Monday 05 May 2003 Malaysian Prime Minister returns  | The Malaysian Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad returns to work on Monday after a two month break before his planned retirement in October. It has given Malaysians a chance to assess his chosen successor Abdullah Badawi, who has been in charge in his absence. |
 Listen to the story Malaysia's leader of twenty-two years, Dr Mahathir Mohamad went on holiday for two months, and behold, the sky didn't fall on the country's collective head, but it had a good go. The deputy prime minister, Abdullah Badawi had to formulate Malaysia's response to the US-led invasion of Iraq, deal with the outbreak of the SARS virus and keep watch while the courts heard an appeal by his jailed predecessor Anwar Ibrahim. After Dr Mahathir had raised the diplomatic temperature with a series of inflammatory attacks on Washington over Iraq, Abdullah cooled things down again.
The Bush administration had reportedly been prepared to retaliate by telling US businesses to pull out of Malaysia. At the first hint of a cover-up over the spread of the SARS virus, Abdullah ordered transparency and helped prevent a loss of public confidence in the government's handling of the outbreak, but where Anwar was concerned, there was no sign that Abdullah would use his brief period in charge to forgive and forget. The court sent Anwar back to jail. The deputy prime minister's sprung no surprises. He seems to favour consolidation rather than the breakneck drive to development associated with Dr Mahathir. Above all, Abdullah hasn't got to the brink of claiming the top job by upstaging his boss. If he has anything more exciting planned, it won't be unveiled until after Dr Mahathir's planned retirement in October.
Jonathan Kent, BBC News, Kuala Lumpur. Listen to the words the sky didn’t fall on the country’s collective head nothing terrible happened to the country; there were no disasters it had a good go it had a good try; tried hard to do so formulate decide upon and express in words raised the diplomatic temperature created diplomatic tension; caused tension to increase cooled things down calmed the situation to pull out of to leave; to stop doing business with transparency a clear and full explanation of the facts breakneck very fast the brink the edge; if you are on the brink of something important you are just about to do it. upstaging receiving more attention than; if you upstage someone, you draw attention away from them by being more attractive or interesting.  Read more about this story | |  | | | SEARCH IN LEARNING ENGLISH | | | |
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