☕️ PAS at it again - Hannah Yeoh, the daughter of YTL, just because of the Yeoh

1. MARKET SUMMARY 📈

2. NUMBERS AT A GLANCE 🔢

ASEAN reported 97,000 deaths and 3.4 mil injuries annually due to road safety issues, according to the international non-profit Global Road Safety Partnership. The economic impact and human costs are high, with the region losing approximately 3.8% of its GDP annually due to road traffic accidents. In Malaysia alone, the country recorded over 4,600 deaths and around 212,000 injuries annually, with motorcycles involved in approximately 70% of road deaths. One suggestion to address this issue is by reducing average speeds - a reduction of 1 km/h can have upwards of 4-5% reduction in fatalities, according to international research.

2 weekends ago, Malaysians of various communities were dreaming of winning the nation’s largest jackpot of RM121.732 mil with a small bet of RM2 per ticket. The real winner? Vincent Tan’s Berjaya Sports Toto. It is estimated that the total gross sales were approximately RM341 mil up until the jackpot was hit, of which Sports Toto took 27% (RM90 mil) of its costs. The government was also a winner, raking in RM27.28 mil in gaming tax and RM25.09 mil in pool betting duty. If you are wondering, 55% of the ticket price (i.e. RM1.10) is allocated to the prize pool. View the complete breakdown here.

Airbus delivered 766 commercial aircraft last year, 4 short of its target. Boeing has yet to announce its full-year figures, but by end-Nov, it had delivered 318 jets. This indicates Airbus has delivered about twice as many planes as its American rival. Airbus said it has a backlog of 8,658 planes while Boeing was 5,499 as of end-Nov. Supply chain issues have caused the planemakers to revise their annual delivery target lower.

3. IN MALAYSIA 🇲🇾

‘Serial defamer’ Raman Zakaria retracts and apologises for YTL daughter statement
For the second time, Perak PAS leader has been forced to retract false statements that he has made about DAP leaders. This time, his statements about Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh relating her to the YTL group, one of the largest conglomerates in Malaysia. He claimed that she was the “daughter of a rich man” and a “daughter of YTL”.

Raman proceeded to vent his frustrations on Facebook, lamenting the selective reporting by Malaysiakini (PAS is never at fault), which is what led to the virality of this controversial case. DAP lawmaker Syahredzan Johan finds it hard to grant him the benefit of the doubt, citing his previous error slandering Housing and Local Government Minister Nga Kor Ming for being involved in a procession in Teluk Intan where delegates from China allegedly waved the Chinese national flag and calling him a “serial defamer”.

This occurred right after PAS member Siti Matsura was slapped with fees due to a defamation lawsuit in the hundreds of thousands. RM825k to be exact. Johan even suggested Raman’s retracted statement and apology were only motivated by fear of yet another defamation lawsuit for a PAS member.

Update: RM70k bribery case Prolintas COO pleads not guilty at trial today
The COO for Prolintas (Projek Lintasan Kota Holdings Sdn Bhd) has pleaded not guilty to a bribery charge totalling RM70k. Rostam Sharif Tami was accused of accepting bribes in return for approving projects and work packages sourced from the Sungai Besi-Ulu Kelang Elevated Expressway (Suke) project. If convicted, the COO faces up to 20 years of imprisonment and a fine no less than five times the amount of the bribe.

The specifics of what he approved can be boiled down to his key role in approving projects for the highway concessionaire, even including expansion projects detailing construction and installations, as well as any related work under Package CA3 of the highway project.

Prolintas Infra Business Trust has also distanced themselves from the accused COO, in a statement from two Prolintas Managers. They claimed that the COO as well as the other individuals involved in the bribery charges were instead affiliated with Turnpike Synergy Sdn Bhd, and thus unrelated to Prolintas Business Trust operations.

PTPTN wants less reliance on loans and prioritises savings initiatives instead
The chairman of the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) stated today that PTPTN has introduced initiatives to reduce the public’s reliance on loans for higher education. To combat the above, PTPTN is rolling out a series of benefits to families through the National Education Savings Scheme (SImpan SSPN) by expanding the eligibility criteria for matching grants under Simpan SSPN Prime accounts.

Families with incomes between RM4k and RM6k whose children are pursuing a higher education can now apply for matching grants of up to RM5k per family over two years. The benefits for those with Simpan SSPN accounts include free takaful coverage and matching grants of up to RM10k for eligible families. They also include competitive shariah-compliant dividends and more.

Shorts

1. Federal roads to have speed limits cut from 90km/h to 80km/h for CNY
   Those intending to make the gruelling drive from KL back to their hometowns might have to watch their speed more carefully. From 28 Jan 2025 until 2 Feb, 2-25, the speed limit of federal roads nationwide will be capped at 80km/h, as compared to the usual 90km/h. Works Minister Datuk Seri Alexander Nanta Linggi claimed it was targeted towards reducing road accidents. He added that non-critical road repair and maintenance works would be halted during this period as well, to ensure smooth traffic flow.

2. Nga Kor Ming rejects the issue of alcohol sales in Muslim-majority areas
   If you’ve been keeping up with the ban on alcohol sales in Muslim-majority areas, you’ll know it’s become a clash of words, flung back and forth between MCA and Umno Youth Chief Datuk Dr Akmal Saleh. The Ministry of Housing and Local Government (KPKT) has now thrown their hat in the ring. KPKT Minister Nga Kor Ming stated that those who couldn’t drink just shouldn’t purchase the alcoholic items, while it also isn’t right to prohibit those who can drink from purchasing those same products. He asserted that this was all in the name of harmony, and urged local councils to adhere to the current and functioning status quo.

