Minimum EPF contribution by employees to be
reduced by 4% from 11% to 7%, with effect from Apr 1 to Dec 31, 2020.
This will potentially unlock up to RM10 billion worth of private
consumption. Malaysian workers have the option to opt out from the
scheme and maintain their contribution rate
KUALA LUMPUR: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had on Thursday unveiled the RM20bil stimulus package to offset the fallout from the Covid-19 coronavirus.
Below are the highlights:
Based on three strategies: counter Covid-19 impact, boost people-based growth, encourage quality investments
• Bank Simpanan Nasional provides RM200mil micro credit at 4% interest rate
• MAHB to cut rental for tenants, landing charges and parking fees at airports
• Postponement of income tax monthly payment for tourism-related companies
• Bank Negara provides RM2bil guaranteed financial aid for SMES at 3.75% interest rate
• All banks required to reduce monetary burden in the form of postponement of payments or rescheduling of loans
• Temporary six months discount of as much as 15% for electricity bills for hotels, tourism agencies, airlines, and shopping centres
• Hotels to get service tax breaks from next month to august
• Economic growth for 2020 expected to be between 3.2% and 4.2%
• Minimum EPF contribution by employees to be reduced from 11% to 7%, with effect from april 1 to dec 31. This could unlock up to RM10bil worth of private consumption. Malaysian contributors have the choice to opt out from the scheme and maintain their contribution rate
• A payment of RM200 to all bantuan Sara Hidup (BSH) recipients scheduled for May will be brought forward to March. an additional RM100 will be paid into the bank accounts of all BSH recipients in May. Subsequently, an additional rM50 will be channelled in the form of e-tunai
• As a result of the stimulus package, fiscal deficit estimated to increase to 3.4% of GDP from targeted 3.2%
• Grants of RM1,000 to RM10,000 for entrepreneurs to promote the sale of their products on e-commerce platforms
• Securities Commission and bursa Malaysia will waive listing fees for one year, for companies seeking listing on Leading entrepreneur accelerator Platform (LEAP) or Access, Certainty, Efficiency (ACE) markets, as well as companies with market capitalisation of less than RM500mil seeking listing on the main market
• Import duty and sales tax exemption on importation or local purchase of machinery and equipment used in port operations for three years commencing april 1
• Enough source of money for now, no issuance of bonds needed
• Stimulus package to be funded by RM2 trillion savings from bank Negara, Tabung Haji, EPF
• Bureaucratic procedures will be expedited to disburse stimulus
Tourism boost: The government will provide a discount on electricity
bills to hotels, travel agencies, airlines, shopping malls, convention
and exhibition centres. — Bernama
PUTRAJAYA: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has returned to his office at Perdana Putra amidst the political storm raging over the last two days.
The vehicle ferrying him was seen approaching the protocol gate here at 9.29am on Tuesday (Feb 25).
This comes a day after the 94-year-old Dr Mahathir resigned as Prime Minister, when the Yang di-Pertuan Agong accepted his resignation.
However, the King has consented for Dr Mahathir to continue running the country as interim Prime Minister until a new premier has been appointed and a new Cabinet formed.
Dr Mahathir is the only one from the Pakatan Harapan administration who is left after the Yang di-Pertuan Agong cancelled the appointments of all Cabinet members.
Aside from ministers, the duties of other members the administration including the deputy prime minister, deputy ministers and political secretaries ceased, effective Feb 24.
It is learnt that ministers have packed their belongings and left with them on Monday (Feb 24) night, following the announcement that the King had accepted Dr Mahathir's resignation.
Regardless of who Malaysian prime minister will be, he
will have vision and goals for economic development, which China,
especially through its BRI, can offer. It is expected that Malaysia's
next state leader will cooperate with China. And the same can be said of
other Southeast Asian nations.
It takes all kinds to dominate in a world obsessed with economic might and political power.
AS a young boy growing up in the 1960s, I watched many Western movies and TV shows about cowboys and Red Indians, and as expected of a naïve and ignorant kid, I cheered for the “good” guys – the cowboys.
