In a 'dawn raid' on the London Stock Exchange on 7 September 1981, the premiere British rubber and oil palm conglomerate in Malaysia, the Guthrie Corporation Limited, was taken into local control in less than four hours. This was the most dramatic Malaysian acquisition of a foreign company during the restructuring of the country’s post-colonial economy during the 1970s and 1980s, and the Guthrie Dawn Raid remains a celebrated but, at the same time, contested juncture in contemporary Malaysian memory. Drawing upon a variety of sources — including original interviews and correspondence with key participants in, and observers of, the Guthrie Dawn Raid, as well as newly released British documents related to the Anglo-Malaysian events of September 1981 — this article presents a new interpretation of the origins of this most iconic of Malaysian corporate takeovers. In particular, it stresses the long-term aspirations of a key (but often overlooked) figure within the late and post-colonial Malay bureaucratic and economic elite, Ismail Mohamed Ali. At the same time, the article emphasizes the specific requirements of Malaysia’s New Economic Policy against the backdrop of burgeoning intra-Malaysian ethnic business competition.
Nitrofurantoin, a broad-spectrum antibiotic available since 1953, is used widely for the treatment of urinary tract infections as it often retains activity against drug-resistant uropathogens. It is contraindicated in pregnant women at term, and in neonates. Like trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, nitrofurantoin carries a warning for patients with known sensitivity to oxidant drugs, notably glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency, in whom it may cause haemolytic anaemia. This is a barrier to uptake in tropical regions where there is a high burden of antimicrobial resistance and where G6PD deficiency is common. Early studies of erythrocyte survival following nitrofurantoin suggest it is less likely to cause oxidant haemolysis in individuals with G6PD deficiency than primaquine. Here we review reports of haemolysis associated with nitrofurantoin from the published literature and from USA (FDA Adverse Event Reporting System; FAERS) and European (VigiBase) pharmacovigilance databases. In total, 318 episodes of haemolytic anaemia were reported and 10 deaths, with 42 (13%) in individuals with confirmed or highly probable G6PD deficiency, out of at least 245 million exposures. A causal link between death and exposure was not reported and a precise risk estimation in G6PD-deficient individuals was not possible as there are few reports from regions where this enzymopathy is most prevalent. The evidence suggests a total daily dose of 200 mg nitrofurantoin may be used for short (3–5 day) course urinary tract infection treatment without G6PD screening when accompanied by appropriate advice. Pharmacovigilance in countries with high prevalence of G6PD-deficiency is recommended to monitor for serious adverse events.
The term ‘crony capitalism’ describes the close relationship between the state and big business in contemporary Southeast Asia. Yoshihara argued in 1988 that cronyism produced an entrepreneurially weak, ersatz capitalism. Crony capitalists were ‘private-sector businessmen who benefit[ed] enormously from close relations’ with leading officials and politicians, obtaining ‘not only protection from foreign competition, but also concessions, licences, monopoly rights, and government subsidies’. Yoshihara's thesis has been subject to some criticism, but, in summarizing that debate, Ian Brown states that ‘there are…substantial areas of the South-East Asian political-economic landscape where government and business remain bound to the protection of inefficient vested interest, to the defence of monopoly and preference, and where speculations and short-term profit-taking are rife’. Entrepreneurial weaknesses in Southeast Asia appeared fully exposed by the financial crisis of 1997, when the economies of the region could not withstand the cruel buffetings of the international economy.
No abstract is provided for this article.
From November 1991 to November 1992 a prospective, descriptive study of malaria epidemiology was conducted in a Karen population on the western border of Thailand. Two study groups were selected at random and more than 80% of the subjects were followed for one year. In Group 1, comprising 249 schoolchildren (aged 4–15 years), daily surveillance for illness was combined with fortnightly malaria surveys. These children experienced 1·5 parasitaemic infections per child-year (95% confidence interval [CI] 1·3–1·7), of which 68% () were symptomatic (Plasmodium falciparum 84%, P. vivax 57%). The estimated pyrogenic densities were 1460/μL for P. falciparum and 181/μL for P. vivax. In Group 2, comprising subjects of all age from 428 households, malaria was diagnosed during two-monthly surveys, at weekly home visits, and otherwise by passive case detection. Malaria and splenomegaly prevalence rates were low in all age groups (spleen index 2–9%; P. falciparum prevalence rate 1–4%; P. vivax 1–6%). Group 2 subjects had 1·0 infections per person-year (95% CI 0·9–1·1), most of which were symptomatic (; 87%). Malaria infections clustered in households. Overall, P. vivax caused 53% and P. falciparum 37% of the infections (10% were mixed), but whereas P. vivax was most common in young children, with a decline in incidence with increasing age, P. falciparum incidence rates rose with age to a peak incidence between 20 and 29 years, although the risk of developing a severe malaria decreased with increasing age. There was no death from malaria during the study. P. falciparum infections were more common in males, subjects with a history of malaria before the study, and in those who had travelled outside their village. These findings suggest a higher transmission rate for P. vivax than P. falciparum, although adults still suffered symptomatic malaria due to both species. The 2 malaria parasites found in this area contribute approximately 50% of infections each, but their clinical epidemiology is very different.
Flexible vocal production has been demonstrated in several vertebrate species, with much work focusing on the role of the social "audience" in explaining variation in call production. It is, however, likely that the decision to call is an emergent property of both external and internal factors, and the extent to which these factors are integrated has been little investigated. We addressed this question by examining the production of alarm calls in wild male meerkats (Suricata suricatta) in different social environments and different predator-encounter contexts. Males searching for reproductive opportunities (rovers) were followed 1) in their home group and when prospecting either 2) solitarily or 3) in a coalition with other males. Results showed that conspecific presence influenced the production of flee-alarm and recruitment calls. Solitary rovers were less likely to produce flee-alarm calls compared with when they are with conspecifics, whether coalitionary rovers or the rover's home group. Experimentally elicited recruitment calls were also produced less when males were solitary than when in their home group. Bark vocalizations, emitted when meerkats were safe, were always produced irrespective of conspecific presence, indicating that these calls function to address predators. The probability of producing flee alarms also increased with the urgency of the predation event. Our results indicate that variation in alarm call production depends on whom the call is addressed to and also on the motivational state of the caller. We argue that neglecting to integrate internal and external factors when elucidating mechanisms underlying vocal production can potentially lead to misguided, parsimonious conclusions regarding vocal flexibility in animals.
No abstract is provided for this article.