4. AROUND THE WORLD 🌎

The New AI Kid On The Block - China’s DeepSeek
Jan 20 marked the day a little-known Chinese startup DeepSeek released its flagship model R1, subsequently taking the AI world by storm as people learnt that their large language model (LLM) could match or surpass some of the capabilities of rival models built by OpenAI, Google, and Meta. Adding the cherry on top: DeepSeek appears to be able to do it at a fraction of the cost, compared to the billions of dollars the US companies had spent acquiring highly advanced chips and data to build models that can solve the same complex problems.

Interestingly, all DeepSeek had was the H800 Nvidia chips - a more “inferior” chip that has lower data transfer rates compared to Nvidia’s H100 flagship GPUs that they cannot import due to the US sanctions. DeepSeek researchers estimated that they built and trained their V3 model for under USD 6 mil.

Investors in the AI industry have been rattled ever since. Investors' confidence in Nvidia’s prospects plunged, judging from the fall of the American chip giant's shares by more than 3% last Friday. At the time of writing, the Nasdaq mini was down 1.5%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 0.4%. Dutch chipmaker ASML fell 11% after the opening bell. In Japan, Advantest, TOWA Shibaura, and Ibiden were all down at the closing bell.

Meanwhile, DeepSeek has taken the no.1 spot on Apple's free apps chart, just ahead of ChatGPT. The AI tech gap is closing, and will we be seeing more in the future now that China has taken the lead?

More AI

• ElevenLabs raised a new round at USD 3 bil valuation
  ElevenLabs, a New York startup that develops synthetic voice technology like voice cloning and dubbing tools has closed a Series C of USD 250 mil at a valuation between USD 3 bil and USD 3.3 bil. This round was said to be led by ICONIQ Growth and one of the lead investors in the company’s USD80 mil Series B in January 2024. Sources told TechCrunch that ElevenLabs was initially looking for funding at a USD 4 bil valuation, but a USD 3 bil valuation is still triple the unicorn valuation that the company landed with their Series B round. The company was founded in 2022 by Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dabkowski, who respectively previously worked at Palantir and Google.
  Check out voice samples by ElevenLabs here - sounds so…human.

• Perplexity AI proposes to merge with TikTok
  It has been reported that US search engine startup Perplexity AI has revised the merger proposal submitted earlier to ByteDance to create a new entity combining Perplexity and TikTok US, under the name NewCo. Under the proposal, ByteDance would sell TikTok US to the investors, which would give TikTok's existing investors equity in the company and subsequently call for the US government to own up to 50% of the new company upon a future IPO of a valuation of at least USD 300 bil (RM1.31 tril). Perplexity AI believes that its bid may succeed since the proposal is a merger rather than a sale.

China vs India: War of The Dams
China has recently announced a new mega-dam project over the Yarlung Zangbo River in Tibet. Costing USD137 bil, the project near the Himalayan border will help China to meet its net-zero emissions goal by 2060. However, a project of such a massive scale also comes with huge drawbacks, not only possibly displacing thousands of Chinese villagers, but also affecting neighbouring countries like India and Bangladesh which would bear the brunt of the force downstream.

But will India stay put? Apparently not. To mitigate the adverse impact of the Chinese dam project, New Delhi is currently considering the feasibility of a new hydroelectric reservoir over the Siang River (the Yarlung Zangbo changes its name as it enters Indian territory) - a USD13.2 bil Siang Upper Multipurpose Project that can hold 9 bil cubic metres of water and generate 11,000 megawatts of electricity upon completion, more than any other Indian hydroelectric project.

Only that such a solution is not so welcomed by locals. At least 20 villages will be submerged, and nearly two dozen more villages will partly drown, uprooting thousands of residents, in the name of “saving the Siang River from China”.

Is this the beginning of the Himalayan water war in the region? Climate experts are ringing the alarm that the existence of 2 giant dams in the Himalayan region with an already fragile ecosystem and a history of devastating floods and earthquakes poses serious threats to millions of people who live there and further downstream.

Shorts

1. Online blasphemy charges sent 4 men to death penalties

   Four men have been sentenced to death by the Pakistani court for posting blasphemous content online against the Prophet Muhammad PBUH and the Quran. The prosecution was brought by the Legal Commission on Blasphemy Pakistan, a “vigilante” group who scour the internet for offenders. Despite the conviction, Pakistan has never executed anyone for blasphemy as death penalties are often commuted to life in prison on appeal at the Supreme Court. Blasphemy is an incendiary charge in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where even unsubstantiated accusations can incite public outrage and lead to lynchings.

2. Saudi Arabia allows foreigners to invest in firms with property in Mecca, Medina

   Saudi Arabia's market watchdog said that it would now allow foreigners to invest in listed companies that own real estate within Islam's two holiest sites of Mecca and Medina. The move is aimed at attracting foreign capital and providing liquidity for present and future projects in the two cities, also as part of Saudi’s plan to wean their economy off oil revenues. The oil-rich country aims to welcome 30 million pilgrims for Hajj and the year-round pilgrimage of umrah annually by 2030. Official data shows that in 2019, Saudi earned about USD12 bil from the the 2 pilgrimages.

5. FOR YOUR EYES 📺

1. How fireworks work

2. The wrong red for CNY