The Straits of Malacca: Regional powers vis-a-vis littoral states in strategic and security issues and interests

This paper presents an overview of the strategic and security issues surrounding the Straits of Malacca. It begins by introducing the strategic nature of the Straits of Malacca and piracy threat in the busy sea lane. Subsequently this paper discusses the issues and interests of the emerging powers in the Straits of Malacca historically. This covers the Asia’s emerging powers such as India, Japan and China. Then, the position of the three littoral states of Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore towards the issue of piracy in the Straits of Malacca is touched upon before analyzing the littoral states’ position on external powers’ involvement in the Straits of Malacca. This is paper also briefly discusses the individual littoral states’ interests in the vital sea lane

Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) students’ perception on national security policy: The case of Internal Security Act (ISA) of Malaysia

This study aims to examine the perception of the Internal Security Act (ISA) of Malaysia, focusing on the perceptions of students of Universiti Utara Malaysia. This study tries to determine the student’s perceptions first on the students’ comprehension of Malaysia’s national security policy in which constituted in the Malaysian Constitution and consequently understand its effect on the student’s reaction or attitude. The study is conducted using a questionnaire survey, consisting of statements in which the students were required to rate their response on a 5-point Likert scale. The questionnaire also consists of four main sections in which the demography of students, the evaluation of students perception on current national security threats in Malaysia, sets of statements in which testing the students’ basic comprehension of the ISA of Malaysia and fi nally their reactions towards the ISA itself. The finding indicates that the students are prone to social issues in which they determine it could be the major threat to Malaysia. Yet, there is no connection between comprehensions of the ISA and the reactions on the enforcement of the policy. Nevertheless, findings reveal their reactions differ between programmes of study and more inclined towards supporting the ISA and they also agree that government should take into consideration critics by the non-governmental organizations as well as societal grievances

FREEDOM OF ISLAMIC EXPRESSION IN MALAYSIA

In Malaysia, Islam is the religion of the Federation, and the Islamic law system runs parallel to the civil law system. This triggers a political debate in defining Malaysia as either an Islamic or a secular state which makes the non-Muslims uneasy. Malaysia is also a multi-religious society prone to inter-group conflict. As such, care is taken not to publish articles that cast a slur on any religions in the country. Some of the contentious issues imposed in the press such as the case of the word ‘Allah’ and blasphemy and dissent against religious authority. Although the purposes of restriction are for political stability and national security, the ruling government has indeed manipulated the religious expression for political domination and regime security

Comparison of Cooling Cost Effectiveness Between Unitary and Central Cooling System

Air conditioning is a basic need in building spaces to provide indoor comfort. This research describes the evaluation of cooling cost effectiveness between unitary and central chiller cooling system. Operational cost involving initial, energy and maintenance for both systems was analysed throughout the life span period. A case study was carried out where cooling load requirement of all conditioned spaces was determined using cooling load temperature difference 1 cooling load factor method. Currently in-use unitary system data was gathered and an all-water type central cooling system was proposed as an alternative. Main equipment capacity of the central system was designed based on cooling load and appropriate heat equation. The study shows that the central system is the better option for high air conditioning application of more than 60 kW heat gain. Although central system first cost is almost double than that of unitary system, it has the advantage of much higher life span. Cumulative cost analysis for the case study indicates that the investment of central system provides a payback period of eight years. In addition, the central system also contributes towards energy conservation by offering lower total power input of its equipment

Kelainan dasar Qatar punca dimusuhi

Masyarakat antarabangsa amnya dan umat Islam khususnya terkejut dengan tindakan Arab Saudi, Emiriah Arab Bersatu (UAE), Bahrain dan Mesir termasuk Yaman dan Maldives untuk memutuskan hubungan diplomatik dengan Qatar. Malah, mereka juga meminta wakil kedutaan masingmasing pulang dan semua rakyat Qatar di negara mereka juga pulang ke negara asal dalam tempoh dua minggu

Malaysia in transition: A comparative analysis of Asian values, Islam Hadhari and 1Malaysia

This paper discusses on the principles of Asian values, propagated by Malaysia fourth prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, Islam Hadhari by the fifth prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and 1Malaysia by the current prime minister Najib Razak. This paper gives a special attention to Abdullah and Islam Hadhari because it links the Mahathir’s period to current Najib’s leadership. The intension of this paper is to prove that actually these concepts are similar in theory and practice in stressing more on Islam and neo-feudalistic Malay agenda. In fact, Islam Hadhari is ironically a concept created by Mahathir himself to counter the idea of Islamic State from the Islamic party, PAS. Therefore, even after resigning from government, Mahathir’s agenda of Asian values is still being practiced.Najib Razak, current Prime Minister, on the other hand intended to promote quality leadership performance for the public and unity among the multiracial Malaysia.Although there are differences in term of the arguments for each of the idea, it is clear that these ideas or philosophies attempt to protect the real agenda of those three leaders which were to protect the political culture of neo-feudalism and ensure the ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) and Barisan Nasional (BN) will stay in power.This paper shows the debates between scholars in explaining the ideas and philosophies behind those three concepts in Malaysia’s realpolitik

Three-Tier Inherent Safety Quantification (3-TISQ) for Toxic Release at Preliminary Design Stage

Inherent safety is an approach that is aim to minimize or eliminate the main causes of the hazards by adjusting the design of the chemical process plant instead of depending on the existing safety systems of the equipment and procedure of the process. Even though the present facilities and operating procedures has provided the safety engineered system and cost performance, the actual implementation of inherent safety in process design stage has not been commonly implemented in the industries. Current research and development are mainly specifically for explosion and fire cases only. None of these methods were developed to reduce or prevent the major accidents due to toxic release accidents. Therefore, this paper proposes a new technique to evaluate the level of inherent safety of process plant during the preliminary design stage by using the combined assessment of process routes, streams and inherent risk for toxic release accidents. This technique is known as 3-Tier Inherent Safety quantification (3-TISQ). The 3-TISQ technique is able to quantify and prioritize the level of inherent safety of the process route and stream, determine the inherent risk and modify the design up to acceptable level during the preliminary design stage