The Swiss NGO Bruno Manser Fund (BMF) had its website brought down by a cyber-attack today, 26th February. The ‘break-in’ appeared to be a highly professional hack, according to the NGO’s web-team and it comes at a crucial moment politically for Taib Mahmud, who is facing a local and international campaign for a Clean Governor, […]
SPECIAL INVESTIGATION The out-going Chief Minister, Taib Mahmud, has worked hard to keep at bay revelations about his family’s involvement in the Japanese timber export kickback scandal, which erupted in 2007. However, the facts of the case are laid out in Japanese tax tribunal judgements, which are available to public scrutiny. Sarawak Report has now
Sarawak Report has learnt that the Taib crony timber company Samling has started stripping bare reserved native timber areas in Baram, in apparent anticipation that the region will be flooded by the proposed Baram Dam. This is despite the fact that the relevant impact assessments have not been completed and the project has yet to receive
There is a two week window of opportunity that has just opened up for Malaysia’s Prime Minister to do something about his most embarrassing international liability, the Chief Minister of Sarawak, Abdul Taib Mahmud. The scandal-torn kleptocrat has formally handed in his resignation, due to come into effect at the end of this short month
On the eve of Taib’s bid to escape into the supposed immunity of the governor’s office, Sarawak Report can reveal an astonishing new document that clearly links him to the Japanese timber export scandal that broke in 2007. The scandal involved millions of ringgit that were paid by Japanese timber exporters from Sarawak to a
The fact that Taib did not move swiftly and decisively in his bid to grab the governorship is a sign of a weaker position than he would like All this dithering and delay over announcing the details of his move and successor means that he is still negotiating desperately with BN to shore up a
After hiding the past few days Taib Mahmud has made another of his non-announcements. He has announced that he will make a real announcement next week about what he plans to do about his future. For the umpteenth time we are told the Chief Minister has agreed he will retire, this time at a PBB
Every piece of investment information that comes out of the so-called SCORE project (Sarawak Corridor Of Renewable Energy) appears to have one thing in common. It boosts the wealth of Chief Minister Taib Mahmud and his family. In fact, the most obvious motivation behind the entire state-backed project is to enrich this family further and
The Sarawak oil palm industry has shown its true colours with its recent vitriolic attack on the Indonesian company Wilmar, which has announced that it intends to reform practices that have been destructive to the environment. It is clear from the press release that they issued at the end of last week that nothing matters
The indigenous language radio station Radio Free Sarawak broke the news today that the community of Murum Penan, resettled by Sarawak Energy, are making emergency calls to say they are now cut off by the dam’s rising waters and running out of food supplies. It was the same day that it emerged that the Norwegian
On 19th December three four wheel drive vehicles were loaded with Sarawak Energy personnel and several tens of thousands of ringgit in cash (RM50 notes). They then made their way up to 33 villages in the Baram area, a region fraught with conflict over the company’s planned dam building programme. On arrival, according to testimony
Hundreds rallied in different cities across Sarawak this week to mark International Human Rights Day. The show of colour and the peaceful nature of the protest were both very typical. But, if strongman Taib Mahmud still bothers about what his people think, it should have worried him.
A popular Canadian satirical magazine has set its sights on Canada’s ‘richest woman’, Jamilah Taib. Frank Magazine is known for its scathing, if light-hearted, tone and it does not spare the Chief Minister’s daughter and her Canadian husband Sean Murray. In particular, it examines the evidence that their wealth is based on Taib’s plundering of
Just days after the Chief Minister announced in the State Parliament that he would “not pay a sen more” to the Penan of Murum we can reveal how Sarawak Energy officials BRIBED the blockading families to give up their protests! At the same time they BLACKMAILED them with threats….
A major advertising campaign is getting underway to entice British tourists to Malaysia. But, over the coming months Sarawak Report will be pointing out that it is a shocking con. Because, it is luring tourists with false images of the Borneo Jungle!
Question No 2 in the Frequently Asked Questions guide about their Modular Housing by Cayha Mata Sarawak Berhad (CMS) has an unequivocal reply. In response to “What guarantees are given to the customer?” it answers “The structural integrity of the system is fully guaranteed and customers are furnished with a ten (10) year warranty”. Such claims
Once again local people in Sarawak have been forced to come out and protest against a greedy and un-regulated land grab. Once again a place of great natural beauty and enormous scientific importance is under threat. And once again it is the greedy Taib family who are behind the raid on one of Sarawak’s most
Sarawak Report has investigated how members of the Taib family started cashing-in on the Bandar Samariang project, straight after the Chief Minister had placed the vast 5,200 acre site into the hands of his own company CMS. The rip off has caused untold misery to poor house buyers, who have been left with sub-standard homes
The Taib family company CMS proudly boasts of its “vast land bank” in its annual reports and has started selling off chunks for tens of millions in Kuching. Commercial centres and grand housing estates are also being developed in two key areas, Bandar Samariang, where CMS has 5,200 acres, valued around half a billion
Shocking disrespect towards one of Sarawak’s most treasured historical figures has come to light, with this image of a Rajah Brooke memorial cross, plucked from its position outside the Governor’s Mansion in Kuching and dumped in a junk heap. The white marble cross had stood in front of the Astana, as a memorial to three
This weekend the government religious department, Jakim, which operates out of the Prime Minister’s own office, issued a sermon to be read in all mosques condemning “liberal forces” on the internet, which it alleged were plotting to undermine Islam. Sarawak contributes a major proportion of the cost of this bloated Prime Minister’s Department and it
The term ‘Dayak’ has been pronounced a non-word by state ordinance, on the basis that the tribal people of Sarawak should no longer be encouraged to think of themselves as a nation, but only as groups to be divided and ruled. Yet, how else to collectively describe the native people, who are surrendering up their
Do we believe what the Penan Penghulu said he told Sarawak Energy’s Torstein Sjotveit: “Once you get back to Kuching or Kuala Lumpur you can tell the Chief Minister or the Prime Minister bring all your soldiers and weapons and kill all the Penan of this area”. … then you can go ahead and build
Sarawak Energy made a great presentation to the United Nations in Geneva last month, boasting about their plans to resettle the Penan, after forcing them from their homeland in Murum to make way for the latest controversial dam project. It seemed they were going to be moved from a deprived existence (true, especially since Taib
