President-elect Donald Trump criticized China on Twitter.

President-Elect Trump Picks Fight With China On Twitter!!

I don't think so....just being rational. No country should limit the freedom of humanity...not even China or Myanmar. 

President-elect Donald Trump criticized China on Twitter Sunday for its trade and military policies days after breaking decades of diplomatic policy and speaking with Taiwan’s head of state.

President elect - Donald Trump

“Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the U.S. doesn’t tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don’t think so!” Trump tweeted.

The president-elect’s call with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen Friday was the first a time a U.S. president or president-elect had spoken with a Taiwan head of state since 1979. The U.S. cut diplomatic relations that year. China views Taiwan as an illegitimate state.

The U.S. still sells arms to the island country. Trump tweeted Friday, “Interesting how the U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call.”

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, who serves on the Armed Services Committee, tweeted the following day that Trump’s call was not a “shift” but a “major pivot.”

“These are major pivots in foreign policy w/out any plan. That’s how wars start,” the Connecticut senator added.

China’s foreign minister said Sunday, “This is but a petty action created by Taiwan. It can never change the ‘one China’ reality that has formed in international society.”

Vice President-elect Mike Pence brushed off anger about the call. “It’s a little mystifying to me that President Obama can reach out to a murdering dictator in Cuba in the last year and be hailed as a hero for doing it, and President-elect Donald Trump takes a courtesy call from the democratically-elected leader of Taiwan, and it’s become something of a controversy,” Pence said on ABC News Sunday morning.

Trump himself with his promise to “drain the swamp”.

Trump himself with his promise to “drain the swamp”.
Drain the swamp , so the leeches and parasite will be dried to die....

President elect - Donald Trump..

THERE are many conversations taking place about why the US voted for Donald Trump and the UK voted for Brexit. The extent to which the electorate feels the governing elite is “corrupt” has been overlooked, though ironically it was picked up by Trump himself with his promise to “drain the swamp”.

As much as 70 percent of EU citizens and US citizens consider their own political parties to be “corrupt” – a broad term which is based on a general sense that leaders are out for themselves rather than society as a whole.

President Obama made constant efforts to regulate the system of political lobbying, while seeking to extend the anti-bribery principles of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to, first of all, OECD members and later all G20 countries.

With the dawn of a new era due to start next year with Trump’s inauguration, how likely is it his administration will sustain that process? The short answer is unlikely, given his history – several bankruptcies, more than 30 court cases against him and his refusal to place his assets in a blind trust. There are five main kinds of corruption.

First, political finance. While all EU countries have fairly tight campaign finance laws they are often disregarded. Recent scandals involving the PP in Spain and the UMP in France match New Labour’s record in soliciting loans to the party to avoid the very rules it introduced under the Political Parties and Elections Act of 2000. In the US, “Citizens United” – the Supreme Court decision of 2010 – unravelled past attempts to limit corporate contributions to campaign finance and heralded a new era of “paying for policy”. The decision was heavily criticised by Bernie Sanders and more modestly by Hillary Clinton, but it is highly unlikely that Trump’s nominees for the Supreme Court will seek to roll it back.

Second, the lobbying industry. Political lobbying has escalated to the point where it keeps up to 100 000 people busy in Washington despite efforts by Senator McCain and then-Senator Obama to control it.

Third, although the finance sector and the crash of 2008 has been subjected to an unparalleled array of analyses, almost none of these have been prepared to identify corruption as a root cause. But the successful prosecution for “reckless lending” in the sub-prime market, the clearly misleading ratings by the ratings agencies and the deliberate manipulation of the interest rate and forex markets were certainly wider symptoms of a corrupt system. In the US, Senators Sanders and Warren have sought to expose the failure of the major US regulators to focus on the same issue.

Surprisingly, some in Trump’s circle – most notably Steve Bannon – are on record as suggesting that some banking CEOs should have gone to jail. But the identity of likely candidates for Treasury Secretary belies this threat.

The interface between the on-shore banking sector and “secrecy jurisdictions” which facilitate shell companies was dramatically exposed in a series of leaks culminating in the Panama Papers.

Estimates on the scale of funds held in these jurisdictions – including Switzerland – indicate a minimum of $10 trillion. It seems unlikely that a president who needs to hide his own affairs will push for transparency.

Fourth, international bribery by Western companies – supposedly a problem of the past following the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention of 1977 – continues to reflect low standards of business in emerging markets. Recent fines imposed on GSK in both the US and China and on Walmart in the US confirm the scale of the problem. Trump, meanwhile, has described the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 as a “horrible act”.

Fifth, self-congratulation over the Paris Agreement on climate change has disguised the fact that corruption threatens the control of carbon emissions. In the US, lobbying by powerful corporations such as Koch Industries has weakened the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which is responsible for setting emission targets.

Trump, as a non-believer in climate change, will certainly line up with the forces seeking to limit the power of the EPA.

