documents relating to the companies and their owners add up to raise the question - Why were loss-making plastic manufacturing firms taken over by a defence company for a defence deal? 

Two Indian Nationals - Gautam Makkar, Sunil Menon - and Ulrik McKnight were behind the formation of multiple companies involved. Flash Forge Private Limited was incorporated by Makkar and Menon in 1991. This company ended up being the offset partner of submarine maker DCNS via a contract awarded by the UPA 2 government in 2011. Soon after, Flash Forge Pvt Ltd took over a loss-making company where Ulrik McKnight was a director. 
Meanwhile, Optimal Armour Limited which manufactures plastic products was incorporated by Makker, Menon and McKnight. Makker and Menon are still directors of the company. This Staffordshire company has total liabilities of £243.94k and less than ten employees, Republic TV has learnt. However, despite the poor balance sheet, the company was taken over by Flash Forge. 
Read the document below:




Composite Resin Development Limited, which manufactures plastic products, was incorporated in Kent with once again Gautam Makker, Sunil Menon and Ulrik Mcknight as directors. The company is still active but changed its name from Millennium Valves Limited. 

Read the document below:






Ulrik’s total liabilities stand at £39.3k.


Ready to face any probe, says Rahul gandhi
HT Correspondent
872 words
5 May 2019
HNTM
English
Copyright 2019. HT Media Limited. All rights reserved.
NEWDELHI, May 5 -- Facing a sharp attack by leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday offered to face a probe over allegations that his former partner in a UK-based company had acquired defence offset contracts when the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was in power
At the same time, Gandhi called for an investigation into alleged wrongdoing in the ~59,000 crore contract signed by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.
At a press conference, Gandhi said: "Please undertake any investigation you want, do any inquiry you want, I am ready as I know I have not done anything wrong, but please also investigate Rafale."
According to a news article posted on the website of Business Today magazine, the co-promoter of Gandhi's UK firm Backops Limited acquired defence offsets under the UPA regime.
Ulrik Mcknight was 35% co-owner of Backops UK, in which Gandhi owned the remaining 65%.
The company, founded in 2003, was wound up in 2009. Mcknight later went on to acquire offset contracts from French defence supplier Naval Group against Scorpene submarines in 2011, the article claimed.
The article offered instant ammunition for leaders of the BJP, which Gandhi has doggedly pursued over the deal for 36 Rafale jet fighters signed by the NDA government, alleging that the aircraft cost three times the initial bid by Dassault Aviation, the maker of the planes, when the UPA regime was trying to buy the warplanes. He has also alleged that the deal was signed to offer an opportunity for businessman Anil Ambani of the Reliance Group to win an offset deal from Dassault. Both the NDA government and Reliance Group have denied any wrongdoing.
Defence offsets require a foreign supplier to source a certain percentage of the value of the contract from Indian sources.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at an election rally on Saturday: "Today, I read that during UPA's tenure, one of naamdar's [dynast's] business partners got defence offset contracts. Apni sarkar, dost bhi apna, aur raksha sauda bhi bada - yaani naamdar ke liye malai ka poora intezam tha."
The Hindi quote translates loosely as: "His government, his friend, even the defence deal was big. That means the cream was ready to be served to the dynast."
BJP president Amit Shah took to Twitter to attack Gandhi. "Midas Touch, no deal is too much!" he wrote.
"When he has a say, his business partners make hay. Doesn't matter if India suffers on the way! #StealLikeRaga."
After the remarks by Modi and Shah, finance minister Arun Jaitley launched a more elaborate attack on Gandhi at a press conference. Jaitley claimed that on May 28, 2002, a company was formed in India named Backops Services Private Limited with Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi as its directors. On August 21, 2003, another company was formed in Britain with the same name - Backops Limited - which had Rahul Gandhi and Ulrik Mcknight as directors, the minister claimed.
"This in itself is quite innocent but what does Backops mean. It was not a company that was into services or manufacturing but naturally into liasioning. It's an influence-for-cash company. 'We will use influence to get your work done,"' he said.
Jaitley alleged that Mcknight was also part of "Rahul ji's social gang" and the son-in-law of a senior Congress leader from Goa and his wife was a journalist by profession.
After Backops wound up, Mknight continued his work through different companies, including one named Optimal, Jaitley claimed. In 2011, when the French company, DCNS(former name of Naval Group), got the contract to build six Scorpene submarines in Visakhapatnam, a small Indian company - Flash Forge - acquired two companies of Ulrik. And the offset contracts of the Scorpene deal were bagged by this company," Jaitley claimed.
Hindustan Times could not independently verify any of the allegations made by the minister or the magazine article.
Referring to Congress allegations on the Rafale deal, Jaitley said the party had set in place new norms that not the law of evidence but rules set by Rahul Gandhi apply. Now those standards will apply to Gandhi himself, Jaitley said.
He demanded a response from the Congress.
"Did he [Gandhi] want to start as a defence dealer, disguised defence dealer, proxy defence dealer, facilitator. What is the meaning of Backops? It is a serious issue and we would want the Congress leadership to answer it as early as possible," he said.
"It is the story of a man who once aspired to be a defence deal pusher and today aspires to be the prime minister. It is a serious charge," he added.
Incidentally, Backops also figured in the row over Gandhi's citizenship sparked by a home ministry notice to clarify his position on a claim by BJP leader Subramanian Swamythat Gandhi had mentioned his nationality as British in annual returns filed by the company in 2005 and 2006.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from HT Pune.
For any query with respect to this article or any other content requirement, please contact Editor at contentservices@htlive.com
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Three warships arrive in Sydney Harbour, and AG Speakman SC minister in charge of protecting NSW from terrorism, knew nothing- Less interference with religious freedom, more attention to his duties, might help

