General

A sharp decline of tourists at the Sangeh Monkey Forest in Bali has left the macaques without their preferred food source of bananas and peanuts, causing them to raid people's homes for food. Dhanya Nair tells us more about how the pandemic has impacted animals at tourist spots.

Image Source: Radoslav Bali, Unsplash

The 2020 Tokyo Paralympics came to a close yesterday, with Malaysia taking home three gold medals, and two silvers - beating our previous best of four medals at Rio 2016. We look back at the highlights, and look forward to how we can continue to grow.

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Words help us to describe how we feel during the highs and the lows, and they’re especially important in our conversations about mental health. But are our efforts to destigmatise mental illness and create more conversations about how we feel too broad? Is telling someone to seek mental health help whenever they feel “depressed” or “down” sending the wrong message that we shouldn’t feel this way at all? Here to discuss more is Dr Lucy Foulkes, psychologist and author of the book “Losing Our Minds: What Mental Illness Really Is”.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us how contagious and dangerous infectious diseases can be. Before children were immunised against common childhood infections, diseases like measles, polio and pertussis used to spread rapidly, causing severe complications and even death among children. Today, we can protect all children, and even newborn babies, from these deadly diseases – not only with immunisations for children but for mothers as well. Consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Patricia Lim shares some reminders on how mothers can protect themselves and their newborns from pertussis – another deadly cough  and how to space out the COVID-19 vaccination with other maternal immunisations.

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The mission to keep Taman Rimba Kiara as a park that benefits all continues, as the Federal Court has allowed DBKL and the other parties involved to appeal against the quashing of the development order, and commence with an appeal to reinstate the development over a portion of the public park. We catch up with Hafiz Abu Bakar, the Chairman of the TTDI Residents Association, and Leon Koay, the Committee Coordinator of the Save Taman Rimba Kiara Working Group about this new development in the case. We also question why recommendations and objections submitted by the public were ignored by the authorities in the final decisions on the Kuala Lumpur City Plan 2020 (Alteration 3) (Part II), and the implications of the prospective loss of open space and conversion of institutional land to commercial use that this will bring with it.

Two weeks ago, after Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob was appointed as Prime Minister, the former Deputy Minister of Women, Family and Community Development, Hannah Yeoh, called on the PM to establish a separate ministry to look after the needs of children in the country. Right now, children’s issues are largely addressed by the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development, so why is having a separate ministry necessary? How will it help us better protect children’s rights and welfare? And, more importantly, is it the right time? YB Hannah Yeoh is joined by child rights activist and founder of Yayasan Chow Kit, Datuk Dr Hartini Zainudin, to share more about why it’s time for a Ministry of Children.

Image credit: Hannah Yeoh Facebook and Yayasan Chow Kit website.

In the pandemic, job hunting has primarily taken place online. What are the new trends in post-pandemic recruitment? What are job seekers looking for now? And have Malaysian job seekers been using online platforms to their best advantage?

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What does it mean to take risks in your career journey? How do you come to this fork in the road and what do you decide when you do? Arun Nagarajah from Leaderonomics discusses the variety of risks, how to judge when to take them, and what happens if things don’t work out.

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With just 4 months to go before a very tough year ends, the main thing on the minds of most people is productivity. Working from home can bring about a comfort zone and a stress of its own, but whether you’re working from an office or from home, having massive productivity in the final months of 2021 is everything towards achieving your goals for the year. Jeevan Sahadevan gives us his simple and yet potent formula to achieve just that.

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The decision by the Selangor state government to degazette part of the Kuala Langat North Forest Reserve, despite public opposition, sparked furious backlash last week. The saga also highlights the shortcomings of the system in holding government authorities accountable for decisions that affect forest conservation and management. We speak to forestry researcher Lim Teck Wyn on the complexities of forest management and how the decision-making process can be made more transparent and democratic.

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