Category: Development EN

The Ministerial meeting of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) now taking place in Hawaii should not reach a conclusion of the negotiations because many important issues of public interest have not been resolved.  Moreover the public in Malaysia and other countries are still in the dark over what is being negotiated or agreed to. Even if other countries are willing to reach a...

Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) urges the Perak State authorities to scrap the small hydroelectric project proposed to be built upstream of the Sungkai River in Sungkai Province, Batang Padang District, state of Perak. SAM calls upon the State to consider the plight of the Orang Asli community in Sungkai Province who do not agree and object to the proposed small hydropower project here. The Orang...

The Consumers’ Association of Penang strongly calls on the Government not to join the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants of 1991 (UPOV 1991). There is a proposal in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) to require membership of UPOV 1991 by the participating countries. However, there is growing concern globally that UPOV 1991 establishes an...

By Joseph E. Stiglitz NEW YORK – The United States and the world are engaged in a great debate about new trade agreements. Such pacts used to be called “free-trade agreements”; in fact, they were managed trade agreements, tailored to corporate interests, largely in the US and the European Union. Today, such deals are more often referred to as “partnerships,”as in the Trans-Pacific...

Senior parliamentarians from five countries negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement have signed an open letter urging their political leaders to protect their nations’ sovereignty from the United States’ process of certification. The signatories from Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, and New Zealand include prominent former parliamentarians as well as current leaders of...

The Consumers’ Association of Penang (CAP) calls upon the Malaysian government to withdraw from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement negotiations as the US Senate had last night voted against considering fast track authority at this time. The US Senate was supposed to be where the Fast Track or Trade Promotion Authority would pass easily. However the Senate voted 52-45, short of the 60...

The Consumers’ Association of Penang (CAP) and Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) are concerned for the future of Penang’s coastal resources. The Seri Tanjung Pinang Phase II (STP2) land reclamation project comes at a high price in terms of its adverse impact on the coastal and marine environment. A report in the Business Times of 8 May 2015 states that besides the 307.5 hectares reclamation for the...

The public has been made aware that the “highly anticipated” Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail (HSR) Project has been approved off and construction is expected to commence in 2016. To many people, constructing the HSR in Malaysia would symbolise that we are on par with tech-giants such as Japan and will validate our countries’ technological advancement. It comes as no surprise to us...