The Malaysian government plans to give opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s political party a permit to start its own newspaper as part of reforms to allow more press freedom, according to news reports yesterday.
The Star daily quoted Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar as saying there was no reason the People’s Justice Party should not have its own newspaper when other political parties do.
“I’ve just approved the [People’s Justice Party] newspaper and I asked my officers ‘why not.’ I am open about it,” he was quoted as saying.
Syed Hamid’s office was closed for the weekend and could not be reached to confirm the report. Anwar’s party spokesman also could not immediately be reached for comment.
Media organizations in Malaysia can operate only with a government license, which needs to be renewed every year. This has resulted in self-censorship by editors who want to avoid the possibility of their license not being renewed.
“I want to change that paradigm,” Syed Hamid was quoted as saying. “We are not trying to control you, but we want everyone to contribute to the nation-building process.”
He said he was toying with the idea of doing away with annual licensing and switching to licenses that only need to be issued once.
“For me the bottom line is that we need press freedom in order for us to have a check and balance in government,” Syed Hamid was quoted as saying.
The announcement came days after the government suspended the license of a Tamil-language newspaper, which catered to some of Malaysia’s ethnic Indians, accusing it of fomenting racial tensions.
The crackdown against the Makkal Osai, or People’s Voice, was slammed by critics as a blow to press freedom in the country. Syed Hamid, however, defended the move, saying the newspaper had breached the government’s media guidelines.
Those guidelines include keeping silent on issues that can stir racial tensions in the country, a multiethnic nation comprising majority Malay Muslims and minority Chinese and Indians.
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant