External News

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main challenger Benny Gantz were in a standoff over calls for a unity government on Thursday as election results put the premier’s long tenure at risk.

In a major development following Tuesday’s polls, Netanyahu said he preferred to form a right-wing coalition, but that the results showed it was not possible.

He urged Gantz to join him in forming a unity government instead, and the two men shook hands when they crossed paths at a memorial event later.

But on Thursday afternoon, Gantz made clear that he would have to be prime minister of a unity government, noting that results so far put his centrist Blue and White two seats ahead of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud.

Despite Gantz’s slim lead, neither has an obvious path to forming a majority coalition, and the Blue and White leader has made several calls for a unity government since polls closed on Tuesday.

Netanyahu’s stark admission followed an election which has threatened his status as the country’s longest-serving prime minister – one who also faces possible corruption charges in the weeks ahead.

“During the elections, I called for the establishment of a right-wing government,” Netanyahu said in a video message.

“But unfortunately the election results show that this is not possible.”

He went on to call on Gantz to form a “broad unity government today.”

Speaking to journalists, Gantz said: “The public voted clearly in favour of unity.

“Blue and White has at the time I am speaking won 33 seats, while Netanyahu has not obtained a sufficient majority to form a coalition as he hoped.”

The ex-military chief, who mounted his challenge to Netanyahu without any prior political experience, went on to say: “We will listen to everyone, but we will not accept mandates imposed on us.”

“Blue and White, headed by me, has won the election. Blue and White is the largest party.”

Netanyahu responded with a statement saying he “was surprised and disappointed that at this time Benny Gantz still refuses to respond to my call to meet.”

Loud and clear

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who must choose who will form the next government, welcomed Netanyahu’s call for a unity coalition.

He is due to begin consultations with political parties on Sunday to decide who should form the government.

“I hear, loud and clear, the voices calling for a broad and stable national unity government,” he said at the memorial, held to mark the third anniversary of the death of veteran statesman Shimon Peres.

“And I congratulate you, Mr prime minister, on joining that call this morning.”

Netanyahu appeared to be seeking to seize momentum by announcing his intention to form a unity government and head off attempts to oust him.

Gantz has in the past sought to persuade members of the right-wing Likud to oust Netanyahu as party leader and form a unity government with Blue and White.

But there has so far been no signal that Likud members would be willing to do that, and in his speech following the closure of Tuesday’s polls, Gantz made no such demand.

Official results have not been announced, but Israeli media have reported that Blue and White has 33 parliamentary seats and Likud 31 out of 120, with 97% of the votes counted.

Schticks and tricks

Ex-defence minister Avigdor Lieberman has emerged as a potential kingmaker, with the reported results showing his nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party with eight seats.

On Thursday, he again called for a unity government between his party, Blue and White and Likud, but gave no hint of who he would endorse as prime minister.

Netanyahu should “stop with the political exercises, shticks and tricks,” he said of his former close ally turned nemesis.

“Let’s sit down – you, Benny Gantz and myself – and establish a broad, liberal national government for the future of the State of Israel.”

His “liberal” reference echoed his wish to exclude Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties, which he accuses of seeking to impose religious law on the secular public.

Israel’s newly reunified Arab parties, running together under the Joint List alliance, have also emerged as an important force, with the reported results showing them with 13 seats – the third-largest.

Joint List leader Ayman Odeh could potentially become the country’s first-ever Arab opposition leader if a unity government between Blue and White and Likud is formed.

Rivlin’s consultations beginning Sunday will be the second time he has held them since April.

Netanyahu suffered one of the biggest defeats of his political career after elections that month.

His Likud along with its right-wing and religious allies won a majority, but he failed to form a coalition and opted for a second election rather than risk having Rivlin choose someone else to try.

LONDON: Hollywood star George Clooney on Thursday urged the international community to “step up” as he unveiled a report alleging links between global corporations, tycoons and governments and rampant corruption in South Sudan which has extracted billions of dollars in profits.

Clooney called on the United States and European Union to target those involved and their networks with new and tougher sanctions as his Africa-focused investigative project The Sentry released its latest findings on webs of corruption in the country.

“I believe they should do much more,” he told a news conference in London with his prominent human rights lawyer wife Amal Clooney seated in the front row.

“I don’t know if they can stop it but they can sure make it a lot harder,” said Clooney, a longtime campaigner for human rights in the region, best known for his advocacy in Sudan’s western region of Darfur.

The actor and activist co-founded The Sentry in 2015 with former US official John Prendergast.

Its 64-page report – “The Taking of South Sudan” – accuses multinational corporations and individuals of being “war profiteers” complicit with South Sudanese politicians and military officials in “ravaging the world’s newest nation”.