Trump is a danger to the forces at work against corruption across the world, not only in the US. His election occurs at a time when strong forces in the developing world such as Brazil, India and South Africa are embracing the need to address corruption as a threat to the nation state. For the West, led by the US, to step backwards on its commitment to fight corruption would be fatal to the global anti-corruption effort.

● Cockcroft is a co-founder of Transparency International and co-author of the forthcoming book "Unmasked: Corruption in the West"

Wildfire blamed on 'terror' roars through Israeli city

What else can the Zionist blame? Not that the world wouldn't know of your deception......from the time of existence -Zionist And Their Deception...and not to be blinkered ..FOX news is Zionist!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Zionist new "earth scotch polivy" 

HAIFA, Israel –  A wildfire roared through parts of Israel's third-largest city on Thursday, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes as the country's leaders raised the possibility that Arab assailants had intentionally set the blaze.

Spreading quickly due to dry, windy weather, the fire raced through Haifa's northern neighborhoods, sending panicked residents fleeing from the area.

While there were no serious injuries, several dozen people were hospitalized for smoke inhalation. In a rare move, Israel called up hundreds of military reservists to join overstretched police and firefighters and was making use of an international fleet of firefighting aircraft sent by a slew of countries.

The Haifa blaze was the most serious in a series of fires that have erupted across the country in recent days. On a visit to the area, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said anyone implicated in setting the fires would be punished severely.

"It's a crime for all intents and purposes and in our opinion it is terror for all intents and purposes," he said. He said incitement to arson was also playing a role in spreading the fires.

Netanyahu did not elaborate on the identity or motives of the suspected arsonists, but Israeli officials typically use the term "terror" to refer to Arab or Palestinian militant activity.

Israel has been on edge during more than a year of Palestinian attacks, mostly stabbings, that have tapered off, but not halted, in recent months. Netanyahu has blamed Palestinian incitement for fueling those attacks.

Netanyahu's accusations could test already brittle relations between Israel's Jewish majority and its Arab minority, which has long suffered discrimination in Israel and says it has been slighted by rhetoric from Netanyahu and other Israeli officials in the past.

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan told Channel 10 TV news that eight people had been arrested and that authorities had found "flammable materials and liquids poured in certain areas," a find that pointed to arson. He said arson was suspected in about half of the fires.

Israeli media said the Shin Bet internal security agency was helping search for perpetrators, while Erdan said "we need to be prepared for a new type of terror."

"It's safe to assume that whoever is setting the fires isn't doing it only out of pyromania," Israel's police chief Roni Alsheich told reporters. "It's safe to assume that if it is arson it is politically motivated."

Ayman Odeh, the head of a joint Arab bloc of parties in Israel's parliament and a Haifa native, appealed to Israelis to come together and abandon "politics" during the trying time.

"This is something that harms all of us. This is not a story of Arab or Jew. Whoever did this is an enemy of all of us," he told Israeli Channel 2 TV news.

The Palestinians meanwhile offered to send firefighting teams to help combat the flames, according to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA. Yousef Nassar, the director general of the Palestinian Civil Defense, said the offer of assistance was "a humanitarian message." The Palestinians assisted Israelduring a deadly wildfire in 2010. Israel's response to the offer was not immediately known.

The rash of fires is the worst since 2010, when Israel suffered the single deadliest wildfire in its history. That blaze burned out of control for four days, killed 42 people and was extinguished only after firefighting aircraft arrived from as far away as the United States.

Israel has strengthened its firefighting capabilities since then, buying special planes that can drop large quantities of water on affected areas. Several countries, including Russia, France, Cyprus, Turkey, Croatia, Greece and Italy were also sending assistance to battle this week's blazes.

Residents of eight neighborhoods in the northern city of Haifa were told to evacuate their homes on Thursday afternoon, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Or Doron, a spokeswoman for the city of Haifa, said some 50,000 people had been evacuated.

Police and firefighters were deployed throughout the city, as people loaded up supermarket carts with belongings and fled their homes. Some people connected hoses together from apartment buildings to help battle the fires, while residents held cloth over their faces.

Guy Catlan, who runs a gas station in Haifa, told Channel 10 TV that workers turned the power off and were helping firefighters to prevent the flames from reaching it. "There is a very large quantity of fuel here," he said. "It is very dangerous to the entire area, it could be a big catastrophe."

Michal Schanin, a professor at the University of Haifa, was in the middle of a lecture when she received word that she and her 70 students would need to evacuate. She said that while the evacuation was orderly, the flood of cars fleeing the area caused a traffic jam.

"We couldn't move. If, God forbid, there would have been fire there it would have been one huge trap," she said.

The military said it deployed two search and rescue battalions in order to assist civilian efforts. It also called up about 500 reserve soldiers to back up the police and fire departments.

Police said the blazes started early Tuesday morning at Neve Shalom, a community outside Jerusalem where Jews and Arabs live together. Fires later erupted elsewhere near Jerusalem and in the northern Israeli area of Zichron Yaakov..

