Top 5 At 5: Are Sports And Politics Joined At The Hip?

The stories we covered today include:

5. After former prime minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country, Bangladesh sees Nobel Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus taking helm of a new caretaker government until elections are held. We look at his life’s work as a pioneering microfinance figure, and the challenges he faces in helping rebuild his nation after weeks of protests against the job quota system.

4. Hannah Yeoh's move to pose for photos with Thai shuttler Kunlavut Vitidsarn after his victory against Malaysian counterpart Lee Zii Jia at the Paris Olympics drew criticism from netizens, with them labelling it as "tone deaf, unpatriotic and insensitive". Hannah has since spoken out against this, underscoring the need for sportsmanship. So we asked Datuk Ramlan Aziz, the founding CEO of the National Sports Institute of Malaysia, for his thoughts.

3. A pilot project establishing STEM schools in Johor is underway, under the directives of Johor Regent Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim. This prompted a discussion among educationists on whether to decentralise the state education syllabus from the federal system. We reached out to Kenneth Chai, a STEM educator and co-founder of The Learning Curve, for comment.

2. Allegations that Tesla is withdrawing from its plan to build factories in Southeast Asia. We spoke to Daniel Fernandez, the managing editor of dsf.my, to understand the rationale behind Tesla’s changing strategy.

1. Our top story: As the Paris Olympics draws to a close, we look at the political relevance of the Olympics. Dr James Dorsey, a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

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