MySejahtera to trace Covid-19, a mandatory use being mulled

How to use MySejahtera, Gerak Malaysia and MyTrace

https://youtu.be/FDYCakU78rI

  
In this video, we show you how to use Malaysia's three COVID-19 tracing apps to help you navigate the MCO better. Visit us at www.klgadgetguy.com for tech news, gadget reviews and more.

https://youtu.be/aBb3HeH2bY4

Cara Daftar Premis & Check In QR Code dengan MySejahtera

https://youtu.be/HB_uGoc13Kw

Aplikasi penting semasa pkp. Cara daftar dan menggunakan aplikasi MySejahtera / My Sejahtera. https://youtu.be/jHYuv43cr2k

#MyTrace #COVID19 #MovementControlOrder, MyTrace: A Quick Guide

https://youtu.be/XbdhdsNYEDk

#MyTrace #COVID19 #MovementControlOrder

MyTrace: A Quick Guide

 #MyTrace is one of three #COVID19 apps that have been produced by the government of Malaysia, after MySejahtera and Gerak Malaysia. 

Essentially, MyTrace acts as a beacon that would be flagged automatically if you are nearby another MyTrace user that is tested positive for COVID-19 infection. 

This would allow authorities to reach out to you for further action such as to perform COVID-19 test, self/mandatory quarantine, and even trace other nearby MyTrace users that might have been exposed to the virus at the same time as you. 

Out of three COVID-19 apps that were produced by the government of Malaysia, this is so far the easiest to use. Do go through our MyTrace quick guide to learn more. For more stories about MyTrace, visit: http://lowy.at/mytrace.

Mandatory use of MySejahtera app being mulled

https://youtu.be/SsDNmh6ODS0

KUALA LUMPUR: THE government plans to make the use of the MySejahtera app mandatory and do away with manual registration of personal data, the House heard.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Redzuan Md Yusof said: “We are currently studying and discussing with the National Security Council and the Attorney General’s Chambers whether we can enforce this as a law.”

He replied to Dr Lee Boon Chye (PH-Gopeng) during Minister’s Question Time.

The MP had asked the ministry to state the limitations faced during the implementation of the MySejahtera app as many premises still used logbooks to record a customer’s information.

Redzuan said this was part of a new culture that the government was trying to introduce to make it easier for the local community to cooperate with the government.

To the initial question, Redzuan revealed that 15.1 million users have registered under the MySejahtera app as of Aug 16.

“Users will have to answer questions relating to their health and travel information when they first register based on the standard operating procedure set by the Health Ministry,” he added.

Redzuan also said that the app successfully detected 322 out of 9,200 Covid-19 patients in the country.

“A quick way of contact tracing can be achieved via the MySejahtera app and the total number of contacts can be detected based on the number of Covid-19 positive cases,” he said.

Hopeful but cautious

The elderly are receptive to the idea of using the MySejahtera app as long as leeway is given at some premises while cybersecurity experts assure the public that those responsible for data leak could be brought to book.

PETALING JAYA: As the government mulls making the MySejahtera app compulsory while doing away with manual registration of personal data at premises, senior citizens are not so happy.

They bemoaned their plight, asking for certain exemptions due to their limitations.

S. Radhakrishnan, a 79-year-old retired legal consultant, commended the move towards digitisation of information but said concessions needed to be made for some cases.

“It is a step in the right direction but making it a blanket rule would cause an issue for certain groups.

“There should be exemptions at certain premises like hospitals where we should be allowed to record details manually, especially for senior citizens who do not own smartphones.

“Some senior citizens can’t operate smartphones because they might have problems reading the small text on the screen or even hearing, so owning a smartphone is not an option for all of us,” he said.

The MySejahtera app recently introduced a feature for group check-in, whereby any user can add their family members who do not own a smartphone into their list of dependents.

This will enable the smartphone user to check in his or her entire family into premises without everyone having to individually do so.

However, Radhakrishnan said if senior citizens were forced to travel with their children just for the purpose of checking them into premises, this would cause a hassle.

“Hospitals would be more crowded because instead of just the patient, they also have to take their children along just to check in,” he added.

Malaysia Singapore Coffeeshop Proprietors’ General Association president Datuk Ho Su Mong also raised concerns on the app’s takeup rate among their elderly customers.

“We have many elderly customers at our coffee shops and many don’t carry a smartphone.

