🇲🇾 Anwar explains all

Hello friends! 

Back with Singapore and Malaysia today. 

It’s been a while since I’ve offered a deal and we have so many new readers, it seems like a good time! For the next week enjoy 50% off a new annual subscription here:

As always, Asean and Timorese nationals under 30 can enjoy free premium subscriptions. Just hit that reply and let me know a bit about yourself. 

See you tomorrow for a look around the Mekong.

Erin Cook

🇲🇾 Anwar faces Amanpour

An update on the very weird story about an unidentified Malaysian student in Norway. The 25-year-old student was arrested earlier in the month ‘for illegally eavesdropping by using various technical devices,’ Associated Press reports. Espionage charges have since been dropped, but he’s now under investigation for “serious financial crimes.” Much less juicy now, but the Norwegians are being very cagey and I’m curious to see what is revealed over the coming months. 

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim got the Christiane Amanpour treatment. The CNN icon sat down with Anwar and chatted about China’s new 10-dash line. Anwar told her that Chinese Premier Li Qiang had given him assurances China would not “exercise any action that would explode or cause dissension with our colleagues, our friends in the region.” The pair also touched on LGBT issues, which have been long-rumbling but reached international news with that whole Swatch mess a few months back. “I wouldn't defend that actually, they were as you say, excesses, but... there is a consensus in the country, they do not accept [LGBTQ rights],” he said. 

The full interview can be seen here.

What happened to amending the Sedition Act, Muda asked the government yesterday. Muda secretary-general Amir Hariri Abd Hadi targeted Pakatan Harapan specifically in a statement questioning where the party, and Anwar Ibrahim’s, verve in reform went. 

“We like to remind that the use of the Sedition Act had increased 1,000 percent from 2012 to 2015, since the repeal of the Internal Security Act (ISA), which showed how it was used for political purposes. Those who were investigated and prosecuted at that time were politicians and opposition activists, who are now part of the government,” he said in the statement.

It comes after the Court of Appeals rejected a move from Wan Ji Wan Hussin, a preacher, to quash sedition charges harking back to a 2014 spat with the Selangor sultan. Both his legal team AND prosecutors sought a lighter sentence, but Wan Ji Wan Hussin will now serve nine months.  

Malaysian wildlife trafficker Teo Boon Ching will be jailed in the US for 18 months ‘for smuggling hundreds of kilos of horns from endangered rhinoceros,’ Al Jazeera reports. He was arrested in Thailand and extradited last June ‘after a covert operation exposed his attempts to traffic at least 219kg (483 pounds) of horns from “numerous” endangered African white and black rhinoceros.’ Good Lord! 

“Chinese and Vietnamese organised crime networks have long exploited Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries as transit hubs for smuggling illegal wildlife commodities from Africa into Asia. The jailing of Teo Boon Ching and related US Treasury Department sanctions against him and his alleged trafficking organisation constitute a body blow to their ability to function,” Environmental Investigation Agency UK executive director Mary Rice said in a statement received by Al Jazeera. 

🇸🇬 Cracking down in Singapore’s big money sector

Huge update from Bloomberg on how Singapore’s finance sector is responding after last month’s enormous raids. Ten ‘wealthy people of Chinese origin’ (the coverage has gone to lengths not to describe the suspects as Chinese nationals, which reflects the government’s comments) have been denied bail since the Aug. 15 anti-money laundering raid. ‘Police investigations unveiled more than S$2.4 billion worth of assets that have been seized so far, including cash, cryptocurrencies and properties,’ Bloomberg reports.

Investigations are continuing but in the meantime, clients with a range of background, including passports from Cambodia, Turkey and Cyprus among others, are finding their accounts closed or processes taking much longer than usual. 

On the other hand, Singapore has edged out Hong Kong in the Economic Freedom of the World Index, compiled by Canadian think tank Fraser Institute. This CNBC report is primarily about Hong Kong slipping from first place for the first time since the Index began in 1970. Still, “driven by improvements in its size of government and regulation components, Singapore’s overall score rose 0.06 points to take the top ranking,” the Fraser Institute said.  

Singapore proudly wears (some) of its history on its sleeve, but a 110kg aerial bomb found in Upper Bukit Timah is a bit much. CNA reports the bomb is likely a ‘type 94’ used by Japan during the war, according to Winson Chew, an explosives specialist. He says it’s important to know exactly what type of bomb it is for safe disposal. 

That’ll be weighing on the minds of the more than 4,000 people in the area who have been evacuated for the disposal today. The report from CNA is really interesting and looks at how disposals have worked in the past, most recently in 2019. I kinda want to see it! 

Singapore’s goal to ‘import 4 gigawatts of low-carbon electricity by 2035’ is paying off for neighbours, Nikkei Asia reports. The plan would account for around 30% of Singapore’s energy needs. This piece looks at the complicated hydropower production in Mekong countries, particularly in Laos, where hydropower makes up 30% of all exports. Hiroshi Takahashi, an energy expert at Japan's Hosei University, backed plans to build cross-border energy grids in the region calling it “collective energy security.”