IS the Federal Constitution secular or Islamic? Are the prime minister’s New Economic Model and Government Transformation Programme all they are cracked up to be? And what about corruption in Malaysia? Big questions, these, with discussions amongst politicians often ending up bitter, polemical and unyielding. Not to mention the name-calling, character assassinations and government muzzling [...]

PETALING JAYA, 2 July 2010: If the government wants children to start school at five instead of six, it must first review the existing curriculum for pre-school and Standard One, experts said. “There ought to be some reviewing of the curriculum so that there’s less emphasis on academic performance at such an early stage,” said [...]

PETALING JAYA, 26 March 2010: Two Muslim groups who are opposed to the Internal Security Act (ISA) are distancing themselves from a banner that implicates their endorsement of the Act. Jemaah Islah Malaysia (JIM) and the Malaysian Muslim Youth Movement (Abim) have both denied that they agreed to a banner which read, “ISA is the [...]

AS a Sarawakian, I am constantly frustrated by comments on Malaysian news websites and blogs by West Malaysians telling East Malaysians that they “get who they vote for”. These comments are inevitably made whenever human rights issues affecting East Malaysia are discussed. Most of these comments are made by people who probably have little regard [...]

Exhibition by regional coalition People’s Actions on Climate Change during the Asian Youth Climate Workshop (© Gan Pei Ling) “WE should do it for our children and future generations!” This is one of the most common rallying cries used by some individuals and organisations to convince the public to take action to combat climate change. [...]

RAPE. Blockades. Native rights denied. Such topics inevitably come up in news about Sarawak’s Penan community, such as the recent highlighting of the rape, sexual harassment and exploitation of Penan girls and women by workers of logging companies. But there are also other less prominent issues that the Penan face day-to-day in their idyllic villages [...]