KL, 8 Dec: When it comes to their Prime Minister, Malaysians have two permanent  pre-occupations. They’d lose sleep - and sometimes friends - guessing when the PM will call for the general election. And as soon as he’s appointed his Cabinet, they will bicker over when he’ll call for a reshuffle.  Since the GE is not due for another four years, the focus now and the last few months has been: WTH (as in, why the hell) isn’t he reshuffling his Cabinet yet.  My response to them would be, wth. As in, what’s the hurry, really? It has been but just just one year.  In those 52 w ..read more

San Francisco, Nov 17: PM Anwar Ibrahim should be delighted with the outcome of the APEC meetings which ended today but he said he was only “quite happy”. “I regretted that we (the leaders) were unable to reach justice a consensus on Gaza,” he said at the conclusion of the 30th APEC leaders meeting here.  “I am grateful for the opportunity to bring the Palestine issue out into the open and in not a combative way. “But I wish (the US), which has been at the forefront of humanitarian issues, had been more consistent when it came to Gaza.  “Like I said in front of President (Joe) B ..read more

San Francisco, Nov 15: For the last one year PM Anwar Ibrahim has consistently called for the US and China to engage each other and not force others around them, Malaysia included, to ally to one or the other.  This morning, as President Biden and President Xi finally held a historic four-eyed meeting at the onset of the APEC Summit, Anwar applauded it as “critical” and called for an end of  “the Cold War mind set “. “To me, the meeting between President Biden and President Xi is critical because it should give a message that we are able to work together and trust each other, to reso ..read more

DEMOCRACY IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA DISRUPTION   This is a time of profound disruption across all facets of international relations. As information technology reshapes societies everywhere, we have reached an unprecedented intersection between opportunity and risk. While its utilitarian benefits are well known, social media also facilitates the spread of harmful misinformation and falsehoods at unmatched speed and scale, endangering the informed citizenry essential to healthy democracies.    Malaysia has long been heralded as a beacon of moderation, de ..read more

NATIONAL STATEMENT BY THE HONOURABLE DATO’ SERI ANWAR IBRAHIM PRIME MINISTER OF MALAYSIA   AT THE JOINT ARAB ISLAMIC EXTRAORDINARY SUMMIT RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA 11 NOVEMBER 2023     Your Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al-Saud, Crown Prince and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,   Your Majesties, Excellencies, May the blessings and peace of Allah SWT be upon you.   1. There are moments in history that shake us to our core and challenge our collective conscience. Moments that compel us to ask if our humanity still flickers ..read more

CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, CABINET MINISTERS ARE NO SUPERHEROES … KL 8 Nov: The blog called nuclearmanbursa is saying what’s on the minds of many: why is the leadership of BAM, the main body for the country’s badminton, being passed from one politician to another as if it’s the birthright of politicians and only politicians to head BAM? I’m reproducing nuclearmanbursa’s entire posting here because Netizens can no longer assess his blog. The MCMC, the institution that regulates blogs and social media in this country, recently decided to block nuclearmanbursa for reasons best known to themsel ..read more

Heading: Anwar Ibrahim’s much-awaited UN General Assembly debut Sub: Between his address to over 100 world leaders and a rare khutbah at New York’s oldest mosque, the PM will attempt to make Malaysia’s “rightful claim” as global middle power By ROCKY BRU New York: Malaysia’s flamboyant ambassador to the US Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz describes his job as “an easy one”. “I’m lucky. My job is made easy and it’s because of who the Prime Minister (of Malaysia) is and how he is perceived.” I had just asked him if he had managed to change how the Americans view Malaysia after taking up the job in Febru ..read more

Wong Chun Wai, the former editor-in-chief of The Star, will be made this afternoon the new chairman of Bernama, the national  news agency, sources said. If I’m not mistaken, he’ll the first non-Malay to be appointed to the post. Wong has never served Bernama as a reporter but that has never been a pre-requisite; his predecessor Ras Adibah Radzi, who joined the Opposition a little too hastily (I thought) after the end of her tenure as Bernama chairman (and senator) earlier this year, was also never a Bernama employee. Chun Wai has been a journalist for about 40 years and the circumstances ..read more

Damansara, 14 Aug (a public holiday in Selangor): Of all the analyses on the outcome of the six-state elections, I like one dished out by Liyana Marzuki the most. The Scoop has the story: Mereka bukan menang besar, mereka hanya sembang besar [They didn’t win big, they only talked big].  The self-confessed Unity Government advocate didn’t mince her words in her analysis, reminding the people of how cocky Muhyiddin Yasin and Dr Mahathir Mohamad were in their prophecy of a landslide defeat for Anwar Ibrahim’s UG (the Bersatu president said Perikatan Nasional could win all 6 states ..read more

Amir Hamzah AMIR Hamzah Azizan has helmed nearly a dozen companies, including GLC giant Tenaga Nasional, and in all those years at the top has probably never been called a “tyrant” before.  But now the generally timid trade unions of the Employee Provident Fund, where he has been CEO since March 2021 (when Muhyiddin Yasin was PM), are calling Amir Hamzah’s management zalim, which is Malay for tyrannical, a title accorded to Firaun in biblical times and, in more recent times, to Dr Mahathir. Surely, something any CEO can do without especially if he or she harbours any ambitio ..read more