Hong Kong. -Bloomberg filepic

IT’S lunch time in Hong Kong, but the soya sauce chicken rice seller at Queen’s Road in Shek Tong Tsui is looking distressed as the crowd isn’t up to expectations.

Rental is high in Hong Kong and customers are obliged to share tables in small eateries like the one I was in.

Once eagle-eyed restaurant owners spot the conclusion of a meal, patrons are swiftly handed their bills, subtly suggesting they leave the premises to make way for incoming customers. Otherwise, they’d earn short shrift from irate staff.

Life is hard in HK and most residents feel that it has become much harder.

The older ones are more tolerant and patient because they have lived through the country’s high and low points. They include those born in China who came to the island with their parents.

Retired civil servants complain of promotions bypassing them because the top posts were reserved for the whites under British colonial rule. They felt humiliated and have never forgotten this marginalised treatment.

The young ones are becoming angrier now. They see HK deteriorating, reflected in their inability to buy a flat the size of a car park lot, because something even that small would probably cost millions of ringgit.

HK is a crowded city where space is at a premium. Space, meaning a hole in the sky. Landed properties are for the super rich in a land where being rich alone isn’t enough.

Regular visitors to HK will tell you that the streets are filled with people for a simple reason: it can be claustrophobic living in a 400sq foot – or less – flat.

HK residents sometimes joke that they need to leave their flat to provide “privacy” for newly married children who sometimes can’t afford their own homes and still need to live with their parents.

“The walls are too thin, and it is best we give them some space, you understand what I am saying, right?” said my HK friend as we chuckled about the reference while dining on dim sum.

The waiting period for public housing is five years, if you are lucky, and it’s not uncommon to see an entire family living in one room in many parts of downtown HK. Apparently, more than 200,000 people live in subdivided homes.

Forget politics for a minute and let’s talk facts. An international survey reportedly showed HK sliding 12 places to an embarrassing 41 as a liveable city for Asian expats, its worst ranking in a decade.

“We call ourselves Asia’s world city, but Asians have given us the thumbs down as a liveable city. That’s a paradox that should shame us,” the South China Morning Post (SCMP) newspaper reported.

Over the last two decades, HK people have found themselves priced out of the home market. The cost of living has gone up, but the standard of living has dropped sharply.

The smog has worsened and there are regular reports of hospitals overflowing in the winter months every year, ushering in the routine flu outbreak.

The competition for space is a serious concern in HK. The resentment towards China is simply because people in HK have found it hard to compete with the deluge of mainlanders.

Each time I go to HK, I can’t get past the sight of long queues of people from China – with deep pockets – at luxury goods outlets at Central.

“Last year, 65 million tourists flooded Hong Kong. That’s only about 10 million fewer than for the whole of the United States. Almost 80% who came were mainlanders, most of them day trippers who swarmed residential areas to buy groceries, ruining the quality of life for locals.

“How can life quality improve if you add the four million mainlanders who come monthly, on average, effectively raising Hong Kong’s population to well over 11 million?” pondered columnist Michael Chugani in the SCMP.

Milk powder is a favourite item of the mainlanders when it comes to groceries because of food safety concerns back home. Every mum and pop shop in HK seems to share a similar inventory.

HK people are loud and opinionated. And often crude and crass even, especially, when speaking in Cantonese.

This is a city of very hardworking and motivated people. It’s commonplace for a person to be doing two or three jobs to ensure ends are met, but these people also acknowledge the city has long passed its prime, with stats indicating its lost position as one of Asia’s top cities.

It has surrendered its edge as a financial hub to Shanghai and even nearby Shenzhen.

Chronicling the events of the last two decades reveals how those fortunes changed. Imagine that in 1997, China was very much reliant on HK, largely because the global superpower had not yet made it into the ranks of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which was stunting and limiting its export trade.

So HK’s position as a channel for entrepôt trade was exploited to deliver mainland-made goods to the rest of the world via its ports, and crucially, by circumventing the WTO’s trade restrictions. But that all changed when China entered the organisation in 2001, and from then HK began to play a diminishing role. The island went from handling half the republic’s trade in 1997 to a measly 12% today.

