MY RECENT TRAVELS AND FOREIGN POLICY

Selamat Hari Raya to all my Muslim friends and constituents.

I have been travelling a fair bit of late. The following Friday on 4^th April, I will be flying to Uzbekistan for an Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) conference. More on that later.

At the start of the second week of March, I was in the United Kingdom for 6 days, 5 nights. This was a self-paid trip with part reimbursement (60%) on my flight ticket by UKEC. I was there for a personal break, partly to meet the UKEC students and partly to visit Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the UK Parliament.

The real personal highlight of the trip was to watch a Liverpool game in Anfield. For that, I will forever be thankful to Tom Shepard, the acting UK Deputy High Commissioner for securing me a ticket from his cousin, Danny Flood (a true Liverpudlian who generously gifted me his season ticket).

I also caught up with my niece Amelia, my former officers Ale and Tania, and seven former interns and a few dear friends. As for the meeting with the Speaker, I had a quick chat on the Parliamentary Services Act and re-iterated my request for his assistance to send a senior clerk to help rebuild good Parliamentary practices and an independent culture. Another highlight for me was to visit my friend, Ben Bland at Chatham House, where we discussed geo-politics.

As for my recent trip, just last week to the Thai Parliament, I was there for two nights and two days. This was a full-on international conference on human rights and the Myanmar civil war.

I am very happy to have attended this as I met many politicians, activists, experts, technocrats and reporters. I am most happy when I attend something and learn new things. I learnt so much more about Myanmar in those two days than the last four years since the coup d’etat. I gave a speech, was on a panel and also was invited to do a podcast. I caught up with my dear friend, Khun Kasit and made several new friends including Joah and Min Zin.

Since Malaysia is ASEAN chair this year and I am the chairman for my PSSC and also the chairman of the Malaysian chapter for ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR), I have taken upon myself to put in a lot more effort in helping to find a path for peace in Myanmar this year. This matter has become even more urgent in view of the catastrophic earthquake that struck Mandalay, just two days ago.

Lastly, I will be going to Uzbekistan next week for a big IPU conference. I will be attending as an IPU member of the Working Group on Science and Technology. I will be speaking on the subject matter of AI and Data Centres, with updates on Malaysia’s current foothold on both.

However, there are many more worrying geo-political things in the horizon, from the wobbly peace process in Gaza and Ukraine, and the disruptive Trump tariffs on international trade. Things can turn dicey very quickly for the world. The IPU will be an opportunity to catch up with global parliamentarians and share perspectives on what next and how to deal with the new geo-politics.