☕️ "Go To Jail" card came earlier for Najib Razak

1. MARKET SUMMARY

2. NUMBERS AT A GLANCE - SPECIAL EDITION

Judgement day for Najib Razak (Najib) came early. The Federal Court upheld the guilty verdict in SRC International Sdn Bhd final appeal.

4 years, 1 month and 20 days since Najib Razak was charged at the KL Sessions Court for the SRC International Sdn Bhd case — July 1, 2018.

7 seven charges in total — one count of abuse of power with regard to the Retirement Fund Inc’s (KWAP) RM4 billion loan to SRC and three counts each of criminal breach of trust and abuse of power with regard to SRC’s funds.

9 judges were involved in the case — 1 from KL High Court, 3 from the Court of Appeal, and 5 from the Federal Court.

94 grounds of appeal were submitted by Najib’s defence team.

RM42 million went into Najib’s personal accounts from SRC International Sdn Bhd via three tranches.

Najib needs to serve 12 years of jail time and pay a hefty RM210 million fine.

The SRC International Sdn Bhd case is one of five court cases faced by Najib Razak over 1 Malaysia Development Berhad.

3. IN MALAYSIA 🇲🇾

No, we are not done with Najib’s conviction news. Here are some key moments in yesterday’s appeal hearing.

1. Najib applied for Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat to be recused on the grounds that the latter’s husband — Zamani Ibrahim — had negative sentiments towards Najib. Zamani posted about Najib being “dethroned” after the GE14. In other words, Najib thinks our Chief Justice can be impacted by the husband’s opinion. The application was dismissed — the CJ said the legal threshold of bias had not been passed.

2. Like a wild pokemon, Najib’s former lawyer of the case — Muhammad Shafee Abdullah appeared! Shafee asked for an adjournment for him to “gather his thoughts” and submit the recusal application the next day (today) because, of course, the Federal Court should follow Shafee’s timings lah. CJ did not yield to the delay tactics and denied the adjournment request. In fact, CJ chided Shafee with the following statement:

3. Najib had his final say during the appeal — he said he was desperate as he felt he was being denied a fair trial. The audacity of this man — let’s not forget he has been allowed a stay of execution, to change counsels and to travel to Singapore. He admitted to buying time by changing counsel, but his intention wasn’t to delay the hearing. In simpler terms, he dug his own grave.

4. Yesterday was also one of the most unproductive days on record in Malaysia (unofficial) as netizens were busy refreshing their Twitter feeds — thank you, Hadi Azmi of SCMP and Firdaus Azil of Astro Awani. The two have kept many Malaysians on the edge of their seats. Thrilling.

5. CJ said the defence is so inherently inconsistent it failed to raise reasonable doubt on the conviction. The Federal Court dismissed Najib’s appeal to quash his conviction and sentence in the SRC International Sdn Bhd appeal. CJ handed Najib the “Go To Jail” card in the form of a warrant of committal. Najib has been sent to the Kajang prison to serve his sentence.

6. Najib is the first former prime minister in the history of the country to be jailed — and we hope it is the only one. On another note, Najib has 14 days to file for pardon or lose his Pekan seat. According to lawyer New Sin Yew, the power to pardon can only be exercised by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong having consulted or been recommended by the Pardons Board. Pardoned or not, Najib is guilty as charged.

Commentary:

A lot of people were shunned for reporting the 1MDB scandal during Najib’s tenure as the PM. The Edge was shut down. Clare Rewcastle Brown was barred from entering the country. So many people reported on the issue — even a book was written on it, and a movie produced by Michelle Yeoh is in the works. Many people played a role in the conviction of Najib and especially those of you who voted for a change of government in 2018. So don’t forget, as election season looms, every vote counts. Make yours count.

Johor says no thank you to LBGT culture.

The state government will formulate a plan in a bid to prevent the threat of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LBGT) lifestyle in the state. The plan is to focus on young people who are being tested with such challenges.