by Ganesh Sahathevan


Australia's coastline has always been vulnerable to unauthorized entry;it is for that reason that we spend billions on border security; the Pacific Solution, Manus and Christmas islands are all part of the defense.

The danger has always been in arrivals by sea that are too small to be detected,,especially when landings take place in the more remote, underpopulated areas of the continent. 

Here on the other hand three Chinese warships arrive in Sydney Harbour, send out invitations to local Chinese to come on board, and Premier  Gladys Berejiklian and her Minister in charge of keeping the state safe from terrorism, Mark Speakman AG SC  knew nothing (see story below, The Australian, 4 June 2019).


This writer has previously  commented on the Member for Cronulla, Mark Spreakman AG SC's incompetence. As readers will be aware Speakman's staff have taken steps to discredit what has been written.particularly with regards Speakman's determination, despite the legislation,  that ministers of religion are not suitable to be  witnesses to even the simplest statutory declarations(see story at link  below). The Member for Cronulla and his officers need to spend more time on their duties rather than pursuing their pet social projects if we are to be kept safe.
END

Great squall of China: storm over surprise warship visit

Chinese navy personnel stand guard aboard one of the warships docked at Garden Island in Sydney yesterday. Picture: AAPChinese navy personnel stand guard aboard one of the warships docked at Garden Island in Sydney yesterday. Picture: AAP
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian was not informed of the arrival of three Chinese warships until the vessels steamed into Sydney Harbour yesterday morning, with Labor challenging Scott Morrison to explain why he did not ­announce the visit.

Defence experts said it was ­important there was transparency about engagement with China, ­arguing the decision not to form­ally announce the arrival of the biggest Chinese naval taskforce to Australia in years was “a bad look”.

The Chinese naval taskforce is comprised of the frigate Xuchang, the auxiliary supply replenishment ship Luoma Hu and the landing platform dock Kunlun Shan,with about 730 officers and sailors in total.

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The Defence Department confirmed the taskforce was conducting a “routine port visit” until June 7, with strategic analysts saying the visit was a symbol of China’s growing naval strength in the Indian and Pacific oceans.

