What’s Old Is New: Malaysia Moves Forward and Brings Old Habits With It
NEED TO KNOW
What’s Old Is New: Malaysia Moves Forward and Brings Old Habits With It
MALAYSIA
Nearly 100 years old, Mahathir bin Mohamad recently gave interviews where he harkened back to his years serving as Malaysia’s prime minister over two stints, from 1981 to 2003, then 2018 to 2020.
Time magazine described Mahathir as a “complex and contradictory character.” That is hard to dispute. He was a champion but also a harsh critic of ethnic Malays, a destroyer and creator of patronage networks, a detractor of American and Israeli foreign policy who welcomed investment from the US and other countries, and a former medical doctor who became a political strongman.
Among Malays, he was popular enough to return to power in 2018 amid the 1MBD scandal, a stunning corruption case in which insiders embezzled $4.5 billion of public funds. Criminal justice officials today are working overtime to enact new rules to make such corruption rarer, even as it persists.
Skeptics at the New York Times asked Mahathir to justify antisemitic comments he’d made in the past. A Muslim who ran a majority Muslim nation and advocated for the world’s Muslims to take political stands against injustice, he defended himself, reaffirming the atrocities of the Holocaust but condemning Israelis for brutalizing the Palestinians.
Mahathir represents the end of Malaysia’s transition from British colonial status to a country trying not only to survive but thrive in a new world order.
Viewed as a business-friendly nation, Malaysia was one of the fast-growing Asian economies, notching up a 51 percent increase in exports to the US in the month before American President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on much of the world, noted Nikkei Asia. Exports to the US, especially electronics, are vital to the country’s economy.
At the same time, Reuters added, diplomats were discussing how Malaysian state-owned oil and gas company Petronas could purchase natural gas from Commonwealth LNG’s Louisiana refinery.
Malaysia is not beholden to the US, however. Current Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is also talking with Chinese officials to construct an “equatorial spaceport” in Malaysia that would have “strategic, economic, and geopolitical implications,” wrote Space News.
Other projects were undoubtedly discussed at Ibrahim’s recent meeting with President Xi Jinping, where the two leaders appeared close, as a Chinese government press release illustrated.
Still, analysts say the political landscape has changed much since Mahathir was in charge five years ago.
One aspect of that change is how corruption has risen to become an important issue for Malaysians. Earlier this year, authorities tried to stop an anti-corruption protest. But now the government is considering a criminal investigation into Mahathir over a territorial settlement with Singapore, in which he withdrew Malaysia’s attempt to challenge a previous ruling on three islets. It has also asked Mahathir’s sons to disclose the sources of their wealth.
At the same time, public anger has been growing over Anwar’s bailout of Malaysian oil and gas services provider Sapura Energy amid a corruption probe. Anwar has insisted Sapura Energy’s case was different from a typical corporate bailout, arguing the funds were specifically meant to settle the company’s debts to vendors and prevent disruptions to the country’s oil and gas sector.
However, Hassan Karim, a lawmaker from the PM’s own party, the People’s Justice Party, has called Anwar out, saying the government’s action is “the definition of a bailout” and comparing Anwar’s justification to Mahathir’s argument when he bailed out his son’s troubled shipping company in 1998, the South China Morning Post wrote.
“So the arguments and reasons given by the administration of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim are the same as those given by Mahathir before, namely that the bailout is necessary for the country’s national interest and the interests of the Malays,” he said. “So not much has actually changed in the leadership of our country from the time of Mahathir to the time of Anwar.”
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
India Strikes Pakistan Over Kashmir Killings, Raising Fears of War
INDIA/ PAKISTAN
Tensions between India and Pakistan surged Wednesday after New Delhi launched a wave of missile strikes on targets across Pakistan and the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir, NBC News reported.
The missile strikes marked the most serious conflict between the nuclear-armed rivals in more than two decades, and Islamabad vowed to retaliate.
The strike came in response to the killing of 25 Hindu tourists and one local man in the Indian-administered Kashmir region on April 22.
Dubbed “Operation Sindoor,” the strikes hit nine locations in Pakistani territory, India said. It described the targets as “terrorist infrastructure” sites linked to Islamist groups Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, which officials say are linked to the group that carried out the April 22 massacre.
The strikes not only hit sites in Pakistan-administered Kashmir but also locations in Punjab province – marking India’s first attacks there since their last full-scale war in 1999.
New Delhi claimed the strikes were a pre-emptive move aimed at preventing more attacks from happening in the future. Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said the strikes were executed with “exactness” and avoided civilian areas.
However, Pakistan countered that at least 31 people died and 46 were wounded in the strikes and that some of the targeted locations were not militant camps, Reuters wrote.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif described strikes as an “act of war” and vowed a “strong response.”
On Wednesday, the Pakistani military said it had downed five Indian fighter jets and one drone, a claim disputed by India.
Meanwhile, intense shelling and gunfire erupted along the Line of Control (LoC), the two neighbors’ de facto border in Kashmir. At least 15 civilians died and 51 were wounded in Indian-administered Kashmir, while at least six people were killed on the Pakistani side.
