Pandemics have been pivotal points in history with vast contrasting effects on the affected populations. Covid-19 has triggered a global economic turmoil that threatens the world order.
Third World countries should create stronger ties with one another in view of the trade challenges ahead, Asli’s Centre for Public Policy Studies Chairman Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam said.
“Covid-19 has allowed the world to see that the US and other western countries are not all that (competent),” he said yesterday.
“The pandemic ravaged them, while many commonly oppressed countries in South America and Asia handled the situation much better. Third World countries should band together with China to create increased shared prosperity.”
Ramon said the situation would turn dismal if states and economic blocs turn to self-preservation.
“Beggar-thy-neighbour policies that call for protective barriers and sanctions, would provide opportunities for declarations of war and the suppression of the Third World.”
Emir Research President Datuk Dr Rais Hussin said the pandemic has shaken the global economy faster and more severely than the 2008 global financial crisis or the Great Depression of the 1930s.
“In the US, the S&P 500 fell 30% in 22 days, the fastest drop in its history,” he said yesterday.
The S&P 500 is a measurement of the performance of 500 large companies listed on stock exchanges in the US, and is used as a benchmark of its overall market.
“Similar situations can be seen with other countries such as China, India, and the European Union, which are Malaysia’s trading partners.”
He said global powers could force their ways on resource-rich countries as resources wane. “China has already started flexing its muscles with its recent incursions into the South China Sea.”
Meanwhile, Malaysian Trades Union Congress secretary-general J. Solomon said there could be a large exodus of foreign workers from Malaysia.
“With the economic crisis, the Malaysian government should put pressure on companies to prioritise local workers,” he said. “This could lead to an exodus of foreign workers.
“If the government fails to take care of locals, we may instead see a big departure of Malaysians seeking better pay in other countries.”
Solomon also said businesses may head towards automation, instead of employing a human workforce.
“Minister of International Trade and Industry Ministry Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali has called on the business community to reduce their dependence on physical labour and focus more on automation and the use of technology,” he said.
“We see his statement as irresponsible as it creates fear in workers, and we hope that the government will ensure that any such transition will be executed in a balanced manner.”
The Perikatan Nasional (PN) government made the decision to reopen businesses on Monday to prevent economic losses of close to RM100 billion.
In a live address, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said the country has already lost up to RM63 billion for the duration of the movement control order (MCO) since it began on March 18.
Most economic sectors in Malaysia will open from Monday (May 4) with health protocols in place, said Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin in his Labour Day message.
In his speech that was broadcast live on Friday, Mr Muhyiddin said: "With advice from the Ministry of Health, based on data collected, and protocol outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO), the government has decided to open its economic sectors carefully, while implementing stringent health standard operating procedures (SOP)."
"Almost all economic sectors and business activities will be allowed to operate from May 4, depending on protocols and SOP decided by authorities."
However, Mr Muhyiddin explained that some industries and business activities will remain closed as they involve mass gatherings, and where social distancing is difficult to enforce.
These includes cinemas, karaoke lounges, reflexology centres, nightclubs, Ramadan bazaars, Hari Raya Aidilfitri bazaars, sale carnivals as well as all conferences and exhibitions.
Furthermore, sports activities that involve body contact and mass gatherings will also not proceed. These include football, rugby, swimming in public areas and all indoor sports.
Meanwhile, outdoor activities such as badminton, tennis, cycling, golf and running in small groups with not more than 10 people, will be permitted.
Describing this as the "conditional movement control order (MCO)", Mr Muhyiddin added that restaurants, with enough space to ensure social distancing between customers, will also be allowed to open.
However, he maintained that religious activities such as Friday prayers and other prayers in congregation in mosques will not be permitted.
Interstate travel, including to return to hometowns for the upcoming Aidilfitri celebration, is not allowed, he added.
Malaysia MCO file photo
Malaysia's movement control order came into effect since Mar 18, 2020. (File photo: Bernama)
Mr Muhyiddin also said that schools and institutions of higher learning will remain closed.
"A full list of activities that will is prohibited will be reflected on the National Security Council website:www.mkn.gov.my " he said.
"The list will be reviewed from time to time depending on the number of COVID-19 cases," he added.
As of Friday, there are a total of 6,002 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Malaysia, of whom 4,171 or 69.5 per cent have been discharged.
