Hindu temples in Malaysia to meet over land issues as relocation saga simmers
More than 2,000 Hindu temples across
Malaysia will send representatives to a mass community meeting in Kuala Lumpur this weekend to discuss issues over land occupied by them, as blowback from
a temple relocation in the capital refuses to abate.
Advertisement
The land rights of Malaysia's 2 million-strong Hindu community were thrust into the spotlight by the row over the relocation of the Dewi Sri Pathrakaliamman temple to make way for the construction of a new mosque.
Observers say the row has been fanned by Muslim hardliners scoring cheap political points, which has led to Hindu temples with alleged discrepancies over land ownership being tagged by their critics on social media.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim last Thursday presided over the groundbreaking of the new mosque. However, he was still accused by Muslim hardliners of handing Hindus a free piece of prime real estate by relocating their temple to a site just 50 metres away.
The temple furore has prompted questions about the land rights of many of Malaysia's thousands of temples – many established during the colonial era when Indian labourers were brought in by British administrators.
Advertisement
The Malaysia Hindu Sangam (MHS), which represents the country's Hindus, said decades of ad hoc solutions by government leaders were no longer tenable due to the pernicious impact of social media on public discourse.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RTHK
7 hours ago
- RTHK
Xi sends condolences to Modi and Charles over crash
Xi sends condolences to Modi and Charles over crash Narendra Modi visits the sole crash survivor Vishwash Kumar Ramesh at a hospital in Ahmedabad. Photo: AFP Relatives try and console each other at a mortuary in Ahmedabad. Photo: AFP President Xi Jinping on Friday extended condolences to Indian President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the heavy casualties caused by the crash of an Air India flight. He also sent a message of condolences to Britain's King Charles III over the heavy British death toll. Xi's condolences came as rescue teams with sniffer dogs combed the crash site of the London-bound passenger jet that ploughed into a residential area of India's Ahmedabad city on Thursday, killing at least 265 people on board and on the ground. The airline said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian on board the flight bound for London's Gatwick airport, as well as 12 crew members. Only one person aboard the Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner – carrying 242 passengers and crew – miraculously survived the fiery crash, which left the tailpiece of the aircraft jutting out of the second floor of a hostel for medical staff from a nearby hospital. The nose and front wheel landed on a canteen building where students were having lunch, witnesses said. Deputy Commissioner of Police Kanan Desai said 265 bodies had so far been counted – suggesting at least 24 people died on the ground – but the toll may rise as more body parts are recovered. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who on Friday visited the devastated neighbourhood where Air India flight 171 went down, earlier described the crash as "heartbreaking beyond words". In an unrelated development, an Air India flight from Phuket to New Delhi received an onboard bomb threat on Friday and made an emergency landing on the island, airport authorities said. All 156 passengers on flight AI 379 had been escorted from the plane, in line with emergency plans, an Airports of Thailand official said. The aircraft took off from Phuket airport bound for the Indian capital at 9.30am but made a wide loop around the Andaman Sea and landed back on the southern Thai island, according to flight tracker Flightradar24. (Xinhua/AFP/Reuters)
South China Morning Post
9 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Malaysians brace for rising costs on goods and homes as new taxes target premium items
The backlash against fresh government taxes, set to take effect next month, intensified on Friday, with Malaysians being warned that they will be forced to pay more for locally made goods and even homes as supply chain costs are passed on to buyers. Advertisement Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim 's administration on Tuesday announced that it would levy taxes of between five and 10 per cent on premium items, such as salmon and silk, as well as high-end services across finance, education healthcare and beauty. The move – intended to address budget deficits – has sparked significant concern among Malaysians, who fear paying higher prices for everything from imported bananas and apples to new homes, as manufacturers pass down costs. Businesses 'may have no choice but to pass these additional burdens on to consumers,' the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) said in a statement late on Thursday. According to the federation, nearly all imported goods, particularly industrial equipment such as pumps, compressors, boilers, and furnaces, as well as commercial and equipment leasing, will be affected by the tax, which will come into force just before US tariffs are expected to take effect. Malaysians face higher costs for goods and homes due to new government taxes. Photo: Shutterstock Real estate developers have cautioned that homebuyers may incur additional costs, as many new projects are being constructed on commercial land, which falls under the new tax.