“Some could not even properly write down their own details due to illiteracy or poor eyesight, so we help them by manually recording their information,” he said.

Ho said many members also grappled with the app, saying that only between 30% and 40% out of the 20,000 members had fully adopted the app.

The rest were still manually recording customers’ details as they did not fully understand how to go about using the app at their premises, he noted.

“If the app is made mandatory, the government must provide lessons to business owners so we can all adapt to the change.

“We would also need a grace period of maybe one or two months after the law is in place, where we will not be penalised during the adjustment period,” he added.

On Tuesday, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Redzuan Md Yusof said the government was studying whether it could enforce a law to make the app usage mandatory.

He said this was part of a new culture the government planned to introduce to make it easier for the local community to cooperate.

As many as 15.1 million users have registered under the MySejahtera app so far.

Based on a recent survey in The Star’s Facebook page, Malaysians almost unanimously agreed that it was more convenient to use MySejahtera, as opposed to using multiple applications at different premises.

How to add dependents on MySejahtera app 

 Step 1 Go to the MySejahtera app

Step 2 Go to the home page, click on 'More'

Step 3 Click on 'Manage Dependents'

Step 4 Click on 'Add Dependents' and fill in the details accurately

Step 5 Dependent has been successfully added

Step 6 To check-in with a dependent, simply check the box

Data breach is a big concern, say experts

PETALING JAYA: As the government moves to make the use of the MySejahtera app compulsory, experts are concerned that a data breach could leak sensitive information, increasing the number of scams targeting the public.

Details that matter: Members of the public registering themselves the modern or old-fashioned way before entering Petaling Street in Kuala Lumpur.

However, the Department of Personal Data Protection (JPDP) assured that although the government was not subject to the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) 2010, action could still be taken against those responsible for a data leak.

A JPDP spokesperson said the public could file a complaint to the Chief Government Security Office, a unit under the Prime Minister’s Department that is responsible for the security of all government assets, or the National Cyber Security Agency.

Errant officers who mishandled the data could be charged under the Official Secrets Act 1972 and the Public Officers (Conduct and Discipline) Regulations 1993, he added.

He had checked with the Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre and confirmed that the data is owned by the Health Ministry and is protected by Section 3 of the PDPA. Section 3 states that the Act shall not apply to the Federal Government and state governments.

Bar Council Information Technology and Cyber Laws Committee deputy chairman Foong Cheng Leong also called for more transparency and accountability if there was misuse of the data.

He said there also needed to be an assurance that data would be destroyed at some point in time, adding, “The law should have all the safeguards that we need.”

Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (Usim) Cyber Security and System Research Unit coordinator Dr Madihah Mohd Saudi said the PDPA had a provision that gave users the right to request for their data to be deleted.

She suggested that the government adopt a feature that allowed users to manually delete their history of check-ins after an appropriate amount of time had lapsed and the data was no longer needed.

She said that although the MySejahtera app, like any other system, was not immune to being hacked, it was still more secure than writing one’s name down in a physical logbook, as the info could be easily exploited.

Madihah said that as the app was continuously being updated, it showed that the government was taking steps to improve the system and could even be addressing vulnerabilities if any were discovered.

Cybersecurity specialist Fong Choong Fook questioned what the government had done to protect the data and what process would be used to destroy the gathered information after a certain period of time.

To ensure the successful mandatory adoption of the app, Fong said the government needed to be transparent on its processes and the security controls that were in place.

He predicted there would be an “explosion of scam calls” should the MySejahtera data be leaked, as it kept track of critical information, including a user’s movements.

He said this information might not seem sensitive to a layman, but a scammer could use the data to form a profile of a victim.

“They would know I’ve been to a shopping centre in the morning, then a restaurant next door. With this, a scammer can pretend to be a government official and create a scare story to trick the victim into doing something they otherwise wouldn’t,” he said.

Fong said the government would need to be more transparent with the data management. If it wasn’t, the adoption of MySejahtera could suffer due to a sceptical public, he added.-

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Download the mySejahtera app and get RM50 e-wallet credit!

 Malaysians listen up! You can soon get RM50 eWallet credit when you download the MySejahtera app. In other news, our prime minister has announced that telcos will be offering free data everyday to support e-learning as well as productivity activities. 


