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Malaysian authorities charged former minister Jamil Khir Baharom for allegedly misappropriating 860 million ringgit ($210 million) from the Muslim pilgrimage fund Tabung Haji, making him the second United Malays National Organisation leader to be charged over the fund in as many weeks.
The political impasse in Malaysia’s government has regressed to a game of chicken, experts say, with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and the former ruling Umno party trading barbs and dares as pressure grows for snap polls with more than a year left to term. Relations between Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition and erstwhile rivals Umno have hit its lowest point since the two sides cut a deal to form a unity government in 2022, after a series of recent state polls that saw PH all but decimated...
Malaysia’s Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi on Friday called for the general election to be held immediately, in the once-dominant Malay party’s clearest indication yet that it was looking beyond the country’s current governing alliance ahead of the next election. The call comes as Umno deepens ties with opposition Islamist party the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), buoyed by recent state victories and growing talk of a new alignment to consolidate the Malay vote. “The time has come for the...
Malaysia’s Pardons Board has postponed discussions on disgraced former leader Najib Razak’s pardon application, days after widespread public outrage over the possibility that he could walk free from his corruption conviction. The country has been in an uproar since it was revealed earlier this week that Najib’s application for clemency was on the agenda of the board’s meeting, chaired by King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar. However, Putrajaya said on Friday the king, constitutionally empowered to grant...
Malaysia’s Umno has been drawn deeper into a royal row in Negeri Sembilan, after the president of the dominant Malay nationalist party denied attending a meeting reportedly linked to a bid to remove the state’s ruler. The controversy has put the new Umno-led state government under pressure barely six weeks after taking office, reviving the same royal crisis that helped bring down its predecessor and force a snap election in August. The episode is particularly sensitive for Umno, which has long...
Former Malaysian pilgrimage fund chairman Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to abusing his position to secure a lucrative corporate post and influence a 193.5 million ringgit (US$47.5 million) investment by the fund. Azeez, 60, a veteran Umno Supreme Council member, is the highest-profile politician to be charged so far in the fallout from a royal inquiry into the state-run savings fund Tabung Haji. Wearing a purple police lock-up uniform and handcuffed as he stood in the...
Malaysia charged senior United Malays National Organisation politician Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim with graft over the management of the country’s Muslim prilgrimage fund, increasing tensions within Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s multi-coalition ruling alliance.
Five people, including medical staff, died after a “flying doctor” service helicopter crashed in Malaysia on Tuesday, authorities and state news agency reports said, as haze from wildfires complicated search efforts. Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad in a statement said initial information showed a pilot and four ministry staff were aboard the chopper that crashed near Sarawak state’s Long Lellang short take-off and landing airport. Among them were a medical officer, an assistant medical...
Malaysia’s reported move to use chips from Chinese tech giant Huawei in its 2 billion ringgit (US$494 million) sovereign AI project could test the export-control commitments it signed with Washington last year, analysts say. The move could complicate Kuala Lumpur’s long-running effort to work with both American and Chinese technology firms, particularly as Washington pushes US AI systems across Southeast Asia. Bloomberg reported on Monday that Malaysia was seriously evaluating Huawei’s Ascend...
Malaysia’s bonds lured record inflows in August on optimism over the impact of the artificial intelligence boom on the Southeast Asian economy.
At Raffly Langi’s family longhouse in Sarawak, on Malaysian Borneo, the tuak rice wine did not come in a branded bottle or a tasting flight. His aunt has brewed the drink for Gawai, the harvest festival celebrated by Dayak communities, an umbrella term for indigenous groups in Sarawak whose longhouses have long been centres of family, rituals and communal life. She made it from steamed glutinous rice and a cake called ragi, prepared with rice flour, yeast and spices to kick-start fermentation....
Malaysia declared an emergency on Friday in a town in Sarawak state on Borneo Island after air pollution breached the country’s emergency-level threshold linked to fires in neighbouring Indonesia. The Air Pollutant Index in Serian, a small agricultural town of just under 90,000 near the border of Indonesia’s Kalimantan province, surged to 521 on Friday, according to Malaysia’s environment department. Sarawak’s much larger capital, Kuching, also showed a hazardous reading of 311. Malaysia’s King...
The son of Malaysia’s king has dismissed a report that a potential tax bill of more than S$2 billion (US$1.6 billion) is complicating his plans to sell 16.6 hectares (41 acres) of land in Singapore, saying he was “more than happy” to absorb levies on both sides of the causeway. “As a regular taxpayer, this is normal. No complication and more than happy to contribute to both countries. Should make it double,” Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim posted on social media on Thursday, hours after the...
Six Malaysian men have been detained in connection with a drug smuggling case involving a 39-year-old Malaysia Airlines pilot detained at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Indonesia. The six were arrested following information obtained during questioning of the pilot by a team of Bukit Aman Narcotics Crime Investigation Department (NCID) officers sent to Jakarta from August 11 to 15. Bukit Aman NCID director Commissioner Hussein Omar Khan said the six had allegedly acted as suppliers and...
Malaysia’s central bank extended a more than year-long pause in interest rates but tweaked its monetary policy statement to remove a reference to its stance as being “appropriate”, in a possible signal that borrowing costs may rise.
The Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) will summon a Malaysian participant in the Miss Equality World 2026 pageant in Thailand for questioning, following the circulation of social media posts. In a statement on Tuesday, Jakim director general Dr Sirajuddin Suhaimee said Jakim would work with state Islamic religious authorities and relevant agencies to take action against the individual in accordance with existing laws and regulations. He said the participant’s involvement in the...
A former Malaysian minister has been remanded for five days as part of an anti-corruption inquiry into the management of the country’s state haj fund. The suspect, who is in his sixties, was detained at about 4.30pm on Tuesday after he went to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) headquarters in Putrajaya to have his statement recorded. MACC confirmed the arrest in a statement on social media but did not release the former minister’s identity. “The arrest was made around 4.30pm and it...