The department received a ­request for a port visit from Beijing in April, and the Prime Minister conceded yesterday that the arrival of the warships had caught people off guard.

“It may have been a surprise to others, but it certainly wasn’t a surprise to the government,” he said. “They were returning from counter-drug-trafficking operations in the Middle East. That is a further demonstration of the relationship we have, and this had been in train for some time.”

Officers stand to attention. Picture: AAPOfficers stand to attention. Picture: AAP
Labor defence spokesman Richard Marles took aim at the government for its failure to ­announce the arrival of the ships in advance. “The visit is entirely appropriate. I’m just not sure why the government wouldn’t bother to let anyone know it was happening,” Mr Marles said.

Videos on Chinese social media platform WeChat showed members of the Chinese-Australian community coming out to greet the ships, with dozens of people lining the harbour.

Executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Peter Jennings, questioned why the “goodwill’’ visit from the Chinese navy was not properly ­announced. He said Defence “should do a better job of being open about engagement with China”.

“There’s been a pattern over years where we only find out about senior PLA generals visiting after they’ve left,” he told The Australian. “I know from my time in Defence that that happens at China’s request. But I think ­domestically this is a bad look — that our government doesn’t ­appear to be able to find ways to advise of a major warship visit ­before the ships are up against Garden Island.

Two of the three Chinese warships at Garden Island in Sydney yesterday. Picture: Dylan RobinsonTwo of the three Chinese warships at Garden Island in Sydney yesterday. Picture: Dylan Robinson
“It strikes me as bad for our own domestic situation.”

A Defence spokesman told The Australian that the navy “liaised with the NSW government”.

“Defence co-ordinates the diplomatic clearance process for all visiting warships on behalf of the Australian government,” he said.

“It is the ­visiting foreign navy’s responsibility to appoint a ship’s agent to co-ordinate all logistic requirements for a ship’s visit.

“As is normal, Defence provides support to visit arrangements through liaison with appropriate state and federal government departments and agencies, including with NSW police and the Port Authority of NSW.”

Mr Jennings said the taskforce was “probably the biggest to visit” Australia and argued the public should start to “expect almost every year that there will be some sort of Chinese naval visit”.

Speaking in Honiara yesterday, Mr Morrison said it was a “reciprocal visit because Australian naval vessels visited China”.

He also downplayed the timing of the visit, with the ships arriving the day before the 30th anniver­sary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. He cautioned against engaging in “over analysis”.

Members of the Chinese community in Australia are invited aboard. Picture: AAPMembers of the Chinese community in Australia are invited aboard. Picture: AAP
Senior research fellow at the National Security College at the Australian National University, David Brewster, said the timing of the visit was a “bit of an embarrassment for the Morrison government both in terms of the anniversary of Tiananmen Square and the fact Morrison is currently in the Solomon Islands trying to shore up Australia’s position vis-a-vis the Chinese”.

“What we’ve been seeing over the last few years … is that these Chinese task groups basically have become much more focused on naval diplomacy, meaning that they tour the whole of the Indian Ocean and some of the Pacific to assert a Chinese presence,” he said. “It’s interesting that these task groups are getting larger and they will continue to get larger.”

Defence confirmed the visit was part of an extended deployment after the Chinese warships completed anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden.

Flag-waving supporters welcome the naval task group. Picture: MatrixFlag-waving supporters welcome the naval task group. Picture: Matrix
Flag-waving supporters welcome the naval task group. Picture: Matrix

HMAS Melbourne was the most recent Australian warship to visit China. It arrived in Qingdao in late April for the People’s Liberation Army-Navy’s International Fleet Review.

The PLA-Navy last stopped in Sydney for a similar visit in 2017. It comes days after Australian navy pilots were the target of laser ­attacks over the South China Sea and Australian ships were tailed by Chinese vessels. Helicopters from HMAS Canberra were forced to land as a precaution last week after they were targeted by lasers from fishing vessels.