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Global connection, disconnection, reconnection

In four separate speeches, Secretary of State Pompeo (pic), Attorney General Barr, National Security Adviser O’Brien and FBI Director Wray laid out their case for containing China. But do the US Gang of Four’s analyses of containment of China make global sense?

https://youtu.be/DPt-zXn05ac

This is the age of disconnection. What Covid-19 has done is to show up all the flaws of global connectivity.

The virus travels with human beings and forces us to have periodic lockdowns that disconnects the transmission, buying time to bring it under control. Commenting on the pandemic, US Foreign Affairs magazine laments not only the US failure to prepare, but also the failure to contain: “what is killing us is not connection, it is connection without cooperation.” Touché!

Globalisation was the great connector, created by the unipolar order which saw free trade as beneficial not just to the world, but mostly to itself. But the shift to a multi-polar order made America insecure and everyone else unsure.

A wounded Alpha is always dangerous, emotionally hurt and lashing out on perceived rivals. China as number two falls into that category.

In four separate speeches, Secretary of State Pompeo, Attorney General Barr, National Security Adviser O’Brien and FBI Director Wray laid out their case for containing China. But do the US Gang of Four’s analyses of containment of China make global sense?

Beating the drums of war, decoupling trade and splintering the Internet into a “Clean Net” may sound great for domestic politics, but no one in their right mind can support a nuclear arms race in the midst of a growing global pandemic and possibly the worst economic depression since the 1930s.

The global free trade bargain is very simple - free trade is win-win for all trading partners, but each country must deal with the unequal distribution of trade benefits within its own borders - all about domestic politics.

Disconnecting global trade and free flow of information only increases costs for all, reducing the resources to deal with domestic inequalities.Worse, any arms race is lose-lose for all, diverting scarce resources from fighting pandemics, climate warming and domestic injustices.

History is the best guide to understanding how we got into the mess today.

The story on US politics and economics is well told, but the China story is often undertold. Because of China’s rapid growth from poverty to world number two in 40 years, most historians are still at a loss to explain what this implies for the world as a whole. NUS East Asia Institute Professor Wang Gungwu in his marvelous new book: “China Reconnects (2019)” has given us a clear and easily readable sweep of China’s history and her search to reconnect with the outside world.

Professor Wang has condensed global history into three key centres of power: Mediterranean, India and China.

In 1500, China and India accounted for 48.6% of world population and 49.2% of world GDP (OECD). The Mediterranean powers (broadly including all Western Europe and West Asia) amounted to 17.1% and 22% of population and GDP respectively.

But it was naval power, science and technology that enabled the Western swerve to global dominance, so by 1950, China and India together accounted for 16.3% of world GDP, but 35.9% of the population. Western Europe and USA plus Western offshoots accounted for 19.1% of global population, but 56.8% of world GDP.

This neglect of maritime power caused India to be colonized by the 18th century, and China nearly gobbled up by the 19th century.

China’s engagement with the world was mostly through the Silk Road, with Indian Buddhism being the major foreign cultural influence on China. The Silk Road flourished during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), but the Mongol empire in the 13th-14th century connected China not only to Europe, but also to Mughal India.

However, the arrival of Western traders through South-East Asia after 1500 accelerated China’s trade with the West (including cross-Pacific trade with Latin America through Manila). Only in the 20th century did China begin to appreciate that the key instruments of Western power came from maritime power and ability to enforce international law.

In Chapter 2 of “Behind the Dream, ” Professor Wang skillfully weaves the story of post-dynastic China, when Chinese intellectuals struggled to understand modernity. It was the Japanese invasion that sparked Chinese nationalism, culminating in the civil war that enabled the Communists to unite the country with the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949.

The story of Chairman Mao, Deng Xiaoping and the policy choices of President Xi Jinping is told with verve and deep insight, without the usual Western baggage of seeing personalities in black and white.

China’s admiration for the West is defined in Chinese names for the leading powers – heroic England, beautiful America, legal France and virtuous Germany. Hence, the reforms in the last 40 years were all about reconnecting to the West through trade, investment, technology and people. But as China became deeply entangled in globalisation as the world’s largest manufacturer and trading partner, there grew an internal awareness that continued development would have to rely on internal stability and order, as well as external security. Stability was premised on a strong Party, and as Professor Wang put it, “the country’s integrity rests on the capacity to defend its borders even from the world’s sole superpower.”

Professor Wang goes deep into Chinese philosophy and political history to find China’s roots into the new world order.

