HONG KONG: Dior has postponed a fashion show set to be held in Hong Kong next month, a city official confirmed Saturday (Feb 24), dealing a blow to the financial hub’s ambitions to boost its economy through major events. Hong Kong is courting top international celebrities and brands in theContinue Reading
The unspecified threat prompted police to scour Sanrio Puroland for suspicious objects, but none were found, public broadcaster NHK reported. Authorities were trying to identify the sender of the email, NHK added, citing unnamed police sources. Tokyo-based Sanrio created the ubiquitous pink-bowed character Hello Kitty in 1974, and opened theContinue Reading
Xu Liang, an AI entrepreneur based in Hangzhou, eastern Zhejiang province, said it will not be long before China has similar services. “As soon as in the next one or two months, there will be Sora-like models coming out of the Chinese market and plenty in the next half year,”Continue Reading
BEIJING: At least 15 people have been killed and 44 injured in a fire at a residential building in eastern China’s Nanjing, local authorities said on Saturday (Feb 24). The fire broke out early Friday morning, officials said at a press conference, with a preliminary investigation suggesting the blaze startedContinue Reading
Mr Kuan gave a scenario of someone earning Malaysia’s minimum wage of RM1,500 but with five children to feed.
“Let’s just say you must pay rental of RM700 a month and RM100 for utilities. Set aside another RM200 for transportation, and how much do you have left?” he said. If anyone in the household is ill, there could be medical costs incurred, he added.
A Bank Negara Malaysia survey in 2021 found almost half of Malaysians have difficulty raising RM1,000 in emergency funds, he noted.
“This means that many are living from meal to meal,” he said. “Salaries are not high enough to keep up with the rising costs.”
Mr Anwar has said eradicating hardcore poverty is a key part of his government’s agenda.
At the tabling of the 12th Malaysia Plan (12MP) mid-term review in September last year, he said the government was still struggling to lift nearly 114,000 hardcore poor families across the country out of poverty.
The government provides cash assistance to low-income earners through various programmes, while Malaysia’s minimum monthly wage of RM1,500 was implemented in May 2022.
An economist told CNA that the government was not necessarily wrong in its proclamation, but is most likely basing it on income alone.
In Malaysia, there are two sources of poverty figures – the department of statistics and the e-Kasih database developed by the government in 2007 to monitor poverty in the country, said Dr Madeline Berma of the Academy of Sciences Malaysia.
“It may be right, but this could be a very narrow interpretation of what hardcore poverty is …The reality on the ground is people are struggling,” she said.
Politicians may prefer to use only income to measure poverty as a single indicator is “easier”, said Dr Madeline, who has done research on poverty and indigenous communities.
But researchers prefer a multi-dimensional index that includes indicators for health and education, as well as living conditions, even if such data is more difficult to measure and collect, she added.
Some politicians, however, agree with her.
In an episode of the popular podcast Keluar Sekejap that aired on Feb 17, former minister Khairy Jamaluddin said Mr Anwar’s statement could be termed “odd”.
Even if Mr Anwar is “technically right”, poverty is an issue that goes beyond income, said Mr Khairy, a former health minister and Member of Parliament of Rembau in Negeri Sembilan from 2008 to 2022.
“In this situation, maybe the PM wants to tick the box … that hardcore poverty in those three states has been solved,” he said in his podcast. “You can still tick the box by saying that in terms of income it has been solved, but we acknowledge that poverty is more than just income. It is multi-dimensional.”
The government should be careful in defining poverty, said Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) chairperson Dr Jeyakumar Jeyaraj.
Malaysia adopts “low-wage” policies to be competitive, he said, and having a “cut-off point” to define poverty “means that those just above that level are not (considered) poor”.
“This obscures the fact that the incomes being earned are not enough to sustain families, some of whom have parents that are working 14 hours a day,” said the former Sungai Siput parliamentarian whose party fights for workers and wage issues, among other things.
Meanwhile, social workers like Mr Kuan have their hands full.
“The situation is not as rosy as we might think it is,” he said. “I will definitely be happy when the services of my and other NGOs are not needed. This would mean the government has done the best for them.”