Readmore of the bullshit:

Viagra for high altitude sickness- A new found remedy -the versatile viagra..

Why I Bought 360 Pills Of Viagra - South Korea's President. It's a joke or what?

President Park - viagra for her entourage...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Little blue pills in the Blue House?

South Korea President Park Geun-hye's office on Wednesday confirmed revelations by an opposition lawmaker that it purchased about 360 erectile dysfunction Viagra pills and the generic version of the drug in December.

While the report has created a frenzy on the internet, Park's office said the pills were bought to potentially treat altitude sickness for presidential aides and employees on Park's May trips to Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya, whose capitals are 1 to 2 kilometers (0.6 to 1.2 miles) above sea level.

The pills weren't used, said Jung Youn-kuk, spokesman of the presidential Blue House. South Korean doctors sometimes prescribe Viagra-style drugs to climbers because they are believed to be effective in preventing altitude sickness.

The Viagra revelation is just the latest twist in a massive political scandal building around Park.

Park is now bracing for an impeachment push by opposition parties and some members of her own Saenuri Party amid allegations that she let a secretive confidante manipulate government affairs and amass an illicit fortune, a scandal critics say undermines the country's democracy.

On Sunday, prosecutors said they believe Park was collusively involved in the criminal activities of her longtime friend, Choi Soon-sil, and two presidential aides who allegedly bullied companies into giving tens of millions of dollars to foundations and businesses Choi controlled, and also enabled Choi to interfere with state affairs.

Readmore:

Source: https://thewhistler.ng/story/why-i-bought-360-pills-of-viagra-south-korea-s-president

Source: https://thewhistler.ng/story/why-i-bought-360-pills-of-viagra-south-korea-s-president

LET’S HOPE TRUMP IS A CON

The musing of post American Presidential Poll - Curry flavor and talk the cock.

America & The World - Donny be Good

10 November 2016 was a yuge day for the USA and the world. Donald Trump was elected president, against expectations and what polls told us. We were entertained, we were glued to our screens and our social media, we were amused at the absurdity of the whole situation, but we did not expect this to become real. But it did. We had our 9/11. Now the millennials have their 11/9. All we can hope for is that Donald Trump is a con. That he galvanised feelings of bigotry and racism (in addition to feelings of disenchantment with Washington and the economic direction of the US) and said many horrible things, simply to get elected. Let us hope that now he will follow sensible policies and that his reign will not result in global uncertainty and a reversal of hard-won freedoms for those most vulnerable.

Trump’s acceptance speech was nothing like his utterances during the hard-fought election process. There was no talk of a wall between Mexico and the US; he said nothing about a ban on Muslims; he did not talk about defunding NATO, allowing more countries to get nuclear weapons, bombing ISIS families or starting a trade war with China; and he did not hint at prosecuting Hillary Clinton. Instead, he praised her for her efforts in the campaign and her meaningful contribution to US politics. This was a different Trump, a Trump that had achieved his goal (no matter the cost), a Trump looking for reconciliation, a magnanimous Trump even.

So maybe we will be lucky. Maybe most of the extreme things he said during his campaign were simply uttered so that he could ignite the heartland of America, the rustbelt, the South, the social conservatives, the evangelicals to support him. Maybe he did not really mean these things. Maybe it was all a con to achieve his ends, which was to occupy the White House. Not everything he said was predicated on hate of the foreign, distrust of the unknown and a yearning for a return to simpler times (at least for white people). Much of what he said was aimed at those middle class and working families that have seen their economic exclusion grow over the past 30 years. A grouping that have become exasperated and tired with the way that Washington operates. This is the same group of people that Bernie Sanders was targeting.

So if Donald Trump has just pulled off the greatest con in US political history, what are we to expect? Walls, bans, hate, trade wars, buffoonery and groping? I don’t think so. I see no wall being built and I see no ban on Muslims. Current immigration vetting is already very strong and I would not rule out an amnesty for illegal immigrants.

I would think that his presidency would have an internal focus with much less attention given to global diplomacy. He is unlikely to deviate from current US involvement in conflict areas such as Iraq and Syria, but would likely be pro reducing involvement over time. New hotspots will likely be left to sort themselves out – a new period of US isolationism.

A quick win in the US would be to commence a large (and much overdue) infrastructural spending programme, creating jobs and rewarding his base for their votes. This will likely lead to ballooning debt, but is a price that he may be willing to pay. Tax cuts will likely also be on the cards, but may be phased in over time, especially in the light of large infrastructural spend.

On the trade front, we may see a more protectionist attitude with the Trans-Pacific Partnership being the first victim. The biggest downside of such an approach would be rising inflation in the US, which could also usher in the end of quantitative easing and finally lead to a rise in US interest rates.

Interestingly, even though (Republican) Trump will have a Republican Senate and House to theoretically support his policies, it may not be that easy with many representatives not agreeing with his approach. We may find him having to build coalitions across the aisle to enact some of his plans.