Additional reporting: Ben Packham, Heidi Han



See Also

NSW AG Speakerman' and his LPAB confirm that ministers of religion cannot be witnesses-Speakman & Berjelikian iseem unaware that their position can cost them the Muslim vote

Laugh at Mat Sabu's English, but listen carefully to what he had to say: Lessons for NZ in addressing passive support for jihadis, and a warning to China

by Ganesh Sahathevan 


This may sound funny, but bear in mind that it is a speech at a  forum for the exchange of ideas, not English elocution: 






While the Malaysian politician Wee Ka Siong thinks these statements amusing, they reflect long held Malaysian thinking on these matters:

On the matter of terrorism:


Without mincing his words, Dr Wee questioned Mohamad’s logic in saying that in order to prevent further terrorist attacks, the authorities should identify the parents of these perpetrators.
“Terrorism isn’t inherited. Why should their parents be identified to combat terrorism activities?”
In fact, Malaysia was one of the earliest venues for the British policy of containment as a means of defeating terrorism. Sir Gerard Templer's new village scheme worked on the assumption that effective control of communist terrorist required control of entire families and the communities that they formed into. 
That Sabu has raised familial links as a factor in jihadism reflects the Malaysian experience during e the Emergency (and after, between 1960 and 1985), and in the present time where familial links have proven vital to jihadis in and from Malaysia.

On the matter of China and the South China Sea

Listen again and take note of Sabu's reference to the likely response from the United States to any Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. 
Sabu's statements are consistent with Malaysia''s  long held policy of non-alignment,which has allowed successive governments to work with the United States,, as well as Russia and China in all fields including defense.



END 

The Problem Of Passive Supporters Of Jihadi Terrorists And The Putin Solution

by Ganesh Sahathevan
While I have previously taken a top-down approach to describing the networks that support  jihadists (see goo.gl/vBAolR) , the profileartion of Al-Qaeda franchises and off-shoots, such as those at work in Syriai requires that a bottom-up , or grassroots, approach be adopted.

While the top down approach looked at the support states provided jihadists, the bottom-up approach is concerned with how individuals at the grassroots can comprise networks that jihadists might rely on for their activities. Civil rights activists might be alarmed by such language, afraid that large sections of a given population could be branded jihadists, but there is in fact a theoratical framework and empirical  evidence to support this hypothesis.

Juan José Miralles Canals ii describes these types of networks using a mathematical and computer modeling approach:
Passive supporters of the jihadist cause are normal people who do not need to express their position explicitly. They just do not oppose a jihadist act in case they could. They are sharing independently an identical opinion of identifying with the jihadist cause. They do not need to communicate between then. This is an individual dormant attitude associated to a personal opinion. It does not need to be explicitly so. They are unnoticeable, and most of them reject the violent aspect of the jihadist action.
Social permeability to the jihad describes the physical pathways that nodes of the jihadist networks can establish and use to move freely and safely along, thanks to the passive supporters of the jihadist cause.
Social permeability to the jihad  describes the physical pathways that nodes of the jihadist networks can establish and use to move freely and safely along, thanks to the passive supporters of the jihadist cause.

Cannals provides a mathematical analysis which concludes that disruption at the nodes is required to disrupt jihadists activities. Given what was seen in Iraq, and now Syria ,and well before these, Gaza, of apparently innocent non-combatants supporting the jihadists' cause, it does appear that Cannals theoretical perspective has and is being borne out in the real world.

I have previously written about the relevance to this day of the British Malaya administration's policy of new villagesiii, used to defeat the Communist Party Of Malaya, which while being financed by the Peoples' Republic Of China, relied heavily on the support of local Chinese to facilitate their activities on the ground.
That solution may today seem inhumane, but critics conveniently forget that lives were saved by that solution. Be that as it may, Russian President Vladimir Putin might have provided an alternative , a middle path:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law the controversial bill ….amending the Criminal Code to expand the number of offenses classified as terrorism and require the relatives of people deemed to have committed acts of terrorism to pay financial compensation for the material damage they causediv.
Not unexpectedly Putin's law has already come under criticism. However it is suggested that critics should rather see this law as the basis for other similair policy instruments that might be used to curb acts of terrorism. Either that, or a return to the new villages.

END

ii Fourth-generation warfare: Jihadist networks and percolation

iv Russia To Hold Relatives Of 'Terrorists' Financially Responsible For Material Damage

Posted by  on February 25, 2014 at 18:10 | Permalink




Ending support for terrorism in Iraq: Lessons from the Coalition forces past

The following are notes from 3 journal articles which  outline the history of the new villages scheme, devised and implemented by the British, with assistance from the Australians and Americans, which led to the relatively speedy end of the guerrilla war waged by the Malayan Communist Party in Malaysia (then Malaya) between 1948 and 1960:
On its origins
Britain’s inability to crush the guerrillas caused great frustration in London. In March 1950, Defence Minister Emanuel Shinwell informed the prime minister that he was “very disturbed” by the “grave” situation in Malaya….Anxiety became intense after the insurgents ambushed and assassinated the British High Commissioner, Sir Henry Gurney, in October 1951. That same month saw the highest number of casualties among the security forces since 1949. An internal report prepared in 1957 acknowledged,“There is no doubt that in the first two years of its activities the CTO [Communist Terrorist Organization] was a very real threat to the security and economic recovery of Malaya after the war…..In  1950 the British secretary of state for war, John Strachey, declared: “I do not believe that the Army alone, as such, can finish them off. In order to finish…them off we have got to have a large military effort . . . and an equally large police and administrative and political effort…..The counterinsurgency employed a range of strategies and fought on a number of fronts…..Britain launched a major “population control” effort involving the relocation of more than 50,000 Chinese “squatters,” the creation of nearly 450 “New Villages,” and the mass deportations of detainees.
On its impact
Today the initial phase  of this resettlement program is an accomplished fact. Squatters have been relocated in protected areas bounded by authority and order. Resettlement is the primary reason why Malaya today can carry the battle to the Communists. Though it does not mean the end of Malaya's drive against Communism, it has proved to be an effective weapon against the terrorist attacks by the guerrillas. After the completion of the resettlement program, terrorist attacks fell off almost 75 percent, Communist guerrillas surrendered  and deserted in increasing numbers, and security force and civilian casualties dropped appreciably. Resettlement of the Chinese squatters has helped to disrupt the Communist organization in Malaya and has severed important underground links and disorganized Communist cells.
On its role in nation building
Begun in June 1948, the scheme was completed in 1954 without causing widespread unemployment--an achievement unparalleled in all of Southeast Asia--and was especially noteworthy because it coincided with a period when the Federation of Malaya was preparing itself for self-government and eventual independence….although it was conceived as a military necessity, the establishment of Rasah New Village improved the living conditions of some 2,000 peasants.
Naturally, if such a scheme is to be implemented in Iraq, it would need to be modified to suit local conditions.

Sunday, June 2, 2019

Will Australia's barristers boycott legal work in Malaysia in protest of the perceived lack of independence in its judiciary?

by Ganesh Sahathevan





This excerpt from a 1990 article by the then President of the NSW Bar Association, Nicholas Cowdrey QC was discovered in the course of this writer’s ongoing (and admittedly self-interested ) research into the Australian legal establishment and in particular the NSW Bar's attitudes to Malaysia under Mahathir.  In an article tilted " Nick Cowdery QC reports on the judgment of the Supreme Court of Malaysia in Manjeet Singh Dhillon's case". Cowdrey concluded:

What do the judgments (and the manner of their preparation and delivery) say about the independence of the judiciary in Malaysia? What do the judgments say about the future of the rule of law in Malaysia? Just what are the "local circumstances" in Malaysia? How secure is the future and the independence of the Malaysian Bar? We should watch for the answers


