☕️ RCI proposes criminal investigation against Tun M on the loss of Batu Puteh

1. MARKET SUMMARY 📈

The semi-annual review of the constituents of FBM KLCI is here — Genting and Genting Malaysia are out, 99 Speed Mart Retail Holdings and Gamuda are in.

2. NUMBERS AT A GLANCE 🔢

The country saw a slew of FDI news in the past year, but what is the feeling on the ground? 78% of survey respondents expressed positive business sentiments in the Q3 2024, with 6% from domestic players, 13% from exporters, and the rest a mix of both. The outlook for the fourth quarter remains positive, with the Business Confidence Index (BCI) approaching 105 points, driven by factors like stable production, improved employment, higher wage costs, increased investments, and better capacity utilization. The report also highlighted a positive sales performance in Q3 2024, with the sales index rising by 8.9 points to 52.8, compared to the same period in 2023.
Read: Business Conditions Index Q3 2024.

9% lower depression scores were found in people aged 50 and over who frequently use the internet, according to a study published in Nature Human Behaviour. The study, which analysed the tech habits of over 87,000 adults, revealed that older adults who were online had fewer depressive symptoms and were more satisfied with their lives compared to those who weren’t. For older individuals who may be less mobile due to health restrictions, the internet offers valuable benefits, such as providing information, facilitating social networking, and helping maintain contact with family and friends.

11 mil young people will enter Africa’s labour market each year over the next decade, but the market currently creates only 3 mil new jobs annually. This creates a significant mismatch, despite the continent’s demographic trend, where three in five Africans are under the age of 25. By 2050, Africa is expected to be home to a quarter of the world’s workforce, presenting a historic opportunity for both global economic growth and local prosperity. However, this gap in job creation poses a challenge. Given the continent’s abundant natural resources, there is hope, which can create new industries and markets.

3. IN MALAYSIA 🇲🇾

How we lost Pulau Batu Puteh?
Pulau Batu Puteh a.k.a Pedra Branca is an outlying island in the Singapore Strait, that has an area of about 8,560 square meters at low tide. Although the size of the island that Singapore now owns is about one football field big, Tun Dr Mahathir recently ignorantly belittled the importance of the island, calling it ‘hanya beberapa ketul batu saiz tak sampai setengah meja’.

The recently declassified Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on Batu Puteh, Middle Rocks and South Ledge found that the decision not to proceed with the revision application on the sovereignty of Batu Puteh at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and the interpretation of the sovereignty of the South Ledge, was disputable. The RCI also concluded that former PM Tun Dr Mahathir’s action has led Malaysia to lose Batu Puteh permanently, with no avenue for appeal. The RCI chairman, former CJ Md Raus Sharif even recommended that Tun Dr Mahathir should face a criminal investigation. Below are the justifications by the RCI on why Tun Dr Mahathir is the reason we lost a piece of Malaysia to Singapore: 

1. Tun Dr Mahathir wrote a letter to then-Solicitor General Engku Nor Faizah Engku Atek, on May 21, 2018, to not proceed with the applications to the ICJ. The decision not to proceed was not discussed during the Cabinet meeting, contrary to conventional practices.

2. Tun Dr Mahathir has misled the Cabinet by stating that the act of appealing to the ICJ in regards to Batu Puteh will violate the special agreement signed with Singapore that stated — neither party can appeal the ICJ’s decision that handed Batu Puteh’s sovereignty to Singapore on May 23, 2008. However, according to the RCI, the appeal will not breach the special agreement as it is a ‘continuing process’.

3. Putrajaya’s legal advisor regarding the matter, the legal consultant firm Brendan Plant advised the Government that Malaysia had a plausible case and a credible basis for both the revision and interpretation application despite it being difficult to make. The allegation by Tun Dr Mahathir that the country has a ‘weak’ position to appeal was false.

Mahathir messed up. It is as simple as that.

Commenting on the matter, PM Anwar Ibrahim stated that the RCI revealed a weakness, or even treachery if looked at from an angle as every inch of our land must be defended at all costs. PM Anwar added that under the leadership of Dr Mahathir Mohamad, he had failed to do so. However, PM Anwar must also remember, that his wife, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail was the Deputy PM back then.

Another key figure, former Attorney General Mohamed Apandi Ali has voiced his support for the RCI’s recommendation to investigate Tun Dr Mahathir and said, “We lost Batu Puteh forever because of him (Dr Mahathir).”

Who is the winner of the second 5G network? The answer is not just U Mobile
Johor’s royal family is set to become the single largest shareholder in U Mobile after the latter’s largest shareholder, Singapore’s ST Telemedia reduced its stake in the telco company from 48.26% to 20% and sold the shares to Mawar Setia. Mawar Setia is 70:30 owned by Vincent Tan and Tunku Aminah, the daughter of the Malaysian King respectively. Combining Tunku Aminah’s effective stake in U Mobile (8.5%) and the King of Malaysia, Sultan Ibrahim’s stake, the father and daughter duo now owns 30.8% of U Mobile. No further comments.

Shorts

1. Deputy PM Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told the media that based on the forecast from the Malaysian Meteorological Department (MetMalaysia), the second wave of floods in the country will occur within the next two weeks, with states such as Pahang and Johor to be affected by this time. Sabah and Sarawak will also not be spared as floods are expected to occur from the end of this month until March next year.

2. Say bye-bye to the traditional passport as around 300,000 Malaysian bus passengers and motorcycle users will soon only need to use the MyBorderPass app for immigration clearance at the two land checkpoints in Singapore. The MyBorderPass app was chosen after three different apps were put on trial. The end game for the Johor State Government is to ensure faster and smoother clearance at the two land checkpoints using a single app.