On the positive side (for Republicans), the dismantling of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is likely to commence shortly after his inauguration. However, it is not clear whether it will simply be rolled back or whether something else will be put in its place. Ironically, many of his (non-traditional Republican and even traditional Republican) supporters will probably favour some alternative rather than nothing at all.

On the negative side (for Republicans), Donald Trump may not be as conservative as Republicans would like in appointing Supreme Court judges. His progressive New York values (as Ted Cruz referred to) probably puts him on the side of at least maintaining the recently won (marriage equality) and entrenched (woman’s right to choose) freedoms. If I am correct (and he was conning his base), he may once again have to build a cross-aisle coalition to affirm his nominees.

If we are very lucky, he may even address inner city decay (as promised) and support reasonable gun laws. This may be overly ambitious, even if he conned the base, but we can hope. Global warming may be the biggest (and most serious) issue that is left unaddressed, regardless. On this topic, all we can do is to continue agitating.

If, however Donald Trump is not a con. If he meant what he said during his election campaign, the US and the world is in for a rough ride and the most vulnerable in the US and the world will suffer most. So, let’s hope that Trump is a con. Let’s hope that now that he has the position he sought, that sanity will prevail. Let’s hope that he does not do too much damage. And maybe, just maybe, he could do something good.

Are you exasperated after the US election? Are you scared of what a Trump presidency may mean? Do you think that maybe he was just conning (at least some of) his supporters to get the position and that his policies will be more reasonable than we expect? I would love to hear your feedback. 

credit:By Marius Strydom

The Trump - Trumpet - I’m in a bit of shock, but we’re witnessing some very dramatic changes in the world

Return Home If Trump Bullies You, Buhari's Minister Tells Nigerians Abroad.

Fresh diaper will comfort you, and make you a good listener - Used diaper will of course drive you insane -
To Donny Mr President.

The history of Nigeria can be traced to prehistoric settlers living in the area as early as 11,000 BC. Numerous ancient African civilizations settled in the region that is today Nigeria. An example of one of the civilizations that settles in Nigeria is the Nri Kingdom. Islam reached Nigeria through the Hausa States during the 11th century. The Songhai Empire also occupied part of the region. Lagos was captured by British forces in 1851 and formally annexed in 1861. Nigeria became a British protectorate in 1901. Colonization lasted until 1960, when an independence movement succeeded in gaining Nigeria its independence.

Nigeria first became a republic in 1963, but succumbed to military rule in 1966 after a bloody coup d'état. A separatist movement later formed the Republic of Biafra in 1967, leading to the three-year Nigerian Civil War. Nigeria became a republic once again after a new constitution was written in 1979. However, the republic was short-lived, when the military led by Major General Muhammadu Buhari seize again four years later. Buhari was overthrown and a new republic was founded in August 1993, but was dissolved once again by General Sani Abacha in November that same year. Abacha died in 1998 and a fourth republic was later established the following year, ending three decades of intermittent military rule.

Unexpected early remark from the ruling elite of Nigeria. The first nation within African continent which felt the jittery atmosphere eveloping the world.

A Capitalist Extremist - Now the new incarnation of Abraham Lincoln. -From the people,for the people and by the people...making America Great Again...hu..hu..

Source: https://thewhistler.ng/story/return-home-if-trump-bullies-you-buhari-s-minister-tells-nigerians-abroad

That famous quote of Freedom..

“I’m in a bit of shock, but we’re witnessing some very dramatic changes in the world, and I think some of these things began many years ago,” Ogbe said,Minister of Agriculture.

Readmore:

Source: https://thewhistler.ng/story/return-home-if-trump-bullies-you-buhari-s-minister-tells-nigerians-abroad

Source: https://thewhistler.ng/story/return-home-if-trump-bullies-you-buhari-s-minister-tells-nigerians-abroad

President Donald Trump

The odd is now the President , So what?

Go through those highlighted lines...sound good for us....the ruling elite.You know well - the longer they are in power..the smell likes....

 soo long in power....worst than week-old rotten fish.

45th President of USA.

President Donald Trump. Get used to it. The world as we knew it is no more.

To give Trump credit, he had a single formidable intuition: That American anger and uncertainty in the face of the inexorable march of globalization and technology had reached such a pitch that voters were ready for disruption at any cost.

Enough of elites; enough of experts; enough of the status quo; enough of the politically correct; enough of the liberal intelligentsia and cultural overlords with their predominant place in the media; enough of the financial wizards who brought the 2008 meltdown and stagnant incomes and jobs disappearing offshore. That, in essence, was Trump’s message. A New Yorker, he contrived to channel the frustrations of the heartland, a remarkable sleight of hand. Ohio and Wisconsin lurched into the Trump camp.

This upset victory over Hillary Clinton, the representative par excellence of the American political establishment, amounted to Brexit in American form. Ever since Britain’s perverse, self-defeating vote last June to leave the European Union, it seemed plausible that the same anti-globalization, often xenophobic forces could carry Trump to victory.

