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April 2020

Lockdown in Malaysia 2020: Day 44 – Should Wait for Hair Cut or Just Cut Hair?

hair

Mind you there is a big difference between “I had a haircut” and “I had cut my hair” – it is something I learned to distinguish thanks to my lecturer when I was still in the law school. The last thing I want to do is to be a hero and try to be a barber myself – Mr Bean armed with scissors probably could do better. Image source: Youtube

In recent days, in light of the strict lockdown in some places in Malaysia and the need to keep best hygienic practices in place, there have been major discussions on the rights of Rohingyas immigrants in Malaysia. They have started to cause problems to the host countries which you make you wonder why the Myanmar Government probably be happy to see them out of the country.

Read More »Lockdown in Malaysia 2020: Day 44 – Should Wait for Hair Cut or Just Cut Hair?

Tamil Movie Review: Thiagarajan Kumararaja’s Super Deluxe 2019

movie Thiagarajan Kumararaja

Many thanks to Behindwood’s list of top 150 cult Tamil movies to watch consolidated due to the lockdown in India, I found a real gem in these 2 movies – Aaranya Kaandam (2010) and Super Deluxe (2019). Both written and directed by the brilliant Thiagarajan Kumararaja. Image source: The Hindu

When it comes to watching a movie, I would also check on who is the director of the movie.

Personally, I have some preferences as I know that their movies have been brilliant (maybe 1-2 screw-ups like Myskkin’s Physco) – directors like David Lean (his 1962 Lawrence of Arabia is still my top epic movie in my collections), Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan for Hollywood movies and K Balachander, Mani Ratnam, Myskkin, Cheran and to some extent, Selvaraghavan & Vetrimaaran for Tamil movies.

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Lockdown in Malaysia 2020: Day 38 – MCO Extended & Drastic Lifestyle Changes

lockdown Tesco shopping

Despite a lockdown in place, you have to admit that it is quite impossible to just remain at home and rely on online purchases, especially for groceries. Sooner or later, one has to brace oneself to go out shopping and that is what I had to do yesterday morning.

The problem was I completely forgotten the start date of Ramadan so I was surprised to see a very long line at Tesco hypermarket even though I was there quite early. Every time I go out, I have to reset my 14 days incubation period all over again.

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National Security 2020: Recent Intrusion of Chinese ships in Malaysian Waters

chinese

(The potential flashpoint for the next regional war is in the South China Sea where in recent years, the Chinese Government has been very aggressively building naval bases complete with missile launch silos, gun emplacements, radar stations, communications towers, runways for heavy bombers and helipads. Photo source: The Sun UK)

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Recently the Chinese Government sent 8 doctors to assist our Ministry of Health on the war to contain and improve the recovery from COVID-19 infections. Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah on April 10 said a team of medical professionals from China would be in Malaysia to lend a helping hand and look at the performance of Malaysia’s hospitals in handling the pandemic.

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Lock Down In Malaysia 2020: Day 34 – The Ugly Side of Double Standards

lock down

From crisis management readiness started way back in December 2019, Malaysia have done a rather effective management of the crisis with strict lock down & continuos testing – the number of active cases has continued to reduce from a peak 2596 on 5th April 2020 to 2,103 as at 19th April 2020. In total, 3,197 people have recovered from coronavirus infection making a recovery rate of 59.32%. Compared to other neighbours, Malaysia is doing more testing indeed. Graph source: Our World in Data.

Indonesia on the other hand, where some Indonesians were not happy when Datuk Dr Musa Nordin tagged the country as a time bomb of pandemic has registered 6,575 cases with 582 deaths and 686 recoveries. The recovery rate at this point is 10.43%. They are just shy away from Singapore who has 6,588 confirmed cases.

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Lock Down in Malaysia 2020: Day 31 – It is All About Sustaining the Momentum

lock down

Lock down success in China – seeing the numbers involved is really impressive: Wuhan lockdown – 14 million people involved, Hubei lockdown – 59 million people involved, other cities lock down – 159 million people involved. Information & image source: Zoomax

Many thanks to the strict lock down in place (now in 3rd phase yet almost 15,000 lock down violators caught todate), the number of testing done and people doing less stupid things, the number of active cases has indeed continued to reduce. As at todate, Malaysia has a total confirmed infection of 5,182 cases with a total 84 deaths and a total 2,766 recovered cases – the fatality rate stands at 1.62% with a recovery rate of 53.38%.

Read More »Lock Down in Malaysia 2020: Day 31 – It is All About Sustaining the Momentum