Memo to the ABC: You cannot protect Penny Wong, her citizenship papers are readily accessible to any number of Malaysian officials who will not be afraid to use them against her, and Australia

by Ganesh Sahathevan


The ABC appears to have taken a "must not raise Penny Wong's dual citizenship" stand, desperately hoping that the issue will blow away and her status preserved. Unfortunately, the ABC seems not to realize that Penny Wong's birth certificate is already in the possession of Malaysian authorities, who tend to be very good at using information of that sort to their advantage. Naturally, that would be to the detriment of the Australian national interests.

Friday, July 14, 2017

Senator Penny Wong born in Malaysia,and born a Malaysian citizen-Has she officially renounced Malaysian citizenship, and can we see proof?

by Ganesh Sahathevan






Penelope Wong Ying Yen, aka Senator Penny Wong, was born in Kota Kinabalu ,State Of Sabah, Federation of Malaysia. Her father Francis Wong is a Malaysian citizen,which makes Wong a Malaysian citizen by birth.


While she moved to Australia in  1976,that would not have caused the loss of her Malaysian citizenship.
Many Malaysians who later in life took up citizenship  of other countries assumed that by doing so Malaysian citizenship was lost  automatically, but this is not the case.

There is ,provided for in the Malaysian Constitution and arising laws a process which requires citizens who wish to renounce their citizenship to make a formal application to do so.It is up to the Malaysian Government to determine if the application should be accepted.

If the Government determines that the application is to be accepted, then the applicant is issued a formal notice of that fact,with a copy of his or her Malaysian birth certificate marked with  words in Malay and/or English  ,"No longer a citizen of Malaysia (paraphrase)".

None of this has ever been provided the public in the case of Penny Wong. Indeed the question has never been put. We are simply expected to accept  that Wong is not a citizen of Malaysia, despite the facts.
END

Pertonas must not hide billions lost in shale misdaventures -Heads must roll- Wee Yaw Hin must pay for losses

by Ganesh Sahathevan

After a six-year stint as head of Petroliam Nasional Bhd’s (Petronas) upstream business, Datuk Wee Yiaw Hin  said (in 2016) that he is “ready to take a break from the industry.”
In typical style Petronas maintains that these write-downs by its partners have nothing to do with Pertonas:

In Australia

Santos has advised of a further $US1.5 billion write-down on the value of its new GLNG gas export project in Queensland in a move that has fuelled expectations the plant will have to be run at well below full capacity for many years.

The impairment, which chairman Peter Coates said reflects "the reality of the current oil price environment", also means Santos will almost certainly plunge deep into the red when it reports its first-half results on Friday.

The latest write-down, of about $US1.05 billion after tax, comes on top of the $565 million ) pre-tax impairment on GLNG in February.

Petronas share of the write-down equals approximately about RM 6.2 Billion .Santos owns 30% of the project while Petronas's share equals 27.5%.The figure is based on Petronas having equal share BUT an exchange rate of 1 AUD equal MYR 3. The current exchange rate is 1 AUD equal MYR 3.42.

In Canada

The impairment, which would have an effect on the profitability of the national oil company but not its cash-flow situation, is estimated based on the provisions made by one of the joint-venture (JV) partners in the LNG project. According to wire reports, Japan Petroleum Exploration Co (Japex) that has a 10% stake in the Pacific NorthWest LNG project consortium would take a loss of about C$102mil (RM349mil) in the year to end-March following Petronas’ decision to abort its Canadian LNG project.

“Based on what Japex will provide, Petronas’ portion would be about six times the amount considering its 62% stake in the consortium,” said an industry analyst.

Therefore, Petronas's share of the write-down would be approximately, RM 2.1 Billion



In Sudan
This statement from 2014  says much about Petronas's ostrich like attitude attitude:

“Sudan and South Sudan have done very well despite the security issues,” Petronas executive vice-president for exploration and production Datuk Wee Yiaw Hin toldStarBiz in a recent interview.

“We must look at it as a long-term investment. Production from Sudan and South Sudan average about 220,000 bpd today.

“Despite zero production for many years, we didn’t have to make any impairments for our operations there because we have made so much money and the remaining value is huge.”

No indication has been given anywhere of what  remaining value is huge means.