“In terms of total size and wealth, Hong Kong has also shrunk relative to China, which has experienced more than three decades of astoundingly high economic growth. In 1997, Hong Kong’s economy was one-fifth the size of China’s, and its per capita income was 35 times higher. By 2018, Hong Kong’s economy was barely one-thirtieth the size of China’s. Hong Kong is still richer, but the gap is narrowing, with its per capita income now five times higher than China’s,” claimed the New York Times International.

And to exemplify China’s newly accrued wealth, on a trip to Guangzhou, my jaw dropped when I saw the homes of the mainland Chinese in a sprawling gated property built by Forest City.

The HK film industry has nearly collapsed. With only the TV dramas in Cantonese keeping some actors home, most HK movie stars and singers have moved to China, where they are better paid and command bigger audiences.

Some still struggle to speak fluent Mandarin and drop their Cantonese accent, but most have successfully made the transition.

Knowing the realities of the huge China market, and not wanting to offend their audience, most of these big names opted to stay away from the recent HK protests. Pro-Beijing Jackie Chan was lambasted for pleading ignorance of the protest march.

Still, HK has its assets, though. It has an efficient administration system and remains an important channel. In China, tighter capital control measures are making it increasingly difficult to access outside money, the SCMP said.

“Hong Kong is also a top offshore yuan trading centre, leading the way for wider use of the Chinese currency in trade and finance – a priority for Beijing as it pushes for the yuan’s internationalization.

“… Hong Kong can also do more down the road. It can foster an ecosystem for the yuan currency, developing derivatives and indexes to convince people to hold the yuan in larger amounts,” Oliver Rui, a professor of finance and accounting in China, was quoted.

But China needs to do more to secure the faith of the islanders.

HK people understand and accept they are a part of China. There is no turning back and nothing is going to change that.

Hoisting British flags may be the manifestation of frustration for the idealistic young, but it won’t change their destiny.

At the same time, China needs to wake up to the fact that only 3.1% of those aged between 18 and 29 in HK see themselves as broadly Chinese (China nationality). This compares to 31% in 1997, according to a report based on a survey by the University of Hong Kong.

And we know that many of those who took part in the recent street protests included secondary school children, some not yet even 18 years old.

Even though China has overtaken HK, particularly from an economic standpoint, Beijing needs to foster and maintain a sense of inclusion, especially when the islanders don’t feel they are a part of China.

There was a time when HK residents laughed at mainlanders, calling them the disparaging “Ah Chan”, or village simpletons. However, mainlanders are growing richer and more powerful now. But like all good “bosses”, China needs to treat the island’s residents with respect, and it needs to motivate and win over their hearts and minds. China must make them proud to be Chinese citizens.

Farcical political situations and a depleting economy. If there’s a time to rally the troops to thwart the country’s follies, the upcoming National Day looks the opportune moment.

WHILE I was in Europe a few years ago, a Spanish waitress asked me about the corruption and racism that has ravaged Malaysia.

I was a little startled. Few waitresses would have asked guests such politically related questions, but because I was a regular, and friendly (I’d like to think so), she must have felt comfortable enough to raise the subject.

The only thing is, I was not in the mood and felt it was out of line. I was on holiday and the last thing I wanted to talk about was politics. While in Australia last month, a China-born driver asked me about Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, and of course, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

I didn’t even tell him that I was from the media. If I did, there would have been no end to the idle chatter on a long trip outside Sydney.

It was unprofessional of him to bring up politics and luckily, we didn’t touch on issues concerning religion. The trouble with most drivers is that they seem to have unsolicited “expert” opinions on contentious issues.

But the most depressing dialogue now must be that with Singaporean friends and relatives about our ringgit and its continuing slide. Perhaps I’m sensitive, but I can feel their insinuations about our ringgit being worthless next to their dollar.

The point is this – Malaysia has an image problem.

The ignorant and ridiculous remarks by some of our politicians, particularly on race and religion, haven’t covered us in glory, that’s for sure.

At a few Invest KL meetings I’ve attended, foreign fund managers and institutions make similar queries, reflecting their uncertainties and doubt.