3. PM Anwar Ibrahim has announced an RM50 mil allocation from the Federal Government for the Penang Silicon Design @5km+ initiative. The initiative consists of three key components: (1) the Penang IC Design & Digital Park @Bayan Lepas; (2) the Penang Chip Design Academy @Penang Skills Development Centre (PSDC); and (3) the Silicon Research and Incubation Space @GBS TechSpace. Previously, the Penang State Government has also set aside an initial RM60 mil for the initiative.

4. AROUND THE WORLD 🌎

Dawn of a new Syria - Bashar Al-Assad ousted
In a shocking move by the Syrian rebels yesterday, the ruling Syrian government led by President Bashar Al-Assad has now apparently ended as the opposition fighters entered capital Damascus and took over the city. Assad was reported fleeing out of the city to an unknown destination, with no sign of any army deployments from his government.

While the Syrians celebrated, PM Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali said that the government was ready to "extend its hand" to the opposition and hand over its functions to a transitional government, and called for free elections. The Syrian rebel coalition said that they are continuing work to complete the transfer of power in Syria to a transitional governing body with full executive powers.

This marks the end of a 13-year long civil war suffered by the country and its people, which has turned cities to rubble, killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced millions abroad as refugees. However, it could also cause a ripple and a new wave of regional instability in the Middle East, given the complexity of political interests within the country, from Islamists to groups with links to the US, Russia and Turkiye.

Of AI and robots

ChatGPT’s new USD200/mth subscription and deception skills

• USD200 a month ChatGPT plan: OpenAI has announced a new higher-priced paid tier for its chatbot, ChatGPT Pro option, which will cost USD200 a month and offers access to an expanded version of o1, its reasoning model that can perform human-like reasoning tasks. OpenAI previously introduced a preview of the model in September, but the new version is said to be faster and better at solving competitive mathematics and code problems. The company also offers a ChatGPT Plus subscription for USD20 a month, a tenth of the cost of the new option. All these are efforts to help offset the high costs of building cutting-edge AI models.

• The deceiving o1: Meanwhile, in a separate story, AI safety testers found that o1’s reasoning abilities also make it try to deceive human users at a higher rate compared to GPT-4o and even leading AI models from Meta, Anthropic, and Google. On several occasions, OpenAI’s o1 models “schemed” against humans, meaning the AI secretly pursued goals of its own even if they opposed a user’s wishes. o1 seemed to be scheming and exhibiting the most deceptive behaviours while at it, compared to other models. To address deceptive behavior from AI models, OpenAI says it is developing ways to monitor o1’s chain-of-thought. Remember that ChatGPT now has 300 million users, which means o1 could possibly deceive thousands of people every week if this issue remains unaddressed.

Humanoid robots could create a USD7 tril market in the next 25 years
It’s not too long until humans meet humanoids now - according to analysts at Citi Global Insights, advancement of humanoid robots could create a USD7 tril market by the year 2050. Studying the advancements of humanoid robots, the analysts also suggested that one of the most likely areas for humanoid robots to make significant progress is in home services, parcel delivery, construction and food delivery (or 3D jobs, as commonly refer to in Malaysia - dangerous, dirty, difficult). Robots that can complete chores, such as folding laundry or mowing the lawn, and those designed to help care for older adults are projected to experience significant growth.

An example of a prominent humanoid robot in development is Tesla's (TSLA) Optimus, but there are actually over 50 different humanoids being developed as we speak. However, financing the humanoids could still be a barrier, with costs for mass production expected to be expensive.

Check out Physical Intelligence, the laundry-folding robotics company (watch it in action here) that recently raised USD400 mil from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, OpenAI, Thrive Capital and Lux Capital giving it a valuation of USD2 bil. 

Shorts

1. Vietnam to ban vaping effective next year 
   The Vietnamese parliament has approved a resolution to prohibit vaping aka e-cigarettes beginning 2025, joining neighbours Thailand and Singapore who had both made the same move. Despite intense opposition from tobacco giants like British America Tobacco and Philip Morris International, the government pushed through the decision and said that it would work on rules to stop the production, importation and advertising of e-cigarettes. According to the WHO, smoking kills more than 100,000 people a year in Vietnam. Smart move, Vietnam.

2. TikTok ban in US is getting real

   Looks like the TikTok ban ruling will still eventually come to fruition on Jan 19, for now. Amid ByteDance’s ongoing fight to block the law, a three-judge panel in Washington in the federal appellate court unanimously upheld the new US law on Friday, ruling that it didn't violate free speech protections under the Constitution’s First Amendment. ByteDance is fighting on the basis that the ban tramples free-speech rights by silencing users on TikTok. The last realistic hope for the company would be an appeal to the Supreme Court stopping the ban from taking effect. More than 170 mil Americans use TikTok.

3. “Brain rot” is the word of the year

   Brain rot, or literally “brain decay” has been chosen by The Oxford University as the word of the year, based on public voting participated by 37,000 people. The phrase is a slang term that the Oxford Dictionary defines as "supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of over-consumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging." From 2023 to 2024, the frequency of use of the expression has increased by 230% since it was first used in 1854, to express concern about the consequences of excessive consumption of low-quality online content, especially on social networks

5. FOR YOUR EYES 📺

1. National Geographic Pictures of The Year is here. Check out the top 20 beauty of our world here, selected from a pool of 2.3 mil photos.

2. Pandas, for all their cuteness, how did they even survive - turning herbivores compared to their cousin bears, lack of mobility and their cyanide-rich diet (i.e. bamboo).

3. We are starting 2025 on WTF