Drawing on English, Chinese, and Malay newspapers, this article examines the ‘oily man’, a figure who shifted between sexual assailant, ghost, and intruder across twentieth-century Singapore and urban and semi-urban peninsular Malaya/Malaysia. It situates him not as a timeless ‘Malay’ entity but as an elastic label and repertoire, assembled and reassembled through rumours, retellings, and recurring events. Departing from most studies of Malay-world monsters, which reduce such figures to allegories or cinematic symbols of gender, modernity, or social change, this article demonstrates how the oily man’s historical force lay in intrusions, panics, and community responses—events mediated, disputed, and reworked across time and place. His history is framed through three registers: experience, person, and myth, which trace how this elastic label took shape through encounter, attribution, and retelling. Experience captures sightings, rumours, and assaults that animated fear; person traces how individuals were accused or apprehended as oily men; myth designates the narratives and repertoires that amplified these encounters in film, fiction, and folklore. Across these registers, the article shows how monsters emerge through lived circulations of testimony, attribution, and storytelling. It highlights the value of historical research that privileges experience and offers a framework for future scholarship: monsters as unstable, context-specific composites of encounter, narrative, and transmission that illuminate the entanglements of state, society, culture, and religion in post-colonial Malaysia and Singapore, with resonance for the study of rumour and monstrosity elsewhere in Asia.

This article develops the concept of a brokered dormitory labor regime (BDLR) to analyze Johor, Malaysia’s electrical and electronics export-processing zones, where debt-financed recruitment, deceptive contracting, and restricted mobility synchronize labor turnover with the accelerating demand for semiconductor manufacturing driven by artificial intelligence. Two intermediaries, the labor agent and the kadar, secure this synchronization by controlling workers’ social reproduction. Tracing this regime’s genealogy to the nineteenth-century kangani and kangchu systems in the Straits Settlements, the article argues that the BDLR reactivates a colonial infrastructure of coerced migrant labor, revealing a recurring pattern of asynchronous synchronization between capital and labor across successive industrial revolutions.

Malaysia is a rapidly ageing country. Relative to the United Kingdom, its social protection systems are underdeveloped. What is more, its political structure and social practices are different from those of the United Kingdom. Accordingly, the political economy of ageing seems to suggest a stark contrast when the two countries are considered alongside one another. Nevertheless, when programmes concerning income for the retired and the provision of care services for the frail elderly are considered, there are more similarities than might have been expected. Both countries face problems with inadequate pension coverage, and the paper considers how more of the self-employed might be brought into savings plans. In both countries, there is debate on whether pension savings should be directed towards investments in the domestic economy. Both countries face a rapid increase in the number of the ‘oldest old’—those most likely to need support, and policymakers are asking themselves how provision for these people should be improved. This article points out how fiscal constraints have led policymakers in the United Kingdom as well as in Malaysia to encourage the family to increase the part they can play. But in both countries, family members, especially women, are no longer willing, or even able, to carry out ‘traditional’ roles. There are lessons to be learnt in both directions. Moreover, in both countries, more attention should be devoted to understanding and explaining the economic and societal consequences of demographic change.

Oil palm is a commercially important crop that is cultivated throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Due to favorable climatic conditions, oil palm cultivation is concentrated in Southeast Asia, with Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand accounting for approximately 87% of the global palm oil supply. Effective weed management is essential for maintaining oil palm productivity; however, excessive reliance on herbicides has raised concerns over herbicide resistance and environmental sustainability. This review evaluates current weed management strategies in oil palm plantations, including chemical, mechanical, cultural, and biological, with an emphasis on integrated weed management (IWM) strategies suitable for production systems in Southeast Asia. Particular attention is given to the differing weed management constraints faced by industrial plantations and smallholder producers, including variations in labor availability, operational scale, and access to weed management technologies. Current evidence suggests that combining complementary control tactics, such as integrating mechanical and cultural practices with chemical and biological control methods, offers greater long-term sustainability than reliance on herbicides alone. Individual practices, however, face significant limitations, including economic constraints, labor shortages, and inconsistent effectiveness, highlighting the importance of integrated strategies. We conclude that adaptive, multi-tactic IWM programs tailored to local production scales will be critical for sustainable weed management in future oil palm production.