And because they were portrayed as such, the Red Indians were the “bad” guys to me. They were the savage lot, while the Caucasian men were the civilised group trying to help them. And routinely, the Red Indians would be defeated.
As I reached my teenage years and read more about the West, I realised that my supposed heroes were the ones who robbed these natives of their land, violated treaties and consigned the Red Indians to living on reservations.
The most famous Red Indian, Geronimo, the head of the Chiricahua Apaches, and his men were arrested and despatched to Florida as prisoners of war. Some of them were even discarded at crocodile-infested swamps.
Fast forward to contemporary Hollywood movies – the modern-day bad guys are always the Russians, Albanians and Arabs.
They are usually portrayed as one of brutal spies, criminals, human traffickers, drug dealers and terrorists, and in more lurid plots, all the above.
In The Equalizer, Denzel Washington, who plays a former intelligence agency man latterly driving a cab, goes after sadistic Russian gangsters and predictably, decides to kill all of them – in equally brutal ways.
In the John Wick movie series, Keanu Reeves also goes ballistic going after some Russians.
For some reason, all these ex-operatives are reclusive, divorced or widowed, still connected to their agencies, and as always, their loved ones get harmed (mostly killed) by the Russians, which invariably leads them to needing to settle the score.
Albanians hit the big time after the 2008 movie, Taken, which starred Liam Neeson, who plays Bryan Mills, another retired CIA operative whose teenage daughter and friend get kidnapped by human traffickers (Albanians) while holidaying in France.
In Taken 2, the 2012 sequel, the film follows the family to Istanbul, only to be kidnapped yet again, along with his former wife, by the father of one of the men he killed while saving his daughter two years previously.
It wasn’t just the Albanians who suffered from bad press as until today, my wife still refuses to go to Istanbul – as a result of the movie.
Fortunately for me, I have been to Albania. It’s a beautiful country with good people, and nothing like what the movies depict.
In the case of Arabs, we are accustomed to seeing them portrayed in poor light. They were womanising oil sheikhs at one time and are now mostly barbaric terrorists. Scenes with them are stereotypically sound tracked to the call of the Azan.
Mexicans, typically, are drug dealers. Likewise, Colombians, Cubans and Venezuelans. Well, in the movies, at least.
The hip hop loving African Americans in the United States, with their bling and bad attitude, are a dangerous lot. And thanks to their racist slurs, smaller Asians like us avoid antagonising them.
The latest bad guys are the Chinese. However, Hollywood isn’t quite ready to cast them as the standard stereotype because they are explicitly aware of mainlanders having plenty of clout.
Experts predict that by 2020, China will be the world’s largest cinema market, with box office revenue expected to leap from US$9.9 billion (RM41bil) in 2018 to US$15.5 billion (RM65bil) by 2023, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). In the first quarter of 2018, China surpassed the US in box office revenue for the first time.
It has been reported that China is presently Hollywood’s biggest foreign market, and according to projections by PwC, this year, the Chinese box office will likely rake in US$11.05 billion (RM46bil) compared to ticket sales in the US, which is expected to amount to US$2.11 billion (RM8.8bil).
So, unlike with other nationalities, Hollywood won’t mess around with the Chinese anytime soon.
Failed Hollywood movies, like The Terminator: Dark Fate, which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger, were rescued by the box offices in China.
Hollywood understands the power of money well. In fact, Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight wasn’t even submitted for Chinese approval because of a dubious Chinese businessman character in the 2008 Batman movie. But in the Western media, whether in the US, Europe or Australia, China is being painted negatively, in a blatantly concerted way.
Everything from Huawei, to face recognition and to Xinjiang, and now Coronavirus, China has been the bogeyman.
The elephant-in-the-room theory is that the US wants a “freed Tibet” because it’s angling to build an air base that can send jets into China within minutes.
Adding to the spin doctoring, rioters and vandals in Hong Kong are relentlessly referred to as pro-democracy protestors to burn in the minds of the audience that they are the good guys.
HK policemen are painted as brutal when, ironically, tougher tactics are applied elsewhere, including by the American police.
The US is disturbed by the South China Sea, although it’s thousands of miles away and isn’t even a claimant. It’s strange when you think it has military bases in the Philippines and the vicinity.
The disdain for China even turned comical at some point. When a group of Vietnamese were found dead in a UK truck last year, newsfeeds initially revealed they were Chinese.
As the media scrambled for answers, one reporter, who was pressed for an answer, told his live audience that they could possibly be Chinese who fled to the UK because of their protests over the Xinjiang issue.
The underlining reason is simple – the Western media no longer wants to report about China in a balanced way, resenting its growth to become an economic power in just 30 years as it sits behind the US as the second largest economy in the world.
The narrative is the same: China should be feared and doubted, while Chinese scholars in the US ought to be treated as spies. And advanced technology better than that in American products be branded spying devices.
Hostility towards China has intensified and with the outbreak of Covid-19, there is no silver lining, what with spins of resenting Chinese president Xi Jinping, concealing figures of casualties, cover up, poor food preparation and filthy eating habits. And there’s also the racist perception that Chinese people are to be avoided and cooked up stories of uprising against Xi Jinping.
Of course, there’s also the twisted religious angle – that the Chinese are being punished, either for their eating habits, or again, the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang.
The war against China is being waged in various fronts because it is deemed to have threatened the international order dominated by the US and its allies.
It doesn’t matter if the US is led by Donald Trump or a Democrat president, which could be worse, because the end game against China will simply be the same.
The Coronavirus epidemic has damaged the image of the Chinese. Their invincibility and ascent have taken a knock, so Xi Jinping must prove that China can beat this killer virus soon.
It’s a bad time for China nationals still travelling, but then again, even ethnic Chinese elsewhere are affected.
The average American believes everything they watch on CNN or Fox TV. No one should be surprised since only 45% of Americans – or 41.8 million – have been overseas. That’s an improvement, being 9% more than in 2018.
There is a far bigger picture here, one rooted in the concept of master and servant.
Not too long ago, China was a far-away mysterious country where cheap toys, low grade garments and fireworks came from. In the last couple of decades, the most populous country learnt technology well from the west, like how Japan did in the 1980s.
Today, the republic is on the cusp of achieving world domination. And that’s not a point lost on any superior or inferior nation.
Beijing: Universities from the Chinese mainland have secured seven of the top 10 positions in the Times Higher Education’s Emerging Economies University Rankings 2020 for the third straight year.
Tsinghua University maintained its position at the top in the listing of institutions from emerging economies.
Peking University was in second place for the second year running.
Zhejiang University and the University of Science and Technology of China remain in third and fourth place, while Shanghai Jiao Tong University climbed from eighth to sixth. Fudan University was listed in seventh place, while Nanjing University was ninth.
Other institutions in the top 10 include Moscow State University (fifth), National Taiwan University (eighth), and The University of Cape Town (10th).
Phil Baty, chief knowledge officer at Times Higher Education, said: “China’s success in our Emerging Economies University Rankings reflects its rapid rise on the world higher education stage. With the Double First Class Initiative driving improvements across participant universities, we expect it to continue to establish itself as a major global player in providing world-class higher education over the coming years.”
The Double First-Class Initiative refers to fostering “world-class universities” and “world-class discipline”. — China Daily/ANN
“Do you ever see the American and other Western media blaming the
American democratic political system for failing to address the deaths
from influenza and pneumonia?” - Tan Teng Boo:
Recovery rate has also been gaining momentum
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysians have a higher chance of being involved in a car accident than being infected by the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), according to Capital Dynamics Sdn Bhd managing director Tan Teng Boo.
The number of deaths per 100,000 people for car accidents in the country is 21.25 persons while for Covid-19 in China, it is 0.04 persons per 100,000.
As of Tuesday, there were 74,424 Covid-19 cases with 1,874 deaths globally. A total of 13,100 people have recovered.
Tan expected Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP) to grow at between 3.5% and 4.0% this year, given various external challenges.
He expected the Covid-19 outbreak to peak soon, either by this month or the next month, considering that the recovery rate has also been gaining momentum at 14,689 cases globally as of yesterday.
Tan said once the outbreak has peaked, China would be able to stabilise from the epidemic and the country’s economic situation could improve.
This is especially with China being the biggest source of economic growth for the global economy for the last 15 to 20 years.
Tan said that based on statistics, the common flu is a deadlier menace.
The Centre of Disease Control and Prevention estimated that from Oct 1, 2019 through Feb 8, 2020 there have been between 14,000 and 36,000 flu deaths.
Tan said that tens of thousands of Americans die from influenza and pneumonia every year.
“Why are the other countries not banning flights to the United States or why are the people not quarantined? Do you ever see the New York Times or The Washington Post write about this?”
“Do you ever see the American and other Western media blaming the American democratic political system for failing to address the deaths from influenza and pneumonia?”
He added that the Covid-19 outbreak is happening in China because it is still a developing country, the largest in the world. Despite 40 years of robust economic growth and development, China is still far behind the United States in gross domestic per capita.
The rate of a disease’ ability to spread would depend on if (a) the people have been vaccinated, (b) have had the disease before or (c) if there is no way to control the disease.
“In the Covid-19 outbreak, conditions a and b apply and are beyond the control of the Chinese government. The measures taken by the Chinese authorities are essentially aimed at overcoming condition c,” he said.
If the Chinese government did not quarantine the major cities in the Hubei province on Jan 23, the situation could have been worse.
“Imagine just half of the infected people traveling all over the place? Imagine how many thousands of people would be infected in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, the UK, US, Australia and many more.
“Imagine as a result, the New York stock market tumbles, or Singapore, Hong Kong, Paris and London and many popular Chinese tourist destinations filled with empty shops. Imagine the adverse impact such a widespread crisis would have on the global economy,” he added.
He pointed out that investors should get the facts right in order to have an accurate perspective.
While people in China and around the world are actively
cooperating to combat the novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19)
outbreak, some US politicians and media are making accusations against
China, questioning the effectiveness of its response to the epidemic.
However, the US sees frequent outbursts of influenza, and its government
not only reacts with extremely low efficiency but also remains silent.
The contrast has revealed a US double standard.
Some US politicians, including Rick Scott, are trying to
turn a public health disaster that nations should face together into a
political war against China.
Obviously, the WSJ should realize that it has made a stupid
mistake. However, it still refuses to apologize and squarely face up to
the error, let alone shoulder the responsibility of a respected news
outlet.
Recent discourses about revamping our higher education system have included the following: critical thinking, empowerment, humanistic values, future proof graduates and improvising teaching methods.
Many Malaysians understand “critical thinking” as the ability to criticise something, and “future proof” as being immune from the future. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Politicians, civil servants, parents and civil society activists have uttered these concepts too often. They lament that our education system has failed.
Our leaders say we are a society devoid of critical thinkers. They swear blindly that Malaysians are left behind due to our inability to improvise in this age of rapid technological innovations.
Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has said that the developed world uses English to their advantage, but we have not.
Critics also claim that developed nations are more scientific and technologically minded, because they have the ability to think critically.
Innovation, improvisation and critical thinking have always been used in discourses of scientific, technological, technical and vocational education.
A “future proof” graduate with “humanistic values” would have acquired adequate and sustainable mental, spiritual and practical skills by now. Yet it seems the narrative we are familiar with does not tally with the reality, due to our misunderstanding of the fundamentals.
Malaysians can be globally competitive and widely respected if we decide to be consistent in the fundamentals. These fundamentals have not been mentioned as openly, but they are crucial to whether we surge ahead or fall further behind.
First, higher education should not be part of a political football game. Render quality education accessible to all. Do not confine it to a race-based quota system, with respect to student intake or hiring of lecturers and top university administrators.
Second, hire and retain academic staff in universities, based on their intellectual merit. Deans and senior university administrators must be constantly aware of any lecturer who publishes inane works, even though such nonsense may be in the form of 30 journal articles per annum.
For instance, how can research about whether the supernatural can be scientifically proven or not, be beneficial to solving our post-GE14 socio-political and religious problems?