The book’s real contribution is in explaining China’s shift from the Old World to the New Global. Here, China’s interaction with the South, especially with the Association of Southeast Asian (Asean) countries, will play crucially in the next phase of development of the New Global.

Asean comprises 600 million people and over US$2.5 trillion in GDP, with great cultural diversity, natural resources and a strategic zone that holds the key to global trade between the West, South Asia, China and Northeast Asia. The South China Sea cannot afford to be balkanized because it was Great Power struggles that made the Balkans an unstable region for Europe and the Near East for over a century.

As the US tries to disconnect, China Reconnects is a tour-de-force for us to understand current developments from the lens of philosophy and history. Professor Wang writes with eye-popping clarity, dosed with empathy, to guide us through the fog of uncertainty. Unfortunately, reconnection takes two to play. Whether the next US President will attempt to connect or disconnect will be the question of the century.

Andrew Sheng is a Distinguished Fellow of Fung Global Institute, a global think tank based in Hong Kong.The views expressed here are the writer’s own.

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Health experts doubt Russia vaccine, as China likely to take lead along Russia in accelerated global vaccine race: experts

https://youtu.be/SHi2RjWP_zo

https://youtu.be/-XW9_1fXmKE

A handout photo provided by the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) shows samples of a vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, in Moscow, Russia August 6, 2020. Picture taken August 6, 2020.

PETALING JAYA: The announcement of a Covid-19 vaccine in Russia – dubbed Sputnik V – that will help end the pandemic soon is still a “distant reality”, say local public health experts.

Russia announced on Tuesday it will approve a Covid-19 vaccine after less than two months of human testing and hopes to begin production in September with plans to vaccinate its medical staff immediately afterwards.

The approval was made before a phase three trial which would involve thousands of participants and considered essential before regulatory approval is made.

Public health expert Datuk Dr Zainal Ariffin Omar criticised the approval of the Covid-19 vaccine in Russia as non-ethical for its lack of full clinical trials and scientific data.

“The scientific community is worried as basically, a vaccine will need to undergo full clinical trials to identify its efficacy and side effects.

“So, it is premature for Russia to be releasing the vaccine now without conducting large-scale trials that would produce data to show whether it works, ” he said.

Public health medicine specialist of Universiti Malaya Medical Centre, Associate Professor Dr Rafdzah Ahmad Zaki said for any available vaccines, the effectiveness of the vaccine needs to be evaluated before it can be considered.

“With any new vaccine, there will be a committee to discuss and decide on the evidence of whether the vaccine works or not, ” she said.

The head of the Centre for Epidemiology and Evidence-Based Practice noted that any risk or benefit will be balanced before a vaccine is approved, such as whether the tested population is similar to Malaysia’s community and the kind of resources needed to implement the vaccine.

Dr Zainal, who is Malaysian Public Health Physicians’ Association president, cited an example of a dengue vaccination which was approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO). But even then, it was later found to have caused a lot of deaths and />complications.

“Luckily after evaluation, we did not implement the use of the dengue vaccination for our country.

“That is why the scientific and medical community is very cautious of approving a vaccine for the community because we don’t want to be wrong for using a premature product, ” he said.

Dr Zainal expects a vaccine to be made available in the country only by the middle or end of 2021.

“Any vaccine will help the situation later on. But at the moment, we don’t have the capability of developing new vaccines. But we can be involved in any trials or collaborate with international agencies for trial purposes, ” he said.

Indonesia said on Tuesday it would launch a Phase 3 human trials of a vaccine candidate from China’s Sinovac Biotech.

According to the WHO, there are currently 139 vaccines in development and 26 have been undergoing human trials since July 31. Out of the 165 vaccines, six are reaching Phase 3, which is the last step before regulatory approval and will involve large numbers of human testing.

Sinovac’s vaccine, named CoronaVac, is already being tested on 9,000 Brazilian health workers.

Malaysian Medical Association president Dr N. Ganabaskaran said the Covid-19 pandemic will go on for years even if vaccines are readily available.

“Even if vaccines are available, what about poor countries? Not all countries can afford the vaccine.

“There are vaccines being developed, but available vaccines will go to the rich countries first and it may take many years before we can overcome Covid-19, ” he said.

