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Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Shocking to allow a convicted criminal to travel overseas !

He is barred from contesting in the coming general election, but he is allowed to travel overseas?

Competing narratives and managing diversity in 'New Malaysia' - Aliran

The Center to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4 Center) is appalled at the news that former Prime Minister Najib Razak has been allowed his passport for travel, especially since he has already been convicted of serious corruption and criminal breaches of trust.

We urge the Attorney General’s Chambers and the prosecution team to explain to the public why there was no objection to Najib’s application for temporary custody of his passport. There are real reasons for concern about flight risk, as he is appealing his conviction, and continues to face more daunting charges in court, all related to 1MDB and its subsidiaries.

He is also appealing an amount of RM1.7bn of fines to be paid to the Inland Revenue Board.

In addition, the 1MDB scandal was again named in the Pandora papers and linked to Russian and Indian frauds, signalling no end to this gargantuan financial heist, of which he is a central figure.

Despite the heavy load of charges and a slew of court dates still before him, and with repeated delays due to Covid, the prosecution did not see fit to object to the application. We ask for an urgent explanation of what constitutes a fair request.

C4 Center asks for the full reasons behind the decision not to object to his application for the return of his passport.

It bears stating again that Jho Low and Nik Faisal, central allies of Najib, are both still at large, and Malaysia cannot afford to give Najib any opportunity to escape, after being charged with multiple counts of money laundering and corruption in such a massive financial heist. We ask again what measures are in place to ensure he does not slip away

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READ MORE: The Najib Razak 1MDB Trial Ep 57: No action taken

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As it stands, how is it that Najib, who owes the government such a hefty sum, is allowed to leave the country, while PTPTN (student) loan and income tax defaulters get blacklisted?

While the blacklist for PTPTN loan defaulters has since been overturned, this still represents a gross inequity in treatment. Double standards in the execution of the law will greatly affect the upholding of the rule of law.

Should it really be a case of class and caste, action has to be taken to protect the judiciary against the pulling of strings and offering of favours, to ensure that justice is meted out properly, with the punishment befitting the crime.

We are dealing here with a convicted criminal who is barred from contesting in the coming general election, but he is allowed to travel overseas. Where is the logic in this?

We urge the Ismail Sabri Yaakob government to assure Malaysians that former PM Najib must account for his misdeeds and cannot be given preferential treatment. – C4 Center

\ Thanks for dropping by! The views expressed in Aliran's media statements and the NGO statements we have endorsed reflect Aliran's official stand. Views and opinions expressed in other pieces published here do not necessarily reflect Aliran's official position.

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Sunday, October 24, 2021

Non-invasive COVID-19 breath test results in 10 minutes

A medical worker takes a swab sample from an elderly man for COVID-19 test at a testing site in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu Province, July 21, 2021.(Photo: Xinhua)

No swabs – experts develop new screening method with simple breath exhalation

BEIJING: A NEW Chinese developed technology can return novel coronavirus test results within five to 10 minutes with a simple exhalation of breath, eliminating uncomfortable throat or nostril swabs and long waits.

According to a study published recently in the Journal of Breath Research, an academic journal based in the United Kingdom, Chinese scientists and researchers have developed a noninvasive rapid screening test for Covid-19 by analysing breath-borne compounds.

The technology was developed by a team led by Yao Maosheng, a professor at Peking University’s College of Environmental Sciences and Technology, together with colleagues from the centre for disease control and prevention in Beijing’s Chaoyang district.

The research team has applied for a national patent for the new system.

Yao said that because SARS-COV-2 infection causes changes in metabolism, the composition of exhaled breath of Covid-19 patients was different from that of others.

He said that analysis of 12 key organic compounds could discriminate Covid-19 from other subjects with 91% to 100% accuracy.

To take the test, people only have to exhale into a disposable plastic bag for 30 seconds or less. Compared with nucleic acid tests, such screening is cheaper and faster.

“Experiments with recruited subjects have proved that the system is effective,” Yao said. “It’s fast, and sensitive enough.

“Now we need to test more breath samples for the system to go from the experimental stage to clinical application.”

