Isa Isarb says he was filming protesters at a forest fire for a documentary about the haze when he was arrested by Indonesian authorities.
Isa Batharul Zaman said he was detained while interviewing protesters over the forest fires in Indonesia. (Facebook pic)
PETALING JAYA: Filmmaker Isa Batharul Zaman, popularly known as Isa Isarb, says he was recently detained by Indonesian authorities and accused of being a Malaysian spy when he was arrested while filming forest fire protestors.
He said he was in Indonesia to film a documentary about the haze and had stopped on his way to an area affected by forest fires. Some 10 to 15 officers approached him and asked if he was “Isa Batharul”, making him uneasy as he was not generally known by his birth name.
“We were then arrested for allegedly misusing our tourist visas. We were told that our visas did not allow us to film or be present at demonstrations,” he was quoted as saying by Sinar Harian today.
Isa said he was questioned at a police station, where he was asked to state the real reason he had come to Indonesia, and spent the night in a lockup.
He said he was accused of being a spy the next day, with the authorities citing his conversations with several Malaysian politicians as evidence.
“The conversations they referred to were between me and the Malaysian deputy prime minister’s team, as well as Muar MP Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman and communications minister Fahmi Fadzil. Those conversations were related to interviews I had sought for the documentary I was filming,” he said.
Isa said his invitation to Parliament earlier that week had also heightened suspicions during his questioning.
“I was invited there solely to interview the MP. The location was chosen to accommodate his busy schedule, especially since he had recently got married,” he said, referring to Syed Saddiq.
He said he was allowed to return to Malaysia because of Putrajaya’s good relations with Jakarta.
Isa said he plans to release his documentary on his YouTube channel on Nov 16, after the Melaka polls, but added that he does not want the matter to be politicised. - FMT
Who will bear the cost of turning his house into a prison? Will his family and friends be allowed visits? Can he post selfies while seated at the kitchen table? Or will the same conditions as Kajang prison apply?
A lot of anger has arisen since Najib Razak was returned to Kajang prison (barely 3km from my own residence in Simpang Balak), after Umno paid the RM50 million fine imposed as part of his sentence in the SRC International case.
Some of that anger came from Umno and its Perikatan Nasional supporters, and some from the office of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.
To all and sundry, the royal pardon order was simple enough: once Najib has paid the RM50 million fine, take him back to his Langgak Duta mansion until August 2028, when his sentence in the SRC International case ends.
After that, I presume Najib would then be returned to Kajang prison to serve his 15-year sentence in the 1MDB case and pay his RM11 billion fine. I also assume Umno would then petition for a full pardon, or a partial one with yet another bout of house arrest.
But is this as straightforward as it sounds? There are several issues worth contemplating, as the issue of Najib’s house arrest has set a new precedent. We need to know, and grow from this uncertain prison situation.
My first question is about security. How secure is house arrest, in terms of converting a residence or mansion into a secure facility from an architectural perspective? Does the house need to be renovated with different locks and steel grilles on the windows, so that the prisoner is not able to escape with outside help?
Paying the bill
The more important aspect is: who pays the bill for house repairs and renovation? It is, after all, Najib’s house, and any repairs to it will benefit the owner. The government is only a temporary owner until Najib completes his prison sentence. After that, it is his house once again.
But, of course, he has to go back to Kajang prison in August 2028, unless Umno once again holds the prime minister’s post, as it will make sure of a third or fourth pardon session.
My second question is about visiting arrangements, since the house in Langgak Duta is now gazetted as a prison. As I understand the instructions of the pardons board, without having read the minutes, it calls for just a change of venue.
The question to which all of us are waiting to hear the answer is what the conditions will be at this prison.
Will Najib be able to entertain visits from family members, and Umno or PN members more loosely, and in private so that he can engineer his comeback? Can he access electronic communications to post selfies while eating, reading and exercising lightly, and become the latest YouTube sensation with Bossku 2.0?
Or is Najib subject to the same conditions as he was in Kajang prison?
Who made donations?
A third question about the way donations were made to pay the RM50 million fine. As the amount collected is so large, it sets a precedent of its own: no sane person would believe it came from ordinary members or those sympathising with Najib’s situation.
It has been suggested that certain people were responsible for the “donation” that suddenly materialised in a single day, when no one had even guessed that it could happen. We only heard Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki announce that RM10 million was collected within the first two weeks, and then silence. After that, boom, RM50 million was collected!
There have also been concerns that the donations could be some kind of “investment”, or even kickbacks from Umno cronies. This brings into question the morality of the donation..
Although no law requires a donation drive to be audited, I assume it could be done if someone were to make a police or MACC report. But if none comes forth to lodge any reports, then we need a law that says there can be no hanky-panky in donation drives, in order to have some sense of palatable morality regarding the case.
This situation is a first and thus needs some scrutiny.
A matter of morality
An additional concern is regarding the religious implication of making donations to a convicted felon. From a simple search online, I found that a religious fatwa was made stating that a Muslim can donate to help a clearly convicted felon – with the clear condition that he or she admits to the crime and pronounces repentance in public. Then, and only then, is it permissible to help the prisoner.
