Asian silence complicates Penny Wong's foreign affairs duties :Malaysia uses Australia's "Imams' Panel" discussion to make clear SSM is not acceptable

by Ganesh Sahathevan

While it has been reported that there was " Pride and jubilation worldwide as Australia backs same-sex marriage" Asia,and in particular countries in this region, have remained silent.


Of course, Australia is a sovereign country and will do what is in Australia's national interest.However, there is an obvious problem when one of the most high profile champions of the cause, Penelope Wong Ying Yen, is also the  Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs. The  problem is further compounded by Australia's desire to morph into an Asian rather than Western nation.


Penny Wong breaks down in tears as she hears same-sex marriage result

As an indication of things to come, a Malaysian government linked website has referred to an Australian panel of imams discussion to make the point that same sex marriage is against their country's norms.

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Reference 

A video by OnePath Network today has shed light to that very thought of those who asked ‘Should Muslims ever support gay marriage?’.

The panel of Australian leading imams had discussed the topic in ‘The Imams Panel’, which involved one imam revealing that Muslims should never discriminate against anyone should they wish to commit same-sex marriage.

“Whoever wants to do whatever, there's the freedom of the country or whatever. But as Muslim, Islam categorically says that it is Haram (prohibited), it is very clear in the Quran in the Sunnah),” says Mufti Zeeyad Ravat from Pillars of Guidance Community Centre (PGCC) in Melbourne.

He adds that if a person chooses same-sex marriage, “We cannot discriminate against him”, though it is an Islamic scholar’s duty to tell them off that it is not correct and it is ultimately up to the individual to repent to God.

“If we say ‘Okay it’s fine in legalising it’ then we are guilty of changing the Shariah (rulings) of Allah,” he advised while further stating Muslims must be firm in their stance as it reflects on the integrity of Islam.

On the LGBT community, Zeeyad shared, “We need to deal with it, we can’t say they are dirty people and push them aside, they need counselling and some love, and with some help they get over it.

“But if we are going to demonise them, they are going to go deeper and more people are going to follow them,” he pointed out.

While Sheikh Dr. Kamal Taleb from Roselands Masjid shared, “Islam is a religion of truth. It advocates truth and justice. If something is wrong, it won’t stand with wrong.

“With LGBT community, we’ll stand with them if they advocate justice, that which is truth and beneficial and not harmful.

“From an Islamic perspective it is wrong, Islamically speaking. Not only Islam but before Islam...in heavenly religions… It's not the norm as some people may think,” he said, adding that LGBT behaviour can be manifested in a proper manner or controlled, but not in the wrong manner.

Sheikh Abu Zoud from Sunnah Foundation, on the other hand reminds, “As a Muslim one is supposed to go back to his book of guidance (Quran), the story of Prophet Lut (AS),” whose people had engaged in homosexual acts.

Lut AS had faithfully preached and warned his people while emphasising the error: "Do you commit immorality while you are seeing? Do you indeed approach men with desire instead of women? Rather, you are a people behaving ignorantly.” (Qur’an 27:54-55)

Hence Abu Zoud affirmed, “Muslims stance on this is always ‘NO’… always Islam would teach against them (LGBT), so that's what we should be teaching,” he emphasised on the importance of educating the younger generation the right thing.

Australian Defence Minister in charge of submarines compromised by allegations about his sexual activities : What intel has he been forced to make available to foreign parties?

by Ganesh Sahathevan

PHOTO: As Defence Industry Minister, Mr Pyne usually uses his Twitter account to discuss military hardware. (ABC News: Adam Kennedy)

Christopher Pyne,the Australian minister in charge of the DCNS/Naval Group Australian submarine project has become the target of allegations concerning his sexual activities.  
While these allegations have only just been brought to the attention of the Australian  public the matter of Pyne's sexual activities are believed to have been known at least in government circles for at least the past decade.

While Australia's political reporters (dubbed the Canberra Press Gallery) have decided to keep the matter hidden from public view it cannot then be assumed that Pyne has not been the subject of surveillance ,and consequently compromised, by any number of foreign intelligence agencies. The media's determination to keep matters quite would have made their jobs that much easier. 

The matter of Pyne's sexual activities became public after his Twitter account was hacked. As Defence Industry Minister, Mr Pyne usually uses his Twitter account to discuss military hardware or sometimes to promote his media appearances.
That he has been compromised must be assumed. 
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Did Goldman Sachs SSG Unit fraudulently under price 1MDB bonds? Does this explain Turnbull's refusal to investigate ANZ/AMBank

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Malcolm Turnbull when he was chairman at Goldman Sachs. Now he runs the country. 

First ,from Zerohedge, quoting Bloomberg:

Alex Turnbull, a former executive director of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s special situations group, is planning a Singapore-based hedge fund, said people with knowledge of the matter.

 Turnbull, son of Australian Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, will be the chief investment officer of Keshik Capital Pte, said the people who asked not to be identified as the information is private. The fund, which will be focused on Asia with the flexibility to invest globally, may start as early as January and will invest in equity and credit, including convertible bonds, they added.

Keshik is at least the third hedge-fund startup tapping Asian opportunities in recent years involving a former member of the Goldman Sachs unit that invests in distressed debt and companies with its own capital. The Special Situations Group, known as SSG, is part of Goldman Sachs’s investing and lending operation, which generated $4.3 billion of pretax earnings last year(2013), the most of the New York-based bank’s four business segments.

 His reward: starting "his" own hedge fund, Keshik Capital, at the ripe old age of about 31, not even a decade out of college.