He said their published work involved 74 Covid-19 patients, 30 patients with non-covid-19 respiratory infections and 87 medical workers and healthy people.

Yao said that common nucleic acid tests sometimes report false negatives for confirmed Covid-19 patients, creating dire risks in controlling the spread of the disease. Yao said the noninvasive screening system could save time and overcome the nucleic acid test’s sensitivity problem, particularly in scenarios where rapid screening was desired, for example in hospitals, airplanes, high-level meetings, quarantine hotels and customs entry points.

Scientists and researchers in some other countries, including Japan, Indonesia, Israel, France and the Netherlands, have been working on developing similar technology since last year. But Yao said the research teams in China were the first to report experimental data.

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Researchers develop quick, noninvasive COVID test - China ...

Chinese scientists create COVID-19 breath test that generates result in 10 minutes

The latest research by a Chinese team could save people from the discomfort of taking a throat or nasal swab for COVID-19 nucleic acid testing, and save time too, as a new test method only requires the patient to exhale into a bag for 30 seconds, with 5-10 minutes needed to finish the analysis.

The Global Times on Wednesday learned from the team leader Yao Maosheng, a professor at the College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering at Peking University, that the test is highly accurate, and can differentiate among COVID-19 carriers, healthy people and patients of other respiratory infections.

The study was based on exhalations of 74 COVID-19 patients, 30 patients with other respiratory infections and 87 healthy people. There are 12 s

ignal breath-borne volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from their exhalations, which can be regarded as "fingerprints."

Higher levels of propanol were detected in the exhaled breath of COVID-19 patients and other respiratory infections than healthy subjects, while breath-borne acetone was found to be significantly lower for COVID-19 patients than those with other respiratory infections, Yao said.

Based on the 12 signal VOCs, an algorithm was created, and verification of the algorithm found its accuracy ranges from 91 to 100 percent.

The quick procedure and high accuracy give the new method an edge in comparison with the antigen-based quick testing. Yao told the Global Times the new technology didn't require any reagents and has a lower detection limit for detecting VOC species.

The new method is also cheap, costing 10 yuan ($1.5) in comparison with a nucleic acid test that charges 80 yuan for takers.

The test is capable of identifying a COVID-19 infected person with a false negative throat swab test. Asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic infections can be detected early, the Global Times learned.

The research was co-conducted by the Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control of Peking University and Chaoyang district's Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing.

It can be used in various scenarios, including the Beijing Winter Olympics, Yao said. But the expert noted that as China doesn't have many cases, further data and validation tests may be needed before the technology is applied.

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Saturday, October 23, 2021

Can the great powers avoid war?

https://youtu.be/Uiz934HVZjY

Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire with Michael Hudson

https://youtu.be/NK0ls5hV_5Y

The Rise and Fall of Great Powers? America, China, and the Global Order

When the meek are weak, they suffer because they must. But when the strong are insecure, that is when war begins.

AS tensions over the Taiwan Strait mount, everyone needs to think through whether war is inevitable.

Leon Trotsky once said: “You may not be interested in war but war is interested in you.”

And if we slip into war by what World War I historian Barbara Tuchman called the “March of Folly”, can the great powers step back from mutual nuclear annihilation?

When the world’s unipolar power incurred more pandemic deaths (at last count 752,000) and got defeated in Afghanistan by tribal warriors, no one should be surprised to ask whether America (and by extension Western civilisation) is in a decline.

The prestigious US magazine Foreign Affairs devoted three issues this year to: “Can America Recover?”, “Decline and Fall – Can America ever Lead Again?” and “Can China Keep Rising?”

For those reading the endless barrage of invectives against America’s rivals, it certainly feels like the Cold War has returned with a vengeance.

However, for Greta Thunberg and fellow climate activists, surely the world leaders’ priority is to work together to address our looming climate disaster.

Why are alphas fighting in a burning planet? Shouldn’t we call “time out” to see how to address collectively the urgent and existential issues of human and planetary distress?

