This year marks 50 years since Australia became ASEAN's first dialogue partner and it will be celebrated with a special summit in Melbourne to expand that cooperation. Danielle Heinecke is Australia's new High Commissioner to Malaysia, beginning her tour of duty in December 2023. She sits down to share what she plans to do while in office from facilitating business linkages to easing people-to-people movement and more.

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Phison Electronics is a global leader in chip designing and manufacturing, and 1 out of every 4 Solid-state drives in the world is Phison’s.

Malaysian-born CEO Dato’ Pua Khein Seng joins us to share their diversification efforts, the impact of US-China tensions and plans to re-establish an integrated circuit (IC) design hub in Malaysia.

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Global outstanding sukuk is approximately 850 billion US dollars at end-2023 and is expected to reach tremendous growth as shariah compliant financial instruments become increasingly mainstream. Bashar Al Natoor, Global Head of Islamic Finance at Fitch Ratings shares with us what the sukuk pricing trend will be as we enter rate cut cycle, and how Malaysia can retain its edge in this market.

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The 7th Bumiputera Economic Congress or BEC 2024 will begin on Thursday, the latest government attempt to revamp the long-running, and contentious, bumiputera economic empowerment agenda. Will the congress critically examine the discrepancy between aspiration and reality in the bumi agenda, and how might it chart new ground? We discuss with our panel of experts.

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The present war in Gaza is only the latest in a long history of violence in the occupied Palestinian Territories. What lessons does the past shed about the path forward towards resolving the long-standing crisis in the Middle East? We speak to Prof. Dr. Ian Lustick of the University of Pennsylvania on the geopolitical dynamics driving stakeholders in the region and the viability of the two-state solution. He is the author of Paradigm Lost: From Two-State Solution to One-State Reality that was published in 2019.

Image Credit: Shutterstock.com

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Malaysia's Hernan Corporation is in the durian business, marketing and distributing its products to Australia, the US, the EU, Hong Kong and of course China. Its founder and CEO is Datuk Anna Teo and she checks in with us on how the company has been balancing high demand for the king of fruits with the challenges coming from climate change and rising input costs.

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In FY2023, Bursa Malaysia reported a 2% rise in revenue to 616.49 million ringgit while net profit rose by 11% to 252.38 million ringgit. Datuk Muhamad Umar Swift, CEO, Bursa Malaysia shares with us the outlook for this year, its target of 42 IPOs for 2024 and recent volatility we observed in the market.

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Feb 20 is designated Social Justice Equality Day by the United Nations. Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj, chairman of Parti Sosialis Malaysia assesses social justice in the world and in Malaysia. He also discusses the current political climate as well as PSM's ambitions to champion its ideologies going forward in an increasingly religiously and racially polarised country.

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Indonesians have voted in a new president and the latest exit polls indicate a high chance that former defence minister Prabowo Subianto will lead the country for the next 5 years. The election was also the world’s largest single-day vote in the world’s third largest democracy with more than 200 million eligible voters. Datuk Hermono, Indonesia's ambassador to Malaysia talks to us about what Prabowo may bring to the table as well as outstanding bilateral issues with Malaysia.

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Prof. Serena Nik-Zainal has won international acclaim for her work in genomic cancer research, winning several accolades including the Josef Steiner award in 2019 and the Francis Crick Medal and Lecture 2022. To mark the International Day of Women and Girls in Science this month, we sit down with Prof. Serena to discuss her journey in genetic research and the progress in pursuit of gender equality in science academia.

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