🇮🇩🇲🇾 It's looking very hazy

Hello friends!

Today is a bit late because it is ENORMOUS. There has been so much great reporting and so many interesting and pertinent stories across maritime Southeast Asia that today’s newsletter is double the size it usually is. But everything is compelling, so take some time over the weekend to read through the links if you can.

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Let’s crack in.

Erin Cook

💨 Haze is back 💨

I think it’s been quite a while since we talked about transboundary haze. But it is back with a vengeance this dry season and the usual war of words between Indonesia and Malaysia and/or Singapore has erupted. 

Haze has hit both eastern and peninsula Malaysia, with Kuala Lumpur choking this week. Do something about this please, Malaysia demanded. “We submitted our letter to inform the Indonesian government and urging them to hopefully take action on the matter. We cannot keep going back to having haze as something normal,” Environment Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad told Reuters

Indonesia is working on it, but not because Malaysia asked. “We are already working to prevent and extinguish fires, but not based on Malaysia's request. I do not know what basis Malaysia used for those statements,” Indonesia’s Environment Minister Siti Nurbaya told Reuters today. The government is dousing hot spots from helicopters and cloud-seeding, she added. 

Meanwhile, environmental news outlet Mongabay reports school closures across Central Kalimantan, Jambi and South Sumatra provinces as haze worsens. Malaysia is considering a similar response, according to Benar.  

Singapore is watching the wind direction closely. “Contrary to Kuala Lumpur, we’ve been slightly out of the plume trajectory. If winds shift and start blowing from the south-west, plumes from Jambi (West Sumatra) and Riau (Sumatra) will reach Singapore, and will probably bring a more intense haze,” atmospheric scientist Erik Velasco told the Straits Times. Let’s see what the weekend brings. 

🇮🇩 Agriculture Minister resigns amid graft investigation

Agriculture Minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo goes down, resigning from his post yesterday. The minister has not yet been formally named a corruption suspect by the anti-graft agency KPK, but it’s seemingly only a matter of time. 

“Don’t judge me first. Let the legal process proceed, and I’m ready to face it,” he told reporters in Jakarta yesterday, as per Associated Press. That might be a tough ask. KPK investigators allege they found a dozen firearms and bank notes amounting to around USD$1.9 million in various currencies, the wire reports. Good Lord! 

The resignation was tended to President Joko Widodo last night, ending a tense few days in which questions were asked about Syahrul’s return to the country from a working trip in Europe. There was some speculation that he could’ve just legged it and stayed abroad. 

Intriguingly, this is the second NasDem minister to go down in a corruption case this year — the first one being former communications and information minister Johnny G Plate. We’ll chat more about what this may or may not mean for party politics over at Ayolah on Monday. 

TikTok has blocked its sales function after a government directive banned the sale of products on the wildly popular app. According to the BBC, Indonesia was one of the first markets in which TikTok tested its e-commerce functions and since became one of the biggest markets (which is always tricky to gauge the meaning, since Indonesia always ends up being ‘one of the biggest markets’ of every dang thing, given its size). “E-commerce cannot become social media. It is separated,” Minister for Trade Zulkifli Hasan said when announcing the changes. 

“TikTok Shop was very helpful for me getting new customers, especially the younger ones and from areas I never had before. It helped me with expansion,” Lucia Aulia, a housewife who used the app to sell beauty products, told Nikkei Asia. The change isn’t exactly aimed at hurting people like Lucia, it’s meant to help offline businesses. Still, “The potential ban will definitely benefit Shopee and Tokopedia, which had found it operationally difficult to defend against TikTok Shop,” said Jianggan Li, CEO of Momentum Works. Nikkei notes that the target share price for Shopee’s parent company was raised fairly quickly by DBS Group Holdings. 

An update on the case of the Australian government jailing Indonesian minors here from the Guardian. The Australians have agreed to pay out more than $27 million in a class action suit that saw Indonesians, some as young as 12, prosecuted as adults and jailed with adults in the disgustingly charged days of 2010-2012. The Guardian reports that Australian authorities ignored the Indonesians’ age claims and instead relied on a wrist X-ray technique to determine their age. The Guardian has previously found this technique is known to be super flawed and relies on comparing bones to that of ‘healthy, middle-class Americans’ — about as far as you can get from the background of young people with few options on the other side of the world. Nasty story, but great reporting from the Guardian here so definitely worth a full read.  

Nikkei Asia turned its excellent ‘5 Things to Know’ format onto the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail, called ‘WHOOSH.’ This thing is almost impossible to read about because of the ‘China built it!!!!’ framing, so Nikkei’s piece is a nice balance for transport nerds out there. 

🇲🇾 Homecoming

Word on the street in Putrajaya says a cabinet reshuffle is sooo imminent and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is seriously about to announce it any second now. Wait, no, he’s not, don’t worry about that.

Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail is pretty keen to bring home two Malaysian nationals who have been detained in the US’s infamous prison in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay for 17 years. The pair are suspected of involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings. “I have met with two Malaysians detained there. Their story really touched me. It’s a downward spiral about life, about repentance, about the chance to be a better person. With God’s grace, we will try to expedite the process for them to return to Malaysia,” Saifuddin said. 

Benar News notes the announcement was made in a Facebook post that appeared to have been deleted around nine hours after going live. They were unable to get any comment on why it disappeared. 

Padiberas Nasional (Bernas), the agency that controls the distribution of rice in the country, said imported rice prices would rise a staggering 36%, sparking fears of rice shortages across the country, Nikkei Asia reports. PM Anwar moved quickly to calm the country and said it is serious about price gouging, so let authorities know if you see it. 