HONG KONG: The Chinese cities of Xian and Qingdao have been added to a travel scheme that allows residents to visit Hong Kong in a personal capacity, rather than in a tour group, as the financial hub struggles to revive its economy post-COVID. Tourism in the vibrant former British colonyContinue Reading
“The primary responsibility of anyone in the medical profession is to care for the patient’s health and life,” said Tak Young-ran, the president of the Korean Nursing Association, urging the doctors to return to work. The growing pressure on hospitals spurred the government to raise its health alert to “severe”Continue Reading
JAKARTA/SINGAPORE: Online platforms, news publishers, and the government must collaborate and reach agreements that are for the good of the Indonesia public, say analysts, following the introduction of a regulation on mandating digital platforms to pay media companies in Indonesia that provide them with content.
The regulation was signed by Indonesian president Joko Widodo on Tuesday (Feb 20) in a move to level the playing field between media and big tech companies. It will take effect six months after its date of issue.
“The spirit of the regulation is to … provide (a) clearer cooperation framework between them,” said Mr Widodo.
However, the regulation has already received pushback from Meta, the parent company of platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. The tech company has insisted that it does not need to pay for the news content circulating on its platforms.
Analysts and industry players tell CNA that any divisions will be at the expense of the Indonesian people, especially as the news has a role to play in improving the country’s digital literacy, democracy and public safety.
According to the chairperson of the Digital Literacy National Movement – also known as SIBERKREASI – Donny Bu, Indonesia has more than 221.5 million internet users who use social media as the primary channel to access information and digital content.
The secretary-general of the Indonesian Cyber Media Association (AMSI) praised the regulation as a source of income for the media.
“(This is) at a time when the media is experiencing a decline in income (through the loss of advertising revenue) due to the presence of global platforms such as Google,” Mr Maryadi – who like many Indonesians goes by one name – told CNA.
Mr Suwarjono, the editor-in-chief of news site suara.com, shared that the news industry is now not in good condition, especially after the pandemic and due to the artificial intelligence (AI) era.
“Disruption not only changes reader behaviour, but also changes the media business model which is no longer centered on news media. (It) moves a lot of … influencers and key opinion leaders to digital platforms,” he told CNA.
He observed that in addition to introducing a new revenue potential for news sites, the regulation will also serve the public interest so that the digital space is not flooded with “junk information”.
“The dominance of media business models (that rely on achieving pageviews) has contributed to the emergence of a lot of sensational content, clickbait, and content that relies too much on speed at the expense of accuracy and completeness of facts,” said Mr Suwarjono.
A committee must be formed to ensure that digital platforms fulfil their obligations, according to the regulation.
Chairman of the Press Council, Ms Ninik Rahayu, said that such obligations include aiding professional commercialisation, ensuring that news shared is produced only by press companies, and not facilitating the dissemination of inappropriate news content.
She noted, however, that the regulation cannot accommodate all requests, and that it is necessary to find a common ground.
“We still have a lot to prepare in the next six months (when the regulation comes into force),” she told CNA.
A day after the regulation was introduced, technology giant Meta’s Director of Public Policy for Southeast Asia Mr Rafael Frankel, said that despite the new regulation, the firm is not obliged to pay for news content posted by publishers voluntarily.
According to CNN Indonesia, Meta claimed that its users do not go to its platforms to look for news content, and that news publishers have instead voluntarily decided to share its content on their various platforms and not the other way around.
Mr Noudhy Valdrino, the former head of Indonesia Public Policy at Meta, told CNA that Meta platforms do not actually benefit from spreading news content.
He stressed that the government must take a balanced approach to the issue and consider both the interest of press companies as well as the importance of credible news information.
This is especially since it is in the interest of the Indonesian people to have access to news reports, especially from widely used Meta platforms, said Mr Noudhy.
Meanwhile, Japan is also courting the foreign market following a shift in the country’s security policy, which opened its local defence industry to the global market.
It is eyeing Asia, where defence spending is on the rise due to economic growth and China’s military expansion.
Japan’s defence ministry has set up a booth at the Singapore Airshow for the first time, showcasing its capabilities from aircraft manufacturing to communications. It has also brought along 13 Japanese companies with the aim of supporting sales to other countries.
Both Japan and South Korea are the United States’ most important allies in Asia.
“For the case of Japan and Korea especially, they are very integrated into the Western supply chain. They’re interoperable with western systems,” said Aviation Week Network’s Asia Pacific senior correspondent Chen Chuanren.
“And I think more importantly is that given what’s happening around the world, many countries are looking to get military equipment fast and urgently, and (Korea, in particular,) has the capacity and the capability to generate and produce military equipment very easily for these countries.”
KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian government is not ignoring or taking the decline of the ringgit lightly and is making continuous efforts to address the issue while also assuring that the country’s investment figures remain intact, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Friday (Feb 23). He added that the central bankContinue Reading