EVEN as the Health Ministry assures Malaysians that the 1Care healthcare reform plan is not yet finalised, its minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai responds defensively to critics. Even as the Election Commission (EC) agrees to use indelible ink and to relax postal voting restrictions, its chairperson wants to forbid non-taxpaying overseas Malaysians from voting. [...]

More than two decades have passed and the National Health Financing Scheme still seems up in the air in terms of concept and implementation. Will it be a flat-rate or not? Will it take a year or ten? Despite continuous studies on the proposed scheme, is Malaysia anywhere closer to a health financing scheme which is affordable, fair and accessible to all levels of society?

FORMER prime ministers Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and current Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, when he was still deputy premier, have all proclaimed Malaysia to be an Islamic state. Despite that, most Umno parliamentarians have avoided answering the question, “Do you think Malaysia should be a secular or an [...]

ON the night of 29 May 2010, I was at Alexis Ampang in Kuala Lumpur for dinner and a performance by my colleague Shanon Shah. Curiously, after 10pm, the other patrons in the air-conditioned restaurant started lighting up. My friends, one of whom was a cancer survivor, complained to the restaurant. Didn’t the law stipulate [...]

“It’s not that I cannot accept [Chua]. A lot of party members cannot accept him — even my 13 CC members cannot accept him because that will further tarnish the party image. “I’ve been talking so much about the party’s interest, so if I support Soi Lek to become the president, I will be the [...]

“Maybe by sacking me, Ong believes he can sleep better and the party will be more stable … I tarnished the party image. That is a severe crime. I am lucky they did not sentence me to death.” DATUK Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek, reacting to his expulsion from the MCA by the presidential council [...]