Current Affairs

Chandran Nair, author of the book Consumptionomics, talks about the need to rethink policies to check excess consumption that taxes our resources and environment. He is also the founder of the Global Institute For Tomorrow (GIFT).  

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Vice President of the National House Buyers Association (HBA), Brigadier General Dato' Goh Sing Toh, and its Hon Secretary General, Chang Kim Loong discuss the impact of higher property prices on young households and the Government's move to launch an affordable housing scheme.

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Fung Siu, editor and economist for Asia, with the Economist Intelligence Unit in the UK, shares her views about the potential losses and gains of the Proton-Perodua merger, as well as the impact of liberalisation on the local automotive market.

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The Heatlh Ministry is in discussion with the Malaysian Medical Association to implement the "1Care for 1Malaysia" scheme, which will see government and private clinics working together to provide better healthcare of the public.

Melisa Idris gets the views of the President of the Malaysian Medical Association, Dr David Quek Kwang Leng, on the mechanisms of the proposed scheme and the impact it will have on our healthcare system. He also talks about the temporary freeze on new medical course.

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Brain drain—the migration of talent across borders—touches the core of Malaysia's aspiration to become a high-income nation. With human capital the bedrock of any high-income economy, Malaysia will need to develop, attract and retain talent. However the brain drain problem in the country does not appear to square with this objective: Malaysia needs talent, but talent seems to be leaving.

The World Bank in April 2011 released a report on brain drain in Malaysia. Melisa Idris speaks to Malaysian-born Dr Farish Noor, now with the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, on his views about the report and the issues surrounding this much debated topic. He talks about the lessons Malaysia can learn from other countries in retaining talent, and if the government incentives are enough to woo back professional Malaysians living abroad.

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Khairy Jamaluddin, Chairman of Barisan Nasional Youth, Head of UMNO Youth, and MP for Rembau, talks of money politics.

In particular, he discusses:

- His definition of money politics;
-The distinction between legitimate expenses and what’s considered political bribery perspective;
-Within his party - UMNO - what is the policy where money politics are concerned;
-Sarawak elections

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The United Nations has declared the period 2011-2020 as the Decade of Action for Road Safety, with the goal of stabilizing and eventually reducing the number of traffic-related deaths and injuries.

In an interview with the Director General of MIROS (the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research) Prof Dr Ahmad Farhan Mohd Sadullah, Melisa Idris gets his views on the issues surrounding road safety in Malaysia.

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Mohamad Madani Sahari, CEO of Malaysia Automotive Institute, talks about the pros and cons of a collaboration and provides more detail of the type and depth of collaboration (such as vendor development and raw material procurement).

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EU Ambassador, H.E Vincent Piket, provides an update on the progress of talks for a Malaysia - EU Free Trade Agreement, the two-year timeframe to complete talks and the types of goods involved.
He also talks about:
- Value of trade;
- Value of surplus;
- The ringgit's strength;
- Explains the FTA;
- Explains the Partnership Cooperation Agreement;
- Discusses the Eurozone's bail-outs of troubled nations,
- Suggestions of the EU's mounting frailty;
- The environment and Malaysia's efforts to introduce a Feed-In Tariff system in light of Spain's experience with clean-energy tariffs;
- Biomass as a clean fuel;
- Palm oil, its sustainability, and the RSPO.

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Bridget Welsh, Associate Professor for Political Science at Singapore Management University, analyses the results of Singapore's elections, and says that a possible outcome would be the tightening of immigration policies especially for the IT sector, and more social welfare to reduce the income divide.

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