During the first, long tenure of Dr Mahathir Mohamad as Prime Minster of Malaysia (1981-2003), the country embarked on a long-term strategy to achieve the status of a highly developed nation. This “Vision 2020” (Wawasan 2020) placed high-technology, especially Information and Computer Technology (ICT) at the centre of the country’s transformation, in line with the notions of “Knowledge Society” and “Knowledge Economy.” Within the political framework of that period, the government discourse was propagated through government agencies and institutions, including schools, universities, and the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP), as well as by the media controlled by or in sympathy of the government. Positive visions of high technology in the future Malaysia were soon to be found in many publications, including in the now booming genre of science fiction for the youth. This article examines several of these textual scientific and technical imaginaries, including the novel Panrita by Arena Wati (1993), as well as popular science fiction novels and short stories.

It is found that often the plot centres on the notion of a journey. The youth novels mostly depict a concrete trip to planets and galaxies far away, while in one case, a time-machine brings the juvenile heroes to an early 20th century Malay anti-colonial struggle against the British. In these journeys, the utopian vehicles symbolise Malay/Malaysian agency and competence in science and high technology, being at par with other developed nations. In the award-winning novel Panrita, the voyage through these new Technoenvironments also encompasses a deep spiritual and religious meaning within Malaysian Islam. Given the great political emphasis on Malay language and culture in this period, de-centring away from the Anglosphere, the question is raised whether in the Malaysian case the English term should be localised, e.g. by the Malay term “lingkungan teknikal”, building on previous theoretical contributions in Malay, including that of Sohaimi Abdul Aziz (2013) on “teknoteks” (technotext).

The rise of “circular economy” discourse in the extractive industries has altered how researchers, laborers, activists, and consumers conceptualize movements of materials. To proponents, building a circular economy around rare earth elements (REE) production will “close the loop” around extraction, processing, design, manufacturing, and disposal practices to minimize and eventually eliminate all “waste” produced through technology development. Articulated through utopian imaginaries projecting environmental and technological futures far beyond mining, however, these conceptualizations of movement also carry far-ranging entailments for the movements of specific groups of people, including their place in future social and political orders and their capacity to plan for multi-generational futures. This article follows activists and university researchers brought into conflict through a REE processing facility in Malaysia, where research on commercial applications for post-processing wastes has been treated alternately as pathways to economic diversification and as threats to minoritized communities’ welfare and senses of national belonging. Both groups correlate “responsible” waste management to mismanaged flows of people: prospective experts drawn overseas for more sophisticated work; children emigrating for university education or middle-class jobs after struggling to find positions in Malaysia. While explicitly offering future stability and a broadened ethics of responsible attention, the visions of circularity undergirding these debates effectively collapse the many forms of movement at stake in industrial transition into a promise of transcendence, obscuring the racialized patterns of exclusion and migration that invariably accompany the extractive industries.

Although the shift from traditional to digital food environments has enhanced accessibility and convenience in food purchasing and delivery, emerging evidence suggests that current digital food environments tend to promote energy-dense foods rather than healthier options. Therefore, this commentary aims to highlight the challenges faced by healthcare professionals in shaping a healthier digital food environment and to offer practical recommendations for fostering such an environment in Malaysia. This commentary also emphasises that shaping a healthier digital food environment is not an individual endeavour but a collaborative effort among key stakeholders, including government ministries, platform operators, online food vendors and platform users.

Understanding children’s diet quality is crucial for developing effective interventions to address dietary-related issues. Thus, this study examines the distribution of energy and nutrient intakes across meals and snacks among primary schoolchildren aged 6·0–12·9 years in Peninsular Malaysia and the implications of meal skipping on their nutritional status. Data from 1102 children in Peninsular Malaysia from the South East Asian Nutrition Surveys (SEANUTS) II were analysed. Children’s height, weight and waist circumference were measured. Questionnaires captured sociodemographic information and meal consumption patterns. Nutrient distribution across meals and snacks was assessed through a 1-d 24-h dietary recall approach. Logistic regression analysed the association between meal skipping and nutritional status. Breakfast contributed significantly to essential micronutrients but provided the least energy and macronutrients compared with lunch and dinner. Approximately one-third of daily nutrient intake came from snacking, with contributions ranging from 25 % for cobalamin to 36 % for both Ca and thiamine. Children who skipped main meals had higher odds of being overweight/obese (skipped one type of meal at least once weekly (1·59; 95 % CI (1·08, 2·33)); skipped > 1 type of meal (1·77; 95 % CI (1·12, 2·79)) and abdominal obese (skipped > 1 type of meal (1·91; 95 % CI (1·17, 3·12))). In conclusion, primary schoolchildren in Peninsular Malaysia tended to have higher micronutrient intakes at breakfast and higher energy and macronutrients in subsequent main meals. Meal skipping was linked to elevated body fat. This study underscores the need to prioritise continued education on the importance of healthy dietary habits among children.