And so it proved. The disenfranchised, often living lives of great precariousness, arose and spoke. Clinton never quite seemed to understand their frustrations, as her challenger for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders, did.

I write in a New York stunned into silence. What a difference from the victories of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 when cheering crowds gathered in Times Square! The silence in this great city, a stronghold of Clinton and the Democratic Party, is revealing: The elites of the East and West coasts, betraying a dangerous arrogance, were dismissive and ignorant to the last of the heartland anger feeding Trump’s rise.

This is the revenge of Middle America, above all of a white working-class America troubled by changing social and cultural mores — not every American loves choose-your-gender bathrooms — and by the shifting demographics that will make minorities the majority by midcentury

Barack Obama is popular, but racism did not die with America’s first black president. Sexism is also alive and well, as Trump’s misogyny-sullied road to victory illustrates. For some Americans – and this is painful to admit – a woman following a black man to the White House was simply too much to swallow.

This is a dangerous moment in world affairs, fraught with uncertainty. The institutions of American democracy are strong; the United States is not Weimar Germany. But Trump has shown a worrying contempt for core American values, including respect for diversity, inclusiveness, an independent judiciary, and, at one point, the democratic process itself.

With the Republican Party retaining control of the House and Senate, Trump will have enormous power, more than Obama who faced a hostile Congress. He is a man ill prepared for the highest office, without political experience beyond this bruising campaign. The past months have revealed a personality given to impetuous anger, meanness, mendacity and petulance. How far the people he chooses to place around him will be able to control these instincts will be of critical importance.

Leaders like President Vladimir Putin of Russia and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran favored Trump for a reason: They believe he will make America weaker, the trans-Atlantic alliance weaker, and the American-buttressed post-1945 global order weaker. They could well be right.

Trump has spoken in ways that have undermined NATO and the American commitment to its allies in Europe and Asia. From Estonia to Japan, people wonder if Trump’s America will really defend them in the breach. This is a welcome development for all those, like Putin, who want nothing more than to probe American weakness, be it in Syria or the Baltics. Trump will have to work very hard to reassure the world.

His first words were encouraging: It was now time, he said in his acceptance speech, “for us to come together as one united people.” But then Trump has said everything and the contrary of everything. He has lied repeatedly. The divisions in this bruised America emerging from the most ugly of campaigns should not be underestimated.

Democracy is unpredictable but must be respected. It is, as Churchill noted, the worst system of government except for all others that have been tried. The country wanted change. Clinton could not embody that. People were tired of the Clinton machine, with its culture of secrecy and evasion, and its way of walking a fine line — too fine — between noble political causes and dubious personal enrichment. Bill Clinton entered the White House almost a quarter-century ago. America tends to want to roll the dice and move forward.

In this case, with Trump, it has taken an extraordinary risk.

I fear the worst. Trump intuited and revealed the worst traits of worried Americans — their search for scapegoats, their desire to prostrate themselves before an autocratic savior, their bigotry. If Trump governs as he has campaigned, America and the world face real and present danger.

THIS IS NO COCK & BULL....No.82

The Rise and Fall of Tim Leissner, Goldman's Big Man in Malaysia.

The prime minister of Malaysia had a message for the crowd at the Grand Hyatt San Francisco in September 2013. “We cannot have an egalitarian society -- it’s impossible to have an egalitarian society,” Najib Razak said. “But certainly we can achieve a more equitable society.” Tim Leissner, one of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s star bankers, enjoyed the festivities that night with model Kimora Lee Simmons, who’s now his wife. In snapshots she posted to Twitter, she’s sitting next to Najib’s wife, and then standing between him and Leissner. Everyone smiled. The good times didn’t last. At least $681 million landed in the prime minister’s personal bank accounts that year, money his government has said was a gift from the Saudi royal family. The windfall triggered turmoil for him, investigations into the state fund he oversees and trouble for Goldman Sachs, which helped it raise $6.5 billion. Leissner, the firm’s Southeast Asia chairman, left last month after questions about the fund, his work on an Indonesian mining deal and an allegedly inaccurate reference letter. 

Few corporations have mastered the mix of money and power like New York-based Goldman Sachs, whose alumni have become U.S. lawmakers, Treasury secretaries and central bankers. Leissner’s rise and fall shows how lucrative and fraught it can be when the bank exports that recipe worldwide. In 2002, when the firm made him head of investment banking in Singapore, it had just cleaned up a mess there after offending powerful families. It took only a few years before the networking maestro was helping the bank soar in Southeast Asia -- culminating in billion-dollar deals with state fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd., also known as 1MDB. But if his links to the rich and powerful fueled his Goldman career, they also helped end it. “He has to know a lot of people, that’s just the nature of the business,” said Gerry David, president of Celsius Holdings Inc., an energy-drink company that counts Leissner and Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing as investors. “He’s the type of person that I would honestly tell you I would really want as a friend, a personal friend.” 

