VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Mar. 4 - Malaysian police said on Wednesday it was investigating the husband of the country’s former central bank head for allegedly receiving funds linked to 1MDB, a state fund at the centre of a massive corruption scandal.

Malaysian and U.S authorities have said around $4.5 billion was stolen from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), in a globe-spanning scandal that has implicated the country’s former prime minister, U.S. investment firm Goldman Sachs, and others.

Tawfiq Ayman, the husband of former Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz, is facing a money laundering investigation over the alleged transfer of 1MDB-linked funds into a bank account he owns in Singapore, Malaysian police said on Wednesday.

“Given that the case investigation involves evidence in Malaysia and other countries, the Royal Malaysian Police is taking further action by seeking mutual legal assistance... to obtain statements from abroad,” commercial crime investigations director Zainuddin Yaacob said in a statement.

A representative for Zeti and Tawfiq did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

When asked about the police probe, BNM referred to a statement that it disclosed all information received from foreign financial intelligence units to the relevant domestic law enforcement agencies.

Malaysian financial daily The Edge reported on Saturday that BNM had been alerted in 2015 and 2016 during Zeti’s tenure as governor about suspicious transactions involving a company owned by Tawfiq and the couple’s son.

The funds came from accounts linked to fugitive financier Jho Low, The Edge reported, citing official documents it had sighted. Reuters has not independently verified the report.

Low, who has consistently denied wrongdoing, is wanted in the United States and Malaysia over his alleged central role in the 1MDB theft.

Malaysia said on Wednesday audit firm Deloitte will pay the government $80 million to resolve claims related to its auditing of 1MDB’s accounts between 2011 and 2014. (Reuters)

Mar. 4 - Bangladesh is moving nearly 4,000 more Rohingya Muslim refugees to a remote Bay of Bengal island, officials said on Wednesday, despite complaints from rights groups concerned about the site’s vulnerability to storms and flooding.

Dhaka has relocated more than 10,000 people to Bhasan Char island since early December from border camps where more than a million refugees live in ramshackle huts perched on razed hillsides.

“Today 2,254 Rohingya people arrived and tomorrow we are expecting 1,700 plus,” Navy official Rashed Sattar said from the island.

Bangladesh says the relocation is voluntary, but some refugees from the first group that went there in early December spoke of being coerced.

The government has dismissed safety concerns over the island, citing the building of flood defences as well as housing for 100,000 people, hospitals and cyclone centres.

It also says overcrowding in refugee camps fuels crime, while some Rohingya said frequent violence in the camps had driven them to relocate.

Once they arrive on Bhasan Char, the Rohingya, a minority group who fled violence in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, are not allowed to leave the island, which is several hours’ journey from the southern port of Chittagong.

Bangladesh has also drawn criticism for a reluctance to consult with the United Nations refugee agency and other aid bodies over the transfers.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees says the agency has not been allowed to evaluate the safety and sustainability of life on the island.

“The process of relocating the Rohingya will continue... they are going there voluntarily for a better life,” Mohammad Shamsud Douza, the deputy Bangladesh government official in charge of refugees, said by phone from Cox’s Bazaar in southeastern Bangladesh.

“Our main priority is repatriating them to their homeland,” he said.

Bangladesh has called on Myanmar to move forward the stalled process of voluntarily repatriating Rohingya refugees, as international pressure mounts on the military leaders following a coup that reduces the refugees’ hopes of returning home.

“How long will we stay here under tarpaulins?,” said a 39-year-old refugee who moved on Wednesday with his family. “The little hope we had of returning to our homeland was shattered after the coup.” (Reuters)

Mar. 4 - The International Criminal Court prosecutor said on Wednesday her office will formally investigate war crimes in the Palestinian Territories, a move welcomed by the Palestinian Authority and denounced by Israel.

The decision follows a ruling by the court on Feb. 5 that it has jurisdiction in the case, prompting swift rejections by Washington and Jerusalem.

“The decision to open an investigation followed a painstaking preliminary examination undertaken by my office that lasted close to five years,” Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a statement.

Promising a “principled, non-partisan, approach”, she said: “In the end, our central concern must be for the victims of crimes, both Palestinian and Israeli, arising from the long cycle of violence and insecurity that has caused deep suffering and despair on all sides.”

Bensouda, who will be replaced by British prosecutor Karim Khan on June 16, said in December 2019 that war crimes had been or were being committed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. She named both the Israel Defense Forces and armed Palestinian groups such as Hamas as possible perpetrators.

The next step will be to determine whether Israel or Palestinian authorities have investigations themselves and to assess those efforts.

“LONG-AWAITED STEP”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the court’s decision was “undiluted antisemitism and the height of hypocrisy.”

He accused the court of turning “a blind eye” to Iran, Syria and other countries that he said were committing “real” war crimes.

“Without any jurisdiction, it decided that our brave soldiers, who take every precaution to avoid civilian casualties against the worst terrorists in the world who deliberately target civilians, it’s our soldiers who are war criminals,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said the decision was “morally bankrupt and legally flawed”.

The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry welcomed the prosecutor’s investigation as “a long-awaited step that serves Palestine’s tireless pursuit of justice and accountability, which are indispensable pillars of the peace the Palestinian people seek and deserve”

It urged all states to “refrain from politicizing these independent proceedings.”

George Giacaman, a Palestinian political analyst and professor at Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank, said the ICC decision showed the Palestinian leadership’s strategy of appealing to global institutions had had some success.

While cautioning that the probe could take years, Giacaman said: “At best, one can say that in the future, the Israelis will be more careful with hitting Palestinian civilians. Perhaps the ICC will prove to be a deterrent.”

The Islamist militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza and is regarded as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the United States and European Union, defended its own actions in the conflict.

“We welcome the ICC decision to investigate Israeli occupation war crimes against our people. It is a step forward on the path of achieving justice,” said Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza.

Rights groups said the decision offered victims hope of justice. Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said ICC member countries should be ready to protect the court’s work from any political pressure.The ICC is a court of last resort established to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide when a country is unable or unwilling to do so.

The prosecutor’s office was targeted by sanctions under former U.S. President Donald Trump in response to its investigation in Afghanistan, which is examining the role of U.S. forces.

The pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, urged President Joe Biden to maintain the sanctions on ICC officials pursuing what it called “illegitimate, politically motivated investigations into the U.S. and Israel.” (Reuters)

Mar. 4 - Chris Murray, a University of Washington disease expert whose projections on COVID-19 infections and deaths are closely followed worldwide, is changing his assumptions about the course of the pandemic.

Murray had until recently been hopeful that the discovery of several effective vaccines could help countries achieve herd immunity, or nearly eliminate transmission through a combination of inoculation and previous infection. But in the last month, data from a vaccine trial in South Africa showed not only that a rapidly-spreading coronavirus variant could dampen the effect of the vaccine, it could also evade natural immunity in people who had been previously infected.

“I couldn’t sleep” after seeing the data, Murray, director of the Seattle-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, told Reuters. “When will it end?” he asked himself, referring to the pandemic. He is currently updating his model to account for variants’ ability to escape natural immunity and expects to provide new projections as early as this week.

A new consensus is emerging among scientists, according to Reuters interviews with 18 specialists who closely track the pandemic or are working to curb its impact. Many described how the breakthrough late last year of two vaccines with around 95% efficacy against COVID-19 had initially sparked hope that the virus could be largely contained, similar to the way measles has been.

But, they say, data in recent weeks on new variants from South Africa and Brazil has undercut that optimism. They now believe that SARS-CoV-2 will not only remain with us as an endemic virus, continuing to circulate in communities, but will likely cause a significant burden of illness and death for years to come.

As a result, the scientists said, people could expect to continue to take measures such as routine mask-wearing and avoiding crowded places during COVID-19 surges, especially for people at high risk.

Even after vaccination, “I still would want to wear a mask if there was a variant out there,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to U.S. President Joe Biden, said in an interview. “All you need is one little flick of a variant (sparking) another surge, and there goes your prediction” about when life gets back to normal.

Some scientists, including Murray, acknowledge that the outlook could improve. The new vaccines, which have been developed at record speed, still appear to prevent hospitalizations and death even when new variants are the cause of infection. Many vaccine developers are working on booster shots and new inoculations that could preserve a high level of efficacy against the variants. And, scientists say there is still much to be learned about the immune system’s ability to combat the virus.

Already, COVID-19 infection rates have declined in many countries since the start of 2021, with some dramatic reductions in severe illness and hospitalizations among the first groups of people to be vaccinated. (Reuters)