☕️ Kedah flood: PM Anwar to the rescue whilst its Menteri Besar in Japan for official visit

1. MARKET SUMMARY 📈

MYR is going up, up, up vs the USD — it’s at a 28-month high and has appreciated 12.67% against the greenback in the past 6 months.

2. NUMBERS AT A GLANCE 🔢

According to the National Property Information Centre's (Napic) Property Market 1H2024 Report, a total of 22,642 overhang units worth RM14.24 bil were recorded in the first half of 2024. The residential overhang situation has shown improvement, with the volume and value of unsold units reducing by 12.3% and 19.5%, respectively. This is a positive change compared to 25,816 overhang units valued at RM17.68 billion in the second half of 2023. Condominiums and apartments made up almost 60% (13,535 units) of the total unsold homes in the country. Terraced houses made up another 24.4% (5,524 units).

The number of crypto millionaires surged 95% in the past year, driven by the rise of bitcoin ETFs and other crypto assets, according to a report from New World Wealth and Henley & Partners. The global population of individuals holding over USD1 mil in crypto assets has grown to 172,300, up from 88,200 last year. The number of bitcoin-only millionaires more than doubled to 85,400. The report also highlights growth at the higher end, with 325 crypto centi-millionaires and 28 crypto billionaires now in existence. For the third year in a row, Forbes says that Changpeng Zhao, the founder and former CEO of Binance, is the richest crypto billionaire. He is worth about USD33 bil - currently, the richest prisoner in the US.

In January, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai revealed that paid subscriptions were generating USD15 bil annually, a fivefold increase since 2019, with most of the revenue coming from YouTube. Over the past three quarters, revenue growth in Google's "subscriptions, platforms, and devices" segment has outpaced Search growth, according to Business Insider. To further drive the subscription segment growth, in early September, Google announced the return of its Gemini AI chatbot's ability to generate pictures of people, a feature paused due to backlash. Users can also customise their own chatbots, but these features come at a cost — USD19.99 per month. Recently, YouTube has announced a price hike for YouTube Premium in Malaysia from November 11, 2024, onwards.

3. IN MALAYSIA 🇲🇾

Forest City Special Financial Zone will soon be running, at the expense of taxpayers
Finance Minister II Amir Hamzah Azizan announced that Forest City will be the first test bed for the 0% tax rate for family offices, or private asset management firms that serve wealthy individuals and their families. This initiative is expected to be operational by the first quarter of 2025. Another initiative announced by Amir Hamzah is the special 5% tax rate for financial technology and foreign payment system operators. What is mentioned above is among the menu of ‘temptations’ to revive the USD100 bil Forest City development project, a joint venture between Country Garden and a private Malaysian company backed by the country’s king, Sultan Ibrahim. While the ultra T20s pay disproportionately lower tax, the M40s and B40s are taxed at every turn.

On a related matter, Juwai IQI co-founder and group CEO Kashif Ansari stated that the set of incentives announced for Forest City is set to increase home sales by 20%. At the moment, Forest City which is developed to house 700,000 inhabitants, can only attract about 2,000 residents, a measly 0.3% occupancy rate.

PM Anwar came to the rescue for Kedahans
PM Anwar Ibrahim, in his visit to the temporary flood evacuation centre in Kedah, pledged RM13 mil for post-flood assistance in Kedah, in the form of aid, cleaning efforts, and the repair of infrastructure damaged by the disaster. However, is it enough? According to Agriculture Minister Mohamad Sabu, the expected damage towards the 5,822 hectares of padi fields alone will lead to a revenue loss of RM32 mil in rice yields. Mohamad Sabu said apart from the RM13 mil announced by PM Anwar, padi farmers will receive aid from the Padi Crop Disaster Fund (TBTP) and Agricultural Disaster Fund (TBP), while AgroBank will also provide loan payments moratorium to the farmers.

In the groove of Taufik Batisah, some may ask - Sanusi kat mana, Sanusi kat mana? According to the Kedah Menteri Besar’s Office, Kedah Menteri Besar Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor is on a holiday official visit to Japan. The visit is meant to study underground dam management in the region, tied to a project in Langkawi to tap underground water reserves. While Sanusi is studying ways to tap water reserves, some part of his state is literally underwater. As of Friday, the number of flood victims in Kedah is at 6,087 people from 1,942 families.

