Taiwan's representative to Malaysia on Friday urged the Southeast Asian country to grant Taiwanese citizens visa-free privileges as a gift to mark the 99th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China, which falls on Oct. 10.

Malaysia's reputation as a moderate, progressive Muslim nation has been sullied by a string of embarrassing news stories involving church burnings, pig heads dumped in mosques, Muslim girls caned for premarital sex and an interminable sodomy trial of a senior political figure.

Causeway Exchange, a six-day arts festival which starts next week, aims to bridge the gap between Singapore and Malaysia through mediums like film, theatre and comedy.

It is timely for Malaysia to integrate the Model United Nations (Model UN), an academic simulation of the UN, into its national school system as it could promote critical thinking among the younger generation, a UN official said.

Has the long insipid Malaysia-Singapore relations already reached the tipping point? Or is the stage already set for the two neighbouring countries to take their relationships to greater heights, establishing better ties, greater economic cooperation, and renewing business collaboration?

Forget about learning a foreign language. Or, even making Malaysia stand out. Most of our diplomacy officials attached overseas not only lack skills in public relations, but are also too shy when meeting with officials from other countries.

While here, [film director Daniel Wallentin] hopes to catch up on Malaysian films which he did not have the opportunity to watch in his country because 90 per cent of the movies screened there are from Hollywood, and only less than one per cent from Asia.

As the US capital marks the annual Cherry Blossom festival, another celebration - the Faces of 1Malaysia - took place at the National Geographic Society grounds here over the weekend. Visitors not only learnt about Malaysia’s rich diversity, some even had the opportunity to meet the Prime Minister’s wife.