Malaysian court rules ex-PM Najib Razak's trial will proceed in 1MDB case

International News
A Malaysian judge on Monday ordered former Prime Minister Najib Razak to enter a defense at his first corruption trial linked to the massive looting at the 1MDB state investment fund.
Najib said he would testify in his defense when the trial resumes.
High Court Judge Mohamad Nazlan Mohamad Ghazali said the prosecution had established its case on charges of abuse of power, breach of trust and money laundering.The seven charges relate to 42 million ringgit ($10.1 million) that allegedly went into Najib's bank accounts from a former unit of the 1MDB fund.
Najib is charged in four other cases in the scandal that led to his shocking election ouster last year. His wife, several officials from his government, and the US bank Goldman Sachs face charges related to the scandal that led to investigations in several countries.Najib, 66, has denied any wrongdoing and could face years in prison if convicted. The patrician former leader, whose father and uncles were the country's second and third prime ministers respectively, accuses Malaysia's new government of seeking political vengeance.
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, leading an alliance that campaigned on an anti-corruption platform, won a history victory in the May 2018 elections that led to Malaysia's first change of government since independence from Britain in 1957.Mahathir, 94, was premier for 22 years until his retirement in 2003 but made a political comeback amid anger over the 1MDB fiasco. His government soon reopened 1MDB investigations that had been quashed under Najib.

US investigators say Najib's associates pilfered more than $4.5 billion from 1MDB between 2009 and 2014 and laundered the money through layers of bank accounts in the US and other countries to finance Hollywood films and buy hotels, a luxury yacht, art works, jewelry and other extravagances....READ MORE

Malaysian PM Mahathir accepts failure of the boom he launched 30 years ago

International News
Peter Barbey’s great-grandfather John started the Reading Glove and Mitten Manufacturing Co. 120 years ago. Known today as the VF Corp., it owns outdoorsy brands like Timberland and North Face. In its last fiscal year, VF reported nearly $14 billion in revenue and $1.5 billion in net income. Its market cap hovers around $35 billion. The Barbeys, who still own around 20 per cent of the company, are very rich.
Barbey, 62, went to the University of Arizona. He met his wife, Pam, there. They planted roots in Phoenix, where he invested in commercial real estate while also running the city’s most beloved independent bookstore, Houle Books. But in 2011, Peter and Pam moved to Reading, Pennsylvania, to take charge of another property that had been in the Barbey, DuPont and Flippin families for over a century: the Reading Eagle. With a Sunday circulation over 70,000, a team of sports writers as good as any in Pennsylvania, and a news staff that took seriously its watchdog role, the Eagle was one of the best medium-sized newspapers in the state, if not the country.
When I asked Barbey recently how he felt about leaving behind his life in Arizona to become president of the Eagle, he shrugged. “I’d been on the board since 2000,” he said. “I knew the company well. And I felt it was my duty to my family’s legacy, and to this community, to take this on.”
Eight years later, the Barbey, DuPont and Flippin families no longer own the Reading Eagle. In May, the paper was sold to MediaNews Group Inc., the newspaper company owned by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital LLC, which has a well-deserved reputation for asset stripping and layoffs. Barbey cared deeply about the Eagle; he sold it with great reluctance, helpless to reverse the paper’s economic decline.

 You sometimes hear journalists saying that if only their paper’s owner had beefed up the staff, had given reporters more time to do better stories, had made the paper indispensable to its community...Read More