Pressing Matters

We highlight the worsening humanitarian crisis in Myanmar in the Rakhine State and beyond with Shinjiro Murata, General Director, MSF Japan. As the world has been overwhelmed with crisis after crisis, we in Malaysia seem to have forgotten that we are witnessing one right at our doorstep. Shinjiro speaks to Philip See about how the situation has been evolving and why it is so desperately important for us and the international community to take action.Image Credit: freepik.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In today's Pressing Matters, we go behind the scenes with journalist Ira Porter from the Monitor about the recently concluded Paris Olympics. We ask him how the games delivered for the audience and athletes as well as get his take on what does Los Angeles need to learn to from the recently concluded greatest show on Earth.Image Credit: shutterstock.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Following the conclusion of voting in Venezuela's presidential elections, the streets erupted with protests as conflicting results emerge with both the government and the opposition claiming victory. Philip See speaks to Luis Fernando Angosto-Ferrández a lecturer in the departments of Anthropology and Latin American Studies at the University of Sydney about what to anticipate in the coming weeks ahead and why these elections are so critical for Venezuela.Image Credit: freepik.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Following a series of violent protests triggered by job quotas, we speak to Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center's South Asia Institute about how the protests grew so fast and what does it mean for the ruling party of Awami League led by Sheikh Hasina. Michael unpacks whether these protests would lead to lasting damage to Bangladesh's fragile economy and political structure.Image Credit: shutterstock.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On today’s show, we do a post mortem on the unprecedented IT outage that created chaos throughout the world a little over a week ago. The outage resulted in massive disruptions from healthcare to banking to airlines as a result of a relatively simple single software update by cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike. To help us unpack what really happened Philip See speaks to Dashveenjit Kaur Editor at TechForge Media and contributing editor at Digital News Asia to get an account of the chain of events that resulted in the calamity we witnessed across the world.Image Credit: Shutterstock.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We discuss with Dr Adrian Ang from the S Rajaratnam School of international studies on the recently concluded Republic Convention which anointed President Donald Trump as the Republic Candidate to face Democrat Joe Biden in the upcoming November Polls. Adrian helps us unpack how the convention went and the different scenarios that the Democrats could take if President Joe Biden does decide to exit the race.Image Credit: Shutterstock.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On today's show Pressing Matters Philip See speaks to Romen Bose an international correspondent and former political communications consultant about his latest book Shattered Hopes. He gives us a blow by blow account about the turbulent times that faced the then Pakatan Harapan PH1.0 government and goes into details about the dysfunction and power struggles that rocked the coalition.Image Credit: shutterstock.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's Pressing Matters, Philip See speaks to Prof. Zaharom Nain, author of the Malaysia country report of the Reuters Institute's 2024 Digital News Report. We discuss with Zaharom the multitude of challenges that the media industry is facing and how the Government's actions or lack off has made it more difficult for the media to thrive here.Image Credit: shutterstock.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's Pressing Matters, Philip See speaks to Louw Nel, Senior Political Analyst, Oxford Economics Africa about the recently concluded elections in South Africa where the incumbent African National Congress or ANC suffered deep losses forcing it into a power sharing agreement with the opposition DA Democratic Alliance. Louw helps us unpack what this unprecedented coalition will mean for South Africa and whether the spells the end of the ANC once considered invincible in South African politics.Image Credit: freepik.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On today's Pressing Matters, Philip See speaks to Dr Rahul Mishra from University of Malaya to unpack the recent Indian general elections. Many had expected Narendra Modi and his BJP / NDA alliance to win convincingly in the polls. He in the end didn't, with the NDA alliance falling far short of their hope to secure 400+ seats and instead just got under 300. Rahul helps us unpack when it clear throughout the counting process that the tide seemed to turn away from the incumbents and how different will Modi 3.0 be different vs Modi 2.0 and Mod 1.0?Image Credit: freepik.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.