RM500mil Grant to revive SMEs to be given out from Sept 21, ensure no delays in aid rollout to B40, says PM

Help at hand: The Prime Minister joins in via video conferencing as Tengku Zafrul (second from right) witnesses the first day of BKC payments to recipients at the BSN Putrajaya branch. — Bernama

PETALING JAYA: The government will channel RM500mil of assistance to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) through the Prihatin Special Grant (GKP) 4.0 beginning Sept 21, says Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

“With this aid, it is hoped that small businesses such as food stalls, barbers, workshops and cake shops will be able to reduce their burden and help in their cash flow,” he said.

Each payment of RM500 will be given out in September and November.

Ismail Sabri said the aid will be channelled directly into the bank accounts registered with the GKP system and that the status of the GKP 4.0 can be checked at gkp.hasil.gov.my.

The Prime Minister said the grant, which is a component of the Economic Recovery Package (Pemulih), will benefit more than one million recipients.

In a statement yesterday, he said the aid would be transferred directly into bank accounts registered with the GKP system.

The status of the GKP 4.0 can be checked at gkp.hasil.gov.my.

So far, he said RM6.08bil had been channelled to SMEs under the GKP since the pandemic began.

“I hope this aid will be able to revive the SME sector, which is the engine of economic growth for the Malaysian family.”

The government, he said, would give priority to industry players who were among those most affected during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz said the status of those who applied and then appealed for the Bantuan Prihatin Rakyat (BPR) can be checked at bpr.hasil.gov.my starting today.

This will involve almost 200,000 BPR recipients with an estimated allocation of RM240mil, said Tengku Zafrul, adding that the payments would be credited at the end of this month into accounts registered with the BPR.

The payments, he said, would be credited into bank accounts registered during the BPR appeals at the end of this month, together with the recipients of the third phase of the BPR.

He said in a statement the payout would also be given to recipients of the third phase of the BPR.

Tengku Zafrul said the government had updated the data of the B40 group eligible to receive the BPR after their appeals were submitted from June 15 to June 30.

The appeals were verified by the Inland Revenue Board to ensure that the aid would benefit those who qualified for it.

“The government hopes that this cash assistance totalling RM17.1bil until the end of the year can assist Malaysian families in managing their expenses,” he said.

 

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Govt to channel RM500mil aid to SMEs from Sept 21, says PM

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2021/09/17/govt-to-channel-rm500mil-aid-to-smes-from-sept-21-says-pm  

SMEs in dire need of assistance | The Star

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 PM: Ensure no delays in aid rollout 

More assistance coming after BKC next month, says Ismail Sabri

 

Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob. - Bernama filepic

PUTRAJAYA: The Special Covid-19 Aid (BKC) cash vouchers prepared by the Finance Ministry must reach the recipients without any delay, says Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

Having witnessed the Phase One payments of the BKC being credited into the accounts of 10 million recipients from yesterday, the Prime Minister also urged the ministry to ensure the smooth running of the BKC payments, especially for recipients residing in rural areas with limited banking access or those without bank accounts.

Data from the ministry shows there are 708,223 eligible BKC recipients who do not have bank accounts.

Ismail Sabri also said the government would be channelling more assistance to the people starting next month.

In a video conference from his residence in Petaling Jaya with Bank Simpanan Nasional (BSN) staffers to check on the BKC payment process, Ismail Sabri said BKC was among the assistance given to help ease the burden of the people affected by Covid-19.

“Hopefully, nothing untoward happens that can cause delays and so on,” he said.

Ismail Sabri, who initiated the video conference call because he is still undergoing self-quarantine, also advised BSN staffers to ensure BKC recipients who come to collect the aid complied with standard operating procedure (SOP) to prevent Covid-19 transmission.

Joining the video conference call were Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, who was at BSN Putrajaya here, and Deputy Finance Minister Mohd Shahar Abdullah, who was at the BSN branch in Bera, Pahang.

“Hopefully, what the government is giving today (yesterday) – although not much – can at least help reduce the people’s burden,” said Ismail Sabri, who also referred to information from Tengku Zafrul that more assistance was forthcoming for the people.

On Sept 1, Ismail Sabri announced that the BKC would be paid in stages with Phase One payments being credited from Sept 6 to 10.

Funds amounting to RM3.1bil have already been channelled to the relevant banking institutions for BKC payments.

The BKC is paid out to assist the hardcore poor, B40 households with total monthly income of RM5,000 and below and senior citizens as well as singles with a monthly income of RM2,500 and below, based on the eligibility criteria under the Bantuan Prihatin Rakyat (BPR 2021) aid package.

Those in the M40 group who report income tax with a total household income of RM5,001 to RM9,000 and RM2,501 to RM5,000 for singles are also eligible to receive BKC.

Under the BKC, hardcore poor category households will receive RM1,300; eligible senior citizens and singles (RM500).

For the B40 category, households will receive RM800, eligible senior citizens and singles (RM200); while in the M40 category, households will receive RM250 and qualified senior citizens and singles (RM100).

Details on the BKC, including payment status, can be viewed at https://bkc.hasil.gov.my.Meanwhile, Tengku Zafrul said the government would distribute various forms of assistance that have been planned until the end of this year.

Among the assistance that will be distributed is Bantuan Prihatin Rakyat phase three amounting to RM2.32bil, which will be channelled at the end of this month, and assistance for the loss of income in October.

In a post on his official Facebook page, Ismail Sabri said he had the opportunity to virtually review the Phase One payment process of BKC which would be implemented in stages through selected financial institutions involving the RM3.1bil allocation.

He also said that he was informed that the Finance Ministry would facilitate distribution to the rural community by paying cash to BKC recipients who did not have bank accounts.

“I hope this assistance can alleviate the burden of the ‘Malaysian Family’ affected by the Covid-19 pandemic,” he said. — Bernama

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Taikonauts' mission accomplished, safely back on earth from Chinese home in space

Safety prioritized, inclusiveness stressed in China's manned space missions 

 

Photo:Xinhua

Having extended the record of Chinese Taikonauts' longest stay in space in a single flight mission to 90 days, the Shenzhou-12 mission crew returned to Earth at the designated Dongfeng landing site in the Gobi Desert, North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Friday, marking a successful conclusion of the first crewed mission at the country's space station building stage.

The Shenzhou-12 return module has separated from the orbiting module at 12:43 pm on Friday, and was then followed by a smooth separation from the propellant, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

Carrying the three taikonauts – mission commander Nie Haisheng, and his fellow crew members Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo – the return capsule touched down at the landing site as of 1:34 pm.


Photo:Xinhua

The homecoming heroes did not have to wait too long before the search and rescue squad with the Dongfeng landing site reached them after their landing.

They were confirmed in good condition after they touched down safely at the Dongfeng landing site.

The whole process was so smooth that Tang Hongbo was seen playing with a pen during the process of returning Earth.

"Real gold fears no fire," Nie Haisheng joked with his fellow crew, citing a Chinese proverb as they re-entered the Earth's atmosphere.

It also marked the first time the Dongfeng site has received a returning Shenzhou mission, taking the place of the Siziwang Banner site, the traditional go-to landing site for China's manned space flights.


Photo:Deng Xiaoci/GT

The choice of landing site was based on a number of factors, including climate, topography, returning options, and rescue and search equipment, Pang Zhihao, a Beijing-based space expert and retired researcher from the China Academy of Space Technology, told the Global Times on Friday.

This return was more difficult than previous missions, Pang noted, as the previous ones all had fixed returning points in orbit, while that of Shenzhou-12, which was attached to the space station, had a changing orbital altitude. What's more, Shenzhou-12 was to return to a different spot from previous times in order to test the search and rescue capabilities of the Dongfeng landing site.

The site is partly surrounded by desert, with a dry desert climate and little rainfall. "As there are mountains and pitted terrain in the area, the search and rescue work was much more challenging," Pang noted.

The safe landing of the return capsule also marked the successful completion of the Shenzhou-12 mission.

"Shenzhou-12 has demonstrated China's capability to perform prolonged human spaceflight missions, including lengthy and challenging operations like extravehicular activities and providing necessary ground support," Andrew Jones, a Finland-based correspondent for space.com and spacenews.com who closely follows China's space industry, told the Global Times.


Photo:Deng Xiaoci/GT

Upcoming missions

China will carry out two more space launches for the building of its own space station this year - the Tianzhou-3 cargo spacecraft via a Long March-7 carrier rocket from Wenchang spaceport in Hainan and another manned flight on a Shenzhou-13 spacecraft via a Long March-2F rocket from Jiuquan center.

An official update by the CMSA on Thursday said that the combo of Tianzhou-3 and Long March 7 Y4 rocket has rolled out to the launch pad in Wenchang and will take off at a suitable time. The Tianzhou-3 mission will be the second supply shipping mission to the Tianhe core module following the first by the Tianzhou-2 on May 29.

Following the Tianzhou-3 mission, the Shenzhou-13 manned spacecraft is expected to send another crew of three taikonauts to China's space station complex, which may include the first female taikonaut in the space station building stage. They will live and work in orbit for an even longer stay of six months.

Wang Yaping, who beamed down live from space to 330 elementary and middle school students in Beijing when she was in space onboard the nation's Tiangong-1 space lab module in 2013 and served as the back-up astronaut for the Shenzhou-12 crew, is widely believed to be among the most likely candidates for the mission.

According to mission insiders, the Shenzhou-13 manned space mission will also conduct an R-Bar, also known as vertical docking, with the space station complex, a first at the space station building stage.

Yao Yuanfu, the chief designer of the rendezvous and docking microwave radar system onboard the Shenzhou-13 spacecraft, told the Global Times in an exclusive interview that the spacecraft will face a much more complicated electromagnetic environment than the Shenzhou-12 in its docking mission, as by then the space station complex will have more spacecraft docked than it did before Shenzhou-12's docking and the new docking direction adds to the complexity of the mission.

The institute's radar project has participated in China's heavyweight space programs such as the Chang'e lunar probe as well as Tianwen-1 Mars exploration, and the success of the missions have been a source of confidence for Yao and his team for the Shenzhou-13's successful docking down the road.

The Shenzhou-12 spacecraft also pulled off a vertical docking experiment shortly after separating from the Tianhe core module on Thursday to verify the capability.

Although there has been no official announcement, Shenzhou-13 is expected to be launched in a few weeks given that the Tianhe core cabin cannot be left unattended for a long time, observers noted.

Open, inclusive

Space agencies around the world have put more faith in China becoming a strong space power and they hope to collaborate with China on the space station in terms of manned spaceflights and scientific experimental loads, as the space station may be the only operational one in orbit if the International Space Station (ISS) retires after 2024.

“The construction of the space station is a complex and intensive project. Its completion would be a demonstration of China's ability to execute complex, long-term space projects. It will also bring opportunities for science and international collaboration,” Jones commented, “while also posing challenges to some space agencies in terms of determining their priorities and resources for space activities.”

China has been engaged in exchange and cooperation with international space agencies including Russia's Roscosmos and the European Space Agency (ESA), which played a positive role in the construction of China's space station. "We are willing to work with any space institutes that are peace-loving and devoted to the peaceful use of space," said Hao Chun, director of the China Manned Space Agency.

Hao also disclosed that "there will be foreign astronauts participating in China's manned space flights, and working and staying in China's space station."

"Many of them have been learning Chinese for this purpose. And China will carry out work to select foreign astronauts for joint flight missions as our construction of the space station proceeds," he said.

