RAJA’S RULE
Decolonisation and revolution long ago removed royal families from power in most of Asia, leaving Japan’s emperors as the last hereditary monarchs of much significance to periodically exert some subtle influence.
But the past year has seen the region’s most abundant class of royals – the rajas and sultans of the old Malay dynasties – exert unexpected power over the country’s fragmenting political parties.
Nine of the Malaysian states are constitutionally headed by traditional Malay rulers who meet every five years to elect a king, or Yang di-Pertuan Agong, as the national head of state.
On Monday July 26, the Malaysian Parliament resumed sitting after the longest suspension since 1969 due to the COVID-19 crisis which had allowed Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to avoid testing whether he actually had a majority. But the prime minister was aiming to avoid any votes which would test his fragile majority.
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MANILA (PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - There is simply no denying the economic and social malaise the country is in right now. A rundown of the latest Ed-numbers going into the last year of the Duterte administration paints a discomforting picture: The worst post-war recession that saw the economy contract by 9.5 per cent in 2020 and another 4.2 per cent in the first quarter this year.
A precarious 16-year high debt-to-GDP ratio of 60.4 per cent as of March (international debt watchers consider as manageable a public debt equivalent to 60 per cent of gross domestic product). Government debt of 11.07 trillion pesos (S$300 billion) as of May and US$97 billion (S$132 billion) in outstanding foreign borrowings as of end-March.
MANILA (Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN): There is simply no denying the economic and social malaise the country is in right now. A rundown of the latest Ed-numbers going into the last year of the Duterte administration paints a discomforting picture: The worst post-war recession that saw the economy contract by 9.5 per cent in 2020 and another 4.2 per cent in the first quarter this year.
A precarious 16-year high debt-to-GDP ratio of 60.4 per cent as of March (international debt watchers consider as manageable a public debt equivalent to 60 per cent of gross domestic product). Government debt of 11.07 trillion pesos (S$300 billion) as of May and US$97 billion (S$132 billion) in outstanding foreign borrowings as of end-March.