'All things are wearisome, more than one can say... What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.' (The Ecclesiastes)

Barry Wain, a former editor at the Asia Wall Street , relates in his latest book Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times how the authoritarian leader found himself with his back against the wall in the wake of the series of financial scandals involving the then Bank Bumiputra in the mid 1980s.