Category: Development EN

The RM13 billion hole blown into Lembaga Tabung Haji is not an isolated tragedy. It is a warning. The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Tabung Haji exposed creative accounting, opaque transactions and reckless decisions involving the savings of millions of Malaysians. More disturbingly, it revealed how a system can allow those entrusted with a public institution to take enormous risks while...

A small data centre may seem modest compared to massive AI facilities, but its resource demands can still be enormous – especially when it comes to water. Cooling systems in data centres require vast amounts of water to prevent servers from overheating, and even a 1-megawatt facility can consume tens of millions of litres annually depending on the cooling method and climate. As AI...

By Lawrence S. Wittner The Trump administration has tried to eliminate all US food assistance. Starvation is a particularly cruel and horrible way to die. Beginning with intense hunger and pain and followed by exhaustion and mental deterioration, starvation continues with the body gradually consuming its own tissues on a downward spiral toward death. The major safeguard against mass starvation...

We call it development. Nature calls it destruction. One side has forests, rivers, birds, animals, and clean air. The other side has smoke, oil, factories, concrete, and machines. And somehow, we still ask why the Earth is losing balance. Progress is not real progress when it buries trees, poisons rivers, and leaves wildlife homeless. A bigger city means nothing if the planet becomes unlivable....

As companies race to develop and deploy AI systems, there is a race to replace: humans replaced as creators, counsellors, caregivers and companions; and in most jobs and decision-making roles – concentrating ever more power in unaccountable institutions and their machines. This race to replace poses risks to societal stability, national security, economic prosperity, civil liberties, privacy,...

Dangerous to Ask AI Chatbots for Personal Advice, Study Finds Stanford computer scientists recently analysed nearly 400,000 AI chatbot messages. What they found is disturbing: AI chatbots aren't just polite – they are "sycophantic", meaning they will flatter you even when you're wrong or being harmful, the findings show. A surprising study from researchers at Stanford University has raised...

The revelations laid bare by the declassified Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) report on Lembaga Tabung Haji are not merely a tale of administrative failure or poor investment strategy. They expose an unconscionable, systemic, and calculated Criminal Breach of Trust. Tabung Haji was created as a sacred vessel - a noble development institution meant to manage the life savings of everyday...

We, representing a coalition of Malaysian organisations and groups comprising farmers, consumers and environmental interests, hereby express our objection to the application by Zen Cropscience Sdn. Bhd. for the release of the genetically modified (GM) rice of the MR219 variety at a confined field trial site in Kampung Kepayang, Perak. We submitted this formal objection to the Director General of...

Low salaries remain one of the most pressing concerns facing Malaysians today. Despite decades of economic growth and Malaysia's emergence as an upper-middle-income economy, many workers continue to struggle with rising living costs, housing affordability and financial insecurity. While the economy has expanded considerably, the Consumers' Association of Penang (CAP) observes that wages have not...

The long-awaited declassification of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) report on Lembaga Tabung Haji (TH) has confirmed what millions of Malaysian depositors feared most: a catastrophic breakdown of governance, driven by rampant political interference and fiscal deception. For decades, Tabung Haji was viewed as a sacrosanct institution - a beacon of Islamic financial management built on the...