The Famine of Wealth / Being Poor Matters by Adib Darwish Hakeem
The Rich over The Poor. Admit it—we treat rich people with more respect than poor people. We prioritise their demands, hear their voices, and allow them to essentially do whatever…
CEKU Inspires Episode 1: Malaysia’s Medical Luminary Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRBjUAY5_G4&t=31s The COVID-19 pandemic brought challenges unprecedented in scale, impacting not only public health systems but also economies, societies, and politics globally. Malaysia’s response to the pandemic, under the leadership…
CRISPR/Cas9: A Revolution in Gene Editing by Sofya Dzul
Snip! Snip! That is the fundamental mechanism of CRISPR/Cas9. This cutting-edge technology acts as molecular scissors that splices your DNA with remarkable precision. CRISPR/Cas9's function as a gene-editing tool can…
Combatting the Erasure of Malay Culture by Intan Balqis
In Malaysia, ‘liberal’ is often used as an insult against someone, implying that the person abandons traditional values just to conform with the idealised West. This evolved perception of the…
Death by A Thousand Unknown Words by Shafiyyah Raiedzall
“Udah keman kah mey?” my grandmother utters. I was nineteen, staring back at her with empty eyes. The Melanau language has always been so foreign to me, no matter what…
As Above, So Below?
by Arisya Azizi From elaborate titles and designated police outriders to VIP sections in hospitals and prisons, it truly seems that Malaysia has many privileges for the elite few and…
EPF Loan: More Joy or More Suffering?
Starting from April 7, 2023, Employees Provident Fund (EPF) members who fulfill certain conditions were allowed to apply for a loan of up to RM5,0000 from banks, with lower interest rates compared to other loan schemes. It seems the government has given in to the pressure from various groups, including the opposition, to open another round of EPF special withdrawal to help members in dire need of money. As helpful as it sounds, this loan scheme would lead to more long-term problems while leaving the urgent short-term ones unresolved.
Mogok Doktor Malaysia: The Dilemma of Malaysian Protests
A group of government doctors who work under the contract system of Malaysia had claimed that more than 8,000 of them would go on a strike from 3 to 5 April 2023 to protest against the “unfair system” and “low wages” under the “Mogok Doktor Malaysia” (MDM) movement. This was the second effort of contract doctors’ protest since the “Hartal Doktor Kontrak” (HDK) movement in 2021.
A Cautionary Tale: The Time I Got Scammed
I used to think that scams were easy to avoid as long as one was vigilant. Whether it be in person or online, signs of a scam are obvious when you spot an abnormality that arises outside of a normal circumstance. Moreover, in the digital age, where we get notified of all sorts of scams from news outlets and stories, it seems inevitable that one feels confident in identifying a scam if and when they come across one. I was that way, having traversed most of London on my own while avoiding the typical tourist scams that are part and parcel of big cities. However, after one particular encounter, I had to realign my viewpoint on scams.
Climate Justice: Policies and Promises
Climate change has been a crisis brewing ever since the Second Industrial Revolution. From carbon emissions to food insecurity and rising sea levels, climate outbursts are slowly becoming a constant occurrence with more pressing long-term concerns looming in the future. After decades of awareness campaigns and education, the public generally understands that the solution to reversing climate change involves everyone – individuals, corporations, and every governing body there is in the world – and requires faster and larger preventive measures and remediation. Braced with this knowledge, ordinary people suffer in silence as their trust in climate action by authoritative bodies and belief in community efforts dwindle.