Friday, 5 February 2021

26.5 million Malayians to get jab

Largest immunisation plan in nation’s history to end the war

Malaysia to start COVID-19 vaccinations by February end

We are targeting as much as 80% of the population or 26.5 million Malaysians to receive the vaccine free of charge.- Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin

The country will embark on its largest ever immunisation programme, involving some 80% of Malaysians, when free Covid-19 vaccines roll out at the end of the month, says Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

The Prime Minister also warns that stricter enforcement and harsher penalties – including jail terms – will be imposed on anyone who flouts pandemic regulations.

PETALING JAYA: The country will embark on its largest ever immunisation effort when the national Covid-19 vaccination programme, targeting some 26.5 million Malaysians, rolls out at the end this month, says Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

“We are targeting as much as 80% of the population or 26.5 million Malaysians to receive the vaccine free of charge,” he said in a special live address yesterday.

He said the first batch of vaccines from Pfizer and BioNTech would be arriving soon, describing this as a “ray of hope” for the nation in its fight against the virus.

“The first phase of the immunisation programme will involve the vaccination of 500,000 medical and non-medical frontliners, which is expected to be completed by April,” he said.

The second phase, he added, would involve those in high-risk groups such as those 60 years and above, with heart ailments or high blood pressure, were obese or diabetic, and the disabled.

“A total of 9.4 million people (from high-risk groups) is expected to receive the vaccine under the second phase from April to August,” he added.

Muhyiddin said that the third phase would involve the rest, aged 18 and above, with vaccinations to be carried out from May this year to February next year.

“The national Covid-19 immunisation programme is the largest vaccination programme ever to be carried out in the country.

“I call on all Malaysians to mobilise available efforts and resources to ensure the success of the programme.

“We are all in this together, and only together can we win,” he said.

He stressed that the vaccination programme was crucial as it would help the country develop herd immunity, which would bring the pandemic under control.

Muhyiddin added some 600 storage and vaccination centres would be opened nationwide for the programme.

He said that authorities would rely on the Emergency Ordinance 2021 to temporarily use halls and other facilities for the vaccination rollout.

He also promised that more details on the immunisation programme such as registration, location of vaccination centres and related information, would be made known in due time.

Muhyiddin said that Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has been tasked with overseeing the programme to allow the Health Ministry to focus on healthcare services in fighting the pandemic.

On a separate matter, Muhyiddin said that private hospitals had stepped forward to contribute 1,409 beds to help treat Covid-19 patients, which would ease the pressure on government hospitals, and 1,344 of these beds would be in regular wards and 65 in intensive care units (ICUs).

He added that the Health Ministry also set RM27mil to work with 31 private hospitals to outsource the treatment of non-Covid-19 patients.

Muhyiddin also said that concerted efforts would be made among public and private medical laboratories to increase Covid-19 screening capacity.

Currently, he said 68 government and public laboratories had the capacity to carry out 76,000 Covid19 tests daily.

He added that 16 former National Servive and Kem Wawasan camps would be temporarily turned into detention and quarantine centres for illrgal immigrationys and inmates to lessen overcrowing.

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Related:

'Vaccine not the only factor in drop' | The Star

Senior citizens look forward to be vaccinated | The Star

Prof Dr Tan: We have to prioritise elderly care home workers, residents and senior citizens since they are the ones who are most likely to succumb to Covid-19.

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Thursday, 4 February 2021

Ex-AG says Mahathir’s monumental betrayal made way for Trump-like Muhyiddin

https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/560580

Publisher to sue anyone sharing PDF copy of Tommy Thomas ...

https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2021/02/01/publisher-to-sue-anyone-sharing-pdf-copy-of-tommy-thomas-book/

In new memoir, ex-AG reveals Dr M wanted him out after Malay backlash

A “monumental betrayal” by Mahathir Mohamad led to a “kakistrocracy” formed by Muhyiddin Yassin, says Tommy Thomas. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: Former attorney general Tommy Thomas has harsh words for Dr Mahathir Mohamad, whose resignation as prime minister in February 2020 paved the way for Muhyddin Yassin to take power.

In an epilogue to his recently-published memoirs, Thomas described Mahathir’s resignation as “a monumental betrayal”.

In a Churchillian turn of phrase, Thomas said: “Seldom in our nation’s history have so many million voters been let down by the actions of one man.”

Mahathir resigned on Feb 24, causing the collapse of the Pakatan Harapan government two years after it came to power in the 2018 general election. His resignation led the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to seek a new prime minister and cabinet from members of Parliament.

Muhyiddin was appointed five days later after the King consulted political leaders to determine who commanded a majority in the Dewan Rakyat. He formed a government of parties in the Perikatan Nasional coalition.

Thomas said the formation of the new government “by a coalition of Malay-centric parties that proudly proclaim their race and religion” had brought disastrous consequences to multi-racial Malaysia.