Cowdrey’s comments  remain relevant to this day given the recent comments by the president of the Law Council Of Australia and immediate past president of the NSW Bar Association, Arthur Moses SC, in Kuala Lumpur in January this year(see photo and link  above).  Readers will recall that Moses thought it necessary to remind his audience of the 1987 judicial crisis in Malaysia, and to insist that PM Mahathir was responsible for that incident, despite statements made last year (while Mahathir led the opposition against Najib) by Abu Talib Othman, who was AG in 1987, contradicting the assumption that Mahathir was responsible for the 87 crisis. See previous story by this writer:

Assisted by DFAT,Australian lawyers take aim at Mahathir,while seeking new markets in Malaysia-REPOST with tweet from the Australian High Commissioner to Malaysia ,Andrew Goledzinowski ‏ Verified account


All of the above needs to be seen in the context of the actions of the Attorney General of NSW, Mark Speakman SC, and his officers, who insist that Mahathir financed this writer’s 1MDB investigation and publications, which were then fed to the ABC’s 4 Corner’s program, to wrongly and maliciously accuse the former PM Najib Razak of involvement in the 1MDB scandal:

Diplomatic incident brewing: Mahathir declares Raja Petra a liar,AG NSW and his department insist that RPK is a credible source of information about Mahathir


Speakman, his officers, and indeed the NSW Bar have seen no need to comment on their actions ,despite the scandal they have perpetuated against the newly elected prime minister of Malaysia , and despite the matter being reported nationally in The Australian, on 17 January 2019, the same day Moses delivered his speech in Malaysia(see story by Ben Butler )


In his 1990 article (which should be read in full and is available at the link provided above) Cowdrey seemed to suggest that public condemnation of judges is justifiable when judges misbehave. Here in NSW on the other hand he and the NSW Bar Association seem to have preferred silence despite facts reported in The Australian, which in effect call into question the judgment and skills of some of the state’s most senior judges and lawyers, including the Chief Justice. 

The Chief Justice NSW Tom Bathurst was once president of the Australian Bar Association (ABA). The ABA has in the past complained that the independence of the Malaysian Bar was being threatened:
Independence of Malaysian Bar under threat

Meanwhile, Australian barristers and solicitors seem happy to pursue business in Malaysia despite the lack of independence  they complain of, among judges and lawyers.

That pursuit of business has now expanded to include legal education, with the Australian  legal establishment's College Of Law promoting its "LLM in Malaysian Legal Practise" in Malaysia. The College has made a number of claims about its contribution to legal practice in Malaysia, which have been denied by the relevant Malaysian authorities. The relevant authorities in Australia including the Law Society NSW and the Legal Profession Admission Board(LPAB) appear to have decided to ignore the Malaysian information (which includes correspondence from the Registrar , Federal Court Malaysia).

Of greater concern is the fact that the LPAB  has made adverse findings against this writer for informing and querying the Attorney General's Chambers Malaysia about the College's Malaysian adventure.

It should also be noted  that where necessary Australia's lawyers and judges are prepared to prefer Malaysian judgments, regardless of how tainted the judgments might be, to those of their own courts.
This writer can report that in  making adverse findings against him the   LPAB preferred the judgement of   Saufee Affandi of The Industrial Court Malaysia  which favored Vincent Tan, to that of his own Supreme Court Of NSW in Carlovers Carwash Ltd, which went against Tan in spectacular fashion. In doing so the LPAB agreed with Affandi that this writer had breached criminal laws in Malaysia with regards the dissemination of false news, and criminal defamation, despite he never being even charged  or investigated for those crimes. Readers may recall that the story which earned this writer his sacking from The Sun by Vicnent Tan concerned the business dealings of among others Mokzhani Mahathir.

END

NOTE


The ABA considers its work in Malaysia and South East Asia to be part of its charitable outreach,as it claims in a 2014 press release:
“Australian barristers already contribute thousands of hours of pro bono training and professional development for our colleagues in Asian nations.....".