Despite calls to postpone the second reading of the Urban Renewal Act by PKR MPs, the law will be tabled as scheduled, according to Housing Minister Nga Kor Ming. Concerns with the Bill are to do with the consent threshold, and that this would impact support for the unity government. We get into this with Theebalakshmi Kunasekaran, Research Associate, Khazanah Research Institute.

Other stories we covered:

• MOH tackles workplace bullying: The Health Ministry has a 48-page guideline on managing workplace bullying to be distributed to all MOH facilities nationwide. Is it enough? We ask Dr Timothy Cheng, Chairman of Malaysian Medical Association’s Section Concerning House Officers, Medical Officers and Specialists, as well as Associate Professor Dr Amer Siddiq bin Amer Nordin, consultant psychiatrist from Universiti Malaya Medical Centre.
• A look at ChatGPT-5 and local-LLM, ILMU: OpenAI has released the latest and most advanced iteration of ChatGPT, and it's still failing basic math. We ask Matt Armitage of Kulturpop about the backlash this update has received. Then, we talk about the launch of ILMU, Malaysia's own Malay-language LLM that can even speak and understand Kelantanese. We ask Dr Lau Cher Han, CEO of LEAD why Malaysia is joining the AI tech race.
• Vapes are a gateway to smoking for teens: This comes from a new study in Tobacco Control, which pulled evidence from over 56 different research papers. We speak to Professor Dr Mohamad Haniki Nik Mohamed, Leader of the Smokefree Sejahtera Campus Community Flagship 3.0 at the International Islamic University Malaysia, to unpack the review.
• MP wants Rafflesia renamed after Anwar?: In Parliament, Machang MP Wan Ahmad Fayshal argued to rename the Rafflesia, as an act of decolonisation, saying Sir Stamfor Raffles, who it was named after, was a man without moral or ethics. We discuss the merits of his idea, and how such efforts fit into the decolonial narrative.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Produced by: Sneha Harikannan, Tee Shiao Eek, Lim Sue Ann, Sudais Ferhard, Sitara Darini

Presented by: Lee Chwi Lynn, Dashran Yohan

This and more than 60,000 other podcasts in your hand. Download the all new BFM mobile app.

Categories:  controversies,  History/Heritage,  politics,  government,  health policy,  technology,  the workplace,  Law/Activism,  economy

Tags:  rafflesia,  ilmu,  stamford raffles,  change names,  vape,  health,  smoking,  Chatgpt,  moh,  bullying,  urban renewal act,  bill,  parliament,