END


References


#AFRICATECH
JULY 20, 2016 / 3:07 AM / A YEAR AGO
China's CNPC says evacuates most of its staff from South Sudan



Reuters Staff


2 MIN READ





HONG KONG (Reuters) - China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) has evacuated the bulk of its workers from South Sudan after fighting started in the capital Juba earlier this month, but its operations were unaffected, a CNPC-run paper said on Tuesday.

Many foreigners have been evacuated from South Sudan, the world's newest nation, which is still recovering from a two-year civil war that started in 2013 which killed tens of thousands of people and drove more than 2.5 million from their homes.

The latest fighting erupted on July 7 and lasted for four days. It was between followers of President Salva Kiir and Riek Machar, the former rebel leader who became vice president under a deal to end a two-year civil war. The violence killed at least 272 people.

"From July 12-18, the company has successfully evacuated 191 CNPC employees due to the conflict in South Sudan. CNPC also helped to evacuate another 157 people working in China organizations there," CNPC's China Oil News said.

"So far, CNPC’s production operations are still stable and in good order in South Sudan."

Other leading investors in South Sudan's oil industry include Malaysia's state-run oil and gas firm Petronas and India's ONGC Videsh.

In 2014, CNPC entered into an agreement with South Sudan to boost production of existing oilfields, with its engineering and services team working with oil producers in three blocks, and also conduct training on technologies to enhance oil recovery (EOR).

CNPC said after the evacuation it will have 77 staff members left to maintain security at its operations, with 24 of them based in Juba.

South Sudan's oil production, which stood at 245,000 barrels per day before violence in December 2013, is down by roughly a third.


Reporting Hong Kong Newsroom; Writing by George Obulutsa in Nairobi, editing by William Hardy

Najib's other 1MDB,or DCNS money? USD 300 million which he did not deny receiving, but which the DOJ has not located. How much in Hong Kong, and is this a missing Scorpene link?

by Ganesh Sahathevan




Monies were transferred from Najib's AMislamic Bank 
and Singapore   accounts to accounts at Credit Suisse's
 branch in Hong Kong:(see story below)


The latest US DOJ complaint not only demolished what was left of the "Saudi donor" story, it also showed how some of that USD 700 million from 1 MDB was used to  buy the USD 25 Million Rosmah Pink.

However,there is a further USD 300 million which even the DOJ seems to know nothing of.That additional sum was reported in the ABC 4 Corners story by LInton Besser ,aired last year:

LINTON BESSER: The Malaysian government says Najib Razak has returned more than US$600 million dollars he received in 2013 and closed two of his accounts.

But Four Corners has established that three new accounts were opened in the prime minister's name and the money just kept on pouring in.

In June 2014, for example, the bank was notified of another 50 million British pounds that was to be wired into the prime minister's name. There were also a series of cash deposits that raised money laundering alerts here inside the bank.

A high-level source has shown Four Corners the Malaysian prime minister's bank accounts. The banking documents reveal an extraordinary and steady flow of money between 2011 and 2014.

By June 26, 2012, the bank records show deposits worth US$75 million from a Saudi prince, US$80 million from the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Finance and another US$120 million from a shell company in the British Virgin Islands.

On the 21st of March, 2013, the prime minister received US$620 million from a different company registered there. Four days later, the same donor deposited another US$61 million.

By the 10th of April, 2013, the prime minister had received more than US$1 billion.

The Malaysian Government did not dispute the above facts, and instead bragged that the ABC story only proved that the money in Najib's account was from the Saudis.That assertion was based on the bank statements shown to the ABC's Besser,which were part of the story that went to air.

We now know that the documents were false with regards the source of funds. The sums on the other hand seem to be accurate. This blog has reported the existence of Najib's accounts in Hong Kong so it is only logical to ask if that HK accounts have been used to launder the funds.

Given the French Scorpene indictment, it must also be asked if those accounts have been used to launder funds said to have been received by Najib fron DCNS.

END 

References 

French list Malaysian PM Najib Razak in bribery case file

• The Australian
• 12:00AM February 6, 2016
• Save

• 
  AMANDA HODGE

  

  South East Asia correspondent

  Jakarta

  @hodgeamanda

  
  

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is facing a new front in a multi-billion-dollar corruption scandal bedevilling his administration, with French investigators probing whether he received bribes as defence minister in a $1.2 billion submarine contract.

The investigation centres on Thales International Asia’s 2002 contract to deliver two submarines to the Malaysian government and whether the company’s former president, Bernard Baiocco, indirectly paid kickbacks to Mr Najib to secure the deal.

