- RM10 mil humanitarian aid sent to Myanmar
- A gas line rupture in Puchong led to a mushroom-shaped ball of fire
- Trump imposed a 24% new tariff on Malaysia
IN Malaysia
Prioritising service to the nation over Raya
50-member rescue team to Myanmar
In response to the devastating earthquake that rocked Myanmar, which left more than 1,600 people killed and at least 139 more missing, Malaysia has dispatched 50 members of the Special Malaysia Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (SMART) on the eve of Raya to take part in the search and rescue (SAR) operations. The SMART team, which is under the National Disaster Management Agency (NADMA), along with SAR equipment — including two five-tonne trucks and a four-wheel-drive vehicle — left in two Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) A400M aircraft, bound for Burma. One of the SMART team members, PBK I Mohd Idris Hassan said – “I was preparing to return home for Raya to Tanah Merah, Kelantan when I received an instruction on Friday (March 28). Without hesitation, I made my way to the SMART headquarters within an hour to get ready to go to Myanmar.”
Just to highlight how competent our SMART team is, the team is sourced from the best-of-the-best personnel in the Malaysian Armed Forces, the Royal Malaysian Police, and the Fire and Rescue Department of Malaysia. Every personnel member has to pass an 11-week special course to be ordained as one of SMART’s members, and SMART is United Nations’ INSARAG certification. With this certification, SMART is the second Disaster Relief team to be certified in Southeast Asia after the Singaporean Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team. Just a few days after being deployed to Myanmar, the SMART team retrieved the bodies of two victims from two separate sites – a collapsed private school and a ruined shoplot.
Apart from manpower assistance, Malaysia as the chairman of ASEAN, also announced RM10 mil humanitarian aid to help those affected by the earthquake in Myanmar. PM Anwar Ibrahim stated that the contribution reflects Malaysia’s responsibility and solidarity as the 2025 ASEAN chair, adding that he has instructed Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan to lead a humanitarian mission to Myanmar.
Do you know that although Malaysia is geographically situated outside the Pacific Ring of Fire (where earthquakes normally happen), the country is still not safe from earthquakes, especially in the state of Sabah? Notably, Sabah has recorded several earthquakes over the past few decades with magnitudes between 6.0 and 6.3 on the Richter scale (the one that just happened in Myanmar is 7.7 on the Ritcher scale). Fortunately, according to the Malaysian Bumiputera Contractors Association (PKBM) president Azman Yusoff, almost all new high-rise buildings in Malaysia have adopted earthquake-resistant materials and designs. One of the key design elements of earthquake-resistant buildings that Malaysia integrated is the use of spring isolators, which enable residential buildings, skyscrapers, and shopping malls to detach their foundations from ground movements. This flexibility helps absorb seismic energy, reducing the risk of structural collapse during earthquakes.
Source: https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2025/03/30/remain-vigilant-for-earthquake-risks-says-expert
Additionally, if earthquakes do happen in the future (knocks on wood), the Malaysian Meteorological Department (MetMalaysia) has the ability to issue warnings within eight minutes, thanks to a network of 80 seismic sensors (stations) it operates nationwide, on top of 83 tsunami sirens located in areas vulnerable to tsunamis.
Source: https://theedgemalaysia.com/node/749822
Gas pipeline inferno in Puchong
78 fire department personnel and 22 assets were mobilised yesterday after a mushroom-shaped ball of fire erupted in Puchong’s Putra Heights that was triggered by an erupted Petronas gas pipeline. Since then, Petronas has closed the valve on the burning pipeline. With the pipeline shut off, the fire is expected to burn until the remaining gas is exhausted. As of yesterday, there were a total of 112 victims, where 63 of them were injured. 235 premises were damaged due to the outrageous heat created by the ball of fire. However, the writings were on the wall when it came to the incident as months before the incident, residents had sounded the warning bells, claiming that the nearby construction of shop lots had encroached the Petronas’ gas pipe land reserve, alleged that such trespassing could lead to the same incident that happened yesterday.
Isu letupan PETRONAS di Putra Heights. Dari 17 Dec lagi penduduk dah risau.
Harap-harap ada yang bakal masuk penjara. pic.twitter.com/1G965Dp2UB
— Kafka Hibino 🇲🇾 (@HazwanArif) April 1, 2025
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the brave men and women who choose to serve the public over the joy of celebrating with families and friends. According to the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, excluding the police and military (which obviously overwhelmingly consisted of Malays), Malays comprised 77.5% of civil service. Chinese and Indians only constitute about 9.5% of the civil service’s headcount vs the 22.4% figure that Chinese and Indians share of the country’s overall population. So, please take a page from US culture and thank them for their service every time you see our men and women in uniform.
Around the S.E.A
You get a tariff, you get a tariff, and everyone gets a tariff
US President Donald Trump announced sweeping new tariffs on nearly all US trading partners, where the quantum of how much tariff is being imposed depends on the trade imbalance between the selected countries and the US. Starting from a baseline 10% tariff on imports to the US, the figure varies for each country – i.e. a 34% tax on imports from China, 20% on the European Union and 24% to Malaysia, among others. Trump justified the new tariffs were important to the US as they were designed to boost domestic manufacturing, as far as stating that the US has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by other nations for the past 50 years. With the new tariffs imposed, US tariffs will approach levels not seen since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which incited a global trade war and deepened the Great Depression, as the average tariff rate charged by the United States would increase to roughly 22% from 2.5% in 2024. Below are some of the tariff figures imposed, including to Malaysia –
It is quite unclear how the US derived the tariffs charged to them but one individual claimed that the calculation is based on a made-up formula and not the actual tariff imposed by the respective countries. Gila ke apa.
Just figured out where these fake tariff rates come from. They didn’t actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers, as they say they did. Instead, for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country’s exports to us.
So we… https://t.co/PBjF8xmcuv
— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) April 2, 2025
Source: https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-liberation-day-2a031b3c16120a5672a6ddd01da09933
For your EYES only
While Malaysia is sweating its balls on the news that we kene a 24% tariff on all our imports to the US, do you know that Madagascar is also being slapped with a whopping 47% tariff by the US? According to the World Bank, in 2023, Madagascar was the 130th largest economy in the world, in terms of GDP, and the economy is very small, it is smaller than the size of war-torn Palestine’s economy. If I am the Madagascar PM, I would prepare a gold-plated golf club for Trump to pujuk him not to bankrupt my country.
*47% TARIFFS ON MADAGASCAR pic.twitter.com/zeGG9Myzzo
— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) April 2, 2025