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China likely to take lead along Russia in accelerated global vaccine race: experts

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Covid'19 Vaccine for the world started mass produced in China on 8/8/20

8月8日！中国传来大喜讯！疫苗开始大规模生产，准备9月份分发全世界，拟定第一批名单，不是开玩笑，特朗普最怕的事发生！

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How to use BeiDou navigation system on your phone

China has just announced the completion and launch of its BeiDou-3 Navigation Satellite System. But, how can we use it?

CGTN recently posted a video showing the differences between China's BeiDou system and other global navigation satellite systems.

Read more: How is China's BDS different from other global navigation networks?

And we received some questions, about how to actually use BeiDou for navigation. This video explains how the system works on your phone.

Before we get started, let's clear up a common misconception. A lot of people think if you want to use the BeiDou system, you need to download some sort of "BeiDou apps."

The truth is, you don't need to download any new app for using the system. If you find an app titled "BeiDou" in an app store, it's not official. Regular navigation apps, delivery apps or car-hailing apps are all able to use the positioning service of the BeiDou system.

Civil equipment like our phones, cannot choose which navigation system to use. It will automatically pick the system that has best signal at that time.

So maybe you're using the BeiDou system right now.

But not every smartphone supports BeiDou. Currently, most of the Android phones can use the BeiDou system. But if you are an iPhone user, you are not able to use it because chips carried by the Apple product line do not support the system. To check, you can take a look at the tech specs of your phone.

GPS testing apps can show the number of satellites in your area and their signal strength. /Screenshot via GPS Test

Another way to find out whether your phone supports BeiDou is through GPS testing apps. Your phone can use BeiDou's services if the app can detect BeiDou's satellites.

There are also people asking whether BeiDou can be used outside China. You can do so just like we can use GPS services in China.

The difference is that BeiDou provides better accuracy in China and the Asia-Pacific region, at five meters, because of its unique layout. The accuracy in other areas is about 10 meters.

Cameraman: Yang Yang Video editor: Guo Meiping Cover image: Jia Jieqiong

How is China's BDS different from other global navigation networks?

https://youtu.be/NXdFg1PRKnQ

China has completed its BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, or BDS, becoming the fourth country in the world with a global navigation network, the other three being GPS of the U.S., GLONASS of Russia and Galileo of Europe.

As the name suggests, the global navigation satellite system provides navigation and location services on a 24-hour basis. From what we know so far, building a sound satellite system costs a bundle. Besides, the other systems are already well-established. So, what makes China's BDS stand out among its competitors?

Firstly, the other systems have 24 satellites in medium earth orbit (MEO). In addition to the 24 satellites, the BDS constellation also has three satellites in geostationary earth orbit (GEO) and three in inclined geosynchronous orbit (IGSO). What's special about the extra six satellites is that they have a relatively fixed range of activity.

This layout can enhance BDS' accuracy in China and the Asia-Pacific region to five meters, in comparison with a 10-meter accuracy in other areas.

Secondly, BDS has a trump card – the short message service. It is a function that allows users to have a two-way communication.

In areas not covered by cellular or communication signals, BDS can make the short message service available in uninhabited areas, such as deserts, forests, and mountainous or polar regions.

With this service, users in distress can inform the rescue team about their location and condition.

As the most populated country in the world, it's important for China to have its own global navigation satellite system to meet the needs of the country's socio-economic development.

In fact, the BDS is also good business. According to the White Paper on the Development of China's Satellite Navigation and Location Services Industry (2020), the country's satellite industry has maintained a 20-percent annual growth since 2012. BDS contributes about 80 percent of it.

The system has also generated tens of billions of dollars, countless high-paying jobs, and stimulated economic growth via big contracts in commercial industries.

And with improvements in functions, it will have much more to offer in the future.

Scriptwriter: Pan Zhaoyi Producer: Guo Meiping Cameraman: Fu Gaoliang Video editor: Zhao Yuxiang Cover image: Yin Yating

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No smartphone = problems living in Penang

Please resolve the parking and soon-to-be marketing woes of constituents who do not own and do not wish to own smartphones.   Councils .

Young buyers flock to property market

Why millennials are flocking to real estate

Interest rate cuts, govt incentives spur buying interests

“We believe the strong growth in our young buyers is both a natural evolution and as a result of a conscious strategic effort we have made to appeal to this important customer group,"-
Datuk Chang Khim Wah

 

Eco World Development Group Bhd president and chief executive officer Datuk Chang Khim Wah told StarBiz the increase in younger buyers was due to a conscious strategic effort made by the group to appeal to this target market.