MALAYSIA HAS SUCCESSFULLY CONTROLLED SPREAD OF COVID-19: MUHYIDDIN
Mr Muhyiddin made the announcement to open most economic sectos following a decrease in new COVID-19 cases across the country in recent weeks, a sign that the MCO has proven to be fruitful.
He highlighted in his speech that Malaysia's economy has suffered a loss of RM2.4 billion (US$560 million) each day since the MCO was implemented. The total losses are estimated at RM63 billion, he added.
Should MCO be extended for another month, Malaysia would see a further loss of RM35 billion, the prime minister said.
In his speech, Mr Muhyiddin highlighted how discipline showed by residents to stay at home during the MCO has brought encouraging results.
He explained that this has helped boost the Ministry of Health's capabilities in treating COVID-19 patients. Malaysia will have enough manpower, beds in hospitals, quarantine centres, medication, ventilators, personal protective equipment, and testing labs in case infection rate rises again.
He also acknowledged that in the coming months, it would be impossible for any countries to achieve zero new COVID-19 cases, Hence, Malaysia has to upgrade the capabilities of its public healthcare services to "face any possibilities", he added.
"Even though we have successfully controlled the spread of COVID-19, do not be careless. Stay vigilant. Practise social distancing, wash your hands frequently, wear a face mask in public and quickly see a doctor if you have any symptoms," said Mr Muhyiddin.
Parents, nurseries should compromise on fees during MCO
The move by childcare centres or nurseries (taska) to demand full fees despite the Movement Control Order (MCO) which enters its sixth week, has become a thorny issue for parents involved.
In fact, this is one of many grouses voiced by parents when majority of the nurseries insisted that the fees must be paid in full to cover certain costs as well as to pay their staff salaries.
An e-hailing driver from Johor Baru, Amir Hamzah, said parents and the nurseries should compromise and have an understanding and empathy to come up with a win-win solution for all parties to solve the crisis.
Amir, 37, said the nurseries should not think about the profit alone by charging the same fees as before, given the fact that many expenses could be saved during the MCO.
This includes saving on utility bills such as electricity and water, stationery sets, and daily meals for the children as well as receiving wage subsidy from the government under the Prihatin Tambahan economic stimulus package.
“It is not that we don’t want to pay at all, we understand the staff salaries depend on the fees, but calculations must be made by deducting unused costs from the full payment of the monthly fees.
“If the fees remain the same, that means the nurseries are making more profits before MCO while some parents are experiencing a complete loss of income. Like me, for example, e-hailing drivers are finding so hard to make ends meet as people choose to stay home,” he told Bernama.
Throughout the MCO, the nursery has allowed Amir, who allocates RM1,000 monthly for his two children - son and daughter - to defer his payment without offering any discounts.
“They do conduct online classes for an hour daily but the effectiveness is not the same as face-to-face in a classroom, especially when children are below four years old,” he said.
Even the cost of buying learning materials and a printer was borne by parents, he added.
Sharing a similar sentiment, a bank employee who wants to be known as Atirah, 39, said the nursery has given her a half-price discount for May, with a condition that both March and April fees must be settled in full.
“Otherwise, they will terminate my three-year-old daughter’s enrollment. My husband and I are working throughout MCO as we are in the essential services. We are forced to send our child to another babysitter as the centre is closed.
“We paid in full for March despite being unable to send her to the centre for two weeks. Since MCO has been extended, we hope the nursery would compromise by offering discounts or the government to come up with fees standardisation,” she said.
Meanwhile, a member of Association of Registered Childcare Providers Malaysia (ARCPM) Board of Trustees, Shamsinah Che Shariff, said many small nurseries or kindergartens were having trouble staying afloat as many parents have refused to pay the monthly fees.
Most of the nurseries have no issues of deducting all other costs as some families may also be affected financially by the MCO and it would be wise for both sides to come up with an agreement, she said.
“If the income of the parents has been affected, they can show the proof and discuss with the management, it should not be a problem. It is also fine if (parents) want the meal costs to be deducted.
“The utility bill is not so much compare to the love and care as well as good services provided for the children. The nurseries still need to pay rent, salaries and must make contributions to Employers Provident Fund and Social Security Organisations,” she added.
However, she said, some parents did settle the full payment although they were offered discounts as they understood the value of the nurseries and kindergarten as a professional provider.
She added that small nurseries have been severely affected when parents decided not to make payment since they were looking after their children at home.
In the meantime, Shamsinah said the efforts of teachers and caregivers to conduct online lessons was a proof that they were willing to put extra efforts to ensure that children did not miss the learning process apart from making most of their time with quality activities.
“With the technology, the online teaching initiative definitely needs a little assistance from parents, but parents should also see that it takes a lot of effort from teachers to make extra preparation to conduct the lesson,” she added. — Bernama
For those who are arguing on both sides that we must open now or it is too soon to open, *this is the most important thing you need to know*.
Here's the most asked question to answer:
*When will it be SAFE to end the lockdown, to re-emerge?*
*May 1st? Or May 15th?* *Or June end? Or July end? Or August?*
Here's the real answer: *Never*. *It will never be "SAFE.*”
Why ?
Social distancing, staying at home, all of these measures - were these not meant to "cure" Covid-19 ?
*No at all ! These were measures to slow it down, so as to not overwhelm our healthcare system*.
For the most part, so far we've done that.
However it should be clearly understood that It does not change the virality of Covid-19 ; or how it spreads from one person to another.
*Nor does it have any effect on the mortality rate*. *It was intended to just delay it until we find a PERMANENT CURE .*
A very important point to note here is that - As soon as we re-emerge, the virus will spread again, & the people with weak immune systems will still succumb to it in large nos .
*This is a harsh fact which all of us have to realise .*
The people who missed it this time, may eventually get it - regardless of whether we re-emerge on May 1st or September 30th ......
*What is it , that we need to do now ?*
We need to protect our healthcare system in every possible way to handle the load, but we don't need to mislead ourselves over the outcome of this quarantine.
*Hard Truth of life now is* - *It is slowing it down, but not curing it.*
Eg : If you're driving to Alor Setar from Kuala Lumpur at 50 miles an hour or 100 miles an hour, the distance doesn't change, isn’t it ???
Therefore the need of the hour now is -
*if our lifestyle is causing you to have a weakened immune system, use this lockdown time to correct that*. This should be one of our major resolutions / actionables now without any doubt !
*Otherwise, you've placed a “heavy target “ on your own back* *which will be very difficult to carry* ...
Youngsters as well as older *people should understand & make sure that this is not the time for indulging in comfort food* - but it's a time to give ourselves the healthiest, most robust immune system our body is capable of.
*How can this be achieved*? 1 - By Having healthy , nutritious food ,
2 - Compulsory, 8-hour, night sleep.- drink lime water ( warm water ) daily morning without fail ;
3 - Not having refrigerated or aerated drinks ;
4 - Detox yourself everyday &
5 - maintain social distancing for next couple of weeks/ even months until we have a vaccine or definite, standardized, proven medicine that ensures rapid cure.
It's as simple as this !!!
Hope you all understand that this is just the beginning & not the end .
We need to be careful about ourselves by maintaining real good healthly & hygienic habits in this lockdown period !
Founder of The Grayzone disputes conspiracy theories targeting China
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Anyone without a scales over his eyes and who has not succumbed to cerebral shampooing by the West will have realised by now that large parts of its media are biased, if not outright antagonistic, in their reporting of |"China.
FROM the riots in Hong Kong last year, whitewashed as peaceful pro-democracy protests, to the lockdown of Wuhan and other Chinese cities, derided as draconian and an abuse of human rights, the sting was always there, and often not even hidden in between the lines.
All this will be denied, of course, and not just by those media owners and employees but also the readers and viewers who swear by them. It is futile to debate them, such is their ideological bias that they leave themselves no room for doubt, much less introspection. They are entitled to their reading of China, of course, as are their critics to theirs.
It is perfectly understandable that Western media, especially those that publish and broadcast in English, will want to push what they believe is the interest of the West. No one should expect them to speak up for China and other non-Western nations. Or question the liberal democracy dogmas they have grown up with.
To be fair, there are also not a few among them who genuinely believe that what they do is also for the good of the Chinese suffering under the yoke of a totalitarian regime. And so they have gone at it full tilt, especially the Anglophone media.
It would be foolish for people in this part of the world not to see all this for what it really is - a war, not yet a shooting one but a war by other means nonetheless. Only the wilfully blind will fail to see that it is being waged by the United States and some of its allies to stymie a rising China just so they can hold on to their global hegemony.
Demonising and then isolating China, through disinformation and misinformation, is just one of the means. In the relentless pursuit of that goal, truth, to paraphrase what Hiram Johnson, US Senator for California, first said in 1918, has become the first casualty of this war. So much for the self-serving cant about these media being “respected” providers of fair, objective and balanced coverage.
