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Key Highlights
Mystery of PM’s arrested critic
No M’sian diesel shipped to Philippines
New migrant worker system soon?
Mystery of PM’s arrested critic
Something strange happened this week. A woman using the online pseudonym Jorjet Myla was supposedly arrested, remanded for three days, and probed for sedition.
Her purported offence? According to Perikatan Nasional’s corner of social media, it was a TikTok video criticising Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim for always blaming others for his weaknesses.
However, it’s not actually clear if that was the video that landed her in lockup or if it’s because of other videos where she uses really foul language.
It’s not even known if she was really arrested or investigated for sedition.
Fact-checking efforts have been unsuccessful thus far because she does not appear to have a lawyer, while police have kept oddly quiet about the case.
If real, it raises major concerns that the government is growing increasingly fragile to criticism, with authorities resorting to heavy-handed tactics to perceived threats.
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No M’sian diesel shipped to Philippines
Social media was abuzz after Filipino politicians claimed that they received a shipment of diesel from Malaysia.
With diesel prices skyrocketing locally, many were upset at the idea that Malaysia was exporting a crucial fuel.
However, Putrajaya said the oil was only stored in Malaysia, but belonged to a Singapore-based company, Vitol.
It said the oil was also not processed by Petronas or any local company.
Meanwhile, a Malaysiakini survey found that some petrol stations in the Klang Valley are experiencing fuel shortages, but that this was an intermittent issue, mostly due to money issues rather than insufficient supply.
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New migrant worker system soon?
Malaysia might get yet another migrant worker recruitment system.
Human Resources Minister R Ramanan said he has no issues with a direct-hire system being developed by Bestinet - aimed at cutting out the middleman.
However, he made it clear it’s still at the discussion stage for now.
Industry players are sceptical about whether the new system will bring genuine changes or merely add another layer to existing systems.
At present, migrant worker management relies heavily on the Foreign Worker Centralised Management System (FWCMS), which is also operated by Bestinet.
The government has paid the company more than RM381 million for its services.
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