Perikatan Nasional recently rejected a draft MoU on opposition MP allocations, claiming that it was an attempt to silence them from speaking out on certain issues. Since then, the Opposition has received flak for refusing to sign the MoU, however this has also highlighted the question of whether there is a need for an MoU to secure equal constituency elections. We unpack this with Ooi Kok Hin, the executive director of Bersih.

Other stories we cover in this episode:

· Malaysia’s Fire and Rescue Department has reported that over 2,500 emergency calls about fallen trees have been reported since January. We look back at a previous interview with Keith Tan, Associate Professor from the School of Architecture of Taylor’s University, about how we can plan our cities’ resilience to a changing climate.

· The Yang di-Pertuan Agong Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar has kicked off a four-day visit to China, marking the 50th anniversary of Malaysia and China’s diplomatic relations. We reached out to Angeline Tan, an analyst from ISIS Malaysia, to get more insight on this visit.

· The local intellectual property protection certificate for Musang King durian has just been renewed for another 10 years by MyIPO as we see the fruit’s growing popularity in countries like China. Intellectual property and information technology lawyer Foong Cheng Leong explains the impact of Malaysia claiming ownership of the durian brand.

· A two-month-old pygmy hippo from a zoo in Thailand called Moo Deng has become a worldwide sensation. We speak to Dr Woo Pei Jun, Head of the Department of Psychology at Sunway University on why we are so fascinated by cute animals and whether a species’ viral status can translate into animal conservation efforts.

Image Credit: YuriAbas, Shutterstock