ALTHOUGH the rapid development of the Covid-19 vaccines provides light at the end of the tunnel, the situation is relatively challenging for Malaysia due to the continuous four-digit daily infection figures. This is especially difficult for Sabahans and Sarawakians as they are still relatively lagging behind in their socio-economic development.

MALAYSIA is no stranger to the world of legislators switching allegiances during their term. The number of defections hit an unprecedented level in 2020 when the elected Pakatan Harapan (PH) federal government collapsed, followed by the fall of a string of PH state governments.

IT has certainly been a challenging and dif-ficult year for everyone. Every school and educational institution has been affected and will need to respond accordingly too if they wish to successfully weather these uncertain times.

MALAYSIAN Employers Federation executive director Datuk Shamsuddin Bardan believes poor command of the English language among many Bumiputra graduates is the main reason why they find it hard to get jobs in the private sector, which accounts for 90pc of employment in the country.

“SHE’S dead,” she says simply before lapsing into silence, eyes glistening. It’s been a tough week for Dr Nurzhafarina Othman. The elephant specialist had just received news that her elephant, whom she’d been observing for over a year, had been found dead in a plantation in Kinabatangan, presumably of suspected poisoning. It’s the same elephant she named “Diana” in honour of her friend, Dr Diana Angeles Ramirez Salvidar, who passed away suddenly two years ago.

Sabah has little sense of the value of time. We Sabahans have been consumed with admiration heaped upon us by non-Sabahans. I have heard too many times that our Sabah is the best, best in racial harmony, best in religious acceptance, best in environmental protection, the list goes on. While these may be true, we have stagnated and locked ourselves in an economic-development time capsule, drunk with these praises and oblivious to our pervasive rural/urban poverty and stunted economic growth. Why do I say this? Cos Sabahans have accepted them incompliantly as our fate, cos our politicians don’t consider them serious enough for them to raise hell in public, in Legislative Assembly and Parliament. It is as if we Sabahans are living in perpetual paradise bliss where time stands still, time is irrelevant, the time has no cost, time is not precious. Life goes on peacefully and slowly like a snail. Talking about time, I like to deal with 2 aspects of time that hardly exist in Sabah. Time certainty and time sensitivity.

MUCH has been said about the need for preserving the “Convent Culture”. In 1925 three French nuns and two teachers, Miss Ethel Filders and Miss Winifred Allen, came to Johor Bahru and started the I.J. Convent. They received the support of His Royal Highness, the late Sultan Ibrahim and Her Royal Highness the late Sultanah Rogayah. The royal couple was happy with the work and effort of these pioneers and gave them a piece of land to build a proper school. He even enrolled his grandchildren in the school. In all these 85 years the school has grown in leaps and bounds to what it is today: – a Cluster School for Excellence, one of the top academic day-schools in the country and the only Band-A day- school in Johor Bahru! These achievements are the culmination of the practice of a culture unique to the Convent. There has always been a clamouring among parents in Johor Bahru to enroll their children in the Convent. When the question is posed to the parents, ‘Why do you want your child to attend the Convent?’, the answer is always the same. ‘This is where my child can excel, there is a healthy competitive spirit, they can learn English, mix with students of all races and develop good character’, is what they say.

DR MAHATHIR wrote on his Chedet blog that the rule of law is no longer being applied in view of several high profile corruption cases dropped by prosecutors in recent months. Wonder where was the Rule of Law when he was in power? In fact the rot started during his 22-year premiership.

MALAYSIA imported some RM52 billion of agri-food in 2018. These included grains such as wheat and corn that go into our flour and animal feed mill industries and processed foods.

ECONOMICS is a social science which studies human behaviour in the endless battle between unlimited wants and scarce resources which have alternative uses.