Perlis

At its height, his army may have numbered 8 10,000 men.

They drove north, and they took Perlis and Trang.

For a moment, it looked as if Kedah might win its freedom by force.

And what did the British do? Well, they blockaded the Kedah Coast.

He'd been absent for more than 20 years.

But what he came back to was actually a smaller kingdom, and he was still, in effect, a vassal of Siam.

The following year, Perlis in the north became a separate state with its own ruler.

Setul, further north again, stayed with Siam, and it's still part of Thailand today.

One feature of the Entente was an agreement that all lands east of the Menam River basin, in which Bangkok lies, were under French influence and all lands west of it under British influence.

France thus gained a free hand to appropriate the Siamese province of Battambang in 1907, and England to appropriate in 1909 four Malay states, Kedah, Kelantan, Trengganu, and Perlis, situated on the smaller peninsula which runs south from Siam.

England, we may as well note in this connection, had already secured the other Malay states and the island of Singapore at the tip of the peninsula, and thus gained command of one of the world's greatest waterways, the Straits of Malacca, through which passes the trade of the Far East and the East Indies.

But to return to Siam.

One feature of the Entente was an agreement that all lands east of the Manam River basin, in which Bangkok lies, were under French influence, and all lands west of it under British influence.

France thus gained a free hand to appropriate the Siamese province of Battambang in 1907, and England to appropriate in 1909 former Malay states Kedah, Kelantan, Trengganau, and Perlis, situated on the smaller peninsula which runs south from Siam.

England, we may as well note in this connection, had already secured the other Malay states and the island of Singapore at the tip of the peninsula, and thus gained the command of one of the world's greatest waterways, the Straits of Malacca, through which passes the trade of the Far East and the East Indies.

But to return to Siam.

One feature of the Entente was an agreement that all lands east of the Menam River basin, in which Bangkok lies, were under French influence, and all lands west of it under British influence.

France thus gained a free hand to appropriate the Siamese province of Battambang in 1907, and England to appropriate in 1909 former Malay states Kedah, Kelantan, Trengganau, and Perlis, situated on the smaller peninsula which runs south from Siam.

England, we may as well note in this connection, had already secured the other Malay states and the island of Singapore at the tip of the peninsula, and thus gained the command of one of the world's greatest waterways, the Straits of Malacca, through which passes the trade of the Far East and the East Indies.

But to return to Siam.

And the results are quite striking.

Tringganu and Pahang perform best, while Selangor, Malaysia's economic powerhouse, ranks second from bottom, just ahead of Perlis.

The study points to vulnerabilities including dam storage, non-revenue water, treatment capacity and fragmented governance.

So, are we using the right measures to judge Malaysia's water security? And what needs to change as growing cities, industry and climate change place even greater pressure on the system? And joining me...

It is an integrating framework.

So I should emphasize that it is not an assessment of the performance of any individual water operator or agency, but it is a research tool to understand the combined strengths and pressure of the water system at the state level.

Trengganu and Pahang came out on top, while Selangor, Malaysia's most economically important state, ranks second from bottom, just above Perlis.

What is making Selangor comparatively vulnerable?