Grand larceny in Kuala Lumpur

Turmoil has gripped Malaysia ever since the U.S. Department of Justice announced on July 20 that the senior-most political leadership in Kuala Lumpur was under suspicion for money laundering and multi-billion dollar theft from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a corporation tasked expressly with financing Malaysia’s development. The revelation that this former sovereign wealth fund had been pillaged to the tune of at least $3 billion has ignited Malaysian pro-democracy groups, and led to calls for the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Razak, who until recently chaired the advisory council of 1MDB. Although Mr. Razak has not been officially named in the U.S. investigation, there are allegations that “Malaysian Official 1” mentioned in the lawsuits may indeed be him. The shadow of 1MDB has fallen upon some well-known entities and persons in the arenas of global finance and entertainment, including investment bank Goldman Sachs, which raised $1.4 billion that was then “misappropriated and fraudulently diverted to a Swiss offshore company.” It was also ironic that the American DOJ dragnet pulled in some among those who financed the production of Hollywood blockbuster The Wolf of Wall Street. From a global perspective, the ongoing fallout of 1MDB yet again highlights lack of regulation of dark pools of finance held by the ultra-wealthy and uber-connected. Despite the shockwaves of this year’s Panama Papers scandal, clearly much remains to be done in terms of tightening the laws around how this money gets moved in and out of offshore tax havens, particularly disclosure requirements and information-sharing agreements between authorities across disparate jurisdictions.

The implications of this scandal for Malaysia are far-reaching and fundamental. Along with Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand, the country is known as a “tiger cub economy” for following in the growth-model footsteps of the tiger economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. A critical element of the economic strategy promoted by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in the early 1990s and successive leaders in Kuala Lumpur was the development of the export sector as an engine of growth. In Malaysia’s case, oil wealth and its evolution as a major centre for Islamic finance added an edge that came from closer ties to West Asian powers, particularly Saudi Arabia. Somewhere along the journey, a sense of elite impunity crept in and transformed these inherent advantages into rapacious tools for self-enrichment. It is the common person of Malaysia who will now be left to pick up the pieces of a crumbling governance model, set aside ethnic rivalries and demand transparent and accountable institutions.

Difficult words with definitions:

	Difficult word/phrase	Easier replacement
1	turmoil	very upset confusion
2	suspicion	(feeling that something is wrong or bad, but without proof)
3	money laundering	hiding illegally-gotten money
4	expressly	(clearly/for a single purpose)
5	revelation	(thing that is suddenly shown or understood)
6	pillaged	destroyed
7	ignited	(started a fire/caught on fire)
8	democracy	(system or country where leaders are chosen by votes)
9	resignation	(quitting a job/accepting something bad that's happening or about to happen)
10	recently	(not very long ago)
11	chaired	organized/managed
12	advisory council	(group of people that give advice)
13	investigation	(act of asking questions and trying to find the truth about something)
14	allegation	legal accusation
15	mentioned	talked about/said
16	indeed	in fact
17	entities	things/businesses
18	persons	people
19	arenas	performing areas
20	global	worldwide
21	misappropriated	stole
22	fraudulently	illegally (because of lying and stealing)
23	diverted	(changed to flow on a different path/changed to point to, or focus on, something else)
24	ironic	(unexpected yet interesting, because something happened that is the opposite of what you'd expect)
25	blockbuster	(huge bomb/hugely popular movie or book)
26	a global perspective	a worldwide way of seeing things
27	ongoing	(happening now)
28	fallout	results/argument
29	uber	extremely
30	despite	(even though there is the existence of)
31	scandal	(shameful and disgraceful act or situation)
32	havens	safe places
33	particularly	especially
34	disclosure	(telling to people/making known)
35	requirements	needed things
36	authorities	people in charge
37	disparate	very different
38	jurisdictions	legal controls
39	implications	effects/results/suggestions
40	far-reaching	(affecting lots of things in many ways for a long time)
41	fundamental	basic
42	economy	(process of people making, selling, and buying things)
43	economies	(processes of people making, selling, and buying things)
44	critical	very important
45	economic	money-based
46	strategy	(success plan(s)/way(s) of reaching goals)
47	promoted	(helped increase/showed in a good way)
48	successive	(one after the other)
49	sector	part/area
50	evolution	(change for the better, over time)
51	journey	trip
52	impunity	freedom from punishment
53	crept	walked (slowly and quietly)
54	transformed	changed
55	inherent	built-in
56	rapacious	very greedy
57	enrichment	(making better, richer, smarter, etc.)
58	governance	authority and control
59	ethnic	(related to a group of people with the same race, culture, religion, etc.)
60	rivalries	(states of being in competition with each other)
61	transparent	clear/open and honest
62	accountable	responsible

[Editorial from the hindu]

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