Inter-Research And Studies (IRAS)

By Waleed Aly Six years ago, Proton - Malaysia's national car maker - teamed up with carmakers in Iran and Turkey pledging to develop the world's first ''Islamic car''. Apparently automobiles had hitherto been non-Muslims. If that's not absurd enough, this week we learnt it's a good thing Malaysian cars can't talk, because if they could, they'd no longer be able to use the word ''Allah'' to mean ''God''. That's what a Malaysian appeal court ruled this week, after a Catholic, Malay-language newspaper had dared to drop the A-bomb. The ''Allah'' controversy has been running for years, and isn't over yet. This decision overturned the original finding from 2009 in favour of the newspaper. Now the editor is planning to appeal to the highest court in the country and the government will resist. This immediately reminded me of Proton's Islamic car: strip both these stories of ...

Exposures after exposures were reported at the most recent hearing of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into the Illegal Immigrants in Sabah. Does all these look as at it has been fabricated? No, not at all. The scandal in Sabah was real. So does the existence of over more than half a million of illegal immigrants from Indonesia and the Philippines who are now residing permanently in Sabah. Thanks to the Barisan Nasional (BN), particularly the dominant party called Umno, these illegal immigrants are able to stay put in the state until today. Asides, they were also given express citizenship status and granted voting rights when most of the Sabah bumiputras particularly the Kadazan Dusuns, Muruts, Bajaus, Dumpas, Orang Sungai, Rungus and many more in the rural areas are still not able to become voters until today despite their status as real Sabahans and the fact that they are Malaysians. Everyone knows that the scandal, better known as Project IC really exist in Sabah and ...

By Viktor Wong Malaysia, 55 years is over and now our nation is heading towards the 56th year, that is of course next year 2013. The New Economic Policy (NEP) was established and implemented immediately after the May 13, 1969 racial riots. The NEP was the brainchild of the then second prime minister Tun Abdul Razak who had taken over the country leadership from Tunku Abdul Rahman after the bloody riots in 1969 as the result of the Alliance's defeat in the general election during that year. What is NEP all about? Of course we all know that, but many of our new generations do not even know what was that. Many younger Malaysians today often view NEP as a tool of corruption, power abuse and an easy way to achieve power and wealth. Yes, the NEP has became like that. The NEP has in fact swayed from its original objectives. NEP was born out in aftermath of the May 13, 1969 riots in order to safeguard the social and economic interest of the Bumiputra communities, particularly the Ma...