Compared to the US-dominated ISS, which has been more of a party of powers, China's space station will be more inclusive in getting developing countries involved, and will provide a platform for anyone on the basis of equality, win-win cooperation and mutual respect, space observers noted.

The first batch of a total of nine international scientific experiments from 17 countries and 23 research bodies have been selected to be carried onboard China’s space station, which is expected to be operational by 2022. The first batch includes Gamma-ray burst polarimetry jointly proposed by Switzerland, Poland, Germany and China and a spectroscopic investigation of nebular gas by India and Russia.

 

Mission review of Taikonauts' 3-month space life Graphic: Wu Tiantong/GT

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Doctor's orders: Take a hike, you'll feel better

Bukit Jambul, Penang

penang-traveltips.com

 

 While more doctors are looking at using time outside as a medical strategy, park prescription programmes face issues of access. Photo: Unsplash/Jon Flobrant 

 When Annette Coen went for a health check-up last summer in Washington state, she and her doctor discussed concerns around her weight and asthma. Then her doctor offered a novel prescription: regular hikes in the woods.

He gave Coen a one-year pass to Washington's state park system and told her to "go for walks, go camping, do what you need to do," Coen, now 53, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

A year on, she said the park prescription was a "great experience" for her and her whole family. "I have lost 13.6 kg since April this year... just being out and about," she said.

With the Covid-19 pandemic highlighting the health benefits of spending more time outdoors, a growing faction of the US medical community is prescribing time outside the same way they would traditional medication.

The idea of writing out park or nature prescriptions has taken hold particularly among pediatricians.

"It all came together" during the pandemic, said Maya Moody, president-elect of the Missouri chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), pointing to spikes in childhood anxiety and pediatric obesity since the coronavirus outbreak started.

With lockdowns keeping children indoors, "we were seeing 30-, 50-, 60-pound weight gains," said Moody, who attends to around 3,000 low-income children in the St. Louis area.

This April, she became one of about a dozen pediatricians across the state who have started offering nature prescriptions.

"When I give a prescription, it's

specific, just like an antibiotic. They use it for this many days, and I say go to this park," she explained. Buy-in has differed with different age groups, Moody noted, with younger children and their parents being more open to the approach but teenagers expressing skepticism.

"Sixteen- and 17-year-olds look at me and say, 'You want me to get off TikTok and get an actual tick in the woods?'" she said.

But Moody said the fact that doctors and health experts are now seriously looking at how something as simple as a walk in the park can help patients is exciting.

A spokesperson for the AAP said the group is forming a committee on the issue of nature prescriptions but declined to offer additional details.

Take a walk

Nature prescriptions are still new, so there is little data on their effectiveness, but one 2018 analysis by researchers from Britain's University of East Anglia did find they "may have substantial benefits".

There has been much more research done on the general benefits of being outdoors - in one example, starting next month, a study supported by the Welsh government will look at the benefits of treating hospital patients outside.

In more than 500 scientific studies in recent years, researchers have linked time spent in nature with decreased anxiety, reduced risk of obesity and even reduced overall mortality, said Maryland-based pediatrician Stacy Beller Stryer.

Stryer is also associate medical director with Park Rx America, an online platform that helps medical professionals write nature prescriptions.

Using its database of thousands of parks and public lands, prescribers can filter by activity, distance from a patient's home and amenities such as playgrounds.

"Once (the patient) decides on where to go, the prescriber talks about what they should do - maybe walk a dog? And how often - maybe every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for 30 minutes?" she said.

Writing out an actual prescription for time in nature gives patients a useful extra push, said Brent A. Bauer, research director of integrative medicine and health at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.

"More than half of my patients who receive a 'prescription' for time in nature go ahead and do so successfully," he said.

A census of park prescription programmes last year estimated that there were more than 100 nationwide.

The Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy began a pilot programme in collaboration with the UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh in 2016, after a pediatric resident was leading patients in a weight management clinic, said Kathryn Hunninen, a senior manager with the conservancy.

"He wanted to encourage patients to get outside but didn't know where to send them," she said.

"This started with an inquiry from him to the parks system and has blossomed from there."

In a 2018 survey, more than 80% of personnel at participating Pittsburgh clinics said they were frequently recommending that patients visit parks.

Last year, Salt Lake County in Utah offered park prescriptions to its employees "to improve or maintain physical and mental health while building sustainable health behaviors," Sarah Kinnison, who oversaw the programme, said in an email.

That first year, 335 employees participated, and the county is running the program again this fall.

Financial stability

While more doctors are looking at using time outside as a medical strategy, park prescription programmes face issues of access.

In low-income neighborhoods, parks are four times smaller and more crowded on average than parks in high-income areas, said a study released last year by the Trust for Public Land, a nonprofit that analysed government data from 14,000 US towns and cities.

It also remains unclear how to keep the programmes financially sustainable. Currently they have to rely on ad hoc funding, often cobbled together from grants, philanthropy or as publicly funded pilot projects.

The costs involved are not particularly high, but they do exist, said Bradford S. Gentry, co-director of the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale University.

They could include the costs of park passes, the salaries of community health workers and park workers to coordinate and lead programmes, and transportation to and from the green space, he said.

"If there are all of these (health) benefits, how do we move from grant funding or public funding to health systems funding?" asked Gentry, who focuses on the intersection of health and land conservation. "I haven't found an answer yet."

The US Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment.

Gentry pointed to Oregon, where work is underway to try to address the funding issue by requesting that certain federal rules be waived involving Medicaid, the US government's health care programme for low-income people.

Every five years states have the opportunity to request such a waiver, if they can show it will result in better care and cost no extra money, said Lori Coyner, who was the state's Medicaid director until July and is now senior Medicaid policy adviser at the Oregon Health Authority.

The state's waiver request is due in December, when it plans to ask for more flexibility in how local organisations address health issues.

"We believe there is real opportunity to use some of these Medicaid dollars... to promote spending more time outdoors," Coyner said. - Thomson Reuters Foundation

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THIS is one article that I didn’t want to write. I put off writing it for two years. Writing 900 words about this subject was more painful than taking three years to write a 100,000-word thesis. I would do three more theses if I could avoid writing these next 900 words.

This article is about a tragedy that concerns us as a people and a nation. The tragedy should have sparked a national debate, but it was ignored despite being repeated four times.

What is this great tragedy, you might ask? Is it the May 13 race riots in 1969? Is it the Bukit Kepong incident in 1950? Is it the first riot in 1964 in Singapore before it left the federation? Is it the fall of a government? Or is it the dismal state of our institutions of education, justice and administration?

To me, all of these things combined fail to measure up to the tragedy I am about to describe.

Two years ago I happened to read a news article about an Indian-Malaysian family whose father killed all of his children. The report related how the mother died of cancer a few days before and the father, who was jobless and also in poor health, had become distraught. He ended up killing his 15-year-old son and three other children by strangling them all. After that horrifying deed, he hanged himself.

I could not sleep well for several days after reading about that, wondering why a father would kill his children. What drove him to do that? The police and other authorities dismissed it as the act of a crazy man. I did not think so.

Two weeks later, there was a report of another destitute Indian-Malaysian family whose parent, also suffering from an illness, killed the children. Again, the authorities dismissed it as “orang gila punya kerja” (a mad person’s act).

Several months later, I read of Chinese-Malaysian parents who poisoned their four little children and then themselves. At the last minute, an ambulance was called, but all the children died; the parents survived.

And just last week, a penniless father, whose race was not stated, smothered his three children after his wife died.

After each of these cases, our nation went on with business as usual. No professors from our 200 universities raised the issue. No religious clerics from any religion made it into a social and political issue. No NGO stood up and demonstrated or wrote press statements about the tragedies.