Ahmad Zahid Hamidi wants to shore up his case — by calling 43 defence witnesses.

His defence team, in his trial over 47 alleged corruption, money laundering and criminal breach of trust offences, intended to call 20 defence witnesses, but that has now changed to 43 or more. Ahmad Zahid’s lawyers had interviewed the potential witnesses, and that witnesses would also mention other individuals. Double the number of witnesses, double the time it takes to hear the trial. Oh, the former DPM even told the court he was appointed as Home Minister from 2013 to 2018 as he “had the integrity to run the ministry”.

Another 1MDB impending — the LCS saga

The declassified forensic audit report by Boustead Heavy Industries Corp Bhd (BHIC) revealed vendors for the navy’s littoral combat ships (LCS) were chosen even before the issuance of Letter of Awards (LOAs). Overlapping letters of award (LOAs), double claims, currency conversion, undelivered items, and alleged dummy payments to companies in the LCS project could cause potential losses of RM890 mil, a figure cited by PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli almost three weeks ago.

High CPO prices during the first half of the year brought big bucks to Sime Darby Plantation Bhd.

The plantation group reported a net profit of RM812 mil for the second quarter ended June 30, 2022, a 31.6% YoY increase driven by its upstream and downstream segments and non-recurring activities. Shareholders will get an interim dividend of 10 sen per share, to be paid on Nov 18. However, the group noted prolonged labour shortage experienced in Malaysia continues to impact its production.

4. AROUND THE WORLD 🌎

Usain Bolt’s Signature Pose

Eight-time Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt is moving to trademark a logo showing his signature victory celebration pose. The world record holder for the 100m and 200m intends to use the image on items including clothing, jewellery, and shoes, as well as restaurants and sports bars, the filing shows. According to the US Patent and Trademark Office, Bolt filed his application for the trademark on 17 August.

Nord Stream 1 to shut down for maintenance, again

European natural gas prices soared on Monday after energy giant Gazprom announced that it would shut down again for maintenance. The pipeline is expected to be suspended for three days from Aug 31 to Sept 2. Gazprom said gas transmission would resume when the maintenance work is completed “provided that no malfunctions are identified”. Following the news, EURUSD dipped below parity again as energy concerns continue to plague the region.

Covid-19 could be more than just flu and coughs.

A study published in the Lancet Psychiatry suggests that COVID-19 may impact the minds of kids and adults. Researchers found that within the first two months of getting COVID-19, people were more likely to experience anxiety and depression than people who got a different type of respiratory infection. The risks of brain fog, psychosis, seizures, and dementia were also higher in the first two years. Patients infected with the delta variant were more likely to experience poor neurological and psychiatric outcomes.

After the Jewel, Singapore sets its eyes on Pandemic Proof Airport.

Singapore will start working on a fifth terminal at Changi Airport capable of adjusting capacity during a pandemic. The move comes as the city-state works to cement its place as Asia’s primary aviation hub. The terminal, which is expected to handle 50 million travellers a year, is set to be completed in the middle of the next decade. The terminal will have provisions to reduce disease transmission, including contactless systems at passenger touch-points and enhanced ventilation that can be activated during a pandemic to increase fresh air and avoid mixing air.

Dragon spreading fires causing outages.

House of Dragon caused more than 3,000 outages worldwide. The debut of the Game of Thrones prequel saw an influx of users to online streaming platform HBO Max, overwhelming the service and crashing HBO Max. Warner Bros Discovery Inc., HBO’s parent company, were aware that the issue is affecting a small portion of users connecting via Fire TV and moved to resolve it.

5. FOR YOUR EYES 👁👁

1. New composite images of Jupiter were captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, showing auroras at both of Jupiter’s poles.

2. The sound of a black hole. Spooky. The actual sound is beyond the hearing range of human - to make it audible, NASA scaled the sounds up from their true pitch to something that a human can hear — 144-288 quadrillion times higher than their original frequency. Note: 1 quadrillion = 1,000,000 billion