Sarawak is on a spending spree

1. New international airport — Sarawak Premier Abang Johari Tun Openg announced that the state government will initiate the project to construct the Kuching International Airport which will accommodate 15 mil passengers per annum. The new airport will take inspiration from Qatar’s Doha International Airport.

2. New Performing Arts Centre — Abang Johari also said that an RM300 mil budget has been put aside to transform the old Sarawak Legislative Assembly (DUN) building into a world-class Performing Arts Centre. London’s Royal Albert Hall will be used as the point of reference in the development of the Performing Arts Centre.

3. New piping systems — Sarawak Ministry of Utility Julaihi Narawi announced that the state government will fork out RM1.083 bil to replace and upgrade 2,743 kilometres of piping systems statewide. The project will be funded entirely by the state and it will take five years to complete all the work. In 2024 alone, RM247 mil will be allocated for the project.

In an unrelated matter, Petronas's spat with Sarawak’s Petros may have unintended consequences as Malaysia, the world’s fifth-biggest LNG exporter and Asia’s biggest, may turn from a net exporter to a net importer of liquified natural gas (LNG) in order to meet the future energy demands of the country. This matter is revealed by Natural Resources Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, as the country is moving away from coal to supply its electricity. At the moment, about 80% of our electricity is generated from fossil fuels, with plans to retire all coal-fired power plants by 2044. Supposedly, the absence of coal will be replaced by natural gas or other renewable resources, to power our homes and industries. This is because as of 2021, Malaysia has around 76 tril cubic feet of natural gas reserves, where 60% of it is in Sarawak (2021). According to the Malaysian Gas Association, our gas reserves should last for at least another 36 years. Statistically, we still have energy security but, why Putrajaya has already started to ring the alarm bells? Our guess is as good as yours.

More dirt on GISB
The pandora boxes of vices from Global Ikhwan Services and Business (GISB) Holdings are never-ending as the police have detained another 155 individuals allegedly involved in child abuse at GISB-linked welfare homes. The arrest on Saturday took place across 82 locations in Peninsula Malaysia. A total of 186 victims, including children, were rescued in the operation. An interesting fact related to GISB is that the CEO of GISB, Nasiruddin Mohd Ali has a total of 26 children, the fruits from his marriages to four wives. Man maxed out quota.

No more end-of-the-year overseas trips for public servants
PM Anwar Ibrahim has cancelled the overseas trip for 68 government officials to Berlin, Germany even though hotel and air ticket had been arranged, as part of Putrajaya’s whole-of-government austerity measures and to clamp down on excessive public spending. Moving forward, PM Anwar stated that all new projects and overseas trips must be referred to the secretary-general or director and be approved by ministers. He also said that it is even better to align all overseas trips with the PM’s visit to any particular country in order to save costs.

4. AROUND THE WORLD 🌎

Barberic Israeli soldiers pushing bodies off building roof, AlJazeera office issued 45-day closure order
Israel has raided the occupied West Bank town of Qabatiya, with video footage capturing barbaric acts of soldiers pushing apparently lifeless individuals off the rooftop (NSFW - watch here). The building is believed to have been earlier surrounded and attacked with anti-tank rifle grenades. Under international law, soldiers are supposed to ensure that bodies, including those of enemy fighters, are treated decently. Israel has long abandoned the sanctity of humanity.

The military stormed Qabatiya on Thursday, backed by bulldozers, fighter jets and drones in an hours-long assault. 7 people had been confirmed killed. Israel also bombed a vehicle near a commercial complex that killed 2 young men, and 11 were injured by live bullets. At least 1,000 children were barricaded in two schools and a kindergarten.

Meanwhile, in another raid, the office of Al-Jazeera in the West Bank has been issued a 45-day closure order without any apparent reason, four months after banning the channel from operating inside Israel. More than 600 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since Oct 7. It is the deadliest year since the UN began tracking casualties in 2005. West Bank is not even at war and there is no Hamas in the West Bank.