Now see :
The Wall Street bank helped 1MDB, which was founded by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak in September 2009, raise $6.5 billion in three bond sales in 2012 and 2013 to invest in energy projects and real estate to boost the Malaysian economy. 

.

Then  see, from the NY Times:

Jack Blum, a lawyer who led corruption investigations for several Senate committees, said that Goldman should have done a thorough investigation of what 1MDB was doing with the money that the bank helped it raise and move around the world, especially given the history of corruption in Malaysia.

“It is a very serious problem when a company is making a hell of a lot of money out of something and everybody in the place says, ‘I don’t know about it,’” Mr. Blum said.

Mr. Blum said that assigning legal blame in situations like the 1MDB case was generally hard because it would be difficult to prove that Goldman executives knew what was going to happen with the money before it happened.

END

Reference

Goldman Sachs's Lloyd Blankfein & Tim Liessner: Which is the greater sin, writing a reference for employment at a competitor ,or knowingly buying sovereigns as junk?

Goldman Sachs alumnus Malcolm Turnbull runs the country; others the US Treasury

Malaysian Government tries to distance itself from Crown Prince MBS,hints at closer ties with Qatar-1MDB Saudi "donation " story likely factor

by Ganesh Sahathevan

left to right – Tarek Obaid, Prince Turki and Najib Razak – the three named Shareholders of the 1MDB PetroSaudi Joint Venture meeting a month before the deal on the yacht Tatoosh.

 

There was no need for Deputy Foreign Minister Reezal Merican to have made these  comments against Saudi Arabia,and in support of Qatar:

"Malaysia will ensure good relationships with any country. After ties soured between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, we remain in good contact with both. If there are allegations that because of Malaysia's good relationship with Saudi Arabia we are not allowed to have a healthy relationship with Qatar ... that's not the policy that we practice.

"Recently, Malaysia received a visit from the Emir of Qatar (Sheikh Tamim Hamad Al Thani) and several substantive agreements were achieved during the visit,"

We have always been pragmatic. When the time comes for us to call a spade a spade, we will do that,” Reezal said in his winding up of the Supply Bill at the committee stage here today.

It does look as if the Najib administration is taking measures to ensure the elephant that is the  1MDB theft remains somewhat hidden, even despite all this that has just occurred:

UPDATE : 1MDB asset seizures: Enter Prince Mohamad Bin Salman ,Najib & Rosmah's Prince Turki arrested for corruption

Al-Waleed's money laundered via Tabung Haji -TH denial contradicted by Al-Waleed's company

Adding to the Deputy Minister's comments are comments from an official from the Religious Department ,which reports directly to PM Najib,demanding that the proposed King Salman Centre for International Peace in Putrajaya, the administrative capital ,be scrapped.

Crown Prince Mohamad Bin Salman is scheduled to officiate at the opening of the Centre in the coming year.

Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammad Salman will open the King Salman Centre for International Peace next year but the visit is likely to cause some controversy. – AFP pic, November 13, 2017.

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Twitter account of Christopher Pyne, Australian minister in charge of submarine contracts hacked

First see

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

And now:

Pyne is compromised, if not by the dirty tweet by the hack

Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne. Picture: AAP

• The Australian
• 7:40PM November 16, 2017
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• SUPRATIM ADHIKARI

  

  Technology Editor

  Melbourne

  @SupratimA

  

Christopher Pyne’s Twitter headache has once again laid bare the perils of social media for people in positions of power. The Defence Industry Minister accuses hackers of hijacking his official Twitter account and blames them for the “like” on an explicit gay porn tweet. However, that claim in itself raises some red flags.

For a senior cabinet member, especially one in charge of the defence industry, to have his Twitter account compromised shows a glaring lack of knowledge about staying secure on social media. If the account was indeed hacked then it shouldn’t have happened so easily, says Nigel Phair from the University of Canberra’s Centre for Internet Safety.

“What makes it worse is how dismissive (Pyne) was about the thing in his tweets, saying that he was asleep at 2am when it happened, making it out as if it wasn’t his fault,” Phair told The Australian. “It was quite a throwaway remark.”

A Twitter account, like most things on the internet, is relatively simple to hack. More often than not, the number one culprit is an easy-to-guess password and our tendency to use it to access multiple services.

An investigation into the alleged hack will reveal the password Pyne and his staffers have been using to access the account. It’s unlikely to be a robust one. Passwords are routinely stolen using phishing attacks, where a user clicks on a malicious attachment or an email. Hackers then use the passwords to target accounts. They also rely on sophisticated code breakers to break passwords.

In fact, passwords by themselves are no longer sufficient to stay safe on the internet.

Security experts point to two-factor authentication (2FA) as a default deterrent.

The technology, now widely offered by most internet platforms, requires the account holder to type in a code that’s different every time they login. The code is usually sent to the user by SMS or generated by a special app on the user’s phone.

Twitter introduced 2FA in 2013 but it’s unclear whether Pyne and his staffers were using the technology. Two-factor authentication is being increasingly used in corporate circles but its use in public agencies remains limited.

Labor and Australian Conservatives senator Cory Bernardi have called for an investigation but there’s no word on whether the Australian Signals Directorate or the special adviser to the Prime Minister on cyber security, Alastair MacGibbon, will be brought in for the job.

And whether the hacker can be caught is doubtful.

Phair says this should be a wake-up call for Canberra and the Turnbull government, which has been banging the cybersecurity drum rather loudly over the past year.

“They need to learn the absolute basics of information security,” Phair says. “They have a greater responsibility as an elected politician. There are no briefings given to politicians with regards to their personal social media accounts. It’s not so much about the tweet; it’s the fact that an account of a senior politician can be so easily compromised.”

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