Leissner’s lawyer, Jonathan Cogan, didn’t respond to messages. Edward Naylor, a spokesman for Goldman Sachs, declined to comment. Suckling Pigs Proximity to power is so prized at Goldman Sachs that a former co-head wrote it into his commandments for the firm: “Important people like to deal with other important people. Are you one?” The answer from lanky, blue-eyed Leissner seemed clear from his earliest years at the firm. He joined in 1998 and then became chief of staff to Richard Gnodde, president of the bank’s Asia operations and now co-head of investment banking. One colleague from that era said Leissner was the kind of banker who could hop in a canoe, paddle upstream and come back with a fee. 

Tim Leissner

That person, who asked not to be identified, said Leissner could dazzle in other ways: When he married Judy Chan, whose father ran a coal-mining business in China, the wedding feast included suckling pigs with electric lights flashing in their eye sockets. The firm learned a lesson about how to handle itself around power in Singapore just before Leissner got a big break there in 2002. In a presentation for a client bidding to take over a bank, Goldman Sachs advisers said that a rival deal was designed to keep powerful families in control while ignoring public shareholders. Regulators and local bankers were offended by the bluntness. 

Hank Paulson, chief executive officer at the time, flew to Singapore for damage control. Leissner became the firm’s local head of investment banking a few months later. The banker, whose father was a Volkswagen AG executive in Yugoslavia during the Bosnian War before stints in Mexico and China, graduated from Germany’s University of Siegen and got an MBA from the University of Hartford in Connecticut in 1992. At a 2001 gathering of young Asian leaders, the program listed him as Dr. Leissner for his workshop “What would happen had Einstein joined Wall Street?” 

A biography he provided at another forum said he got a doctorate in business administration from Somerset University. A school with that name offered degrees for $995, a retired federal investigator told a U.S. congressional committee on education in 2004. Malaysian Billionaires Leissner’s contacts were more impressive. In May 2006, he was sitting onstage when the conglomerate controlled by billionaire Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary announced its takeover of power producer Malakoff Bhd., what it called “the largest acquisition ever undertaken in Malaysia.” Goldman Sachs was an adviser on the deal. 

That year, Leissner made partner. The firm helped manage billionaire T. Ananda Krishnan’s 2009 initial public offering of Maxis Bhd., Malaysia’s biggest wireless operator. Krishnan also controlled Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd., the largest pay-TV broadcaster, and Goldman Sachs was there when it went public, too. Leissner was open about his ambition. The firm wanted to do more business in Malaysia, he said in an interview carried by a government news agency. That was before Najib became prime minister in 2009. By the end of that year, the nation’s securities commission cited the new leader’s “strategic shift” when it announced that Goldman’s application to start operations for fund management and corporate finance was approved. That smoothed the way for the firm’s blockbuster deals with 1MDB, which began as an investment fund set up by oil-rich Terengganu state before Najib took it over. 

The government-owned entity attracted attention even in early days: Jho Low, a young dealmaker who advised the Terengganu Investment Authority and was a friend of Najib’s stepson, film producer Riza Aziz, popped up in tabloids celebrating in New York and St.-Tropez with Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and magnums of champagne. Goldman Sachs, where Jho Low’s brother Szen had worked, hit it big, too. The firm made $593 million working on three bond sales that raised $6.5 billion for 1MDB in 2012 and 2013, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, dwarfing what banks typically make from government deals. Leissner was an adviser to the state fund from early on, according to a former colleague familiar with the bond sales. “There’s no law against bankers meeting with heads of state,” Wong Chen, an opposition member of Malaysia’s parliament, said in an interview this month about Goldman Sachs’s relationship with 1MDB. “That’s a bit too cozy, a bit too overly generous.” ‘Large Requirements’ “There were large requirements and Goldman was one of the few firms, in fact the only firm, that could provide the solution that was required,” 

1MDB President Arul Kanda said in an interview Wednesday at his office in Kuala Lumpur. “Overall the objectives were met.” He wouldn’t comment on Leissner. The bank said last year that fees and commissions “reflected the underwriting risks assumed by Goldman Sachs.” A spokesman for Najib declined to comment for this story. Jho Low didn’t respond to e-mails. Leissner became the firm’s Southeast Asia chairman in 2014. By then, he had met his current wife in business class on a flight from Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur, with an argument in the beginning and a marriage proposal by the end, according to an interview they gave to a Wall Street Journal fashion columnist. She was previously married to Russell Simmons, who co-founded Def Jam Recordings. His wife’s social-media accounts chronicle the couple’s jet-set life, from yachts in the Caribbean to Indonesia, where she thanked god for her police escort. The prime minister and his wife weren’t the only Malaysian leaders she mentioned: 

The queen, she said, was a fan. In 2014, Simmons told a reporter that one of her daughters wanted to be a banker and met Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. $681 Million Anger about the Wall Street bank’s profit was overshadowed by controversy over whether the money 1MDB raised was spent as intended on local projects including a Kuala Lumpur financial center or siphoned off. “I am not a thief,” Najib said last July, as investigators probed the hundreds of millions of dollars that were said to have shown up in his bank accounts. Malaysia’s attorney general said in January that the prime minister got $681 million as a gift from Saudi Arabia’s royal family and returned $620 million. That month, Switzerland’s prosecutors asked for Malaysia’s help investigating 1MDB, saying they suspected $4 billion may have been misappropriated. Goldman Sachs reviewed the deal too, finding no indication the firm or Leissner engaged in wrongdoing, two people familiar with the process said. Even so, the bank stepped up scrutiny of him after he worked with a group of investors last year trying to buy Newmont Mining Corp.’s Indonesian copper operations. 

