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Malaysian ex-PM Najib’s jail term halved to six years

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, center, wearing a face mask, waves as he arrives at the Court of Appeal in Putrajaya, Malaysia on Aug. 23, 2022. Malaysia’s Pardons Board said Friday it has reduced ex-Prime Minister Najib Razak’s 12-year jail sentence by half and sharply cut the fine imposed after his corruption conviction. (AP file photo)
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, center, wearing a face mask, waves as he arrives at the Court of Appeal in Putrajaya, Malaysia on Aug. 23, 2022. Malaysia’s Pardons Board said Friday it has reduced ex-Prime Minister Najib Razak’s 12-year jail sentence by half and sharply cut the fine imposed after his corruption conviction. (AP file photo)
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Updated 03 February 2024
AFP
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Malaysian ex-PM Najib’s jail term halved to six years

Malaysian ex-PM Najib’s jail term halved to six years
  • The 70-year-old, who was prime minister from 2009 to 2018, had claimed he did not receive a fair hearing, alleging that a judge had a conflict of interest and that his new legal team was not allowed enough time to study the case documents
Updated 03 February 2024
AFP
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KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s pardons board said on Friday it had halved the jail term for former Prime Minister Najib Razak, currently in prison for corruption, to six years.
Najib was sentenced in 2022 to 12 years in jail for offenses linked to the misuse of public money in the multibillion-dollar 1MDB financial scandal.
“After considering opinions and advice ... the pardon board has decided to grant a 50 percent reduction for the sentence and fine imposed on Najib Razak,” it said in a statement.
The board, which was chaired by Malaysia’s former king, Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah, and also included the attorney general, met on Monday — two days before the king handed the rotational throne to a successor.
The board did not give any other reasons for its decision.

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Hashd Al-Shaabi encompasses dozens of groups and more than 160,000 members.

It said Najib would be released in 2028 and his fine reduced to 50 million ringgit ($10.6 million).
An additional year would be added to his jail term if he failed to pay the fine, the board said.
Najib’s lawyers and government officials could not be reached for comment.
Following a lengthy trial Najib was found guilty in 2020 of abuse of power, money laundering and criminal breach of trust over the transfer of 42 million ringgit ($8.9 million) from former 1MDB unit SRC International to his personal bank account.
His bid to overturn the prison sentence was rejected by Malaysia’s top court.
The 70-year-old, who was prime minister from 2009 to 2018, had claimed he did not receive a fair hearing, alleging that a judge had a conflict of interest and that his new legal team was not allowed enough time to study the case documents.
He was ousted from power at the polls in 2018 by an opposition alliance of Malaysia’s political patriarch Mahathir Mohamad amid anger over the scandal.
The king wields the power to pardon convicted figures. In 2018, Sultan Muhammad V pardoned then-opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who had served a jail sentence for sodomy.
Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement where the throne changes hands every five years between rulers of the nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty.
The role of the king in Malaysia is accorded considerable prestige, particularly among the country’s Malay Muslim majority.
Najib, whose wife Rosmah Mansor was found guilty of graft in 2022, possibly faces dozens more charges.
Most of them are related to his alleged role in the 1MDB scandal, which led to money-laundering investigations around the world, including in the United States, Switzerland and Singapore.
The allegations that billions of dollars were pilfered from 1MDB — and used to buy everything from a superyacht to artwork— played a major role in Najib’s ouster and the defeat of his long-ruling party in the 2018 elections.

 

Topics: Malaysia Najib Razak

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Russian missile strike on central Ukraine kills 4: Zelensky

Updated 10 sec ago
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Russian missile strike on central Ukraine kills 4: Zelensky

Russian missile strike on central Ukraine kills 4: Zelensky
Updated 10 sec ago
More than a dozen others were wounded, including a child
“A rescue operation is currently underway in the Dnipro region,” Zelensky said

KYIV: A Russian missile strike on a town in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region on Saturday killed at least four people, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
More than a dozen others were wounded, including a child, while a residential building and shop were damaged, according to officials.
“A rescue operation is currently underway in the Dnipro region after the missile strike. As of now, it is known that four people were killed,” Zelensky said in his evening address.
Tsarychanka is about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the region’s capital Dnipro.
The town had a population of around 7,000 people before the war.
The nearly three-year conflict has seen a sharp escalation in recent days, with Moscow pummelling Ukrainian towns and cities ahead of the winter.
Russia launched more than a hundred drones at Ukraine on Friday, a day after knocking out power to more than a million people with strikes on energy infrastructure.