Mr Baiocco was indicted last December for allegedly paying commissions to Abdul Razak ­Baginda, a political analyst purportedly close friend of Mr Najib.

But Britain’s Financial Times cited sources close to the investigation — including Mr Baiocco’s lawyer Jean-Yves Le Borgne — confirming that judicial documents also named Mr Najib as a suspected recipient.

All three men have denied any wrongdoing, with Mr Baginda telling the Financial Times he received $US47 million in legitimate consulting fees for his role in securing the Scorpene submarine deal but paid no bribes.

A Malaysian government spokesman dismissed the ­allegations as “baseless smears for political gain”, saying Mr Najib had received no correspondence from French prosecutors.

The Paris probe come less than a fortnight after Malaysian Attorney-General Mohamad Apandi Ali cleared Mr Najib over a $US681m transfer into his bank account from accounts connected with the 1MDB state investment fund.

Mr Apandi found the money was a personal gift from the Saudi royal family to help fund Mr Najib’s 2013 election campaign and to counter the influence of ­Islamic extremism in Malaysia — an explanation Riyadh has ­refused to confirm or deny.

However, the Sarawak Report, an online journalism site which has led coverage of 1MDB scandal, offered an alternative narrative. It alleged the single Saudi source cited in some reports to have confirmed the gift was Nawaf Obaid, a spin doctor employed on occasions and at some cost by the Malaysian government to bolster its image.

The former spin doctor, who previously held a post in the Saudi regime, is also connected with PetroSaudi, a Middle East oil company implicated in the ­alleged misappropriation of as much as $US4 billion from 1MDB, through his brother Tarek Obaid who was its former director, the report claimed.

PetroSaudi is now under ­investigation by Swiss, Singaporean and US agencies on suspicion of having helped siphon hundreds of millions from 1MDB.

The Sarawak Report claims to have traced the money trail from PetroSaudi’s own emails, thanks to former PetroSaudi employee turned whistleblower Xavier Justo, who is in a Thai jail for blackmailing his former ­employer.

It also questions suggestions the donation to Mr Najib may have come in part from the late Saudi king Abdullah’s seventh son Prince Turki, a 50 per cent shareholder in PetroSaudi, citing JPMorgan confirmation statements showing $US77m actually flowed out of 1MDB into Prince Turki’s accounts.

While Mr Najib has urged ­Malaysians to accept his exoneration and move on from the issue, the Paris probe means the Prime Minister is facing another front in his battle to remain in power.

He has already removed officials who have questioned his ­involvement in the 1MDB affair, and this week forced the resignation of Mukhriz Mahathir, chief minister of Kedah State and son of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.

Both men have played key roles in a so-far unsuccessful campaign within the ruling UMNO party to unseat Mr Najib.

The Scorpene submarine deal now under French investigation is notorious in Malaysia because of its link to the murder of a young Mongolian woman, Altantuya Shaaribu. Shaaribu had been in a ­relationship with Mr Baginda and acted as a translator during the deal but later accused him of failing to pay her $500,000 fee.

Sirul Azhar Umar, one of two police officers from a government close protection unit convicted of her murder but freed on bail pending an appeal, fled to Australia where he is being held in Sydney’s Villawood detention centre.

Rumours that both Mr Baginda and the Prime Minister himself were linked to her murder have dogged Mr Najib, though both were cleared of involvement during a 2008 trial.

===================================================

SEP

3

PM Najib's RM 1.125 Billion in HK & Tan Sri Larry Low ,faher of Jho 

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Overlooked in this week's reporting is this revelation ,with regards a  report lodged with Hong Kong Police by UMNO whistle-blower Khairuddin Hassan:


Four other companies are also suspect, added Khairuddin, because Najib is a signatory here and the accounts of the companies show that a total of RM1.125 billion has been kept at the Hong Kong branch of Credit Suisse. “I have requested the Hong Kong police to conduct comprehensive and detailed investigations on the financial sources of the companies concerned and their transactions.”
“I requested the authorities concerned to investigate Alliance Assets International Ltd; Cityfield Enterprises Ltd; Bartingale International Ltd; Wonder Quest Investments Ltd. All these companies have Najib as the signatory.

Khairuddin, at the same time, also lodged another set of police reports on Jynwell Capital (HK); Jynwell Charitable Foundation; and Strategic Resources (Global Ltd), all owned by Jho Low and family.