One of them, Sudjiono Timan, a former head of a government-owned brokerage convicted of corruption in 2004, created a problem. The firm told Leissner it wouldn’t move ahead if he was a sponsor, even though the conviction was overturned in 2013, two people familiar with the matter said. Timan withdrew, but Goldman Sachs pulled out of the deal when it learned he was still an adviser, the people said. The bank then examined Leissner’s messages and found a reference letter he wrote that it said in a regulatory filing was “inaccurate and unauthorized.” Gated Mansion The firm put Leissner on leave in January, and he resigned soon after. U.S. investigators subpoenaed him in February over the 1MDB work. The government told him he’s not a target, according to one of the people. Authorities are exploring whether Goldman Sachs misled 1MDB bondholders or broke anti-corruption laws, the Wall Street Journal reported last week. Leissner recommended the firm hire the daughter of a close aide to Najib, according to the paper. Goldman’s business in Malaysia, where it was one of the top banks four years ago, has fallen far. It ranked 17th for local mergers and acquisitions work last year, when it was credited with no equity or debt deals, data compiled by Bloomberg show. 

Leissner moved to Los Angeles. His exit from Goldman Sachs is an “opportunity to be back home with the family,” according to David, who promotes his energy-drink Celsius as a “negative calorie beverage.” An attempt this month to reach Leissner or his wife via intercom at the black gate of an $11 million Beverly Hills mansion was unsuccessful. The 9,405-square-foot house, which has seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a screening room, gym, tennis court and guest house, according to an old listing, is just north of Sunset Boulevard. Last month, a few weeks after news broke that Leissner was on leave and in California, Najib returned to San Francisco. He was talking up his country, part of a tour called Invest Malaysia 2016. “Under adverse conditions, we still perform pretty well,” the prime minister said. “We believe that performance can continue with policies that will not change.” Suckling Pigs Proximity to power is so prized at Goldman Sachs that a former co-head wrote it into his commandments for the firm: “Important people like to deal with other important people. Are you one?” The answer from lanky, blue-eyed Leissner seemed clear from his earliest years at the firm. 

He joined in 1998 and then became chief of staff to Richard Gnodde, president of the bank’s Asia operations and now co-head of investment banking. One colleague from that era said Leissner was the kind of banker who could hop in a canoe, paddle upstream and come back with a fee. That person, who asked not to be identified, said Leissner could dazzle in other ways: When he married Judy Chan, whose father ran a coal-mining business in China, the wedding feast included suckling pigs with electric lights flashing in their eye sockets. The firm learned a lesson about how to handle itself around power in Singapore just before Leissner got a big break there in 2002. In a presentation for a client bidding to take over a bank, Goldman Sachs advisers said that a rival deal was designed to keep powerful families in control while ignoring public shareholders. 

Regulators and local bankers were offended by the bluntness. Hank Paulson, chief executive officer at the time, flew to Singapore for damage control. Leissner became the firm’s local head of investment banking a few months later. The banker, whose father was a Volkswagen AG executive in Yugoslavia during the Bosnian War before stints in Mexico and China, graduated from Germany’s University of Siegen and got an MBA from the University of Hartford in Connecticut in 1992. At a 2001 gathering of young Asian leaders, the program listed him as Dr. Leissner for his workshop “What would happen had Einstein joined Wall Street?” A biography he provided at another forum said he got a doctorate in business administration from Somerset University. A school with that name offered degrees for $995, a retired federal investigator told a U.S. congressional committee on education in 2004. 

Malaysian Billionaires Leissner’s contacts were more impressive. In May 2006, he was sitting onstage when the conglomerate controlled by billionaire Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary announced its takeover of power producer Malakoff Bhd., what it called “the largest acquisition ever undertaken in Malaysia.” Goldman Sachs was an adviser on the deal. That year, Leissner made partner. The firm helped manage billionaire T. Ananda Krishnan’s 2009 initial public offering of Maxis Bhd., Malaysia’s biggest wireless operator. Krishnan also controlled Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd., the largest pay-TV broadcaster, and Goldman Sachs was there when it went public, too. Leissner was open about his ambition. The firm wanted to do more business in Malaysia, he said in an interview carried by a government news agency. That was before Najib became prime minister in 2009. 