Since Najib has not fulfilled the religious condition of repentance, as far as I know, where does that leave this country’s Islamic moral compass?
My final question is for whoever is going to lead this country.
One political party is known for having among its ranks people who have been indicted for corruption – not only several members, but also its highest-ranking member and president himself.
It would be to the advantage of future prime ministers, ministers and officials that the house arrest issue be clarified in a crystal clear manner, because the same leaders holding high office could then use this “facility” should their possible indictment occur under a future government.
I therefore applaud the Attorney-General’s Chambers and the home minister for taking the unpopular stance of caution before setting this new national precedent. After the coming general election, and when GE17 then comes around, there may be a new government in place, and this issue of house arrest may once again be the fate of many more leaders who transgress their oath of office and religious morality.
Alas, as the saying goes, what goes around eventually comes around.- FMT
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT
The proliferation of artificial intelligence software demands a radical re-engineering of the university system.
From Moaz Nair
For generations, higher education functioned as a cornerstone of the Malaysian social contract. A tertiary degree, achieved through rigorous academic adherence, effectively guaranteed upward socioeconomic mobility and entry into the professional middle class.
Today, however, structural shifts induced by advanced automation and artificial intelligence have fundamentally fractured this predictable linear trajectory.
While aggregate macroeconomic indicators present a resilient domestic economy, micro-level data from the labour market reveals a systemic disruption. The proliferation of generative AI tools has effectively dismantled the entry-level tier of corporate employment, placing the return on investment of a traditional university degree under severe scrutiny.
Are educators in our higher educational institutions prepared to embrace this technology?
Data from the statistics department illustrates the depth of this structural paradox. While the national unemployment rate stands at a remarkably healthy 2.9%, youth unemployment (ages 15 to 24) remains stubbornly elevated at 10.1%, representing approximately 291,300 young citizens experiencing market-entry barriers.
Of more concern is the pervasive rise of skills-related underemployment.
According to the latest graduate statistics, 32.2% of the employed graduate workforce, or 1.6 million people occupy roles categorised as semi-skilled or low-skilled. The visual narrative of tertiary-educated youth operating within the gig economy or basic service sectors rather than corporate offices is no longer an anomaly; it is an empirical trend.
Young people who would normally have gone into routine professional jobs are now serving customers in tea shops. This is not what our youth aspire to.
Historically, entry-level positions served a dual purpose: they fulfilled corporate administrative needs while acting as a vital practical apprenticeship for fresh graduates. Tasks such as data compilation, minute-taking, draft formulation, and presentation synthesis allowed new entrants to internalise corporate culture, systemic hierarchies, and operational soft skills.
With AI software now executing these routine, algorithmic tasks at a fraction of the temporal and financial cost, private firms are actively reducing their junior headcounts and altering hiring thresholds.
Emerging market analysis suggests that up to 40% of standard roles historically allocated to fresh graduates have undergone severe contractions due to routine automation. Consequently, universities face an immediate existential mandate.
Institutions can no longer function as passive, credential-issuing entities, or they risk producing graduates equipped only with obsolete paper qualifications.
To prevent a structural underemployment crisis from solidifying into permanent socioeconomic inequality, a comprehensive paradigm shift must occur across institutional curricula. The traditional instructional methodology predicated on stagnant, rote-learning lectures and memory-based assessments is fundamentally incompatible with an economy wherein raw information retrieval is instant and costless.
Higher education institutions must intentionally pivot towards developing capabilities that lie beyond the current frontier of machine learning. This requires an academic focus on high-order cognitive processes, including multi-system thinking, advanced cross-disciplinary innovation, ethical governance, and sophisticated emotional intelligence.
Recognising the urgency of this transition, the higher education ministry has proactively initiated key systemic changes, recently undertaking a comprehensive review of 455 public university study programmes.
The ministry has set an aggressive target to integrate foundational AI components into 80% of all public undergraduate courses, alongside the ongoing expansion of specialised entities like the Faculty of Artificial Intelligence at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.
The broader national blueprint aims to generate 30,000 highly skilled AI graduates by 2030 to mitigate the effects of rapid workspace automation.
However, transforming formal degree structures is merely one component of a holistic strategy. A real-world equilibrium requires immediate, coordinated fiscal and policy interventions executed in tandem with industry demands. To successfully navigate this transition, public and private stakeholders must scale up initiatives across three essential pillars.
First, academic faculties must build institutionalised, dynamic bridges with corporate partners. This collaboration ensures that university modules adjust symmetrically alongside rapidly evolving technological frontiers, shifting student assessment metrics toward practical problem-solving.
Second, leveraging national frameworks like the New Industrial Master Plan 2030 and substantial public sector technology allocations, universities must aggressively channel funds into high-performance computing infrastructure, advanced hardware acquisition, and research commercialisation funds.
Finally, stakeholders must expand lifelong reskilling ecosystems. This means scaling up structural upskilling pipelines such as micro-credentials and technical courses certified by agencies like TalentCorp or funded through HRD Corp to swiftly transition underemployed or displaced workers into high-growth, non-routine fields like semiconductor IC design, cybersecurity, and digital health.