Zelensky says NATO offer for Ukraine-controlled territory could end ‘hot stage’ of war

Zelensky says NATO offer for Ukraine-controlled territory could end ‘hot stage’ of war
Updated 30 November 2024
AP
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Zelensky says NATO offer for Ukraine-controlled territory could end ‘hot stage’ of war

Zelensky says NATO offer for Ukraine-controlled territory could end ‘hot stage’ of war
  • “You can’t give an invitation to just one part of a country,” the Ukrainian president said
  • “So legally, by law, we have no right to recognize the occupied territory as territory of Russia”
Updated 30 November 2024
AP

KYIV: An offer of NATO membership to territory under Kyiv’s control would end “the hot stage of the war” in Ukraine, but any proposal to join the military alliance should be extended to all parts of the country that fall under internationally recognized borders, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a broadcast interview.
Zelensky’s remarks on Friday signaled a possible way forward to the difficult path Ukraine faces to future NATO membership. At their summit in Washington in July, the 32 members declared Ukraine on an “irreversible” path to membership. However, one obstacle to moving forward has been the view that Ukraine’s borders would need to be clearly demarcated before it could join so that there can be no mistaking where the alliance’s pact of mutual defense would come into effect.
“You can’t give an invitation to just one part of a country,” the Ukrainian president said in an excerpt of the interview with Sky News, dubbed by the UK broadcaster. “Why? Because thus you would recognize that Ukraine is only that territory of Ukraine and the other one is Russia.”
Under the Ukrainian constitution, Ukraine cannot recognize territory occupied by Russia as Russian.
“So legally, by law, we have no right to recognize the occupied territory as territory of Russia,” he said.
Since the start of the war in 2022, Russia has been expending huge amounts of weaponry and human life to make small-but-steady territorial gains to the nearly one-fifth of Ukraine it already controls in east and southern Ukraine.
“If we want to stop the hot stage of the war, we should take under the NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control. That’s what we need to do, fast. And then Ukraine can get back the other part of its territory diplomatically,” he said.
An invitation for Ukraine to join NATO is one key point of Zelensky’s “victory plan”, which he presented to Western allies and the Ukrainian people in October. The plan is seen as a way for Ukraine to strengthen its hand in any negotiations with Moscow.
Earlier this week, NATO’s new Secretary General Mark Rutte said that the alliance “needs to go further” to support Ukraine in its fight against a Russian invasion. Military aid to Kyiv and steps toward ending the war are expected to be high on the agenda when NATO members’ foreign ministers meet in Brussels for a two-day gathering starting on December 3.
However, any decision for Ukraine to join the military alliance would require a lengthier process and the agreement of all member states.
There is also uncertainty as to the foreign policy stance of President-elect Donald Trump. While Trump vowed on the campaign trail to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a single day, he has not publicly discussed how this could happen. Trump also announced Wednesday that Keith Kellogg, an 80-year-old, highly decorated retired three-star general, would serve as his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.
In April, Kellog wrote that “bringing the Russia-Ukraine war to a close will require strong, America First leadership to deliver a peace deal and immediately end the hostilities between the two warring parties.”
Meanwhile, during his only campaign debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump twice refused to directly answer a question about whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war — raising concerns that Kyiv could be forced to accept unfavorable terms in any negotiations.
Zelensky’s statement comes as Ukraine faces increasing pressure along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) frontline. In its latest report, the Washington-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War said Saturday that Russian forces had recently advanced near Kupiansk, in Toretsk, and near Pokrovsk and Velyka Novosilka, a key logistics route for the Ukrainian military.
Ukraine’s air force announced Saturday that the country had come under attack from ten Russian drones, of which eight were shot down over the Kyiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kherson regions. One drone returned to Russian-occupied territory, while the final drone disappeared from radar, often a sign of the use of electronic defenses.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry said that 11 Ukrainian drones had been shot down by the country’s air defense systems. Both the mayor of Sochi, Andrey Proshunin, and the head of Russia’s Dagestan region, Sergey Melikov, both in Russia’s southwest, said that drones had been destroyed in their regions overnight. No casualties were reported.
On Friday, the Ukrainian president announced a number of changes to military leadership, saying that changes in personnel management were needed to improve the situation on the battlefield.
General Mykhailo Drapatyi, who led the defense of Kharkiv during Russia’s new offensive on Ukraine’s second-largest city this year, was appointed the new head of Ukraine’s Ground Forces. Oleh Apostol was named as the new Deputy Commander-in-Chief responsible for improving military training.
Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi also announced Friday that he would bolster units in Donetsk, Pokrovsk and Kurakhove with additional reserves, ammunition, weapons and military equipment.

Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict NATO Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky

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North Korean leader calls for expanding his nuclear forces in the face of alleged US threats

North Korean leader calls for expanding his nuclear forces in the face of alleged US threats
Updated 30 November 2024
AP
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North Korean leader calls for expanding his nuclear forces in the face of alleged US threats

North Korean leader calls for expanding his nuclear forces in the face of alleged US threats
  • Kim Jong Un condemns the US for updating its nuclear deterrence strategies with South Korea
  • He also criticized American support of Ukraine against a prolonged Russian invasion
Updated 30 November 2024
AP
SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un renewed his call for a “limitless” expansion of his military nuclear program to counter US-led threats in comments reported Monday that were his first direct criticism toward Washington since Donald Trump’s win in the US presidential election.
At a conference with army officials on Friday, Kim condemned the United States for updating its nuclear deterrence strategies with South Korea and solidifying three-way military cooperation involving Japan, which he portrayed as an “Asian NATO” that was escalating tensions and instability in the region.
Kim also criticized the United States over its support of Ukraine against a prolonged Russian invasion. He insisted that Washington and its Western allies were using Ukraine as their “shock troops” to wage a war against Moscow and expand the scope of US military influence, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said.
Kim has prioritized his country’s ties to Russia in recent months, embracing the idea of a “new Cold War” and displaying a united front in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s broader conflicts with the West.
He has used Russia’s war on Ukraine as a distraction to accelerate the development of his nuclear-armed military, which now has various nuclear-capable systems targeting South Korea and intercontinental ballistic missiles that can potentially reach the US mainland.
Kim has yet to directly acknowledge that he has been providing military equipment and troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine and the KCNA’s report didn’t mention whether Kim made any comments toward Trump, whose election win has yet to be reported in the North’s state media.
Kim met Trump three times in 2018 and 2019 in Trump’s first presidency, but their diplomacy quickly collapsed over disagreements in exchanging the release of US-led sanctions and North Korean steps to wind down its nuclear and missile program. North Korea has since suspended any meaningful talks with Washington and Seoul as Kim ramped up his testing activity and military demonstrations in the face of what he portrayed as “gangster-like US threats.” There’s concern in Seoul that Kim in exchange for his military support of Russia would receive Russian technology in return to further develop his arsenal.
Trump’s election win has touched off speculation about a resumption of a summit-driven diplomacy with Kim, which was described by critics as a “bromance.” But some experts say a quick return to 2018 is highly unlikely, as too much has changed about the regional security situation and broader geopolitics since then.
While the North Korean nuclear problem was relatively an independent issue during Trump’s first term, it is now connected with broader challenges created by Russia’s war on Ukraine and further complicated by weakened sanctions enforcement against Pyongyang, Hwang Ildo, a professor at South Korea’s National Diplomatic Academy, wrote in a study last week.
North Korea’s nuclear and missile program is now much more advanced, which would increase Kim’s perception of his bargaining powers. Kim’s efforts to boost North Korea’s presence in a united front against Washington could also gain strength if Trump spikes tariffs and rekindles a trade war with China, the North’s main ally and economic lifeline, Hwang said.
Amid the stalemate in larger nuclear negotiations with Washington, Kim has been dialing up pressure on South Korea, abandoning his country’s long-standing goal of inter-Korean reconciliation and verbally threatening to attack the South with nukes if provoked.
Kim has also engaged in psychological and electronic warfare against South Korea, such as flying thousands of balloons to drop trash in the South and disrupting GPS signals from border areas near the South’s biggest airport.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea again flew trash-laden balloons toward the South early Monday and issued a statement warning the North “not to test our military’s patience any further.” The North has launched about 7,000 balloons toward the South since May, causing property damage but so far no injuries. On at least two occasions, trash carried by North Korea’s balloons fell on Seoul’s presidential compound, raising concerns about the vulnerability of key sites.

Georgian president declares parliament illegitimate amid pro-EU protests

Georgian president declares parliament illegitimate amid pro-EU protests
Updated 57 min 12 sec ago
Reuters
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Georgian president declares parliament illegitimate amid pro-EU protests

Georgian president declares parliament illegitimate amid pro-EU protests
  • The South Caucasus country was thrown into crisis on Thursday, when Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze’s Georgian Dream party said it was halting European Union accession talks
  • Zourabichvili, a pro-EU critic of Georgian Dream whose powers are mostly ceremonial, said parliament had no right to elect her successor when her term ends in December
Updated 57 min 12 sec ago
Reuters

