Current Affairs

Last week's tabling of the Federal government's budget for 2018 was largely seen as an election budget, and the same has been said of Penang's own budget announcement yesterday.

Today the attention will now focus on whether Selangor Menteri Besar Azmin Ali will do the same, especially in light of Prime Minister Najib Razak's attempts to win back voters in the state.

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Pakatan Harapan released its alternative budget, which includes a rationale to eliminate the Goods and Services Tax. YB Wong Chen also explains how the federal opposition's proposed policies can boost consumption, in order to offset the shortfall in government revenue.

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Ten days ago a Malaysian man from Tumpat was shot dead by a stray bullet in Kampung Cek He in Kelantan. The incident raised questions of whether the shooting was related to the Tak Bai massacre. Today on the 13th anniversary of the tragedy we ask about the contemporary reverberations of one of the bloodiest conflicts in southern Thailand.  Close to 80 people were killed by security forces following a large demonstration protesting an earlier shooting incident that claimed 7 individuals. Arrested demonstrators were stripped to the waist, cuffed, and crammed into army trucks to be taken to a military camp in Patani 150km away. Seventy-eight of them suffocated to death on the way.

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On Saturday, a landslide at a construction site in Penang took the lives of 11 men and set off a storm of criticism of the State Government. Criticism has come many quarters both from politically independent NGOs as well as political rivals. Much of the criticism turns on why the State government approved the construction project despite a rejection by the Department of Environment. Natural Resources and Environment Minister called the actions of state authorities “criminal folly.” Today, we ask if there was elements of criminal negligence involved in the approval of the project on the part of the Penang State government.

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Criticism of the Penang state government continues unabated following Saturday’s Tanjung Bungah landslide that has claimed 11 lives thus far. Civil society groups in Penang expressed disappointment over the alleged lackadaisical attitude of the Penang Government and elected representatives over the matter. A coalition of 20 NGOs known as Penang Forum had highlighted the issue on hillside developments since last year with the Penang Hills Watch initiative. Today, we ask if the Penang state government responsible for the tragedy? And if their proposed “commission of inquiry” into the landslide will allow a broad investigation or will be narrowly focused.

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Yesterday morning, prominent businessman and philanthropist Tan Sri Yeoh Tiong Lay passed away at the age of 88. Yeoh is the founder of the YTL group of companies, which started out as a construction firm in 1955. Today YTL Group has grown into a multinational corporation with operations in everything from power generation, water and sewerage services, to cement manufacturing. Joyce Goh shares her experience interviewing Tan Sri Yeoh Tiong Lay in 2011.

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Yesterday Malaysian intellectual and political activist Kassim Ahmad was laid to rest in Kulim, Kedah.  He was 84 years old. As a politician, he lead the Parti Sosialis Rakyat Malaysia but in 1980 joined UMNO. An author of over 10 books, Kassim is best known for “Universiti Kedua”, which documents his detention under the Internal Security Act for five years in late 70s. His book “Hadith: A Re-evaluation”, a critical study on the authority of the Hadith, was banned in 1986. Today we look at his political and intellectual legacy.

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Yesterday, American economist Richard Thaler was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. Thaler is well known for his best-selling book titled “Nudge”. Based on a concept that that people can be influenced by prompts, it has even influenced governments with some setting up nudge units. The Nobel Committee’s statement on this award reads - “Richard H. Thaler has incorporated psychologically realistic assumptions into analyses of economic decision-making. By exploring the consequences of limited rationality, social preferences, and lack of self-control, he has shown how these human traits systematically affect individual decisions as well as market outcomes.” Today, we ask one of his students, why he thinks the award is timely.

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The non-partisan civil society group, Rise of Sarawak Efforts, has recently been working on an absentee voting campaign, proposing that East Malaysian voters living in the Peninsular be given the right to be absentee voters.

Absentee voting means these voters will not have to travel back to their home constituency to vote.

Ann Teo, chairperson for ROSE tells us why they are fighting to have the existing regulation on absentee voters changed.

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Burma Human Rights Network recently released a report exposing the institutional persecution of Muslims in Myanmar, drawing on more than 350 interviews conducted, over an eight-month period.

U Kyaw Win, the founder and executive director of the Burma Human Rights Network shares some of the key findings of the report. He also dismisses allegations that Myanmar has become a breeding ground for terrorism.

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