Category Covid-19

Time for a Covid reset

A year ago, I published my book “The Great Reset” in a modest attempt to explain how the once-in-a-century Covid-19 crisis is going to reset our politics, the economy and healthcare system. However, the powers-that-be didn’t bother to learn much from the 18-month Covid crisis…

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Each time I look at the raids and other punitive actions such as hefty compound by the government’s enforcement agencies on helpless ordinary people for violation of SOP and other minor offences, I imagine something terrible. The image of Tunisia’s Mohamed Bouazizi setting himself on…

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Covid-19: Not the time for self-defeatism

I watched Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s hour-long television interview on Sunday and came away with the sense that he has given up on dealing with Covid-19 with the tools and resources available to the government.  The Prime Minister (PM) is literally surrendering to…

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Malaysia’s two emergencies: why 2021’s freeze on democracy is not like the trouble of 1969

Under a state of emergency, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and his cabinet now have powers to make laws without parliamentary approval. This essentially means Malaysia’s rendezvous with democracy – which only began with the May 2018 election that brought down the only ruling coalition the country had known since its independence in 1957 – is now fully frozen. So what’s next?
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