Does all that matter? I submit that it does, to the millions in Singapore, Malaysia and many other former British colonies who have relied all these years on the English-language global media for their news, analyses and commentaries.
It’s time they woke up, if they have not already done so, to the fact that their understanding of what is happening in China, and, for that matter, many other places from Syria to Venezuela, is being shaped by those media with an unholy agenda.This awakening cannot come too soon as some Western media are piling on the pressure by echoing the spurious demands of anti-China politicians that Beijing must pay for the damage caused by the Covid-19 virus which it has set loose on the world.
If allowed to escalate and proliferate, this incitement of people whose lives are being devastated by the pandemic, is sure to result in more racist attacks against people of Chinese ethnicity, particularly in Western countries. It may well spin out of control into an armed confrontation between two sides, very possibly in the South China Sea.
But what can ordinary readers and viewers do? Well, they can send these media organisations a message. Those who have no problem taking pen to paper should write a protest note to them each time they spot a deliberate distortion - or to their respective regulator.
Nothing will come out of it, for sure, but those who are neither pro- nor anti-China but believe in fair play have to take a stand against deliberate bias and make it clear they will not stand for it.
It is in their enlightened self-interest to do so; if these media can target China now, then they can just as easily turn on their country next and cause damage, as was the case for Hong Kong when the Anglophone media turned a blind eye to all the fire-bombing, vandalism and vicious attacks against innocent citizens, and glorified the perpetrators as freedom fighters.
For those not inclined to write, they can just stop reading or viewing biased media. There are Singaporeans who have cancelled their subscription of The New York Times and ceased watching CNN over the slanted coverage of the Hong Kong riots. Yes, they care enough for Hong Kong and, more importantly, for fair play.
Sure, protesting this way may be inconvenient for those who are monolingual in English as there are few other media organisations that can rival the top Western players in global coverage and reach.
According to Comscore, the audience research agency, as at July last year, CNN had 166 million unique multi-platform visitors, BBC 148 million, Yahoo 117 million and FoxNews.com 111 million.
But choices in English are still there - Al Jazeera, which says it has more than 65 bureaus around the world and whose Arabic, English and other language networks have a combined reach into more than 220 million households; and CGTN, China’s global television network, which says its free-to-air English service reaches 85 million viewers in over 100 countries.
Admittedly, Al Jazeera and CGTN are nowhere near CNN or the BBC in reach and brand value but any fair-minded reader/viewer who has followed their work for a sustained period knows their products are nothing to sniff at.
Anecdotal accounts suggest that CGTN and, in particular, its presenter Liu Xin are gaining traction among the better educated in Singapore because of their measured and fact-based approach to presenting news and commentaries.
The accent of this commentary is on biased reporting of China. If readers and viewers are reluctant to forgo following Anglophone media despite their thinly veiled bias against China and other non-allied powers like Iran, then the least they can do is to also watch or read nascent competitors for balance.
And not to forget: their own English language national or regional media, too - whether it be the South China Morning Post, The Star in Malaysia or The Straits Times and Channel NewsAsia in Singapore. They make no self-glorifying claims to being the gold standard for good journalism but they do try to be objective, fair and balanced.
Individually, each may not have the resources of the existing global players. But in this regard, there is no reason why they cannot pool resources where possible and compete on the world’s media stage. Fair, constructive competition cannot be bad for media consumers. And the English-language media landscape deserves more than just the Anglo-Saxon narrative.
By Leslie Fong, a former editor of The Straits Times. The views here are his own. Source link
The US Navy said on April 21 that the USS America and two
other vessels entered the South China Sea. In the face of the raging
coronavirus epidemic in the US, Washington has shown no intention to
halt pressuring China on the South China Sea issue.
The racist remarks about the novel coronavirus and the
subsequent racial discrimination, racial contradictions and racial
conflicts are all blatant provocations against modern civilization that
should be resisted by the international community. All responsible media
in the world should firmly adhere to justice and jointly protect the
basic values of human civilization.
Cooperation is the most effective solution to fix that
loophole. But if the world cannot keep a sober head on this, there will
probably be a more profound crisis waiting for humanity after the
pandemic is gone.
Pandemics have been pivotal points in history with vast contrasting effects on the affected populations. Covid-19 has triggered a global economic turmoil that threatens the world order.
https://youtu.be/QlhoNX5xWAA Founder of
The Grayzone disputes conspiracy theories targeting China
https://youtu.be/uBp3oqTMRjs
