Updated, March 2, midnight:
Ah, what a coincidence! Hours after I published the original posting below, one of the corporations implicated by the Sarawak Report in its half-baked article lodged a police report in London for defamation. Here's hoping that 1MDB will have the courage to do the same to protect its integrity and pride.
PETROSAUDI LODGES POLICE REPORT AGAINST WEBSITE’S ALLEGATIONS
March 2, 2015 (Rakyat Post) – PetroSaudi Investments Limited has lodged a police report in connection with allegations made by a website on the firm’s relationship with Malaysia’s strategic development company, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
The report was lodged with the city of London Police Action Fraud Unit at the National Fraud and Cyber Crime Reporting Centre at 3.45pm UK time (March 1).
Sources close to the company told The Rakyat Post that the police report was filed in relation to a series of articles by the Sarawak Report website, including one entitled “Heist of the Century — How Jho Low Used PetroSaudi As ‘A Front’ To Siphon Billions Out Of 1MDB!”.
READ MORE H E R E
Original Article, March 2, before 9 am
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| Eating out of her hand, are we? A scene from Fifty Shades of Grey |
Half truths and "full e-mail".Clare Rewcastle Brown's anti-Taib Mahmud portal, the Sarawak Report, made its mark NOT because it was purportedly championing the cause against corruption and the Sarawak ex-Chief Minister but because of the hell-with-your-ethics way it was going about doing it. It relied a lot on half truths and dubious spins. That was the reason for its notoriety, and why most of us professional scribes didn't waste our time on its so-called exposes.
Now, however, the news portal seems to have found a new lease of life - and legion of fans - by dropping Taib Mahmud and focusing, instead, on the purported corruption of the Prime Minister Najib Razak, his wife and 1MDB.
Suddenly those who didn't give a damn about Sarawak Report are quoting from it, eating out from Ms Brown's hands.
Fortunately, a few still keep their sobriety. Read Life of Annie's 1MDB on the right track and Haresh Deol's All about 1MDB in one day. And Lim Sian See, the prolific Facebooker, has theFULL E-MAIL saying that,
"Sarawak Report just took parts of it and spin ...".
Wallahualam.
But I agree with Annie, there seems to be a bit more effort on the part of 1MDB to engage its critics since the arrival of new boss Arul Kanda. At the very least, the interested ordinary man and woman on the street are getting answers to their basic questions, too.
"They should do more though as the attack against them are not going to cease any time soon."
Me, I've found it hard to blog about the matter simply because the people at 1MDB have not been too forthcoming in engaging the bloggers. Or perhaps they don't trust us, in which case I can't blame them and I couldn't care less. But now that the Sarawak Report is the champion of this cause ...
Additional reading: STUNNING INDICTMENT OF SARAWAK REPORT