A WHOPPING 95,000 first and second upper class degree holders applied for the civil service’s premier Administrative and Diplomatic Officers posts. Only 400 were accepted. For 1,500 clerical jobs in the government, more than 435,000 people applied.

HE has helmed several ministries in the last 20 years but by his own admission, Datuk Seri Hisham­mu­ddin Hussein has kept a secret for a long time – his wish to join one particular ministry.

EARLY yesterday Chief Secretary to the Government (KSN) Datuk Seri Mohd Zuki Ali tweeted “Minggu yang penuh dengan peristiwa. Namun, penjawat awam terus melaksanakan tanggungjawab seperti biasa (An eventful week. But civil servants continue to carry out their responsibilities as usual)”.

BANGKOK: As doubts are emerging that Asean and its six trade partners are unable to conclude their negotiations for a regional deal at the 35th Asean summit in the Thai capital, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has admitted that negotiations in any multilateral deal are never easy.

IT isn’t the way things are done, at least not the Asean way. With negotiations on the Regional Compre-hensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) at the final stretch, International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Darell Leiking sent a letter to all Asean economic ministers, changing Malaysia’s stance on the trade deal at the last minute.

IT is always easy to point fingers at the media. Journalists are blamed when they don’t ask questions pertaining only to the event that is being graced by a VIP. And it is even worse for the organisers, since the event itself hardly gets the coverage they think it deserves.

A turf war is brewing between the Entrepreneur Development Ministry and the International Trade and Industry Ministry.

A FEW days after he returned to Putrajaya as Prime Minister, one of the first groups Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad called to meet was the secretaries-general of the ministries.

AT the end of his visit after attending a series of meetings at the 33rd Asean Summit in Singapore, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was casually asked how he managed to cope with the punishing two-day schedule.

SINGAPORE: Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi continued to be under the spotlight over the mistreatment of the Rohingya Muslims as Asean leaders met their counterparts in a series of meetings held here.

TUN Dr Mahathir Mohamad did not mince his words when he raised the Rohingya’s plight at a plenary session among Asean leaders on Tuesday night.

IN August, Asean and China agreed on a single text to negotiate the Code of Conduct (CoC) in the South China Sea – a series of long-drawn negotiations on how countries should behave in the disputed maritime area.