It hasn’t helped that our economic standing has taken a severe beating. According to Morningstar.com, which carried out a study on emerging markets in the last 20 years, Malaysia has slipped down the pecking order badly.

In 1988, under the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, Malaysia was the country with the highest weighting in the index at 33.8%, but it has plunged down to 2.5% as of last year. In comparison, China’s weighting in the MSCI EM Index has shot up to 29.9%, and this is significantly higher than the next largest countries included in the benchmark: South Korea (15.5%), Taiwan (11.8%) and India (8.1%).

We have lost plenty of time and opportunities. The general election is long over and by right, politics should have taken a back seat, except that it hasn’t.

Who cares what people – politicians included – do behind closed doors, so long as they perform well, since we are all measured by our competence at work, and not in bed.

There is an urgent need for Malaysians to come forward to create a new narrative for the country, and with the National Day next month, the timing is perfect for a campaign to propel Malaysia’s public opinion.

As lawyer and writer Syahredzan Johan aptly said, the clock is ticking for a “new, inclusive national agenda” to be accepted by the people, but it’s still within time to make that happen.

“The opportunity was ripe for far-reaching reforms when the people voted for the first change of government in the nation’s history in the 14th general election last year. We should have done it soon after the elections, when the mood for change was still strong,” he said.

But we missed the boat. We didn’t look for reconciliation. Yes, the looters and thieves needed to be reined in and made to pay for their crimes, but the ramifications also appeared to have extended into a witch-hunt, with emotional sparks of vindictiveness and baggage of settling old political scores.

It also didn’t help that we were portrayed as a nation on the brink of a financial melt-down, which invariably spooked many investors.

But that stage has passed. The National Day setting will be a timely occasion to bring Malaysians together. We have seen enough unproductive politicking. What we need more of is reproductive nation building.

Regardless of our political and religious differences, we are all bound by being Malaysian. We are all stakeholders in this great and wonderful country of ours.

We need to take this opportunity to present a new vision and call on all the people to work on the common agenda together. We need to issue a clarion call for Malaysians to come together to build a new future for the country.

The pact must involve all Malaysians, with a sense of inclusiveness, so they feel they have a place and future in Malaysia. As it stands though, pessimism permeates the air.

The unsettling mood, made worse by a poor market, has been compounded by increasingly divisive sentiments concerning racial and religious rights among the country’s political leaders, which cyclically, has flared up again in recent months.

We can’t have politicians running around drumming up racial and religious rhetoric in the name of Malay unity and creating myths of non-Malays – meaning the Chinese – usurping Malay political power.

Unfortunately, many people believe this tale. However, the truth is, those entrusted to protect the Malays and Islam are the ones who looted from our institutions in the first place.

The spin doctoring and inflammatory messages, aimed at winning back votes, could cause untold damage to the nation’s very fabric in the long run. It’s not just unhealthy, but toxic as well.

“The fear is that if this tide became a tsunami, even if the new government succeeds in delivering social justice and fulfilling its election manifesto, it would matter little if people voted based on racial and religious considerations,” said Syahredzan.

However, most of our moderate Malaysians can’t let the racists and religious bigots – who use the race and religion cards to justify their every action – take control of the national discourse.

Malaysia needs to set its global perception right so that when we travel overseas, or meet investors, we can all hold our heads up high and say that we are on the right track – that we are putting the wrongs right, and that this is our way forward. We need to nudge the stick shift into fifth gear, hit the gas and scream down the road of progress.Otherwise, I’m going to have to be friendly again, and grin and bear it when foreign service industry people talk to me about the undesirable things concerning Malaysia.

THE Convent Light Street in Penang will always be a special place for me. It remains the only sister school of my alma mater, St Xavier’s Institution, where I had my primary and secondary education.

The CLS, the school’s acronym, sits next to SXI, and both share a sports field with an incredible seafront view. Not many students in Malaysia can boast of playing games under the sun while enjoying the sea breeze. In the case of CLS, some parts of the building, including classrooms, get to enjoy the picturesque sights.

Studying in a boys’ school, my first meaningful interaction with the fairer sex was as a boy scout with the girl guides at CLS, and other convent schools in Penang.