“Nearly every instance of confirmed or alleged corruption or financial crime in South Sudan examined by The Sentry has involved links to an international corporation, a multinational bank, a foreign government or high-end real estate abroad,” it stated.

Clooney said the profiteers include “Chinese and Malaysian oil giants, British tycoons, and American businessmen”.

“Without their support these atrocities could never have happened at this scale,” he added.

Follow the money

The report accuses Dar Petroleum Corp, the largest multinational oil consortium in South Sudan – led by a Chinese state-owned oil company – of providing “direct support to deadly militias”.

Meanwhile Chinese investors formed a company with South Sudan President Salva Kiir’s daughter and acquired several mining licenses in the country just weeks before the military reportedly drove thousands of people from the land where they held a permit, the research claims.

AFP sought comment from the consortium and the government, but they declined to comment, noting they had not read the report.

The probe also alleged an American arms trafficker tried to sell a trove of weapons to a South Sudanese warlord, and two British citizens formed an oil company with a warlord accused of forcibly recruiting thousands of child soldiers.

It said a US$65 million scandal involving a South Sudanese general and a British tycoon illustrated “the impunity enjoyed by kleptocrats and their international collaborators”.

The Sentry is composed of financial investigators, international human rights lawyers, and regional experts as well as former law enforcement agents, intelligence officers, policymakers, investigative journalists and banking professionals.

It has previously reported on corruption and human rights abuses by South Sudan’s civilian and military leaders, but Clooney said its new strategy was to “follow the money”.

“If you can’t shame them (officials), then you can shame the people who do business with them,” he told reporters.

“You can make it difficult for certain financial institutions to look the other way.

“That can be an effective tool – a much more effective tool than trying to shame a warlord.”

GEORGE TOWN, Sept 20 ― The 140-year-old Penang Town Hall building that fell into disrepair early this year will finally be restored to its former glory in a massive restoration works planned for the end of the year.

Penang Island City Council (MBPP) Mayor Datuk Yew Tung Seang said an open tender was called in August and it ended this month.

“Now the tender applications are being considered by the tender board and should be finalised by the end of this month,” he said.

He said a contractor will soon be appointed and works on the historic building will start by the end of the year.

It is hoped that restoration works on the Grade 1 historic monument will be completed just in time for the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT) 2020 and Techfest 2020 next year.

The Town Hall building was one of the spaces identified to hold one of the programmes in Techfest 2020 in September next year.

The Town Hall building is also one of the buildings that the city council has earmarked for its space to be fully maximised once it is fully restored.

Yew said the city council hoped to fully maximise many of its market complexes and public buildings so that these buildings are not left idle and vacant.

“We have a lot of buildings and complexes that we can make full use of, such as markets that were only in use in the mornings but left empty in the afternoons, so we will try to think of how to introduce other activities in these spaces throughout the day,” he said.

He said this will make full use of the council’s facilities and at the same time spur the local economy.

The Town Hall building was occasionally used as an exhibition space over the years after its last restoration works costing about RM4.5 million back in 2004.

The building was mostly left vacant and had previously housed one of the city council’s departments.

The building was designed by Captain William Innes and was built in 1879, by military engineers of the British Army.

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 20 — The country’s richest 10 per cent controlled nearly half of total income share from 2002 to 2014 with ultra-wealthy Bumiputeras registering a remarkable 8.3 per cent growth in earnings, a recent study on inequality showed.

The study, which aims to determine which ethnicity and class benefited the most from the post-Asian financial crisis period, found a worrying trend of growing inequality in Malaysia, which chief researchers Muhammed Abdul Khalid and Li Yang from the Paris School of Economics said up to now had been severely underestimated.

Muhammed said that the total income share of the bottom half of the population was just half of that controlled by wealthy Malaysians within the same period, with the remaining going to the middle percentiles.

“While the study finds that Malaysia enjoyed inclusive growth during the period 2002 to 2014, interestingly the biggest beneficiary was the rich Bumiputera,” he told Malay Mail.

The Income Inequality and Ethnic Cleavages in Malaysia Evidence from Distributional National Accounts (1984-2014) was the first attempt at measuring inequality in Malaysia by compiling and analysing data obtained from national accounts, surveys, and fiscal data.

The methodology, developed by world-renowned economist Thomas Piketty to measure inequality in his home country of France, seeks to estimate the distribution of pre-tax national income including undistributed profits and other tax-exempt capital income among equal-split adults.

Previous official inequality measurement tools mostly depended on data collected from the Household and Income Expenditure Survey, which some economists found to be unreliable.

Official estimates between 1970 and 2014 stated that the Gini coefficient for Malaysia has dropped considerably from 0.51 in 1970 to 0.401 in 2014, yet calculations by Muhammed and Li Yang show that inequality is underestimated by about 20 per cent.

