Inter-Research And Studies (IRAS)

Masyarakat yang ada saat ini sepenuhnya didasarkan atas eksploitasi yang dilakukan oleh sebuah minoritas kecil penduduk, yaitu kelas tuan tanah dan kaum kapitalis, terhadap masyarakat luas yang terdiri atas kelas pekerja. Ini adalah sebuah masyarakat perbudakan, karena para pekerja yang "bebas", yang sepanjang hidupnya bekerja untuk kaum kapitalis, hanya "diberi hak" sebatas sarana subsistensinya. Hal ini dilakukan kaum kapitalis guna keamanan dan keberlangsungan perbudakan kapitalis. Tanpa dapat dielakkan, penindasan ekonomi terhadap para pekerja membangkitkan dan mendorong setiap bentuk penindasan politik dan penistaan terhadap masyarakat, menggelapkan dan mempersuram kehidupan spiritual dan moral massa. Para pekerja bisa mengamankan lebih banyak atau lebih sedikit kemerdekaan politik untuk memperjuangkan emansipasi ekonomi mereka, namun tak secuil pun kemerdekaan yang akan bisa membebaskan mereka dari kemiskinan, pengangguran, dan penindasan sampai kekuasaan dar...

After Putrajaya’s use of the Sedition Act against a University of Malaya (UM) law lecturer turned members of the academia here skittish, the country’s oldest tertiary institution’s academics urged their fellow scholars not to bow to their fears and to continue airing their opinions boldly in order to keep the space for public discourse open. Prof Dr Edmund Terence Gomez said that academics “should not be fearful” and “self-censor” themselves in Malaysia, which he described earlier as a “quasi-democracy” or an “electoral authoritarian society”. “The Sedition Act is creating a climate of fear, we cannot succumb to this fear. We cannot let it affect us to the point we self-censor,” the political economist from UM’s faculty of economics and administration told a forum here last night. He expressed his concern that the “stifling of academic freedom” in UM and other universities would impair the academics’ scholarships as they would begin self-censoring and carefully guard their words when ...

Poor conflict resolution and religious policing are two key factors hampering Malaysia’s progress towards becoming a model nation for race relations, a human rights activist has asserted. Society for the Promotion of Human Rights (Proham) secretary-general Datuk Dr Denison Jayasooria stressed that left unaddressed the two factors may cause greater enmity and disharmony among Malaysia’s races, ripping society apart. He said this is especially in the wake of several raids on houses of worship, the seizure of bibles and bitter custody battles pitting Muslim against non-Muslim spouse. “The issues that are emerging need some clear resolution, as these matters are not being handled adequately,” he told reporters after a late evening forum yesterday. Denison said that the amendment to Article 121(1) of the Federal Constitution has also led to complications pertaining to the jurisdiction of the civil and Syariah courts as there was a ‘particular’ problem in the way the Syariah courts decis...

By Remi Piet, AJE Earlier this month, Jean-Claude Juncker, the newly elected president of the European Union, unveiled the composition of his team of commissioners. His 27 "players in a winning team", as Juncker introduced them, will have the responsibility to develop European policies for the next five years. They will face a daunting task as the EU faces colossal economic challenges and its citizens regularly express their growing discontent during local and national ballots. On the economic level, the priority of the new commission will be to improve employment conditions in Europe by triggering investment and ensuring that banks resume lending to households and small companies. Juncker reaffirmed his commitment to the establishment of a connected digital market and a common energy strategy that should help create new jobs for Europeans. To ensure results, he established a specific task force within the commission on "Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness...

By YS Liau and Elffie Chew Malaysia ’s ringgit FELL the most in a week on speculation a U.S. recovery will back the case for the  Federal Reserve to increase interest rates next year. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index climbed to a 14-month high before the Fed’s Sept. 16-17 policy review and after data yesterday showed U.S. consumer-credit growth beat forecasts in July. Malaysia’s factory output slowed to the least in four months in July, according to a Bloomberg survey before a Sept. 11 report. “The dollar is stronger due to the upcoming Federal Open Market Committee meeting,” said Saktiandi Supaat, Singapore-based head of foreign-exchange research at Malayan Banking Bhd. “There seem to be expectations for some form of hawkish signals at next week’s meeting.” The ringgit depreciated 0.6 percent, the biggest drop since Sept. 2, to 3.1933 per dollar in Kuala Lumpur, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. One-month implied volatility, a measure of expected moves in the ex...

Pro-Russian rebels in east Ukraine said on Tuesday they did not have the capability to shoot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, after Dutch investigators said it was hit by numerous "high-energy objects". "I can say only one thing: we simply do not have the military hardware capable of shooting down a Boeing passenger jet such as the Malaysian plane," Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, told Russia's Interfax news agency. Kiev and Washington accuse the rebels of blowing the Kuala Lumpur-bound flight out of the sky on July 17 with a sophisticated missile system sent from Russia, killing all 298 people on board. The separatist insurgents and Moscow have consistently denied any links to the downing of the jet as it flew over rebel territory at an altitude of some 10,000 metres, instead pointing the finger at the Ukrainian military. "It is obvious that it was an act of provocation carried out th...

An international human rights watchdog said the government's use of the Sedition Act is "fostering a climate of repression in Malaysia". "The use of the law - increasingly against individuals simply expressing political, religious and other views - is creating a chilling effect on freedom of expression in the country. "Amnesty International (AI) believes the increasing use of the Sedition Act to suppress the views and opinions of opposition politicians and other critical voices, as well as ordinary individuals who are simply expressing their opinions on a range of issues, is fostering a climate of repression in Malaysia," said the international human rights group. In a statement issued today from its Southeast Asia Desk in its head office in London, AI reminded Malaysia that the Act was a legacy of the colonial British rulers "to stifle dissent and criminalise peaceful activists and opposition in the past". Listing the victims of the dra...