I’m sure many old Xaverians can relate similar fond memories and stories of their wonder years growing up as teenagers. So, it was painful to read recent news reports about three iconic convent schools there – which produced many great scholars – facing closure by 2024, following the downtrend of mission schools in the country.

The three schools – SK Convent Light Street, SMK Convent Light Street and SMK Convent Pulau Tikus – are said to be packing up and the land returned to its owner Sisters of Infant Jesus Malaysia.

“The Education Ministry has heeded their request and gave its approval to return their land. And we have stopped the intake of new students in the three schools since last year,” state Education director Dr Mahanom Mat Sam said.

As expected, the news was greeted with great concern, dismay even, and Datuk Tan Leh Sang, who chairs the board of governors of CLS and Convent Pulau Tikus, had to quickly dispel the notion by insisting the schools were not closing but “transforming for the better.”

With all due respect, I don’t think Tan has shared much on the direction of the schools. The Sisters, always media shy, have chosen not to speak. This obviously doesn’t help, as parents, students, former students and even Penangites, are stakeholders who have enormous emotional attachment to these schools.

There are emotional ties and a great reverence for the Sisters, who have dedicated their entire lives to the schools and educating many Malaysians of all races. Many of us want to help, contribute and support, but would struggle to do so if kept out of the loop.

There has long been talk that CLS, located in a predominantly Chinese majority area, has found its student enrolment dropping because of competition from nearby Chinese primary schools. That doesn’t come as a surprise since over 90% of Chinese parents send their children to Chinese primary schools.

With such a huge building, the continuing decline would surely have an impact on the future of CLS and other convent schools. The cold hard truth is, education in Malaysia is in trouble. Good public education – not just education – must be available to all. Whether we concede or not, the standard of our education system has been dipping.

According to Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister Yeo Bee Yin, Malaysian students continuously rank in the bottom third of international student assessments. So consequently, more parents are sending their children to private schools – unlike years ago, when even the rich sent their kids to normal schools – though this trend will put the have-nots at a disadvantage. But that shouldn’t happen!

“Although we are only a middle-income country, Malaysia’s international schools are the No 8 most expensive in the world,” she said in a video series, adding that international schools were increasing by over 20% each year.

CLS, like regular government schools, was always going to face this predicament. Certainly, the effects are greater in a place like Penang. Given the absence of statistics and details, we can’t know how to help CLS “transform for the better.”

Suggestions have been bandied about turning these mission schools into private or international ones, and perhaps to assist the poor, a quota of seats can be allocated to the underprivileged. This is done in the United Kingdom an there is no reason why it can’t be done in Malaysia. One of the most prestigious private schools in UK, the Benenden school, even offers scholarships to students in Hong Kong to study there. There is already a Methodist School Penang (International) with similar setups in Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh. There is also a St John’s International School in KL and a St Joseph’s International School in Petaling Jaya.

Many middle-class parents in urban areas are stretching their sen to send their children to either private or international schools because they want the best for them, so their kids can secure spots in top schools overseas. Many of our politicians, who champion racial and religion issues, also send their children to study at these schools, even at secondary level.

For a while now, our passing rates in public exams have been compromised. The word is the bar is lowered to enable students to pass, especially in Math and Science subjects. So, the perception generated has surely affected our stature overseas. The strings of distinctions have become meaningless, and worse, it has given a false sense of achievement as these As could just be Cs, or even Ds in Singapore or UK, if the playing field was made level.

Older Malaysians like me will recall a maximum of five As for the Lower Certificate of Education (LCE) for Form Three students. If you fail the LCE, you are kicked out of school. Never mind if you were just 15 years old and Mathematics was compulsory to pass. Then at Form 5 level, the maximum is probably nine As at the Malaysia Certificate of Education (MCE), branded Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia for a good few decades now. That was the time when Malaysians regularly got accepted into Ivy League schools including Harvard.

The disappointment for CLS is not just because of the loss of quality of education it has offered to many generations of Malaysians, but its history, which no other school can match. The education institution, founded by French Catholic nuns in 1852, is the oldest girls’ school in Southeast Asia and is one of the most highly regarded missionary schools in the country.

“Five young sisters, on their maiden mission outside France, set sail for Penang but only three arrived on the island in April 1852.

