With the 46th ASEAN Summit set to take place in the heart of Kuala Lumpur next week, we discuss what the conference’s goals are, who will be in attendance, and what our own prime minister has said it means to our nation. We learn more about what to expect during the summit from Bunn Nagara, Director and Senior Fellow from the Renaissance Strategic Research Institute.

Other stories we covered:

• Penang says no to gazettement: The state’s executive councillor said that gazetting the Middle Bank would classify it as an environmentally sensitive area, jeopardising land reclamation and rehabilitation projects nearby. We talk to Andrew Han, project coordinator with Jaringan Ekologi dan Iklim (JEDI) about how the locals are feeling and what protection being gazetted would offer the area.

• Refugee policy imperative for ASEAN: The lack of consistency surrounding refugee protection in Southeast Asia has led to CSOs calling for refugee rights to be included in ASEAN Vision 2045, in an open letter addressed to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. We talk to Mahi Ramakrishnan, Executive Director of Beyond Borders Malaysia and Wan Mimi Zarina Wan Azmin, the Interim Chief Executive Officer of NGO, Muslim Aid Malaysia for their insights.

• Lorries cause 1 death every 36 hours: With fatalities involving lorries increasing every year, we talk to Datuk Suret Singh, ex-Chairman at the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS) and advisor at the Malaysian Defensive Driving Riding Centre, about what we can do to curb this issue.

• Rehoming abandoned books: Singapore’s Yale-NUS library recently found itself going viral after photos surfaced of staff loading bags filled with library books into recycling trucks, causing students and members of the public to get upset. We discuss Yale-NUS’s decision and the wider discussion around rehoming and maintaining physical books.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Produced by: Alia Zefri, Sudais Ferhard, Lim Sue Ann, Juliet Jacobs, Sneha Harikannan

Presented by: Sharaad Kuttan, Susan Tam

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Categories:  politics,  international,  environment,  Law/Activism,  controversies,  economy,  wellness

Tags:  abandoned books,  Singapore Yale-NUS,  rehoming books,  lorry accident,  malaysian defensive driving riding centre,  ASEAN Vision 2045,  Middle Bank,  Jaringan Ekologi dan Iklim (JEDI),  46th ASEAN summit,  books,  recycling,  lorry,  malaysian institute of road safety research,  road safety,  refugees,  refugees in malaysia,  asean,  beyond borders,  datuk seri anwar ibrahim,  anwar ibrahim,  southeast asia,  penang,  gazettement,  land reclamation,  rehabilitation,  asean summit,  Asean summit 2025,  klcc,