ONLY seven of the 125 proposals from the Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal Malaysian Police could not be implemented.

KUALA LUMPUR: A council to study the implementation of a minimum wage in several sectors should be set up so that locals will take up jobs currently held by foreigners, Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek suggested.

The MCA president said the time had come for the Government to fix a minimum wage as some salaries were below the poverty line.

Dr Chua said the council could comprise members from both the Government and private sector.

The 16th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit is just days away. One of the pertinent subjects that will captivate the meeting will be the evolving regional architecture and the central role of ASEAN.

The ASEAN Economic Ministers who met in February in Malaysia reiterated the importance of maintaining the organization’s centrality in East Asia by pledging to implement their economic commitments and keeping the region open to trade.

THE Asean Socio-cultural Council, which meets today, is set to formalise the establishment of a regional commission on the protection of rights of women and children, who made up more than 50 per cent of the region's population.

This will help to put an end, or at least minimise, the number of cases of child abuse, neglect and exploitation, including child prostitution, child labour, street children, abandoned children and human trafficking.

THE government had not been hasty in coming up with the Strategic Trade Bill 2010, nor was it doing it to please the United States, said Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz yesterday.

He said the bill had been in the pipeline for some time and it had nothing to do with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's visit to Washington DC soon, as claimed by some in the opposition.