POLITICS-MALAYSIA: Voters Go Secular, Snub Ruling Coalition

Malaysia's ruling National Front (NF) coalition has suffered its biggest setback in five decades of unbroken power, losing five state governments and the two-thirds majority it enjoyed in national parliament.

POLITICS-MALAYSIA: Civil Society Leaders Enter Election Fray

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi had parliament dissolved Wednesday, paving the way for snap elections that political analysts say will see the opposition gain ground thanks to voter discontent over rising prices, crime and ethnic tension.

POLITICS-MALAYSIA: Rising Hindu Activism May Upset Poll Calculations

A new political force - right wing Hindu activism - has emerged in multi-ethnic Malaysia adding, in an election year, volatility to the country's already religiously charged politics dominated by the majority Malay Muslims.

DEATH PENALTY: Beijing Sentence Shakes Malaysia’s Own Policy

Malaysia's unshakable stand on the death penalty appears to be wavering as a country unites in sympathy and outrage over the plight of a young Malay woman sentenced to death in China for allegedly acting as a drug courier.

POLITICS-MALAYSIA: Hearing Exposes Mahathir, His Corrupt Times

A public hearing into corruption in the higher judiciary is giving Malaysians a rare peep into the way top judges were appointed, demoted or promoted during the tenure of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.

POLITICS-MALAYSIA: Rampant Crime Turns Main Election Issue

As election fever grips the country, with polls widely expected mid-March, the country's seemingly unstoppable escalation in violent crime is turning into the main plank of the opposition's campaign.

RELIGION-MALAYSIA: Holy Row Over Who May Use Some Arabic Words

In a move that may hurt Malaysia’s multi-religious social fabric the government has announced that certain Arabic words like ‘Allah’ cannot be used in the literature, gospel and speeches of non-Muslims faiths.

CHALLENGES 2007-2008: Civil Society Ready for Regime Change

As the year draws to a close no solution is visible for Malaysia’s worsening ethnic and religious divide, either from the political establishment led by an indecisive Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi nor a judiciary tainted by charges corruptions.

RIGHTS-MALAYSIA: Internal Security Act Flung at Peaceful Protestors

An old fear, not felt since the dictatorial Mahathir Mohamad retired as prime minister in 2003, has returned - fear of arrest without trial and indefinite incarceration without being charged.

DEATH PENALTY-SINGAPORE: Stand at UN Leaves Many Angered

Singapore’s strong pro-death penalty stand during the November U.N. General Assembly vote on a draft resolution calling for an end to the death penalty has disappointed many and left Singaporeans asking why the city-state is willing to risk international condemnation to pursue the death penalty so publicly as a solution to crime.

RIGHTS-MALAYSIA: Ethnic Indians on the Warpath

Malaysia’s Hindus - mostly Tamil descendents of 19th century labourers - on Sunday ignored warnings by Prime Minister Abdul Badawi and braved tear gas and police batons to protest alleged official discrimination and demand a fair share of the national wealth.

POLITICS-MALAYSIA: ‘Mass Rally Wake Up Call to Gov’t’

The biggest public protest in a decade that saw over 30,000 people braving riot police and tear gas on the weekend demanding fraud-free elections was no less than a public cry for real democratic change, say observers.

POLITICS-MALAYSIA: Mass Rally For Electoral Reforms to Defy Ban

A mammoth opposition rally planned next week is set to expose such features of Malaysian elections as vote-buying, gerrymandering, fraud electoral rolls and blatant use of public resources to win votes - unless the government stops it.

DEATH PENALTY-MALAYSIA: Sane Voices Amidst Hysteria

In a small dingy community meeting room in Taman Kosas, a depressed working class suburb north of the city of factory workers and petty traders, Rohana Bakar, a 36-year-old mother of two girls, is trying hard to keep her ground.

LABOUR-MALAYSIA: Flawed Policy Results in Flood of Migrant Workers

As thousands of migrant workers from Bangladesh stranded at the international airport here await deportation questions are being asked about Malaysia’s migrant worker policies and the dubious role of employment agencies.

CORRUPTION-MALAYSIA: Video Clip Lands Top Judiciary in the Dock

An explosive, eight-minute video clip, that opposition lawmakers allege implicates a controversial lawyer and a top judge by showing them conspiring to 'fix' high profile cases and the promotion of judges, has shaken the country and sparked widespread demands for an investigation and overhaul of the judiciary.

POLITICS-MALAYSIA: Calls for Electoral Reforms Met With Violence

Political tension is rising in Malaysia as the demand by a coalition of opposition political parties and some 26 civil society groups for a clean and fair election is increasingly being met with violence by the ruling, 13-party National Front coalition.

RIGHTS-MALAYSIA: Ethnic Indians Blame Britain for Sorry Plight

As Malaysia marked 50 years as an independent nation on Aug. 31, a team of Malaysian lawyers were in London filing a lawsuit against the British government for abandoning minority Indians to the mercy of majoritarian Malay-Muslim rule while granting independence in 1957.

MALAYSIA-DEATH PENALTY: Nine Years on Death Row, Denied Appeal

"Hang me or release me but don’t leave me to suffer a slow death," is the cry of anguish from Baha Jambol, 45, who has been suspended helplessly here on death-row for nine long years, unable to appeal a death sentence.

LABOUR-MALAYSIA: New Laws Threaten Workers’ Rights

As Malaysia celebrates 50 years as an independent nation, this month, there is little to cheer for some 12 million workers who have been dealt a body blow by a government enchanted with neo-liberal policies that promote businesses over their welfare.

MALAYSIA: Racial Divisions Sharper After 50 Years

Malaysia celebrates, this August, 50 years of independence under the slogan ‘one legacy, one destiny,’ reiterated through posters in public places depicting representatives of various races happily holding hands and walking into the sunset.