Why are cash waqfs administered and regulated by the state in some countries but by non-state entities in others? I present a twofold argument to explain this puzzle. First, colonial policies shaped the baseline framework for the regulation of religion, well into the postcolonial period. However, political actors in the postcolonial period then made specific choices within those regulatory frameworks, with implications for the administration and regulation of cash waqfs. In British India, legal arbitration became the primary framework for religious regulation. In postcolonial Bangladesh, successive governments politicized the bureaucracy as they prioritized survival, and so cash waqfs exist within the Islamic banking and finance sector. In British Malaya, local sultans were able to bureaucratize all aspects of Islam. The bureaucratization of Islam proceeded in a centripetal manner from the state to the federal level in postcolonial Malaysia, with the federal government taking charge of cash waqfs.

This study investigated factors influencing insect phobia among older adults in Iran and Malaysia using a quasi-experimental design with individual and group-based teaching models. The study included 151 older adults (82 Iranians, 69 Malaysians). Baseline and post-intervention scores were analyzed using paired t-tests, MANOVA, regression analysis, path analysis and a neural network model. Malaysians scored higher on EVI: Disgusting Pre (mean = 8.03 vs. Iranian mean = 7.46, p < 0.05) but showed greater reductions post-intervention (mean difference = 1.03 vs. Iranian mean difference = 0.63, p < 0.01). OAEAS scores decreased more among Malaysians (mean difference = 14.45 vs. Iranian mean difference = 15.08, p < 0.05). Males reported higher fear and disgust levels than females (p < 0.05). Pet ownership reduced phobic responses (p < 0.05), while chronic conditions heightened baseline scores but limited reductions over time. Group-based interventions were more effective for Malaysians, while individual-based approaches worked better for Iranians. The neural network model explained 82% of EVI variance and 79% of OAEAS variance. Culturally tailored interventions effectively reduce insect phobia among older adults. Future research should explore longitudinal effects and broader cultural contexts.

Seema Elizabeth Isoy wrote in a condominium owner Whatsapp group that developer David Chiu had been arrested for fraud several years earlier. She knew but left out that he had later been acquitted. In holding her liable for defamation, the Malaysian Federal Court in Seema Elizabeth Isoy v Tan Sri David Chiu Tat-Cheong relied on the concept of a half-truth – a statement that is literally true but omits key information that would change the statement’s meaning – raised by Lord Shaw in Sutherland v Stopes. This note suggests that, while the Federal Court’s conclusion ultimately may have been justified, it should have more carefully considered whether a report of a preliminary act such as an arrest or charge necessarily implies guilt and whether an acquittal actually lessens the sting of an arrest and charge. Judgments cited by the Federal Court – from India, the US, Malaysia, Canada and South Africa – did not adequately address these issues, making this note of potential interest to readers across the common law world.

There has been a decade-long debate in the studies of Malaysian politics on whether there is indeed an urban–rural difference when it comes to elections. Studies using aggregated election data suggest stark differences in parties’ performance in urban and rural electoral districts, while studies relying on survey data tend to downplay urban–rural differences in voting patterns. Notwithstanding the ecological fallacy problem inherent in studies using aggregated election data, the consistent differences between studies using individual and aggregated data are puzzling, and cast a shadow over our understanding of electoral politics in Malaysia. This article argues that in Peninsular Malaysia the urban–rural differences supported by aggregated election data may have been overestimated due to results being driven by a few large urban centers. Combining survey data from the fifth wave of Asian Barometer and aggregated election data from the fourteenth general election in Malaysia, this article demonstrates that both kinds of data in fact point to the same conclusion. Once we specifically control for inter-state and local heterogeneity in population density, the association between population density and party performance attenuates.