“Their leader Mother St Pauline lost her life at sea and the only member competent to teach in English deserted the team.

“Mother St Mathilde and three others arrived later, and in the next two decades, they progressively strengthened their base in Penang. By the first half of the 20th century, their unique brand of convent schools had spread across many parts of the Malay peninsula,” wrote Chen Yen Ling in her book, Lessons From My School – The Journey of The French Nuns and Their Convent Schools.That’s not all. The founder of Penang, Captain Francis Light, occupied the Government House as his residence, and the building remains in CLS, while the founder of Singapore, Sir Stanford Raffles, spent time working in the building. In fact, it’s said that he spent more time in Penang than in Singapore.

During the Second World War, the Japanese Navy took over CLS, and used the Government House as a base and interrogation centre.

“The walls inside the House bear the signatures of some imprisoned American sailors who etched their names with their belt buckles,” goes the story, according to the Penang Wiki site.

The owners of the buildings, Sisters of Infant Jesus Malaysia, will surely not allow these buildings to close down, and we believe that they would want their education missions to continue, in different forms, perhaps, and in a more competitive way in meeting the demands of modern education.

We pray that the Sisters will succeed, and we believe they will.

Unlike many mission schools and their Latin mottos, the CLS has theirs in French – Simple Dans Ma Vertu, Forte Dans Mon Devoir, which means Simple in My Virtues, Strong in My Duties.

I believe the CLS and the convent schools will invariably come out stronger from these trying times.

Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohamad with DPM Datuk Seri Wan Azizah and their cabinet ministers at the 1st annivesary of the Pakatan Harapan Government at Putrajaya International Convention Centre.- Filepic

Loosening wheels and appearing cracks are endemic of a Government swiftly put together, but these wrongs may be righted soon – at the expense of some.

TALK is rife in Putrajaya of an impending Cabinet reshuffle. Although the Prime Minister has attempted to allay fears, this one is steadily snowballing.

It was reported that Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had agreed that there was no need to revamp the Cabinet. But it has not stopped calls for changes or a reshuffle.

This isn’t the first round of speculations either – there’s a growing perception that some ministers have not cut the mustard.

Malaysians expected changes in May when the Pakatan Harapan government marked its first year in power, but nothing has happened. However, there have been rumblings since last week. And the chatter is warranted because some ministers are simply not performing.

It has been a year since they were appointed in these positions, and frankly, a year is enough to suss out their fit for their portfolios.

Ordinary Malaysian employees who fail to live up to the expectations of their employers would be shown the door after the three-month probation period. In slightly more hopeful cases, these wage earners may secure a further three months from their kind bosses, but that would be the end of it.

For some inexplicable reason though, ministers seem to be a privileged breed of people. Elected representatives need neither experience nor qualifications to fill their federal or state posts. Some are well-educated, but unfortunately lack the relevant skills and interest for their jobs.

Then there are those who make us cringe when listening to them speak at international conferences.

Why can’t they stick to Bahasa Malaysia if they can’t string a sentence in English?

“A” for effort for trying to speak in English, but we don’t need the sound bites “of mother and father”, which is incomprehensible to the audience.

A few ministries have even deputised deputies, likely because their bosses are incapable. No surprise then that they have fared much better and have surely outperformed and overshadowed their ministers.

Thank God for these right-hand people because if they weren’t holding the fort or facing the stakeholders, who knows if these ministries would have come to a grinding halt. I can think of at least three ministries in this category.

Even these minister’s aides have privately queried about their boss’ fates, should there, indeed, be a Cabinet revamp.

It doesn’t make sense not to have one, although Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad assured in May that he saw no reason to restructure the Cabinet, reiterating that there would be no such plan. But when asked to evaluate the present Cabinet, he gave it a “five out of 10”.

“I am very conservative. I have been in the government for 22 years and I know how a government functions, but these people (ministers) are new, they do not know how a government functions.

“They are so afraid of being accused of wrongdoing and all this makes their decision-making more difficult.

“But they are learning very fast. Sometimes they come to me because I have the experience. I have to teach and guide them so that they can perform,” said Dr Mahathir.

Let’s be honest – to be graded five out of 10 isn’t good enough, especially when the grading standards would have likely been lowered, seeing as they are inexperienced and still learning the ropes.

A year later, and many in the private sector – those who generate great revenue for the country – have been left wondering why the relevant ministers have not sought their expertise in improving these sectors, especially with Malaysia navigating through choppy economic waters.

No meetings with key players were ever scheduled, and with a year gone down the drain, these top captains of their industries are no closer to knowing why there have been no pro-active decisions from these ministers.

Documents submitted to select ministers remain unanswered, the queries drawing a blank. Many of the parties concerned are unsure of the status of projects. After all, delays cause revenue loss, and not just for the companies, but the country, too.

Members of the media have incessantly complained about certain ministers keeping their distance from the press by describing their lack of interaction, and in more extreme cases, where messages sent to them were unceremoniously ignored. These are the ones who are in total incommunicado.

This is all utterly unfortunate because this isn’t down to snobbery, but a lack of confidence, or perhaps a case of the common malaise – incompetence.

Media adviser Datuk Kadir Jasin has also been outspoken about several under-performing ministers, calling for either their heads or resignations.

As much as the media would want to support these ministers in the interest of Malaysia, their plans have hardly been forthcoming.

If they can’t communicate with the press at open conferences, they could surely appoint a spokesperson, or at least, issue regular press statements.

A Federal Minister I met at an open house gave me his private phone number and told me I could call him anytime. So, I called and texted him many times, but to no avail. I’ve concluded that he has given me an inactive phone number.

Home Minister Tan Sri Muyhiddin Yassin, even when he was a Deputy Prime Minister, would always dutifully reply his text messages despite his hectic schedule, and continues to do so even with his current health condition.

Some from the new crop have shined though, and two names stand out – Communications and Multimedia Minister Gobind Singh and Transport Minister Anthony Loke. They have been professional in their approaches and reception to views, even criticism. They also don’t seem saddled by political baggage despite being former opposition leaders.

Foreign Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah has also stood out in my simple straw poll with my colleagues, although his early struggles drew criticism.

The crux of the issue is how much of the promise has been delivered. Yes, the new government has four years to fulfil its pledges, but this will all remain a pipe dream with inadequate ministers grappling with their jobs.

A couple of ministers seem to have allowed the perks and privileges of power to seep into their heads, displaying prima donna attitudes by expecting event organisers to line up to greet them. They may have spent their entire political career criticising as opposition leaders, but a taste of their own medicine seems nothing but a bitter pill.

These ministers are a burden to the Prime Minister and a waste of tax-payers’ money. An overhaul is long overdue, because the events from May last year clearly suggest that the Cabinet was hastily and haphazardly cobbled together.

TALK about hypocrisy. When Huawei’s global cybersecurity and privacy officer, John Suffolk, appeared before a hearing at the House of Commons on Monday, he was bombarded with a barrage of tough questions.

He was there to convince lawmakers – who were deliberating the safety of Britain’s telecommunications infrastructure – that Huawei had conducted security compliance exercises.

But the Chinese technology giant is up against an American-led effort to place a blanket global ban on it.

It’s clear that the United States is pressuring its allies, including the United Kingdom, to put the squeeze on Huawei, the world’s largest maker of telecommunications equipment. What has ignited a controversy, however, although it was perhaps a tiny fraction of the hearing, was a question by Norman Lamb, chairman of Britain’s Science and Technology Committee.

The hearing became a tense affair when Members of Parliament asked Suffolk if Huawei made moral considerations before selling equipment to oppressive governments with a history of human rights abuse.

He cited an Australian research report that said Huawei provided equipment that Chinese authorities use to monitor the Uighurs, a Muslim minority group in China’s north-western region.

“I don’t think it’s for us to make such judgments,” Suffolk said. “The question is whether it’s legal in the country where we operate.”

“You’re a moral vacuum,” a Member of Parliament then retorted.

Treading the moral high ground like this reeks of hypocrisy, especially since both the US and UK are trading with many countries with shambolic human rights records. They have even aided and ensured the survival of these regimes, for strategic and economic reasons.