Property developers are seeing a pick up in sales, especially from younger buyers, as the numerous interest rate cuts and government incentives have spurred buying interest.

Eco World Development Group Bhd president and chief executive officer Datuk Chang Khim Wah said the increase in younger buyers was due to a conscious strategic effort made by the group to appeal to this target market.

“During our initial years of operations (circa 2015) the percentage of young buyers (below 40 years old) was around 43% and today it is more than 70%.

“We believe the strong growth in our young buyers is both a natural evolution and as a result of a conscious strategic effort we have made to appeal to this important customer group, both through the products we are offering as well as the way in which we engage them via social media and digital channels, ” he told StarBiz.

Of the 70%, Chang said around 50% are in their 30s and the remaining 20% are in their 20s. “We are particularly happy that a good number of these buyers include children of our own customers and residents in the vicinity of our development. This validates our efforts over the last few years to make a strong pivot to serve the needs of this market segment and the wider M40 group.

“Our upcoming launch of the new Duduk series of vertical townships offering semi-furnished apartments priced below RM400,000 at Eco Ardence and Eco Sanctuary, as well landed homes starting from RM500,000 at Eco Botanic 2, will enable us to further capture the hearts and minds of this very important market segment.”

Chang said the prolonged movement control order (MCO) period has really made many young people realise that the quality of home and living environment matters greatly.

Mah Sing Group Bhd chief executive officer Datuk Ho Hon Sang (pic below) said as the bulk of its projects comprised units within the affordable range segment, the majority of its buyers comprised those below 35 years of age.

“For Mah Sing, 84% of our target sales for 2020 are for residential properties priced below RM700,000 with key focus in the affordable segment. We typically see about 65% of buyers who are 35 years and below, for most of the affordable projects were launched in recent years. Hence, the majority of our buyers are first time homeowners.”

Despite the challenging market environment in view of the Covid-19 pandemic, Ho said demand continues to be resilient as property remained one of the safest forms of asset class for long-term capital protection and appreciation.

“Malaysia’s population is still very young with 66% below 40 years old and as such, household formation continues to be strong. Affordably-priced properties of good quality and at strategic locations remain highly sought after.

“This is especially for first-time home buyers, which augers well for Mah Sing’s product composition.”

Sunway Property said it is seeing increasing interest from younger buyers from 25 years to 35 years in its properties that are transit-oriented and have good facilities nearby.

“For example, our developments such as the transit-oriented Sunway Avila in Wangsa Maju, the integrated and transit-oriented Sunway Velocity TWO and the youth-focused development of Sunway Grid in Sunway Iskandar has seen enthusiastic response from younger purchasers, ” it said.

Property data, analytics and solutions provider MyProperty Data chief executive officer Thor Joe Hock said the median age for residential property transactions has gradually dropped over the years.

“When we look at the over 2.5 million residential property transactions, including serviced apartments, it appears that the median age of buyers from 2000 to 2019 has remained largely unchanged at between 34 to 35 years of age.

“However, when you break it down into landed and non-landed transactions, we start to get a clearer picture. The median age for non-landed properties has fallen from 40 years in 2000 to 28 years in 2019; while the median age for landed property purchasers marginally decreased from 40 years to 37 years over the same period.”

MyProperty Data manages a property data portal called PropertyAdvisor.

Meanwhile, Lagenda Properties Bhd managing director Datuk Jimmy Doh said more than half of its buyers are below 39 years of age.

“We believe as young people start new phases in their lives, for example getting a job or starting their own families, they prefer to stay independently and have their own space, granted that the properties are within their price range.

“Over the past few years, we have been seeing an increase in buyers. Our properties are priced below RM200,000, ” he said.

MIDF Research in a recent report said the aggressive overnight policy rate (OPR) cuts have improved home buyers’ purchasing power.

“Bank Negara cut its overnight policy rate for the fourth time this year by 25 basis points (bps) to a record low of 1.75% in July due to the severe impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the global economy. The aggressive OPR cuts this year are positive to the sector as it improved home buyer’s purchasing power by reducing loan installments.

“We estimate monthly installments to reduce by 14%, after 125 bps cut for RM500,000 loan with a loan repayment period of 30 years, which is quite significant in our view. Hence, we think the record-low interest rate will partly help to alleviate home buyers’ issue of securing home financing, as the record low yield has boosted the affordability of home buyers.”