By the end of that year, the nation’s securities commission cited the new leader’s “strategic shift” when it announced that Goldman’s application to start operations for fund management and corporate finance was approved. That smoothed the way for the firm’s blockbuster deals with 1MDB, which began as an investment fund set up by oil-rich Terengganu state before Najib took it over. The government-owned entity attracted attention even in early days: Jho Low, a young dealmaker who advised the Terengganu Investment Authority and was a friend of Najib’s stepson, film producer Riza Aziz, popped up in tabloids celebrating in New York and St.-Tropez with Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and magnums of champagne. Goldman Sachs, where Jho Low’s brother Szen had worked, hit it big, too. The firm made $593 million working on three bond sales that raised $6.5 billion for 1MDB in 2012 and 2013, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, dwarfing what banks typically make from government deals. Leissner was an adviser to the state fund from early on, according to a former colleague familiar with the bond sales.

 “There’s no law against bankers meeting with heads of state,” Wong Chen, an opposition member of Malaysia’s parliament, said in an interview this month about Goldman Sachs’s relationship with 1MDB. “That’s a bit too cozy, a bit too overly generous.” ‘Large Requirements’ “There were large requirements and Goldman was one of the few firms, in fact the only firm, that could provide the solution that was required,” 1MDB President Arul Kanda said in an interview Wednesday at his office in Kuala Lumpur. “Overall the objectives were met.” He wouldn’t comment on Leissner. The bank said last year that fees and commissions “reflected the underwriting risks assumed by Goldman Sachs.” A spokesman for Najib declined to comment for this story. Jho Low didn’t respond to e-mails. Leissner became the firm’s Southeast Asia chairman in 2014. By then, he had met his current wife in business class on a flight from Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur, with an argument in the beginning and a marriage proposal by the end, according to an interview they gave to a Wall Street Journal fashion columnist. She was previously married to Russell Simmons, who co-founded Def Jam Recordings. His wife’s social-media accounts chronicle the couple’s jet-set life, from yachts in the Caribbean to Indonesia, where she thanked god for her police escort. The prime minister and his wife weren’t the only Malaysian leaders she mentioned: 

The queen, she said, was a fan. In 2014, Simmons told a reporter that one of her daughters wanted to be a banker and met Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. $681 Million Anger about the Wall Street bank’s profit was overshadowed by controversy over whether the money 1MDB raised was spent as intended on local projects including a Kuala Lumpur financial center or siphoned off. “I am not a thief,” Najib said last July, as investigators probed the hundreds of millions of dollars that were said to have shown up in his bank accounts. Malaysia’s attorney general said in January that the prime minister got $681 million as a gift from Saudi Arabia’s royal family and returned $620 million. 

That month, Switzerland’s prosecutors asked for Malaysia’s help investigating 1MDB, saying they suspected $4 billion may have been misappropriated. Goldman Sachs reviewed the deal too, finding no indication the firm or Leissner engaged in wrongdoing, two people familiar with the process said. Even so, the bank stepped up scrutiny of him after he worked with a group of investors last year trying to buy Newmont Mining Corp.’s Indonesian copper operations. Start your day with what’s moving markets. Get our markets daily newsletter. Enter your email Sign Up One of them, Sudjiono Timan, a former head of a government-owned brokerage convicted of corruption in 2004, created a problem. 

The firm told Leissner it wouldn’t move ahead if he was a sponsor, even though the conviction was overturned in 2013, two people familiar with the matter said. Timan withdrew, but Goldman Sachs pulled out of the deal when it learned he was still an adviser, the people said. The bank then examined Leissner’s messages and found a reference letter he wrote that it said in a regulatory filing was “inaccurate and unauthorized.” Gated Mansion The firm put Leissner on leave in January, and he resigned soon after. U.S. investigators subpoenaed him in February over the 1MDB work. 

The government told him he’s not a target, according to one of the people. Authorities are exploring whether Goldman Sachs misled 1MDB bondholders or broke anti-corruption laws, the Wall Street Journal reported last week. Leissner recommended the firm hire the daughter of a close aide to Najib, according to the paper. Goldman’s business in Malaysia, where it was one of the top banks four years ago, has fallen far. It ranked 17th for local mergers and acquisitions work last year, when it was credited with no equity or debt deals, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Leissner moved to Los Angeles. 

His exit from Goldman Sachs is an “opportunity to be back home with the family,” according to David, who promotes his energy-drink Celsius as a “negative calorie beverage.” An attempt this month to reach Leissner or his wife via intercom at the black gate of an $11 million Beverly Hills mansion was unsuccessful. The 9,405-square-foot house, which has seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a screening room, gym, tennis court and guest house, according to an old listing, is just north of Sunset Boulevard. Last month, a few weeks after news broke that Leissner was on leave and in California, Najib returned to San Francisco. He was talking up his country, part of a tour called Invest Malaysia 2016. “Under adverse conditions, we still perform pretty well,” the prime minister said. “We believe that performance can continue with policies that will not change.”

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