Take Saudi Arabia for instance. No country would want to mess with this oil-rich nation. American president Donald Trump, and any British Prime Minister of the hour, wouldn’t let out a squeak if there were any form of human rights oppression there, and it’s common knowledge that the law is perversely flouted.

So, will the UK do business with the Saudi Arabians? Of course! Total goods exports from the UK to Saudi Arabia in 2017 were reportedly worth about £4.2bil (RM22bil), an increase of 120% compared with 10 years earlier. Goods imports from Saudi Arabia were worth £2.4bil (RM12.7bil) (also more than double the figure 10 years earlier). So, the UK had a surplus of £1.8bil (RM9.5bil) in goods trade.

The top UK export categories encompass various types of machinery, aircraft, arms and vehicles, including £280mil (RM1.48bil) worth in cars.

Oil accounted for more than half of the imports from Saudi Arabia, including crude and refined products. Other goods comprised machinery and electrical supplies, and photographic, cinematographic and medical equipment, reads a report.

It said although the UK produces crude oil from the North Sea, and to a limited extent on land as well, it has been more than a decade since the island nation was self-sufficient. Saudi Arabia accounted for about 3% of British oil imports last year.

And with so much money at stake, it will be insane to condemn the high-profile disappearance (or is that mutilation?) of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump threatened “severe punishment” if Saudi Arabia was found responsible, but of course, evidence is insufficient. How convenient.

Speculation is rife about what happened to Khashoggi. Turkish officials believe he may have been murdered when he visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Saudi Arabia denies the allegation and says it would respond to sanctions.

Research by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a think tank which monitors the global weapons industry, reportedly puts Britain in second place as a supplier of “major arms” to Saudi Arabia, behind the United States and ahead of France.

And then there’s Israel. It has a long history of oppressing the Palestinians, and its record of human rights violations is atrocious, but trade between the two countries is progressively increasing.

According to the “Jerusalem Post”, bilateral trade in 2014 amounted to US$6.3bil (RM26bil) and the following year, it shot up to US$7.5bil (RM31bil) and by 2017, it hit US$9.1bil (RM37bil), and the figures have been steadily growing.

The Middle East Eye reported that Britain has approved the sale of arms to Israel in a deal worth US$445mil (RM1.8bil) since the 2014 Gaza war, a transaction including components for drones, combat aircraft and helicopters, along with spare parts for sniper rifles.

“The government data will raise fresh concerns that British-made weapons are being used by the Israeli military in the Occupied Territories, amid fears that components in sniper rifles used to kill scores of Palestinian civilians in recent weeks could have been made in the UK.”

The US also supports authoritarian regimes in at least 45 “less than democratic nations and territories that today host scores of US military bases,” the ones the size of not-so-small American towns to tiny outposts. Together, these bases are home to tens of thousands of US troops.

“To ensure basing access from Central America to Africa, Asia to the Middle East, US officials have repeatedly collaborated with fiercely anti-democratic regimes and militaries implicated in torture, murder, the suppression of democratic rights, the systematic oppression of women and minorities, and numerous other human rights abuses.

“Forget the recent White House invitations and Trump’s public compliments. For nearly three-quarters of a century, the United States has invested tens of billions of dollars in maintaining bases and troops in such repressive states.

“From Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Republican and Democratic administrations alike have, since World War II, regularly shown preference for maintaining bases in undemocratic and often despotic states,” wrote Associate Professor David Vine of the American University in HuffPost.

As the US pushes for a global ban on Huawei, the line of argument has become more blurred and bizarre.

The battle is essentially over technological leadership, and clearly, the US is worried that China will control the 5G universe.

It’s true that China is no angel when it concerns human rights.

After all, it is a communist country with no free elections, but few of us would buy into the rationale that Huawei needs to be banned because of China’s poor treatment of the Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang, China.

This isn’t a moral vacuum, but a serious vacuum in the head.

THE controversy surrounding the appointment of Latheefa Koya as the new Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission chief commissioner isn’t going away soon and can only lead to waves of discontent and suspicion.

Within the rank and file of the MACC and other government agencies, the staff is grumbling about why none of them were deemed fit to helm this very powerful body, and why a politician was, instead, picked.