MIDF Research also said it expected loan demand to recover in the second half of 2020.

Citing Bank Negara’s statistics, it said total applied loan for the purchase of property improved sequentially by 52.9% month-on-month to RM13.1bil in May, after plunging by 64.8% month-on-month in April.

“Note that total applied loan recorded steep decline in April due to the disruption to business activity following the commencement of the MCO.

“Nevertheless, total applied loan in May was lower by 61.8% year-on-year while cumulative total applied loan in the first five months of 2020 was lower by 33.6% year-on-year, indicating buying interest was subdued.”

Looking ahead, the research house expected buying interest to recover in the second half of this year, spurred by incentives introduced by the government.

Under the Short-Term Economic Recovery Plan (Penjana), which was announced in June, the government reintroduced the Home Ownership Campaign (HOC). Under the HOC, stamp duty exemption will be provided on the transfer of property and loan agreement for the purchase of home priced between RM300,000 and RM2.5mil.

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Millennials now make up over a third of the workplace and overwhelmingly value flexibility in where, when and how to work. And top talent has been increasingly clustering in dense urban areas and has been unwilling to commute to suburban office parks

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Understanding the attraction between men and women

Dr Goh Pei Hwa  from Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Science

HOW many times have we all, at some point in our lives, misinterpreted signs?


Movies like He’s Just Not That into You, which is based on Greg Behrendt’s and Liz Tuccillo’s 2004 self-help book of the same name, tells people that if a man in whom you are interested in is not making an effort to pursue you, he is “just not that into you.”

Research has long indicated that it is mostly men, who tend to misperceive friendliness as sexual interest. They overestimate the sexual interest of potential mates. Even when two people have clearly defined their relationship as platonic, more often, it is the men, who are attracted to their opposite-sex friends.

According to Dr Goh Pei Hwa from the Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, this is not always the case.

While the majority of existing findings show the abovementioned pattern of men overperceiving sexual interest, relationship researchers have demonstrated that among heterosexual couples in committed relationships, men were more likely to underperceive sexual interest from their partners.

Men from certain cultures were also less likely to overperceive sexual interest than others.

In other words, the “male over perception bias” appears to be less universal than previously assumed.

In her recent work, Dr Goh revisited the question of gender differences in sexual perception accuracy using a face-to-face, laboratory-based interaction paradigm on a sample of university students in Malaysia.

Participants consisted of 62 previously unacquainted heterosexual dyads aged 20 years on average. Each participant was randomly paired with another participant of the other sex, and each dyad engaged in a semi-structured conversation task for five minutes.

After the interaction task, participants completed measures capturing their degree of sexual interest in their interaction partner and an estimation of their partner’s sexual interest in them.

Results revealed that people’s perception of their partner’s sexual interest did not match their partner’s actual sexual interest. This indicates that people generally lacked accuracy in their perception of sexual interest.

In fact, people’s perception of sexual interest was highly in line with their own sexual interest in their interaction partner.

More importantly, no gender differences were found. This means that both men and women were equally inaccurate and equally likely to project their own sexual interest onto their estimations of their partner’s sexual interest.

“In essence, people are bad at interpreting sexual interest from strangers. Based on the research, Malaysian men do not overperceive sexual interest as past studies have suggested. Women, on the other hand, tend to underperceive sexual interest, supporting past studies,” says Goh.

The current study advances our understanding that people are generally underperceiving sexual interest in initial interactions, regardless of gender.

That is, people are either not communicating their sexual interest effectively or missing all the sexual interest cues being expressed by someone else.

Here, it translates into a lot of potentially missed opportunities. This is highly applicable to first meetings between potential partners, which begs the question: does technology further impede our ability to gauge the sexual interest of others accurately?

With dating apps, we typically already know that we are chatting with someone who finds us attractive or appealing to a certain extent.

Thus, there is no need to try to decipher whether or not someone is into us based on the interaction.

Goh concludes: “If you like someone or have some interest in a person, express it more overtly. This will invite the other person to respond according to his or her own interest in you.

“Let the other person decide if he or she is interested, not you and your potentially (or most likely) wrong perceptions”.

■ For more details, look out for the advertisement in this StarSpecial.