The deans and deputy vice-chancellors must be tuned into the quality of their academic staff. They must have a basic knowledge of their contribution in their respective fields.
A dean in a social science faculty, for instance, must make it a point to have a general knowledge of all the social science fields under their charge. If not, he or she should not be a dean.
Third, heads of departments should have a collegial relationship with their fellow lecturers. There is no room for hierarchy, pulling rank or bullying.
Lecturers within a department must work as a team, within an atmosphere of mutual deference and respect. The head must provide motivation and encouragement, rather than react with jealousy and insecurity.
Academics must be encouraged to speak, deliver public lectures, engage in national and international debates, and be commended for it. Unfortunately, there is an unhealthy and counterproductive culture of egoism, selfishness, jealousy and arrogance in the corridors of our public universities.
Most, if not all, academics in a university have a doctorate. So why should there be a sense of insecurity or superiority?
Fourth, university lecturers must take pride in their teaching and writing. Whether they do so in English, Malay, Mandarin or Tamil is irrelevant.
While one must be practical, what is more important is the positive attitude these academics possess when they engage in honest research.
What they choose as a research agenda and how relevant it is in the Malaysian context should be the decisive factors in academic teaching, writing and research.
Fifth, a lot more effort must go into how syllabuses are devised for various courses. Individual lecturers must take pride in the uniqueness and relevance of their syllabus.
It is my experience that such an important exercise of creating one’s syllabus is actually considered the least important of activities leading up to every semester.
Sixth, publications and research projects must be based on quality, not quantity. In the social sciences, for example, it is ineffectual to expect a new research topic to emerge every year or two, for the sake of satisfying annual KPI requirements of the research universities.
Due to our obsession with chasing KPIs and benchmarking global ranking systems, lecturers have resorted to mass production of publications and research projects. The majority are useless, and reports merely collect dust on dingy shelves.
It seems our university leadership is unaware that academic publishing has become a lucrative global business, with annual revenues exceeding billions of dollars.
This business is closely associated with the world university ranking system. Unsuspecting academics in countries like Malaysia race to publish in journals produced by these publishers, without realising that they are held at economic ransom, regardless of quality or research relevance to individual countries or regions.
It is time that Malaysian universities decide for themselves what research and publications are relevant for our own society, based on the current problems and national unity complications we face.
The high rate of unemployed university graduates is proof that there is a disconnect between what they learn in the universities and what employers want. This is due to a skewed view of the objectives of our higher education, and the quality of our educators.
We also have to be more obsessed with merit and substance, rather than what is politically expedient. For example, the appointment of a non-Malay vice chancellor of any public university in Malaysia should no longer be questioned or considered a sensitive issue.
There should be no hesitation, provided one is qualified academically, and has the right attitude towards teaching, research and intellectual development for national progress.
There is one area of higher education that has never been discussed, even though we constantly address the lack of critical thinkers and intellectuals in Malaysia.
The “Socratic Method” is a method of educational instruction that should be employed in university classrooms, in all fields. It is a method of hypothesis elimination, in that better suppositions are found during a debate or discussion.
The process of discussion involves asking a series of questions formulated as tests of logic. Instead of answering questions directly, questions are answered in the form of another question, which prompts the person or group to discover their beliefs about a topic, on their own. In this situation, the active participation of the lecturer is paramount.
Therefore, the Socratic Method encourages constant dialogue in the classroom, and sharpens the mind in logic, reason and arguments. In the process, students develop self confidence and a desire to read widely so they can engage more in classroom discussion. A silent student would feel embarrassed in a class full of chatty, logical peers.
While it is good to incorporate audio-visual techniques and other forms of innovative technology into teaching, university lecturers should not neglect the power of dialogue.
The Socratic Method would generate a cohort of graduates who will perform well in a job interview, show confidence and display a wide range of knowledge in the field. It also keeps lecturers on their toes and forces them to be updated in their respective fields. This is genuine educational empowerment, not mere rhetoric, based on fancy global terminology.
New decade, new Malaysian education: For the sake of our children and
our future, Mazlee’s replacement should be a qualified and capable
Malaysian – irrespective of race or religion.
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