Former MACC chief Tan Sri Dzulkifli Ahmad wasn’t a product of the institution either – he was from the Attorney-General’s Chambers.

Basically, an active politician has been selected to helm the position, who was a former PKR central committee member. That surely sounds like somewhere high up the pile, doesn’t it?

While some PKR leaders now in the government are tempering the issue by claiming she hadn’t been an active member, the public won’t buy this. The feisty human rights lawyer has, in fact, been very outspoken on numerous issues.

The MACC has been struggling to regain public trust and confidence, and after the general election last year, there appears to be a ray of hope.

To many sceptical Malaysians then, the MACC was dismissed as a tool of the government, which executed selected prosecutions. They saw it as an instrument to punish political opponents.

And as if to prove the naysayers right, in the investigations of the 1MDB scandal, the crime-busting body dragged its feet and even came up with justifications, in different forms, to avoid charging certain people.

It took the formation of a new government for the corruption and money-laundering charges to see the light of day. And in that process, MACC’s cleansing exercise yielded a truly professional setup.

Without doubt, public faith has been restored and the recent number of arrests and charges involving high level politicians and government officials have raised the MACC in the popularity stakes.

It’s not compulsory to select an MACC official to succeed Datuk Seri Mohd Shukri Abdull, but given her credentials, Latheefa wouldn’t struggle to learn the graft busting ropes.

It’s also a moot point in selecting a trained MACC official who lacks the gumption to take on offenders.

After all, there are Cabinet members – past and present – whose qualifications don’t match what they were or are doing. We have a dropout, and at least one deputy with dubious, or fake qualifications, holding government posts.

So, the question isn’t about Latheefa’s competence or integrity. It’s her impartiality that has come under scrutiny.

She has done her duty without fear, even when involving her party bosses. Not every budding politician, who aspires to be an elected representative, would do that, so her bravery is surely an asset.

Also, like many politicians, she seems to have hedged her bets on the faction opposing Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

The fact is, PKR is now a deeply divided party. And unfortunately, she’s not helping by training her guns on Anwar. Naturally, her appointment has led to a ruckus.

Politicians see political ghosts lurking where there could be none, and they talk of political agendas to make themselves relevant and important, when this could all just be a figment of their imagination.

But that’s how politics works. So, in a world of cloak and dagger, when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said he made the appointment on his own but revealed that he did so after taking in the advice of some people, the WhatsApp service of many politicians and media went into overdrive. There was much speculation about the personalities who offered “advice” to the Prime Minister.

And this is where Latheefa must prove she is neither tool nor party to any purported scheme to stop the PKR president from succeeding Dr Mahathir as the next PM.

Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt, though, because surely she means well, and like it or not, her appointment has already been made. She knows she is being watched so she would want to live up to expectations.

There’s also another lesson here. Yes, Dr Mahathir has the authority as PM to make the appointment, but Malaysians also want to see the end of unilateral and arbitrary decisions in the new era.

Keeping Cabinet members and component leaders in the dark doesn’t reflect transparency or respect.

Dr Mahathir may be the boss, and he may not need to seek the consensus of the Cabinet, but it doesn’t hurt to at least inform its members.

Anwar revealed he only knew about Latheefa’s appointment from the announcement, just like the rest of us. It wouldn’t be wrong to conclude that the Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Ismail was also left clueless.

According to Anwar, clearing of the air was needed for why the Cabinet was not informed. Also, the appointment was allegedly not in line with the MACC Act and violated the Pakatan Harapan election manifesto.

“Of course, clarification is required as this is what we promised, but we should only use proper forums such as in the Cabinet or the Pakatan leadership council if we want to raise and seek proper clarification.”

While Anwar has routinely said that Dr Mahathir must be given the “space and latitude” to administer his duties (and the latter has likewise constantly reassured that Anwar would succeed him), the appointment of Latheefa will certainly be a bitter one.

It’s off-putting because Latheefa has been a thorn in Anwar, Dr Wan Azizah and their loyalists’ side. Unfortunately, Anwar has no choice but to make his unhappiness known openly through the media because his faithful would expect him to do so.

Hari Raya is a season for seeking forgiveness in the true spirit of “maaf zahir dan batin”, but the appointment will leave plenty of misgivings.