A boat carrying hundreds of Rohingya refugees was prevented from entering Malaysian waters due to fears of bringing COVID-19 into the country. But are those fears justified? We explore how countries should be responding towards refugees and asylum-seekers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keep the midday blues at bay by joining us for an hour-long musical trip.

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Babe Rainbow - Something New

Beau Diako, Jordan Rakei - Flamingo

Naomi Sharon - Breeze

Leon Bridges - Inside Friend (ft. John Mayer)

Phyllis Dillon - Perfidia

Synthia - Dissolve

BJ The Chicago Kid - Turnin Me Up

Maya Delilah - Tangerine Dream

Yussef Dayes & Alfa Mist - Love Is The Message

Stuck at home with nothing to do because of the Movement Control Order? Worry not, because we're here to keep the boredom at bay. Every day, we present our special curated list of arts, culture, and entertainment that you can experience right from your own home. Today, we look at short stories and book readings by fantasy author Neil Gaiman. Then, we highlight a couple of brilliant short films from Studio Binder’s list of “49 Greatest Short Films of All Time.”

Everyone is on the hunt for a drug that can effectively treat COVID-19. Will Malaysia find the answer when it participates in the global Solidarity trial, by the World Health Organization? We find out more from Dr Chow Ting Soo, Infectious Disease Consultant at Hospital Pulau Pinang, the principal investigator for the trial in Malaysia.

ServisHero is one of the leading professional service marketplace for home and office. With operations around the region, they had some aggressive plans for the year 2020. But as the COVID-19 virus started to spread into the region, they slowly saw a dip in core business. To make matters worse, the first week of MCO saw their business dropped 90% in revenue. And thus Disinfection2u.com was born within 36 hours. They now have disinfected over a million square feet in less than 2 weeks of operation. We speak to Karl Loo on how he managed to turn around his business in such a short space of time and the challenges in those 2 days of pivoting.

Going digital is probably the most feasible way to maintain some sort of cash flow for your business. However, not many had a strong digital presence before the MCO hit, which is why many smaller F&B operators have been using platforms like WhatsApp for the ordering of meals or products. While this is certainly a good step, it's definitely not sustainable and causes a disruption in business processes.

Kimberly Wan saw the gap in the market and quickly co-founded Otomate Me, a software acting as a service company that helps companies of all sizes to personalise and automate their outreach. Hear more about it on today's Voice of SMEs. 

VMO is an events booking online platform to help you with everything you need for any types of events, be it corporate functions or personal ocassions like weddings and birthdays. Over the course of the years in operations, they have grown to over 2,000 listings just before the MCO. We got in touch with Vincent Kok, the Founder of VMO, who talks about how he not only created or pivoted his business during this time but also raised funds to grow the company. 

With many countries now barring travel save for exceptional circumstances, sailors who man the sea lanes transporting 90% of the world’s trade now find themselves unable to return to their home countries. We speak to Guy Platten, Secretary-General, International Chamber of Shipping about the issues this might cause, as well as the importance of maintaining maritime trade amid the global coronavirus crisis.

Dr Shankaran Nambiar, Senior Research Fellow at the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research gives us his views on what post MCO exit strategies the government should consider if and when the MCO is lifted. He also weighs in the practicalities of social distancing in essential services and how can it be enforced in certain sectors.

Covid-19 has affected many legal contracts with individuals and companies in limbo as they are unable to fulfill their obligations.

We speak to Lee Shih, a corporate lawyer to find out if a Covid-19 Bill similar to the one that Singapore has passed, is a solution.