The proliferation of artificial intelligence software does not inherently dictate the obsolescence of the university system; rather, it demands its radical re-engineering. If higher education institutions fail to adapt, the domestic economy risks widening its structural inequalities, trapping a large segment of the domestic talent pool in low-value service roles while a thin, technologically elite class captures the premium of digital growth.
Higher education must act with proactive foresight and structural courage. By transforming the curriculum from a static knowledge repository into a dynamic incubator for uniquely human innovation, Malaysian universities can ensure that their graduates remain the primary architects of the national digital economy. - FMT
Moaz Nair is an FMT reader.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT
China could find itself triply exposed - to a succession crisis, a weakening economy, and a lack of resources - to exercise power domestically and project it externally.
This has been an era of shocks. In the space of two decades, the world has witnessed globally disruptive wars—from Iraq in the 2000s to Ukraine and Iran today—a global financial crisis, a global pandemic, and a rogue American president upending the global order.
Now, yet another potential shock must be addressed: Though few dare to speculate about it publicly, an economic and political perfect storm is bearing down on China.
On the political front, Chinese president Xi Jinping has ruthlessly eliminated all potential opposition and centralised power in his own hands.
His decimation of the state, party, provincial, and military leadership has left a trail of bodies and resentment, even if the impenetrability of the Communist Party of China (CPC) makes this difficult to establish definitively.
With blood and revenge hammering in their heads (to paraphrase Shakespeare), numerous humiliated and disgruntled former officials could make Xi’s succession, whenever it comes, disorderly.
Cycles of apparent calm leading to chaos are not uncommon in Chinese history. They are intrinsic to what Francis Fukuyama has called the country’s “Bad Emperor” problem, with Mao Zedong and Xi representing the bad emperors of the Communist era.
On the economic front, the outlook is mixed, but downside risks are growing. Where some see an all-conquering powerhouse marrying technology to mass manufacturing, others see an economy dragged into a structural slowdown by population ageing, a prolonged property market slump, rising youth unemployment, and growing hostility to private enterprise.
Making matters worse, the long-standing source of Chinese dynamism—exports—is vulnerable to policy responses from the US and Europe, which are under immense pressure to address the latest China shock.
But perhaps even more worrying is China’s fraying fiscal capacity. Warnings about unsustainable public debt are growing louder everywhere, but the situation in China is distinctive, owing to how it manages—or, rather, fails to manage—taxation.
Few states are as successful as China when it comes to surveilling and controlling the population. But taxes represent a reciprocal bargain with citizens, who accept expropriation as legitimate on the understanding that they will get something in return: stability, public goods, improved standards of living, redistribution, and so forth. That is why wars and even empires can be lost when a state loses its capacity to tax its citizens.
The fate of the Ming and Qing dynasties is telling in this respect. Even discounting for the obvious historical differences, these episodes have faint echoes in developments today.
We recently mapped China’s taxes and revenues since 1952. Two features stand out. First, and somewhat surprisingly, the CPC has not presided over a particularly strong fiscal state. Instead, it has raised a substantial share of resources without explicitly taxing its people.
Until the late 1970s, about half the resources raised came from profits of state-owned enterprises; and in the last two decades, about one-sixth (and as much as one-quarter at its peak in 2020) has come from land sales.
In other words, China has never managed to raise sufficient sums of money via personal income taxation, even during a period of extraordinary economic vibrancy.
Over the last decade, its tax revenues from the personal income tax averaged just 1.2% of GDP. Ironically, a communist state ideologically committed to collective ownership of the means of production has had to raise revenue by divesting itself of that most sacred input, land. Evidently, the CPC can make the Chinese cower in silence, but finds it difficult to reach into their pocketbooks.
The second and even more relevant finding is that, regardless of how they are measured, revenues and taxes have been declining for about a decade.
For example, taxes (excluding social-insurance contributions) collapsed by nearly six percentage points between 2012 and 2025, from 18.4% of GDP to 12.6%. These are levels associated with a struggling, lower-middle-income country, not an aspiring superpower.
It is difficult to say how much of this decline is attributable to growth falling below what headline figures indicate, and how much to weakening enforcement capacity.
Either way, it seems that the government grew so reliant on nontax revenues that it found itself with no options when they dried up. Whether it can change course and impose taxes on the population very much remains to be seen.
The Chinese state could find itself triply exposed—to a succession crisis, a weakening economy, and a lack of resources to exercise power domestically and project it externally.
In short, China’s entire growth and fiscal model, along with the social contract between the state and its citizens—coveted stability and material prosperity for restricted freedom and muzzled voice—may be in trouble.
Of course, any warning about China’s potential descent into disorder must contend with the CPC’s remarkable record of coercive control.
A slow bleed of anemic growth, rising restiveness, and deteriorating services is perhaps likelier. But even if the Chinese miracle ends with a whimper rather than a bang, the consequences may well be yet another global shock. - FMT
Navneeraj Sharma is an energy economist. Arvind Subramanian is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
The views expressed are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT
