As a leading member of ASEAN, Malaysia needs to lead regional opinion in pushing at the least the minimalist agenda of getting the junta to free all prisoners of conscience.
At the start of 2021, it is not wrong to say that globally and domestically we live in the worst time in decades. But at the same time, we also see great potential for a reset that will bring peace, prosperity and well-being for the decades to come. The Armed Forces is one of the tools in the toolbox of Malaysia’s statecraft, or national power.
There are ways for competition to be beneficial. If the US and China responsibly compete to provide public goods needed by the world, there will be benefits all round.
Insanity is doing more of the same yet expecting a different result. As far as Covid-19 is concerned, Malaysia needs to do things differently, urgently!
Unfortunately, eleven months after the first lockdown on 18 March 2020, lockdown should now be the last resort, no longer the first response. The nation must be mentally prepared to live with Covid-19 for at least another nine months until vaccination reaches a huge number of our population.
The year 2020 has been unprecedented in many ways. We were faced with the greatest political, economic and health crises in many years. The crises exposed our weaknesses. We may be angry with the Sheraton move. The economic and Covid-19 crises may cause us to despair. But as we end the year 2020 and move into 2021 I hope we’re still optimistic.
Muddling through as we did in the past two decades would only exacerbate the current grim reality: Malaysians are voting with their feet and moving abroad in search of better opportunities.
The nation’s future hangs in the balance, and the proposed emergency rule by the Muhyiddin administration will be the beginning of a downhill spiral, with no end in sight. There are better ways to handle Covid-19 pandemic but imposing emergency rule is not it. There…
Covid-19 is a great equaliser, affecting Presidents and prisoners alike. The marginalised in society are often worst hit by the pandemic, as underscored by the outbreak in the migrant workers’ colonies in Singapore and lately, Malaysia’s overcrowded prisons. Despite the public’s strong desire for law…
Media statement by DAP National Political Education Director and Member of Dewan Negara Liew Chin Tong on 7th October 2020 As of 6th October, 8.3% of Malaysia’s Covid-19 positive cases are prison inmates and prison officers or staff (1,126 out of 13,504 total cases). Cases…