TBILISI: Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili called the government illegitimate on Saturday and said she would not leave office when her term ends next month, as the prime minister said the state would not allow a revolution to take place.
The South Caucasus country was thrown into crisis on Thursday, when Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze’s Georgian Dream party said it was halting European Union accession talks for the next four years over what it called “blackmail” of Georgia by the bloc, abruptly reversing a long-standing national goal.
EU membership is overwhelmingly popular in Georgia and the freezing of application talks triggered large protests in the country, which has the aim of EU membership written into its constitution.
In an address on Saturday, Zourabichvili, a pro-EU critic of Georgian Dream whose powers are mostly ceremonial, said parliament had no right to elect her successor when her term ends in December, and that she would stay in post.
Zourabichvili and other government critics say an Oct. 26 election, in which Georgian Dream won almost 54 percent of the vote, was fraudulent, and that the parliament it elected is illegitimate.
“There is no legitimate parliament, and therefore, an illegitimate parliament cannot elect a new president. Thus, no inauguration can take place, and my mandate continues until a legitimately elected parliament is formed,” she said.
Earlier, Kobakhidze accused opponents of the halt to EU accession of plotting a revolution, along the lines of Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan protest, which ousted a pro-Russian president.
“In Georgia, the Maidan scenario cannot be realized. Georgia is a state, and the state will not, of course, permit this,” Kobakhidze was quoted as saying by local media.
The country’s Interior Ministry said on Saturday it had detained 107 people in the capital, Tbilisi, overnight during a protest which saw demonstrators build barricades along the central Rustaveli Avenue, and throw fireworks at riot police, who used water cannon and tear gas to disperse them.

MORE PROTESTERS GATHER
Many thousands of protesters were gathering on Saturday night in Tbilisi, amid a large presence of riot police.
Hundreds of employees of Georgia’s foreign, defense, justice and education ministries, along with the country’s central bank have signed open letters condemning the decision to freeze talks.
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, a star of Georgia’s national soccer team spoke out in favor of the protesters.
“My country hurts, my people hurt — it’s painful and emotional to watch the videos that are circulating, stop the violence and aggression! Georgia deserves Europe today more than ever!” Kvaratskhelia wrote on Facebook on Saturday.
The halt to EU accession caps months of deteriorating relations between Georgian Dream, which has faced allegations of authoritarian and pro-Russian tendencies, and the West.
The party is dominated by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire ex-prime minister who had taken increasingly anti-Western positions in the run-up to the October election.
Both the ruling party and Georgia’s electoral commission say the poll was free and fair. Western countries have called for an investigation into violations.
The EU had already said Georgia’s application was stalled over laws against “foreign agents” and LGBT rights that it has described as draconian and pro-Russian.
Meanwhile, Georgian Dream has moved to build ties with neighboring Russia, from which Georgia gained independence in 1991.
The two countries have no diplomatic ties since a brief war over a Moscow-backed rebel region in 2008, but restored direct flights in 2023, while Moscow lifted visa restrictions on Georgian nationals earlier this year.

Topics: Georgia European Union

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Indigenous Australian lawmaker who heckled King Charles censured

Indigenous Australian lawmaker who heckled King Charles censured
Updated 30 November 2024
AFP
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Indigenous Australian lawmaker who heckled King Charles censured

Indigenous Australian lawmaker who heckled King Charles censured
  • Independent senator Lidia Thorpe’s censure carries no practical punishment but passed the Senate Monday with 46 votes in favor and 12 against
Updated 30 November 2024
AFP
SYDNEY: An Indigenous lawmaker was censured by Australia’s parliament Monday for heckling King Charles about the legacy of European settlement during his October visit to Canberra.
The censure carries no practical punishment but passed the Senate Monday with 46 votes in favor and 12 against.
During the king’s visit to parliament, independent senator Lidia Thorpe screamed: “This is not your land, you are not my king,” decrying what she said was a “genocide” of Indigenous Australians by European settlers.
She also turned her back on the king as dignitaries stood for the national anthem.
The censure motion condemned Thorpe’s actions as “disruptive and disrespectful.”
It also said the Senate no longer regarded it “appropriate” for Thorpe to be a member of any delegation “during the life of this parliament.”
A censure motion is a symbolic gesture when parliamentarians are dissatisfied with the behavior of one of their own.
Thorpe – sporting a gold chain with ‘Not My King’ around her neck – said she did not “give a damn” about the censure and would most likely use the document as “kindling” later in the week.
She told national broadcaster ABC she would “do it again” if the monarch returned.
“I will resist colonization in this country. I swear my allegiance to the real sovereigns of these lands: First Peoples are the real sovereigns,” she said.
Green Senator Mehreen Faruqi voted against Thorpe’s censure, saying the lawmaker was telling Australia’s history “the way she wants to.”
Thorpe is known for her attention-grabbing political stunts and fierce opposition to the monarchy.
When she was sworn into office in 2022, Thorpe raised her right fist as she begrudgingly swore to serve Queen Elizabeth II, who was then Australia’s head of state.
Australia was a British colony for more than 100 years, during which time thousands of Aboriginal Australians were killed and entire communities displaced.
The country gained de facto independence in 1901, but has never become a fully-fledged republic.
King Charles is the current head of state.
The issue of a republic reared its head during the king’s visit Down Under earlier this year, but the issue remains a political non-starter.
A recent poll showed about a third of Australians would like to ditch the monarchy, a third would keep it and a third are ambivalent.
In 1999, Australians narrowly voted against removing the queen, amid a row over whether her replacement would be chosen by members of parliament, not the public.
Topics: Australia King Charles

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