Was I the only one who cringed at the news of parents killing their children? Was I the only one to ask questions?

Firstly, why did these parents not seek help from other family members? All of us have wider family circles and if we begged several of them to care for one child each, surely they would respond? I have no issue whatsoever if adults decide to take their own lives, but I am aghast and crushed when children are killed just because one cannot figure out how to feed and care for them.

All children in this country – and the world – should be cared for and given a minimum chance to survive until they can make their own way. Is that not a social, political and spiritual right? What happened to the larger family system if parents think that it would burden other family members?

Then I asked the question: why did the parents not seek help from the leaders of their own race or religion? We have political leaders of all races and houses of worship worth millions. What is the purpose of religion and these splendid displays of architectural feats if parents had no faith that they could get help from going to a church, a mosque, a temple or a gurdwara to ask congregants to help their children?

If I were the parent, I would have taken them to the mosque and begged for help and asked to stay at the mosque. I would help sweep the floor of the mosque or scrub its toilets and then ask restaurants for leftovers so I could feed my children and myself. There is no shame in that. But, of course, I would ask for help from my own family and wife’s family first before going that far.

Finally, I asked: what should our government do for such families? Why did the four families not go to a zakat office or the Welfare Department for help? Why did they have no confidence in our institutions, orphanages and other forms of welfare? What are these zakat or welfare officers doing? Why are they not proactively walking the streets and looking under bridges for the homeless or talking to people in low-cost flats to see if there are families facing destitution?

I wish the four families had reached out to the media or someone for help instead of killing their children. What does it say about our nation when parents kill their children instead of trusting our institutions of race, institutions of religion and institutions of governance?

When I was in the United Kingdom, I was given a financial allowance for my four children. When I was in the United States, I was given food stamps when my daughter was born. I also remember watching a report on YouTube about 400,000 unemployed British youngsters given £250 (about RM1,400 at current rates) a month as a benefit back then.

I spent nine years overseas and I never read about parents killing their children because of poverty. What does it say about our country, our people and our faiths when four tragedies like these can happen – and that they raised not one iota of concern? We are, truly and sadly, a nation that is failing its most vulnerable people.

Prof Dr Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi is Professor of Architecture at UCSI University. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.

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IN the first half of 2021, Asean-5 countries, comprising Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines experienced strong, export-driven growth. However, renewed lockdowns amid significant outbreaks of Covid-19 Delta variant cases have dampened business sentiment and consumer spending in this region.

According to the Institute of International Finance (IIF), recovery will likely slow markedly in the second half of 2021 for Asean5.

“Given the rising number of Covid-19 infections, renewed pandemic containment measures, and the slow pace of vaccinations, authorities in Asean-5 countries have been revising down official growth forecasts,” IIF said.

The IIF said it would likely cut its gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast for region.

In May, it forecast a GDP growth of 5.2% for 2021 and 5.4% for 2022.

Against the backdrop of current economic challenges, the IIF said it expected Asean-5 central banks to maintain their accommodative monetary policy stances well into 2022.

“Most of the countries are still experiencing inflation within the respective target ranges, except for the Philippines,” the IIF said.

“Fiscal policy will also continue to be supportive. While Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam have announced fiscal consolidation plans, the pace of adjustment will be modest,” it added.

The IIF noted that due to their economic structure, Asean-5 countries benefitted strongly from the global demand recovery, with exports up sharply in the first half of 2021, particularly in the area of electronic appliances (Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand) and commodities (Indonesia and Vietnam).

“Looking ahead, the next stage of the global recovery will likely benefit services rather than goods and, thus, provide less of a boost to Asean-5 economies,” it said.

“Furthermore, the recovery in tourism in the five countries has been slower than our already-cautious forecast in the spring, with the Delta variant posing a new challenge to the sector,” it added

 

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