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US president’s move to get a cut from TikTok as an ‘extortion threat’ and ‘mafia deal’

Washington robs TikTok by treading upon rules

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As the US shocked the free world with its mafia-style forced sale of Chinese-owned short-form video platform TikTok, Chinese experts said that US extortion and looting have left a deep impression on the minds of the nations of the world, and pointed out that many of the countries are already striving to boost self-reliance in terms of security, industrial independence and technological ownership.

Expert slams US president’s move to get a cut from TikTok as an ‘extortion threat’ and ‘mafia deal’. 

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Controversial: Trump has said he would approve TikTok’s sale to Microsoft only if the US government gets a cut from the deal. — Reuters

TikTok's roller-coaster ride in the United States continued on Monday as President Donald Trump said he would approve the video-sharing app's sale to Microsoft only if the US government gets a cut, a condition that one expert called a "mafia" deal.

The president also gave Microsoft and TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, a deadline of Sept 15 to complete the deal, or the app will be banned in the US.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a regular media briefing in Beijing on Tuesday that the US treatment of TikTok is "outright bullying", and the US only uses a "national security risk" as an excuse to suppress Chinese tech enterprises.

"The relevant enterprises carry out business activities in the US following market principles and international rules and abiding by local laws and regulations," he said. "However, the US has set restrictions and suppressed them with unwarranted charges, which is political manipulation."

Wang said that if the wrongdoing by the US continues, then any country could take similar measures against any American enterprise on the grounds of national security.

"The US side must not open this Pandora's box, otherwise it will suffer its consequences," he said.

The increased scrutiny of TikTok culminated on Friday when Trump threatened to ban the app from operating in the US due to a "national security risk". The negotiations between the two companies were then halted.

But after a weekend phone call with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Trump reversed his stance and reportedly gave the two companies 45 days to close the deal. This was confirmed by Microsoft on Sunday, which said in a statement it "will move quickly to pursue discussions" with ByteDance and complete the talks "no later than" Sept 15.

The president added a condition to the potential purchase on Monday: Microsoft should buy TikTok outright, and the US Treasury Department should be paid because the government made the deal possible.

"It's a little bit like the landlord/tenant; without a lease the tenant has nothing, so they pay what's called 'key money', or they pay something," Trump told reporters in the Cabinet Room at the White House on Monday. "But the United States should be reimbursed or should be paid a substantial amount of money, because, without the United States, they don't have anything."

Investors in privately owned Byte-Dance valued TikTok at $50 billion, according to a Reuters report.

Kai-Fu Lee, former chairman of Google China, said the US treatment of TikTok, including "forced acquisition, plus only 45 days, plus finder's fees", is "incredible".

Lee said that China has set clear rules for internet companies that want to operate in the country, and Google had decided to exit as it didn't want to comply with Chinese laws and regulations.

"The US didn't give any parameters that TikTok could work with, and didn't provide any evidence for their claims that TikTok had caused national security risks to the US," he said.

The legal basis of Trump's requirement that some of the money from the deal go to the US Treasury was immediately questioned by experts.

"This is quite unusual; this is out of the norm," Gene Kimmelman, a former chief counsel for the US Department of Justice's Antitrust Division, told CNN.

"It's actually quite hard to understand what the president is actually talking about here.... It's not unheard of for transactions to have broader geopolitical implications between countries, but it's quite remarkable to think about some kind of money being on the table in connection with a transaction," said Kimmelman, a senior adviser to the policy group Public Knowledge.

Julian Sanchez, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a think tank based in Washington, D.C., said Trump's "extortion threat" is a "mafia business model".

"Trump's full explanation of why the Treasury should get a 'cut' of a Microsoft/TikTok deal is, somehow, even more grotesque and shameless than I had anticipated," said Sanchez.

"As with his tariff policy, there doesn't seem to be any consideration of whether this sets a dangerous precedent for other countries to engage in similar pretextual protectionism against us, or how whimsically compelling divestment might affect international investment," he said.

Samm Sacks, a senior fellow at Yale Law School's Paul Tsai China Center, also warned that shutting down the app altogether would set "a dangerous precedent in which the US government can blacklist companies based on country of origin using blanket national security as justification".

The Trump administration has been scrutinizing TikTok for several months, claiming that the platform shares the data of US users with the Chinese government. The company has repeatedly denied the accusations, maintaining that all the users' information is stored in the US.

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