Asia Times
13 hours ago
- Asia Times
Dollar back on the ropes as Trump goes tariff wild
The US dollar slid to three-year lows on Thursday as Donald Trump signaled his White House isn't done with tariffs after all. The US president's claims to have a framework for a detente with China fueled hopes 'Tariff Man' had learned his lesson on imposing crushing import taxes on all major economies. Not so much, it appears, as Trump says he'll set unilateral tariff rates in the next week or two. It's unclear what exactly Trump intends to do, how high he might go or whether it's all bluff. It might not be, as the US leader attempts to change the #TACO narrative that Trump Always Chickens Out. What is clear, though, is that the dollar's days of being collateral damage amid Trump's one-man arms race are far from over. The Japanese yen is now on the cusp of the 140 level to the dollar, as the US currency hits three-year lows versus a basket of top currencies. The worry in Tokyo is that a continued drop would trigger intense yen-selling and the unwinding of the so-called 'yen-carry trade.' Twenty-five years of holding rates at, or near, zero turned Japan into the globe's top creditor nation. For decades, investment funds borrowed cheaply in yen to bet on higher-yielding assets around the globe. As such, sudden yen moves slam markets virtually everywhere. It became one of the globe's most crowded trades, one uniquely prone to correction. This trading strategy has kept aloft everything from Argentine debt to South African commodities to Indian real estate to the New Zealand dollar to derivatives on New York exchanges to cryptocurrencies. That explains why when the yen zigs sharply, markets everywhere can zag in sudden and unpredictable ways. Arif Husain, head of fixed income at T Rowe Price, speaks for many when he calls the yen-carry trade the 'San Andreas fault of finance.' Though the Bank of Japan had been tightening over the last 12 months, getting rates to a 17-year high of 0.5%, the process has gone smoothly. Global markets largely took the rate hikes in stride. Yet the financial chaos around Trump's trade war forced the BOJ to shelve the process. At next week's June 17-18 meeting, Governor Kazuo Ueda might find himself in the same position as Toshihiko Fukui, the last BoJ head to get rates to current levels. Between 2006 to 2008, Fukui's board managed to scrap quantitative easing and hike rates for the first time since the late 1990s. He pushed benchmark rates to 0.5%. Then came the 2008 'Lehman Shock,' and with it, a return to quantitative easing (QE). As the dollar's slide pushes the yen higher, there's growing pressure on Ueda to stop hiking rates. 'Economic data are weak, and Japan-US trade talks have made little progress,' says Stefan Angrick, Japan economist at Moody's Analytics. 'The central bank is staying cautious, for now.' The BOJ, he adds, 'wants to see demand-driven inflation before tightening aggressively, but there's preciously little evidence of that.' Angrick also thinks the BOJ will slow the pace of shrinking its balance sheet. Instead of trimming bond purchases by 400 billion yen (US$2.8 billion) per quarter, as it has been doing, we expect a shift to cuts of just 200 billion ($1.4 billion) every three months. Koichi Sugisaki, strategist at Morgan Stanley MUFG, is focused on how Team Ueda evaluates the negative impact from Trump's 25% auto tariff and 'a recent rise in underlying inflation trend.' Japanese inflation is rising at a 3.6% rate, nearly double the BOJ's 2% target. Along with raising inflation expectations, Trump's tariffs are also wreaking havoc with global bond markets. On one level, a rising yen exchange rate could reduce the risk of imported inflation. On another, a plunging dollar would trigger an epic risk-off trade. Paul Tudor Jones, who founded the $16 billion macro hedge fund Tudor Investment Corp, thinks a sharp dollar drop lies ahead as the Federal Reserve slashes interest rates. He thinks the dollar could be 10% lower within the next 12 months. 'You know that we are going to cut short-term rates dramatically in the next year,' Jones tells Bloomberg. 'And you know that the dollar will probably be lower because of it. A lot lower because of it.' Jones thinks Trump will replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell with an 'uber dovish' leader who will bow to demands for lower rates. There's speculation that Trump might tap current Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to lead the Fed. Trump managing to name a loyal political appointee as Fed chief could backfire in Asia, the region that holds the largest stockpiles of US Treasury debt. Already, 'there's clearly solid dollar selling,' observes strategist Kit Juckes at Societe Generale. If the US ratcheted up tariffs, market anxiety would increase as global growth prospects wane. Marcello Estevao, economist at the Institute of International Finance, notes that 'global growth is losing momentum.' The IIF now forecasts global growth to slow to 2.7% in 2025 from 3.1% last year 'amid structural policy shifts and fragmented recovery,' Estevao says. Odds are that 'US growth sharply decelerates, with fiscal expansion and tariff uncertainty shaping sentiment,' Estevao says. Consumer confidence indicators continue to deteriorate, while inflation expectations remain elevated. Business sentiment has turned negative as well.' The Euro area, Estevao notes, 'faces its own challenges in pursuing future growth, and Japan is gradually moving away from ultra-accommodative monetary policy. Both face muted growth constrained by divergent fiscal and monetary adjustments.' China's growth, meanwhile, 'remains moderate, meeting its growth targets but with narrowly focused composition, and stays heavily reliant on policy support, limiting global spillovers, growth is resilient overall, but capital allocation is increasingly selective and policy sensitive,' Estevao says. In other words, the global financial system is not in a strong position to withstand Trump's next tariff onslaught. Or if credit rating companies follow the lead of Moody's Investors Service, which revoked Washington's AAA status in mid-May. Moody's said America's ability to control its balance sheet is eroding year after year, forcing yields higher. 'Successive US administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs,' it said. 'We do not believe that material multi-year reductions in mandatory spending and deficits will result from current fiscal proposals under consideration.' Deutsche Bank strategist Jim Reid refers to Moody's being the last top rating company to yank away America's AAA 'death by a thousand cuts' as Congress plays games with the debt ceiling and funding the government. And as Washington's debt burden heads toward the $37 trillion mark. At this point, the only globally approved credit rating outfit still assigning the US a AAA rating is Japan's Rating & Investment Information Inc. For now, at least. Given the balance of political and economic risks, says Brad Setser, economist at the Council on Foreign Relations, there's 'a bit too much mythologizing about the dollar's reserve currency role – and a bit too little attention paid to actual dynamics around dollar reserves.' Setser adds that 'all this matters, of course, for the debate over the right size of the US fiscal deficit going forward. The US shouldn't count on large ongoing flows from reserve managers who basically are compelled to hold a large share of their total assets in dollars.' China, Setser notes, 'has gone to great lengths to avoid adding to its Treasury portfolio over the last 15 years, and it now accounts for the lion's share of the global current account surplus.' Setser says it matters whether the flow into the US has been driven by a search for exceptional returns – or at least higher returns than available in the large savings glut economies of Asia. 'There's no particular reason to expect that the dollar will continue to offer exceptional protection in bad states of the world,' he says. The bottom line, Setser, 'is that risk assets don't usually rally in bad states of the world. That may be relevant if July 9th turns into Judgement Day and Trump decides to unilaterally set a new tariff schedule for all the countries around the world that haven't struck a new Trump II trade deal.' In the interim, as Trump continues to make tariffs great again, trust in the dollar is taking bigger and bigger hits. Follow William Pesek on X at @WilliamPesek
