☕️ PSA: No pay JPJ summons, no license renewal

1. MARKET SUMMARY 📈

2. NUMBERS AT A GLANCE 🔢

According to the UN World Meteorological Organization, weather, water, and climate-related hazards have killed over 2 mil people, with 90% of the deaths occurring in developing countries. This is part of the reason UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged countries to implement disaster warning systems to protect people against extreme weather. Such Early Warning Systems would allow for safe evacuation and damage prevention measures. Even a 24-hour notice can reduce damage by up to 30%.

What is the price of a presidential pardon? Apparently, it’s USD740,000 (RM3.1 mil). Former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao was pardoned by US President Donald Trump after an extensive and expensive lobbying campaign. The campaign saw Trump-linked lobbyists receive USD450,000 through Checkmate Government Relations, a firm that belongs to a close associate of Donald Trump, Jr., with a further USD290,000 going to Trump-connected crypto lawyer Teresa Goody Guillén. The lawyer was retained by Binance and Zhao, and has earned USD290,000 from them alone.

An ex-employee of Apple auctioned off his one of his old business cards to raise funds for a charity he was supporting. He raised over USD2,500 (RM10,457) from the auction. But why would people offer so much for an old name card? It’s because of the ex-employee’s name. Sam Sung had just started his job at an Apple retail store in Vancouver when he went viral as Sam Sung working for Apple, with press and people calling in just to see if such a person actually worked at the store. He has since changed his name to Sam Struan, though there are still people who save his name as Sam Sung in their phones, such as his sister.

3. IN MALAYSIA 🇲🇾

Pushing ahead with the “Made by Malaysia” agenda
PM Anwar Ibrahim just launched the second integrated circuit (IC) design park in Cyberjaya, dubbed the Malaysia Semiconductor IC Design Park 2. The first IC design park launched in Puchong in August last year has already housed more than 200 engineers from 14 semiconductor companies and is expected to expand to 400 engineers soon. Spanning 75,000 square feet, the Puchong facility is the largest IC design park in Southeast Asia. Space limitations in Puchong prompted the Selangor state government to launch this second IC design park. Another special thing about the Cyberjaya facility is that it also houses the Advanced Chip Testing Centre, the first world-class chip testing facility in the region. The Advanced Semiconductor Malaysia Academy (ASEM), an advanced training hub aimed at producing 20,000 semiconductor engineers over the next 10 years, will also be a part of the Cyberjaya hub. The “Made by Malaysia” agenda is a new economic policy to transform the country’s role in the global economy by moving beyond contract manufacturing for multinationals to an approach that would create Malaysian multinationals with technological innovation. One key aim under the “Made by Malaysia” agenda is for Malaysia to design its own semiconductor chip.

Never-ending corruption
Bankers charged with bribery
The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) will charge 49 individuals, comprising current and former officers of banking institutions, who are suspected of receiving bribes from several law firms. The acts of corruption were uncovered by MACC’s Op Tiger in 2024. The suspects were believed to be receiving commissions or fees from law firms to appoint them to handle financing agreement documents for customers who applied for loans, with fees paid before the customers’ loan transactions were completed. The total amount of bribes is believed to be nearly RM700,000.

Malaysia’s Bonnie and Clyde
The authorities experienced an iceberg moment after a husband-and-wife duo was nabbed. At first they were believed to be involved in a ‘counter setting’ syndicate for smuggling foreign nationals, but the vice actually runs deeper, with the duo’s network even connected to the Malaysian Labour Recalibration Programme (RTK). The RTK is a special Immigration Department initiative that allows employers to legalise overstaying foreign nationals and undocumented workers. The RTK programme was apparently saddled with corruption at every layer, as immigration officers allegedly often gave various excuses to push employers toward hiring agents to obtain approvals, where the agents will ask for a fee for practically everything under the sun, with some of the fee siphoned to the immigration officers. “Players” within the whole immigration corruption scene stated that the RTK syndicate was far more profitable than “counter settings” and “fly” (exit-entry record manipulation) schemes. To make RM1 mil, one might need a year doing counter settings. With RTK, RM1 mil could be made in three months. Crazy.
Learn: Who is Bonnie and Clyde?