He compared Muhyiddin Yassin to former US president Donald Trump, saying they both represented the rise to power of those lacking credibility and principle.

Both Muhiddin and Trump represented the modern ‘”kakistocracy”, he said, using a term invented in 17th century England to mean “government by the worst; to describe the political rise of the least qualified or most unscrupulous”.

Calling it a “misgovernment for profit”, Thomas said the kakistocracy served a political agenda – the shameless pursuit of hate politics: (Trump’s) America First, or the Malay/Muslim Agenda of the PN government.

He also said that Trump displayed “dictatorial conduct” during his tenure, disregarding conventions, norms and even legal requirements. Malaysia’s opposition parties have used similar terms against Muhyiddin after his government declared a state of emergency.

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Najib threatens to sue Tommy Thomas

Tuesday, 2 February 2021

Why Europe gravitates away from US to Eastern power center: Martin Jacques

What will happen to Europe? Will it continue with a broadly pro-American orientation, or will it pursue an increasingly independent position?

Either way, the consequences will be far-reaching. At the heart of the West lie the US and Europe. If Europe seeks a more autonomous role, then the West will be seriously weakened.

The end of the Cold War marked a major moment in US-Europe relations. Europe was no longer dependent on the US for its defense and ever since, slowly but remorselessly, a growing distance has opened up between them. This was accelerated by two key events ̶ the US invasion of Iraq, opposed by most Europeans, and the Donald Trump phenomenon, which most Europeans found beyond the pale.

President Joe Biden wants to mend the fences and return to something closer to the pre-Trump relationship. He may have some success because, unlike Trump, Biden will seek to befriend rather than castigate Europe. But there will be no simple return to the pre-Trump era: too much has happened, too much has changed.

A recent opinion poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations across 11 European countries reveals what can only be described as a sea-change in European attitudes in the post-Trump era. Six in 10 Europeans believe that the US political system is broken and that China will become a stronger power than the US in the next10 years. A majority now want their country to remain neutral in any conflict between the US and China.

A majority of Germans believe that, after voting for Trump in 2016, Americans can no longer be trusted; across Europe likewise more people agreed than disagreed with this statement. The survey grouped the respondents into four categories. The smallest, 9 percent of the total, believed that the EU was broken and the US would bounce back. A second group, around 20 percent of the total, believed that both the US and the EU would continue to thrive. A third group, 29 percent of the total, thought that both the US and the EU were broken and declining. A fourth group, 35 percent of the total, believed that the EU was healthy, but the US was broken. The latter two groups, almost two-thirds of the total, expected that the US would soon be displaced by China.

There has clearly been a profound shift in European attitudes consequent upon the decline of the West since the 2008 financial crisis, the Trump presidency and the rise of China. These, we must remind ourselves, are very recent developments which have happened with remarkable speed. Far from reinforcing the Atlantic alliance and the relationship with the US, their main impact on Europeans has been to weaken those bonds, elicit a growing acknowledgement that the world has changed profoundly and foster a belief that Europe needs to be more independent. Of course, these trends are still young and fluid. Many conflicting forces are at work with attitudes ebbing and flowing both within and between countries. Criticism of China has grown apace in the recent period in Europe, as it has in the US. But there is one fundamental difference. While the US is bent on defending its global primacy, Europe long ago abandoned any such pretensions, thereby greatly reducing the sources of friction and animosity between it and China in comparison with the US.

The survey reveals that by far the dominant trend is toward a more independent-minded Europe, a growing skepticism about the US and a sign of recognition that China will soon become the dominant power in the world. The European leader who most symbolizes this outlook, and has pioneered this way of thinking, is German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The recently agreed EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, very much in Merkel's image, is a powerful demonstration of the EU's willingness to pursue its own independent relationship with China rather than following the Americans.

The trend toward a growing distance between Europe and the US will be slow, tortuous, conflict-riddled, and painful. Europe has looked westward across the Atlantic ever since Christopher Columbus. It was European settlers who colonized Northeast America and subsequently established the US. The latter was a European creation which over time was to outperform its ancestral continent. If Europe colonized much of the world, the post-1945 world order was a Western creation, with the US the dominant partner and Europe very much a junior partner. In sum, an enormous historical, intellectual, political and cultural hinterland binds the US and Europe together. But we are now in new territory. American decline means that it has increasingly less to offer Europe.

The gravitational pull of China, and Asia more generally, is drawing Europe eastward. Nothing illustrates this phenomenon better than the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative. Slowly but surely, bit by bit, Europe is becoming more and more involved ̶ first the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, then Portugal, Greece and Italy, and others over time will in all likelihood follow. What drew Europe westward is now drawing it eastward: the centre of gravity of the global economy, once in the west, is now in the east.

The author was until recently a Senior Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University. He is a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University and a Senior Fellow at the China Institute, Fudan University. Follow him on twitter @martjacques. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn