Live & Learn

After two years of festive celebrations hindered by various movement restrictions, many Malaysians are looking forward to celebrating Hari Raya as close to normal as they can this year. But being Malaysians, road safety is a major concern as we prepare for the balik kampung exodus along with the unpredictable weather. As we prepare to drive out of the city this weekend, Capt K. Bala, safety activist and president of the Road Safety Marshal Club joins us to share some advice on how to make your balik kampung journey a safe one.

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Malaysian, Nagaenthran Dharmalingam (who hails from Perak), is scheduled to be hanged in Singapore on Wednesday (April 27) after the Singapore Court of Appeal upheld his execution. The 34-year-old was handed the death penalty by the Singapore High Court in 2010 for smuggling 42.72g of diamorphine. It’s important to note that Nagaenthran wasn’t a kingpin or a drug lord, but a drug mule with a below average IQ of 69.

But is it too late for Nagaen? Joining me on the show today to discuss is Kirsten Han, journalist and activist from Singapore. She’s part of the Transformative Justice Collective, a group committed to seeking the reform of Singapore’s criminal justice system, starting with the abolition of the death penalty.

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Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on the 24th of February, numerous allegations have emerged that Russian soldiers have been and continue to sexually assault women. Rape and sexual assaults are war crimes, and a breach of international humanitarian law, but despite U.N. resolutions, international legal duties, voluntary pledges and so on, the use of these crimes continues. We speak Dr. Johanna Higgs, a women’s rights activist, anthropologist and the founder of the women's rights advocacy group Project Monma, to discuss how rape and sexual violence are used as weapons of war, with a focus on the Ukraine conflict.

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Another day, another egg to lay. The hens at Mr Chan's farm are tired, and decided it's time to take a day off. So they hatched a plan with the accidental help of the proud rooster... This is the basic premise of the new illustrated children's book, A Hen-Made Tale, by Lim Soon Heng, an actor and the Executive Director of the KL Shakespeare Players, which was illustrated by Tang Yeok Khang. We catch up with Soon Heng to find out more about his maiden outing as a children's book author.

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Out Of The Box is a monthly series where we explore alternative ways to teach and learn, and which is done in collaboration with Anyaman Preschool. It's Earth Day tomorrow, and this year's theme is "Invest in Our Future." One school that has long been investing in our collective future through nurturing a sustainability mindset among their students, is the Green School. Founded by John and Cynthia Hardy, the couple have created not just a school, but a global movement to raise changemakers. We find out more about how the Green School works, its living curriculum, and its growth and evolution, from Sal Gordon, the Head of Teaching and Learning at Green School Bali.

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50 years ago, on the 21st of April 1972, Universiti Malaya established its Faculty of Law, the first in Malaysia’s history, and thus beginning the development of legal education in the country. Fast forward 50 years later, how much has legal education - and the profession - changed in Malaysia? Here to mark this occasion are Dato’ Assoc Prof Dr Johan Shamsuddin Hj Sabaruddin, Dean of the Faculty of Law at Universiti Malaya and an alumni of the faculty, Firdaus Husni, who is now the Chief Human Rights Strategist MCCHR. 

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Ashleigh Lim’s father was detained without trial, from 1968 to 1974, under Malaysia's Internal Security Act (ISA). In her film  Kisah AyahKu, Ashleigh revisits her father's past, and tries to make sense of the hardships both he and her mother faced during these times, and how they moved on after. On today's episode of Stay Home And Watch, a series done in collaboration with The Freedom Film Network, we revisit this 2016 film to explore issues such as detention without trial and the right to freedom of speech in a democracy, with Ashleigh, who's also a visual effects consultant.

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The Sedition Act and the Communications & Multimedia Act have been used once again and a string of investigations and arrests have been taking place over the past week or so. Among those investigated are Dr Jeyakumar of Parti Sosialis Malaysia, writer Uthaya Sankar and S.Murugan of DAP, all of whom are investigated for social media posts.

What does this mean for freedom of speech in Malaysia?

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In October 2020, India and South Africa proposed a landmark intellectual property waiver at the World Trade Organisation to temporarily waive patents related to COVID-19 diagnostics, drugs and vaccines for as long as the pandemic rages on. While this has been backed by more than a 100 governments, progress has been blocked - unsurprisingly - by a handful of wealthy countries. Now with many countries across the globe with high vaccination rates and beginning to treat COVID-19 as endemic, you might ask why such a waiver is still needed. Here to answer that question and the problems exposed by a recently leaked draft of the proposal is Chee Yoke Ling, the executive director of the Third World Network.

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We're continuing our collaboration with the folks from the Freedom Film Network, revisiting past films that were made over the last two decades, which tackled various human rights issues in Malaysia. Bila Kami Bersatu’ or When We Are One follows the lives and struggles of three women from Malaysia’s national hospital service workers’ labour union, as they collectively fight for fair pay. The film documents their day-to-day experiences as hospital service workers, providing rarely seen insights into the lives of working class women in Malaysia. It also shows the real life stakes they face within an increasingly unequal economic system and the political and social risks they take in order to improve their lives and that of the other workers in their industry. Joining us to discuss the film is its co-director, Minxi Chua, who is also a writer.

Image credit: Freedom Film Network