Agriculture and Food Security Minister Mohamad Sabu tried to reassure Malaysians on Monday that the country has enough rice to go around and will send more to rural areas. “Actually, we don’t have a shortage of rice in the country. It’s just that the price of imported rice has risen sharply. I want to remind the people again to keep calm and just buy what you need. Don’t panic-buy,” he said, as per Associated Press. Hoarders will be arrested and “anyone who dares to carry out this dastardly act to capitalize on the people’s misery will face the full brunt of the law,” which feels a bit ironic from this government, but we shan’t push the point too hard. 

Roger Ng is coming home. Chief US District Judge Margo Brodie ordered Ng to be turned over to the US Marshals today so he can be sent to Malaysia where he’ll face charges for his role in 1MDB, Reuters reports. He’s already got a 10-year sentence in the US for charges there. Every news article notes this but it still makes my jaw drop: out of alllllll the Goldman Sachs's involvement in the 1MDB scandal, Ng is the only Goldman banker to face the courts. 

🇵🇭 South China Sea gets tragic, messy this week

A worrying and sad one on Monday afternoon from the Philippines’ side of the South China Sea. Three fishermen were killed after their boat collided with a commercial vessel. According to the Guardian’s report, 10 fishermen survived the incident and got help. A survivor later told media that weather conditions had been atrocious and the fishing boat hadn’t seen the vessel approaching.  

“We assure the victims, their families, and everyone that we will exert every effort to hold accountable those who are responsible for this unfortunate maritime incident. The incident is still under investigation to ascertain the details and circumstances surrounding the collision between the fishing boat and a still unidentified commercial vessel,” President Bongbong Marcos said in a statement to social media on Wednesday, as per Al Jazeera.

On the same day Marcos made his statement, two Philippine Coast Guard ships escorted two supply boats near the Second Thomas Shoal and breached a Chinese coast guard blockade. This one is a bit too deep (hehe) maritime for my tastes, but both AP and Reuters ran great reports about it here. 

Marcos has got bigger problems closer to home. Just over a year since his resounding victory, his popularity is dropping off a cliff. According to a Pulse Asia survey published in the Inquirer, the president’s approval rating dropped 15 whole points since June down to 65%. Vice President Sara Duterte also saw her approval down 11 points in the same period to 73%, which is kinda impressive to me. I would’ve thought she’d be much further down given the confidential funds drama of recent weeks. 

Ronald Holmes, president of Pulse Asia, pointed to economic pressures: “Continuing increase in prices of basic commodities and services and unfulfilled promise of reducing these,” he said, as per Reuters. It doesn’t help that Marcos has bumbled from one false start to another in addressing the price crunch. 

The most farcical so far is certainly the rice price cap which Marcos instituted a month ago, before ditching it this week. “We are lifting the price cap, but we are taking other measures to help our farmers in terms of their equipment, their processing,” Marcos said at a rice distribution event in Manila on Wednesday, as reported by Nikkei Asia. The plan had been deeply unpopular, with former supporters vocally criticising the policy online as bad economics. 

“People are having a hard time. The rice issue — that is a burden really. It’s a different story when it comes to rice. It’s different from anything else, from any other agricultural product. I completely understand it,” he said at the same event, as per Manila Bulletin. He added he wasn’t surprised by the polling results: “That’s why we’re working very, very hard — not because of the survey, that’s not important to me. What’s important to me is that we make sure that people have enough to eat and that it is affordable to them.”

Filipino drag queen Pura Luka Vega was arrested Wednesday over a controversial act depicting Jesus and reciting the Lord’s Prayer. The offence is officially “immoral doctrines, obscene publications and exhibitions and indecent shows,” according to an arrest warrant and reported by BBC. “I understand that people call my performance blasphemous, offensive, or regrettable. However, they shouldn't tell me how I practice my faith or how I do my drag,” Pura Luka Vega said. Here, here! 

🇹🇱 Timor takes a stand

Fantastic piece here from the Washington Post looking at how and why Timor-Leste is such a great supporter of the people’s movement in Myanmar. 

Dili has upgraded relations with China to a comprehensive strategic partnership on the sidelines of the Asia Games. This set off a flurry of histrionics from the usual geniuses in Australia who seemed to have been under the impression that famously independent Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta would do whatever Canberra wanted for reasons that have never really been clear. Never mind that Australia has a comprehensive strategic partnership with China, too. 

“Should we wear badges proclaiming our enduring love for Australia? But even then, would the over jealous Australian media stop accusing us, poor Timor-Leste, of being ungrateful [and] pro-China?” Ramos-Horta told the Guardian via WhatsApp. 

🇸🇬 Money, money, money

Heaps of finance news this week. More arrests should be coming, Singapore vowed this week after the August raids netted 10 suspects of financial crimes. Police arrested Su Zhu, a co-founder of ​​crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, at Changi last week. The fund is one of the most high-profile to have collapsed in the crypto reckoning of last year, Reuters reports. Zurich, Hong Kong or Singapore? 

Cabinet ministers K. Shanmugam and Vivian Balakrishnan are suing Lee Hsien Yang, the brother of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and an at times vocal critic of the government. Lee had commented on the Ridout Road bungalow rental scandal a few months back, alleging the “two ministers have leased state-owned mansions from the agency that one of them controls, felling trees and getting state-sponsored renovations,” the Straits Times reports. 

For his part, Lee wants to know why the case is being brought in Singapore and not the UK, where he lives and made the comments. “What Mr Lee really wants is special treatment. He wants to be treated differently from Singaporeans (and even foreigners) who are sued in Singapore for defamation,” Minister for Home Affairs and Law Shanmugam said. Yikes, this sounds messy.