- Edward R Murrow

COMMENT | Around this time, I usually put forward my own top news story and newsmaker of the year.

This year, however, for me at least, the top news story is the flood and how the aftermath was badly mismanaged but more importantly, the ordinary Malaysians who come out to help their brethren in this time of crisis.

When it comes to the situation in Selangor, for instance, what we have seen is total incompetency and blame-shifting from the people who always claimed to be the better choice or “the lesser of two evils” – the common speak of partisans.

Meanwhile, the federal government’s response borders, I believe, on the criminally negligent.

This flood has exposed not only the systemic dysfunction of a federal bureaucracy that only exists to sustain the hegemonic interests of...