Next month, the World Economic Forum is meeting in Dubai with an agenda to move from a Great Reset to a Grand Narrative Initiative “to shape the contours of a more prosperous and inclusive future for humanity that is also more respectful of nature.”

Grand Narrative may sound like a media story but the reality is that the masses are unlikely to buy an elite-driven dream until they are part of the conversation.

Take Harvard historian Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilisations” narrative. Written in 1996, Huntington seemed prescient in predicting the clash between Western civilisation and the rest, namely, Sinic, Japanese, Hindu, Islamic and Latin American.

He asked poignantly: “The central theme for the West is whether, quite apart from our external challenges, it is capable of stopping and reversing the internal process of decay. Can the West renew itself or will sustained internal rot simply accelerate its end and/or subordination to other economically and demographically more dynamic civilisations?”

Huntington basically reflected the worry of British historian Arnold Toynbee (18891975) that since civilisations are born out of primitive societies, the key is whether the elites can respond effectively to new challenges, internal or external.

Toynbee saw clearer than other Western historians like Gibbon (Decline and Fall of Roman Empire) that collapses are not necessarily due to barbarian invasions but whether the ruling elite can overcome their own greed or interests to address the new challenges.

In pure economic, financial, technology and military terms, few question that the West remains superior in almost all aspects, except in population numbers.

According to the Maddison projections of population and GDP, the rich countries (essentially Western Europe, plus Western offshoots (the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and Japan would be 947 million people and 36.3% of world GDP by 2030, whereas Asia (China, India and other parts of Asia) would have a population of 4.7 billion and 49.6% of GDP.

This reverses the 2003 position when the West (including Japan) accounted for half of world GDP, compared with one-third for Asia.

The dramatic reversal is due to the rise of China, India and the rest of Asia to higher-middle-income levels by 2030, mainly through trade and catch-up in technology.

In the coming decades, roughly one billion rich West must contend with the rising powers of China (1.4 billion), India (1.3 billion) and Islamic countries (1+ billion), which have cultures and ideologies very different from the West.

If the planet heats up as expected, expect more Latin Americans, Africans and Middle East poor arriving on the West’s borders to migrate.

At the same time, with the American demonisation of Russia and China pushing them closer together, the United States is confronting at least three fronts (including the Middle East) amid a fractious domestic arena, where political polarisation prevents policy cohesion and continuity.

This current situation reminds Islamic countries following their great historian Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406 AD) of the cycle of dynastic and empires that Islam went through.

When the social cohesion or bonds (asabiya) is strong, there is state legitimacy and empires rise. When it is weak, dynasties fall and empires are lost.

After the Jan 6, 2020 insurrection in Washington DC, many are inclined to believe that fratricidal tribalism is happening now inside America.

Similarly, Chinese macro-historians Sima Qian (Records of the Grand Historian, 146-86 BC) and Sima Guang (Comprehensive Mirror for Governance, 1019-1086 AD) also recorded that empires fall not so much from external invasion but internal decay.

In Yale, historian (Rise and Fall of Great Powers) Paul Kennedy’s terminology has the United States arrived at the point of “imperial over-reach”, when the country’s global ambitions and responsibilities exceed its financial and industrial capacity.

After all, the US government debt has reached as high as the end of World War II level without even starting World War III.

But all historians know that rise, decline or fall is never pre-ordained. The past is not a scientific linear predictor of the future. The unipolar order has weakened, without any grand bargain between the great powers on what the new order should even begin to look like.

Any grand bargain requires the incumbent hegemon to admit that there are equals and peers in power that want the rules of the game reset from the old order.

This does not mean that anyone will replace the United States soon because everyone wants to buy time to set their own house in order after the pandemic.

In short, before any Grand Narrative, we need a whole series of conversations with all sides, from the weakest to the most powerful, on what individually and collectively the post-pandemic order should look like.

There can never be one Grand Narrative by the elites until there are enough dialogues between the many.

When the meek are weak, they suffer because they must. But when the strong are insecure, that is when war begins.

By ANDREW SHENG. Andrew Sheng writes on global issues from an Asian perspective. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.

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