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 impor...

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.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy info...

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 a...

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 Credi...

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 Tech...

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...

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:...

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.com See omnystudio.c...

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 So...

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 clea...

On today's Pressing Matters, Philip speaks to Dr. Olsi Jazexhi from the Department of History at the International Islamic University Malaysia, discussing the potential ripple effects, both regionally and globally, following the recent demise of former Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. Additionally, Dr. Olsi weighs in on whether this event might signal a forthcoming shift in the power structure awa...

We continue our discussion on press freedom. Last week Philip See spoke to Watshlah Naidu on Malaysia’s drop in press freedom ranking and on today’s show we take a more global view and get the perspective from Reporters without borders RSF Asia-Pacific Bureau Director Cédric Alviani to really understand how press freedom has been faring all around the world. Image Credit: Shutterstock.com See omny...

On Pressing Matters, Philip See speaks to Wathshlah Naidu, Executive Director, Center for Independent Journalism to get her perspective on the recently announced results from the Reporters without Borders RSF World Press Freedom Index. Malaysia’s ranking dropped 34 spots from its 73rd position last year and we get her perspective whether the excuse by Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil's comment...

Philip See speaks to Yanitha Meena, analyst at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia (ISIS Malaysia) about the upcoming general election in India which will be the largest polls held this year with over 970 million people having an opportunity to decide if they would like to give Prime Minister Narendra Modi a 3rd term. Image Credit: Shutterstock.com See omnystudio.com/list...

Philip See speaks to Dr Anas Iqtait from the Middle East and Central Asia Studies of Australian National University to shed some light on the governance structure of the Palestinian Authority, its revenue streams and its ability to deliver these services that we normally take a government would deliver for granted. With the current conflict in Gaza, we get his perspective on the challenges of gove...

For Pressing Matters, Philip See speaks to former US ambassador Gerald Feierstein who is currently a senior fellow on U.S. diplomacy at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC as we get his take on the developing crisis taking place in the Middle East. In today’s episode we deep dive in to the tensions between Israel and Iran on the back of the recent attacks launched by both sides on  the...

On today's Pressing Matters, we continue our deep dive on how this Palestine - Isreal conflict is shaping our lives.  We speak to Phyllis Bennis, a writer, activist, and political commentator as well as fellow from the Institute for Policy Studies at Washington DC as we get her take on how the Palestine- Israel conflict is shaped by and also shaping the broader international community. We get...

Philip See speaks to Raja Khalidi, Director General of the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute about the state of Palestine’s economy before and after the current conflict. We get his take on the structure of Palestine’s economy and how it is intertwined with Israel and whether it can leverage on its diaspora to rebuild the economy that has been ravaged. Image Credit: Shutterstock.com See...

In today's Pressing Matters, Philip See speaks to Gordon Fairclough World Coverage Chief from the Wall Street Journal on the wrongful detention Wall Street Journal Journalist Evan Gershkovich. Evan was detained by Russia's Federal Security Service on charges of espionage in March 2023, marking the first time a journalist working for an American outlet had been arrested on charges of spying in Russ...

On today’s Pressing Matters, Professor Dwight H. Perkins from Harvard University sheds some light on Vietnam’s political power structures and how it impacts the economic and foreign policy trajectory of the country. We have this timely conversation, following the sudden resignation of its President Vo Van Thuong who resigned from the post which he has held for less than a year. Image Credit: Shutt...

On today's Pressing Matters, Philip See speaks to Jean Encinas-Franco, Professor in the Department of Political Science, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines as we get her perspective on the dynamics of politics in the Philippines and the ongoing feud taking place between President Marcos Bong Bong Junior and his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte. We ask her how is it...

In today's Pressing Matters, Philip See speaks to Ben Bland director of the Asia-Pacific programme at Chatham House as we get his take on the recently concluded Indonesian Presidential Election where Prabowo Subianto will succeed Joko Widodo. Ben shares with us his perspective on how exciting the election campaign was on the ground and whether he expects Prabowo to be Jokowi 2.0. Image Credit: Shu...

On today's Pressing Matters, Philip See speaks to Michael Montesano, Associate Senior Fellow, ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute as we have a discussion with him about Thailand’s political landscape and get his take on how Prime Minister Sreetha Thavisin has been doing after taking power last October. We ask Michael as well whether we will see the return of Thaksin Shinawatra as PM again Image Credit: Sh...

Philip See speaks to Dr. James Gomez, Regional Director at Asia Centre as we dissect their latest report titled “ Online Content Regulations in Asia-Pacific” as James walks through with us how some regulations have been heavy handed in stifling discussions among civil society and NGOS that challenge the status quo. Image credit: Shutterstock.com See omnystudio.com/listener for priva...

On today's Pressing Matters, Philip See speaks to Lucas Myers, Senior Associate for Southeast Asia at the Wilson Center's Asia Program about how a group of armed rebels is putting significant pressure on Myanmar’s military junta. We also take this opportunity to reflect this month on the 3-year anniversary of the military seizing power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government See omnystudio.com/...