The new study found that overall income growth had been inclusive with the bottom half of the population having enjoyed the biggest total real income growth at 5.2 per cent during the post-crisis period, while the middle class registered a 4.1 per cent rise.

On the other hand, the top 10 per cent saw their income grow by 2.7 per cent while the country’s wealthiest households registered a 1.6 per cent rise in personal earnings.

Yet, much of that prosperity went to elite Bumiputeras who by 2014 formed a third of the country’s wealthiest households.

The Chinese, which in 2002 make up more than two-thirds of the richest people, saw its share reduced to just over 60 per cent.

Ultrarich Indians also recorded strong growth in personal earnings registering at over 3 per cent.

Muhammed and Li Yang said the disparity within the top income earners reflected the persistent trend of inequality between the three major ethnicities, whereby the Chinese, despite their small numbers, controlled up to a fifth of total income share by 2014.

The Bumiputera, forming nearly 70 per cent of the population, only make up 33 per cent of the adults in the top 1 per cent while the Indians, with a population of just 7 per cent, make up nearly 6 per cent.

“We conclude that in this period, Malaysia’s growth features an inclusive redistribution between income classes, but with a twist between racial groups,” it said.

For Malaysia’s middle class, income grew by 4.1 per cent for all ethnicities by 2014 while it was 5.4 per cent for the Bumiputeras in the bottom half of the population, with the Chinese not far off at 4.9 per cent followed by the Indians at 4.7 per cent.

Comparing this to the ultrarich, the study found that the average growth rate per adult national income for the top 1 per cent Bumiputera grew by 8.3 per cent, while their Indian counterparts raked in a steady rise in earnings’ share at 3.4 per cent.

Chinese wealthy adults, however, were less fortunate. The study found the share of income among the Chinese ultrarich contracted by -0.5 per cent, a finding that starkly differs from claims that this economically “dominant” minority group has continued to pile up wealth over the years. 

The same was found of Chinese in the top 10 upper percentile, which registered an income growth of merely 1.2 per cent. Bumiputera and Indian upper-class income, however, grew by 5.4 and 4.6 per cent respectively.

The study again raises major concerns about the availability of reliable data to impact proper public policy in addressing the problem of inequality, which to date has remained largely underestimated.

Muhammed and Li Yang said there is a “lack of transparency” when it comes to wealth data, hindering policymakers’ ability to formulate adequate policy response.

“The current lack of transparency about income and wealth data in Malaysia — and elsewhere — put serious limits to our collective ability to monitor inequality dynamics and design adequate policy responses,” Muhammed and Li Yang said in their conclusion.

PARIS: After three consecutive last-16 eliminations in the Champions League, Paris St Germain were taking their impressive 3-0 victory over Real Madrid on Wednesday with a large pinch of salt.

In their first Champions League game since Manchester United’s shock 3-1 win in Paris knocked them out last season, PSG were brilliant against the Spanish side, but they know only too well that they still have plenty to prove.

“Before anyone asks a question … If someone asks me if we’re going to win the Champions League, I’m out of here,” Tuchel told a news conference after PSG had crushed 13-time European champions Real in their Group A opener at the Parc des Princes.

The United debacle followed a 5-2 aggregate defeat by Real Madrid in 2018 and a memorable loss to Barcelona in 2017 with a 6-1 defeat at the Camp Nou following a 4-0 home win.

“We did not want to send a message but it is true that we controlled this game, we were well prepared,” PSG centre back Thiago Silva said.

Having spent over €1 billion on players since Qatar Sports Investment took over in 2011, PSG have been expected to win the Champions League but they have fallen spectacularly short in recent seasons.

They are now focused on the first task of getting through to the knockout phase from a group featuring Real, Club Brugge and Galatasaray.

Tuchel’s side were outstanding against Real with Angel Di Maria scoring a double in the absence of the formidable trio of Kylian Mbappe, Edinson Cavani – both injured – and the suspended Neymar.

“Maybe the pressure was not too high on the players because those three were missing,” said Tuchel.

“Without them we were not the favourites and it freed the minds of those who were on the pitch tonight, they did not feel the pressure.”

Although the PSG coach acknowledged he could not afford to miss the “MCN” trio for too long, he was satisfied the rest of the squad made up for their absence.

“We can do without them for a few games if all the others play at their best,” he said.

PSG recruited during the close season, notably bringing in goalkeeper Keylor Navas from Real Madrid and striker Mauro Icardi on loan from Inter Milan.

But it was midfielder Idrissa Gueye, who joined from Everton, who caught the eye on Wednesday, setting up Di Maria for the second goal and working tirelessly.

“Idrissa, it’s incredible. I don’t have the words. I don’t know how many balls he won today,” Silva said.