
Anwar meets Sarawak Premier, Sabah CM to discuss strategic cooperation for inclusive development
Anwar said the meeting emphasised the importance of close ties and strategic cooperation between the federal government and state governments, particularly Sabah and Sarawak.
"This will help to achieve the national agenda based on inclusive and balanced development for the common progress of all Malaysians," he said in a Facebook post on Monday (July 14). – Bernama

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New Straits Times
3 hours ago
- New Straits Times
Ambalat needs quiet diplomacy, not open debates
The recent pledge by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and Indonesia's President Prabowo Subianto to pursue peaceful, mutually beneficial economic cooperation deserves praise for its pragmatic foresight. The pledge in June includes several promising prospects. Among them is a plan to jointly explore and develop the contested oil- and gas-rich Ambalat block in the Celebes Sea, off the eastern coast of Sabah. If this initiative proceeds, it would mark a welcome step away from the longstanding impasse over unresolved maritime boundaries between the two countries. For Malaysia, this peaceful mechanism for managing maritime territorial disputes is neither new nor unprecedented. Among ASEAN members, Malaysia pioneered the approach by signing joint development agreements — first with Thailand in 1979, and later with Vietnam in 1992 — enabling shared exploration and development of hydrocarbon reserves across vast contested areas in the Gulf of Thailand. In the context of international law, this arrangement is consistent with provisions in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which allow collaborative measures to be implemented while disputing parties seek a final resolution over the contested area. In the case of Ambalat, the intention of both countries to manage the dispute peacefully aligns with the principles embodied in the ASEAN Charter. Certain parties, though, voiced objections to jointly developing Ambalat's oil and gas resources with Indonesia. However, the public uproar also highlights a deeper issue: the misguided notion that the details of delicate negotiations and high-level meetings between leaders or government officials must be made public. Not all diplomatic negotiations are created equal, nor should they be subject to real-time public scrutiny. Some issues, especially those involving maritime territorial and boundary disputes like the Ambalat seabed, are highly technical, legally complex and inherently sensitive. Openly debating these topics risks turning nuanced discussions into populist spectacles. The reality is that maritime boundary delimitation requires expertise in international law, hydrography and history — fields in which few laypersons or politicians are truly knowledgeable. Keeping the negotiation process private, at least to a certain degree, helps prevent misunderstandings or misinterpretations that could inflame tensions or derail delicate talks. Until finalised outcomes are reached, negotiators need private space to discuss sensitive issues, test ideas, make concessions and propose creative solutions without fear of immediate political backlash or public pressure. When talks unfold under the glare of public opinion, even a hint of flexibility is often seized upon as a sign of weakness, pushing parties to retreat into rigid, uncompromising stances. At certain stages, confidentiality in negotiations — even beyond the context of the Ambalat dispute — is essential to protect national interests and security. Prematurely revealing positions can weaken Malaysia's bargaining power and expose strategic vulnerabilities. Once negotiating lines become public, adversaries can exploit them, and domestic critics can pressure leaders or negotiators into rigid stances that leave no room for compromise or manoeuvring. Beyond joint development of economic resources in the disputed maritime areas, are there alternative options to manage or resolve the Ambalat dispute peacefully? Third-party dispute settlement mechanisms are one possibility worth considering. Malaysia has previously referred its maritime sovereignty disputes to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for adjudication, notably in cases involving the Sipadan and Ligitan islands with Indonesia, as well as Batu Puteh and two maritime features with Singapore. Nonetheless, pursuing this judicial route may not be the preferred option for Indonesia. When the ICJ awarded Sipadan and Ligitan to Malaysia in 2002, the judgment sparked protests in several Indonesian cities. Had every stage of the current Ambalat discussions been made public, nationalist fervour on either side could have derailed progress. Demanding full disclosure of every twist and turn of negotiations is unrealistic and counterproductive. In the case of Ambalat, success depends not only on what leaders decide, but also on society's willingness to trust the process. After decades of stalemate in the Ambalat dispute, we should give diplomacy the space it needs to succeed.

Barnama
3 hours ago
- Barnama
Anwar Hints Announcing Special Appreciation For Malaysians
KUALA LUMPUR, July 14 (Bernama) -- Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim today indicated that he will be announcing an extraordinary appreciation for Malaysians in the near future. Even though he did not elaborate what it actually means, Anwar shared a poster that said 'COMING' on his Facebook which quickly caught the attention of netizens. "An Extraordinary Appreciation for Malaysians. With Malaysiaku," the poster reads.


The Star
3 hours ago
- The Star
More than 100 migrants freed in Libya after being held captive by gang, officials say
BENGHAZI (Reuters) -More than 100 migrants, including five women, have been freed from captivity after being held for ransom by a gang in eastern Libya, the country's attorney general said on Monday. "A criminal group involved in organising the smuggling of migrants, depriving them of their freedom, trafficking them, and torturing them to force their families to pay ransoms for their release," a statement from the attorney general said. Libya has become a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe via the dangerous route across the desert and over the Mediterranean following the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011. Many migrants desperate to make the crossing have fallen into the hands of traffickers. The freed migrants had been held in Ajdabiya, some 160 km (100 miles) from Libya's second city Benghazi. Five suspected traffickers from Libya, Sudan and Egypt, have been arrested, officials said. The attorney general and Ajdabiya security directorate posted pictures of the migrants on their Facebook pages which they said had been retrieved from the suspects' mobile phones. They showed migrants with hands and legs cuffed with signs that they had been beaten. In February, at least 28 bodies were recovered from a mass grave in the desert north of Kufra city. Officials said a gang had subjected the migrants to torture and inhumane treatment. That followed another 19 bodies being found in a mass grave in the Jikharra area, also in southeastern Libya, a security directorate said, blaming a known smuggling network. As of December 2024, around 825,000 migrants from 47 countries were recorded in Libya, according to U.N. data released in May. Last week, the EU migration commissioner and ministers from Italy, Malta and Greece met with the internationally recognised prime minister of the national unity government, Abdulhamid Dbeibah, and discussed the migration crisis. (Reporting by Ayman Werfali; writing by Ahmed Elumami; Editing by Ros Russell)