benjamin - cowling, thank you for coming on the programme. monarch king abdullah has announced that anwar ibrahim will be the country's next prime minister. he made the announcement after a general election last saturday in which no parties won a majority of seats in parliament. the decision follows five days of intense negotiations over possible political coalitions. our south east asia correspondentjonathan head reports on anwar ibrahim's remarkable politicaljourney. a historic moment for malaysia and foranwar ibrahim, as he was sworn in by the yang di—pertuan agong, malaysia's king. was there ever another politician who waited so long for the top job and came so close so often? at the age of 75, mr anwar�*s appointment marks what is probably the final chapter in a remarkable political odyssey. the past five days have seen constant comings and goings at the royal palace, as the king tried to broker a deal between the various political factions. none had come close to winning a majority in last weekend's election and many of their leaders ha

well, for more on that, we earlier spoke to benjamin cowling, professor and chair of epidemiology at hong kong university. i asked him why he thought the cases are so high in china. the latest omicron subvariants are more transmissible than ever before, and i think that the measures that are being used in china are struggling to stop transmission when it happens so quickly and with such intensity, with ba5 and the latest omicron subvariants more recent than ba5. one of the reasons the chinese government says that they are keeping with this zero covid policy is to protect those who are vulnerable and are older. there also seems to be quite a bit of resistance to vaccination. why is there this reluctance to get vaccinated? there's a number of different reasons why older people particularly are less keen to get vaccinated, but i think one of the major reasons would have to be the zero covid policy. if the government continuously reassures people that there won't be a large epidemic of covid in different cities in different parts of the country, then what's the incentive for older people