Analysts warned that the April massacre and the recent clashes could touch off a larger-scale military conflict between India and Pakistan, which have fought three wars – two over Kashmir – since 1947, the year Pakistan became a separate entity from India and both gained independence from British rule.
Both sides have suspended airspace access and trade, while India has closed its border crossing and cracked down on separatists in Kashmir.
Global powers, including the United States, China, and Russia, called for restraint from both countries.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the world “cannot afford a military confrontation” between the two nuclear-powered states.
Houthis Agree to Ceasefire with US But Exclude Israel
YEMEN
Oman claimed credit for mediating a ceasefire between Yemen’s Houthis and the United States, Reuters reported. But the deal doesn’t apply to attacks on Israel.
Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al Busaidi announced Tuesday that the US and the Houthis agreed not to target each other, and the deal would stop attacks on US vessels in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait.
However, Houthi chief negotiator Mohammed Abdulsalam clarified to Reuters that the ceasefire does not apply to attacks on Israel, saying it excludes such actions “in any way, shape or form.”
The announcement came just hours after Israeli warplanes struck the airport in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, causing about $500 million in damage, Al Jazeera noted. The airstrike followed Houthi attacks on Israel’s international airport earlier in the week.
US President Donald Trump initially unveiled the deal Tuesday, declaring that the United States would halt daily bombings in Yemen, saying the Houthis had “capitulated.”
Trump said the group agreed to stop disrupting key Middle Eastern shipping lanes, a campaign launched after the Gaza war began in solidarity with Palestinians.
Although the Iran-backed group briefly halted attacks during a ceasefire in Gaza earlier this year, they resumed them after Israel reinstated a total blockade on the Palestinian enclave.
The Houthis threatened to restart their attacks on shipping – which had been paused since January – prompting the US to launch near-daily airstrikes. In March, Trump launched the biggest military operation under his administration against the Yemeni group, killing hundreds.
While the US has pledged to honor the new ceasefire, Abdulsalam warned that any violation would prompt retaliation.
First Pro-Democracy Protests in Mali in Four Years of Military Rule
MALI
Hundreds of activists in Mali defied military threats and took to the streets this week in the first pro-democracy demonstration since the junta-led government took power by force almost four years ago, the Associated Press reported.
The demonstrators marched in the capital Bamako to protest a new bill introduced by Mali’s transitional government to dissolve political parties in the country.
On Saturday, activists demonstrated outside the Palais de Culture and chanted against the dictatorship. The police blocked the area to avoid clashes between protesters and pro-military youths who arrived at the venue earlier to stop the rally.
Authorities later urged demonstrators to leave the scene to prevent such violence from breaking out.
The weekend demonstrations came days after Mali’s junta issued a decree in the Council of Ministers to repeal the law regulating political party charters.
That decision followed a national political conference held last week that recommended that junta leader Assimi Goïta, who has been Mali’s interim leader since the coup in 2021, should remain in power for another five years.
Critics see both developments as part of an effort by Goïta and the army to restrict political liberties. Meanwhile, the conference decision makes Mali the third West African junta-led country in recent times to delay or abandon its promised return to civilian rule.
Analysts noted that it is too early to say whether the protests will gain momentum but warned they could lead to “real” tensions if authorities do not reassure political parties. The threatened political parties, meanwhile, are calling for new protests later this week, noted Senegal News.
DISCOVERIES
Drinking on the Wing
Bats are exceptional multitaskers, capable of drinking water in mid-flight without crashing.
A new study on how animals multitask details the methods the bats use to accomplish the feat.
“Animals have very busy lives, like humans, and if they can do two tasks at the same time, they have a better chance at survival,” study author Sunghwan Jung told the New York Times.
Most of the earth’s 1,400-odd bat species use the “skim drinking on the wing” strategy to stay hydrated, according to study author Rolf Müller.
While everyone needs to drink water, doing so can be dangerous for animals. As a result, bats may have developed this sipping technique to stay off the ground to avoid predators, researchers say.
To do so, bats perform in-flight drinking with various techniques. Some scoop up droplets with their tongue while flying over water, others wet their fur and then lick it, hydrating indirectly in a tactic known as “belly-dipping.”
The study only included bats that use the first strategy and studied two Pratt’s roundleaf bats, found in Asia, and four greater horseshoe bats, typical in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Both species feed on insects.
Researchers left the bats without water for six hours and then, in a lab large enough for them to fly around, they inserted a water source. They set up multiple cameras near the water and used stereoscopic imaging to check specific parts of the bats’ bodies as they dived down to drink. They then combined the imagining to get a 3-D viewing of how the bats flew around and sipped the water.
They found that bats slowed down while approaching the water, similar to what humans do while multitasking. Researchers think this motion of slowing down might be due to the challenge of multitasking, but also to the difficulty of flying so close to the water’s surface.
To avoid their wings touching the water, the bats reduced the range of their strokes by about 50 percent. They also adjusted their flapping motion to a steeper angle to compensate for the drag created by the tilt of their heads. Bats also meticulously controlled their tongues while scooping up the water. Researchers explained this is done to avoid getting water in the nose as this organ is fundamental to bats’ navigation system.
Watch a bat get an in-flight beverage here.