It has been established that the report included this document,which suggests that monies were transferred from Najib's AMislamic Bank and Singapore   accounts to accounts at Credit Suisse's branch in Hong Kong:

 The report against Larry Low concerns the Low family's takeover of Coastal Energy , a company formerly listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.It has been alleged that the takeover was funded in part with funds from 1 MDB.The report points the finger at Tan Sri Larry Low as the mastermind of his son Jho Low's adventures. The reports taken together suggest  a base of operations  in Hong Kong.
END

Posted 3rd September 2015 by Anonymous

  

Did DCNS Australia CEO Sean Costello's shock resignation have anything to do with Joel Branchut?

by Ganesh Sahathevan 



DCNS Australia's CEO Sean Costello left the company suddenly earlier this year:


THE captain of the French bid for Australia’s $50 billion Future Submarines project has quit less than a year after winning the contract. Adelaide-based Sean Costello resigned on Friday, a move that will likely shock the French and the Australian defence communities.


Intelligence OnLine had this to say about Costello and the winning of the submarine contract:

The contract also appears to be a victory for Marie-Pierre de Bailliencourt, the deputy managing director of DCNS who led the negotiations, even though she came under some criticism from the DCNS’ export Department (IOL 745). Locally, DCNS had Sean Costello, who was hired as the head of its local office in order to help win the contract. Costello was the chief-of-staff of the defence minister in the previous government and in the past also advised the minister on naval procurement.

The French company had Costello work with a discreet assistant, Joel Branchut, a former French military attache in Canberra who is used to highly complex financial deals. He was most notably involved in the negotiations in the early 1990S for the Sawari II contract for the supply of three warships to Riyadh (IOL 751).

The Sawari II contracts are said to have involved kickbacks that were then sent back to France to fund election campaigns:

The former defence minister Charles Millon, who served under (former President Jacques) Chirac, was quoted in a French newspaper as having testified to the existence of the kickbacks to French political campaigns. "We had an intimate conviction that there were kickbacks. That was the case of the Agosta and Sawari II contracts," he told the investigating judge Renaud van Ruymbeke in November (2009).

As  this writer has said many times before;L'Affaire Adelaide is fast becoming the latest version of L'Affaire Karachi.

END 

realpolitikasia

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Payne's admission requires investigation of submarine contracts: Is l'affaire Adelaide a repeat of DCNS's l'affaire Karachi?

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Australian Defence Minsiter Marise Payne protested on ABC last night that her boyfriend's "attempt" at contacting DCNS in Paris just a week before she announced DCNS as winner of the Competitive Evaluation Process for AUD 50 billion contract for the construction of 12 submarines, was nothing more than what any trade minister would do as part of the Process. In Payne's words ::


MARISE PAYNE: No. I understand that that is part of a series of meetings that any Trade Minister from Australia from any state in the Commonwealth, frankly, would endeavour to have with participants in the CEP (Competitive Evaluation Process) process.

As explained in the previous post :
The CEP was basically a fashion parade, so it is hard to see why there was any need for anyone to seek a meeting with any  bidder

unless it was to provide assistance with the bidding process.

Payne has , in effect ,admitted that there has been at least an attempt to do so  by her boyfriend, Stuart Ayres. This would not of course be the first time that DCNS has managed to combine elections, election funding ,and a contract for submarines.

l'affaire Karachi is yet to be resolved.

END 

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

by Ganesh Sahathevan


DCNS's  Philippe Japiot spent much time in Australia before the award of the Australian AUD 50 Billion contract to DCNS. He has just been charged  with corruption in the matter of  the DCNS Malaysian submarine contract. 

The Australian DCNS deal raises a number of issues.These include a number that have been published on this blog:

Doing business with the corruption prone DCNS-Australian Defence Minister's boyfriend "tried" to meet with DCNS in France last week

Payne's admission requires investigation of submarine contracts: Is l'affaire Adelaide a repeat of DCNS's l'affaire Karachi?

END 




References

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

DCNS executives indicted for corruption in the sale of DCNS submarines to Malaysia-Meanwhile DCNS Australian AUD 50 Billion contract remains beyond scrutiny

by Ganesh Sahathevan

As reported by AFP:

France indicts 2 former bosses in Malaysia submarine graft case

The two are Philippe Japiot, former chairman of the French naval dockyards unit DCNI, and Jean-Paul Perrier, former chief executive of the French defence and electronics giant Thales.