9-figure white collar crime series

• Singaporean man charged in USD230 mil cryptocurrency theft, laundering
  Young and dangerous - a pair of young men, 20 year-old Singaporean Malone Lam who is living in the US, and 21 year-old Jeandiel Serrano from LA, were among two people charged on Thursday with conspiring to steal and launder USD 230 mil in cryptocurrency. They were accused of fraudulently obtaining over 4,100 Bitcoin that was equivalent to the said figure. Lam and Serrano allegedly stole the bitcoin from a single victim and launder them through various exchanges and mixing services like “peel chains”, pass-through wallets, and virtual private networks (VPNs) to mask their true identities. They then allegedly spent it on travel, nightclubs, luxury automobiles, watches, jewellery, designer handbags and rental homes in Los Angeles and Miami.

• Bangladesh minister spent more than USD500 mil on luxury property, suspected of money laundering
  Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit (I-Unit) has revealed in its recent investigation that Bangladesh’s former Land Minister Saifuzzaman Chowdhury spent more than USD500 mil on luxury real estate in London, Dubai, and New York but never declared his overseas assets on his Bangladesh tax returns. This enabled him to amass a property empire despite a USD120,00 annual limit as part of Bangladesh’s currency laws on the amount a citizen can take out of the country. Authorities in Bangladesh have frozen his bank accounts and are now investigating claims Chowdhury laundered millions of dollars into the UK. He was a close ally of removed PM Sheikh Hasina who fled Bangladesh in August.

Fussy eater? Blame genetics, science says
Fussy eater is a quite common vocabulary in the parental book. Interestingly, a recent study published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (view research here) has found out that it's not really the parents to blame, but rather more of genetic influence.

The UK study was conducted on pairs of identical and non-identical fussy-eating twins to see how much fussy eating is due to genetics and how much is due to the environment. They found out that identical twins were much more similar in terms of how fussy or adventurous they were with food than non-identical ones - suggesting a strong genetic component.

Lead author Dr Zeynep Nas said that she hoped these findings would help to alleviate “parental blame” which could be a major source of anxiety for parents and caregivers. 

Meanwhile, researchers believe that these techniques do help with fussy eating:

• Continue to offer a wide variety of food

• Offering food regularly that children may have rejected before, in a calm setting and not necessarily main mealtimes

• Sitting down to eat with children and trying not to get too stressed

Shorts

1. China will gradually start importing seafood from Japan again

   A year ago, China was one of the harshest to criticise Japan after nuclear energy operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) started releasing treated water from the Fukushima plant into the Pacific Ocean in August 2023, they even imposed a ban on seafood imports from the island nation. However on Friday, both countries announced that they have finally reached a consensus in August over the wastewater release. China will begin to adjust the relevant measures based on scientific evidence and gradually resume imports of Japanese aquatic products, while Japan commits to meeting the regulation requirements and standards and carry out additional monitoring of the water.

2. AI 'godfather' Yoshua Bengio worries about the deceptive new OpenAI model

   “Better at scheming, reasoning and also deceiving” - that’s what made AI expert nicknamed AI Godfather Yoshua Bengio nervous when talking about the new Skynet OpenAI o1 model. OpenAI recently released o1, which is designed to think more like humans but so far they have not disclosed details about its "learning" process.

   Bengio has expressed concern about the rapid development of AI and has advocated for legislative safety measures in AI technology. He stressed that much stronger safety tests are needed to evaluate that risk and its consequences in o1's case.
   In a piece of unrelated news, watch here a wanted man vs bomb squad robot - the man didn’t stand a chance.

5. FOR YOUR EYES 📺

1. Nike got a new CEO Elliot Hill who started out as the company’s intern in 1988. Evidence that loyalty pays off — but how many will be so fortunate? There are only 500 Fortune companies, with probably more than 500 interns each on average. The odds of becoming a CEO after showing 30 years of loyalty is 0.2%, it’s probably better than most.

2. All I Want For Christmas Is…

3. Towards a healthier Malaysia and proper practice of what halal vs haram is by fatwa, not by one’s personal liking/definition (aka syiok sendiri). Some funny comments: “setan jugak you mengajar rakyat Malaysia”. Image within the thread.