PARIS: French investigators have indicted two former top executives in a long-running probe into alleged kickbacks from the 2002 sale of submarines to Malaysia, sources close to the inquiry said on Tuesday (Jul 18).

The two are Philippe Japiot, former chairman of the French naval dockyards unit DCNI, and Jean-Paul Perrier, former chief executive of the French defence and electronics giant Thales, they said.

The two, interviewed in May, have both been indicted for corruption, one of the sources said.

Japiot has additionally been indicted for "abuse of social assets" and Perrier for "complicity in the abuse of social assets," one of the sources said.

The investigation was launched in 2010 in response to a complaint by Malaysian rights group Suaram.

It centres on allegations that the French submarine manufacturer paid commission of more than €114 million (US$132 million) to a purported shell company linked to Abdul Razak Baginda, a former close associate of Prime Minister Najib Razak.
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Najib was defence minister when the US$1.1-billion deal for two Scorpene-class submarines was sealed.

From 2001 to 2007, Japiot headed the DCNI, the international branch of France's centuries-old naval shipbuilding operations, which changed its name last month from DCNS to Naval Group.

The French state holds just under two-thirds of Naval Group, and Thales slightly more than a third.

Two other people are under investigation in France in the same case: Dominique Castellan, also a former DCNI president, and Bernard Baiocco, former president of Thales International Asia.

All four deny any wrongdoing and the Malaysian government has said the contract was free of corruption.

The affair emerged spectacularly in 2006, when Abdul Razak's Mongolian mistress - who was said to have demanded a payoff for working as a language translator in the deal - was shot dead and her body blown up with plastic explosives near Kuala Lumpur.



A Malaysian court later cleared Abdul Razak of abetting the murder, sparking an outcry and opposition allegations of a cover-up.

Source: AFP/de

REFERENCES 

realpolitikasia

Thursday, April 20, 2017

DCNS's l'affaire Adelaide takes shape: A horse, Defence Minister Marise Payne,and Lockheed Martin

by Ganesh Sahathevan

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian (right) and Australian Defence Minister Marise Payne 

This writer has previously noted that DCNS's AUD 50 Billion submarine contract entered into with the Government of Australia seems not terribly different from other scandals the company has gotten into, including the the so-called l'affaire Karachi.

Now it seems the Defence Minister Marise Payne's love of race horses may provide some further clues.The Australian newspaper reported this morning :

Defence Minister Marise Payne co-owns a racehorse with a lobbyist whose company represents firms seeking lucrative Australian military contracts, including the Future Frigate project worth up to $35 billion.
Senator Payne is a co-owner of Tarakona, a largely unsuccessful four-year-old gelding, with a group that includes Matt Hingerty, managing director and chief executive of lobbying firm Barton Deakin.

Barton Deakin is recorded on the federal government lobbyist register as representing defence contractors, including Lockheed Martin Overseas Group, builder of the F-35 Strike Fighter; and Fincantieri SpA, the Italian shipbuilding company.

Not reported is the fact that Lockheed Martin Corp " won a bid to design and build the combat system " for the DCNS Barracuda submarines".

That contract is far ranging ,According to a DefenseNews report published on 18 April 2017:

Lockheed Martin will report this summer results of studies for potential suppliers of sonar and other critical systems for Australia’s planned fleet of 12 new attack submarines, said Mike Oliver, program director for the future submarine combat system.


“Lockheed Martin has been conducting trade studies in a number of key areas of the submarine’s design,” he told Defense News. “We are examining all options and will deliver the results of those trade studies in June to the customer.”

Sonar is among the key systems, the company’s program team said.
“The choice of sonar systems and arrays is in the hands of Lockheed Martin,” Marie-Pierre de Bailliencourt, general manager at DCNS, told Defense News..


Canberra in September selected Lockheed as combat system integrator, partnering with DCNS, which will design, build and service a fleet of 12 ocean-going diesel-electric boats. The program is worth AUS$50 billion ($38.1 billion) over some 35 years.

A survey of sonar and other systems marks a first step in a selection process that Thales hopes to win through its Australian subsidiary.


The French electronics company expects to secure more than €1 billion of deals, with €100 million per boat based on sonar systems, electronic warfare and periscopes. A towed sonar array is part of the kit.

END