Shorts

1. Hong Thai Inhaler banned in Malaysia

   The Health Ministry has now banned the unregistered popular Thai herbal medicine dubbed the “Hong Thai Inhaler” after a recall in Thailand due to contamination with harmful bacteria. The sale and possession of unregistered medicines is an offence under Regulation 7(1)(a) of the Control of Drugs and Cosmetics Regulations 1984, and is punishable under Section 12 of the Sale of Drugs Act 1952. Upon conviction, individuals may be fined up to RM25,000 or imprisoned for up to three years, while companies may face fines of up to RM50,000.

2. Vaping is a menace to society

   The Health Ministry revealed that the cost of treating e-cigarette or Vaping Product Use-Associated Lung Injury (EVALI) cases is higher than the revenue collected from the excise duties from smoking products. The excise duty, at a rate of 40 sen per millilitre, has generated a total revenue of RM209.5 mil for the government between April 2023 to August 2025. However, this figure is lower than the estimated cost of treating EVALI patients, which amounted to RM223.5 mil in 2024, with an average treatment cost per patient of RM150,892 and an average hospital stay of 12 days. The ministry has recorded 46 EVALI cases since 2019.

3. No pay JPJ summons, no license renewal

   Transport Minister Anthony Loke issued a warning to motorists to settle their unpaid Road Transport Department (JPJ) summonses by January 1 to avoid being blacklisted, which would prevent vehicle owners from renewing their motor vehicle licences. At the moment, there are more than 5.5 mil unpaid JPJ summonses nationwide. However, the government is still handing out the carrot before the stick. From November 1 until December 30, all compoundable JPJ summonses will be eligible for a 50% discount under an amnesty initiative to encourage payment before the new year.

4. AROUND THE WORLD 🌎

Louvre heist: Suspect is a socmed star, “deafening wake-up call” on security
Another suspect of the spectacular USD102 mil (RM426 mil) Louvre heist on Oct 19 has been arrested, and he is said to be a minor social media star with a passion for motorbikes. He also reportedly worked for the logistics firm UPS, Toys R Us, and as a security guard at the Pompidou Centre art museum. Identified as Abdoulaye N, 39, the suspect now faces charges of organised theft and criminal conspiracy. Four suspects are in custody in relation to the theft, including three thought to have been members of the gang who used a stolen truck with an extendable ladder and freight lift to reach the first-floor window of the museum’s Apollo gallery. The brazen daylight heist lasted less than seven minutes from start to finish. They fled with eight pieces, including an emerald and diamond necklace that Napoleon I gave to his second wife, Marie Louise, and a diadem set with 212 pearls and nearly 2,000 diamonds that once belonged to the wife of Napoleon III. Investigators working on the case have still not recovered the stolen jewels.

Meanwhile, the head of France’s highest audit institution said that the heist was a “deafening wake-up call” for museum security, where upgrades to security at the world-renowned museum have been moving at a “woefully inadequate pace”. The Court of Auditors’ report examines the museum’s management between 2018 and 2024 following the heist, and concluded that the management made investment decisions “at the expense of the maintenance and renovation of buildings and technical facilities, particularly those related to safety and security”. Oops. The Louvre’s management said it accepted “most” of the audit body’s recommendations, while maintaining that the report failed to recognise some of its actions on security.

Business
Apple will pay Google roughly USD1 bil a year for Siri AI model
Apple is reportedly going to use Google to help rebuild Siri’s underlying technology, setting the stage for a new slate of features in 2026. After an extensive evaluation period, the two companies are now finalising an agreement that would see Apple pay roughly USD1 bil (RM4.2 bil) annually for access to Google’s technology. The Google AI model’s 1.2 trillion parameters, a measure of the AI software’s complexity, would dwarf the level of Apple’s current models. It will run on Apple’s own Private Cloud Compute servers, ensuring that user data remains walled off from Google’s infrastructure. While the partnership is substantial, it is unlikely to be promoted publicly, and Apple will treat Google as a behind-the-scenes technology supplier instead. Apple hopes that it will be an interim solution until its own AI models are powerful enough. USD1 bil sounds a lot, but in some ways, it’s Google paying themselves - sorta. Google pays Apple about USD20 bil a year in return for making Google’s search engine the default option on Apple devices.

A quick understanding of how LLM and parameters work:

Qatar Airways sells entire Cathay Pacific stake for USD897 mil
Qatar Airways has decided to sell its entire stake in Cathay Pacific Airways for about USD897 mil after 8 years, marking a complete exit from Hong Kong’s flagship airline. It was the third-largest shareholder in Cathay after Swire Pacific and Air China. The move is part of the Middle Eastern airline’s plan to optimise investments and position itself for long-term growth. Qatar Airways has pursued a strategy of investing in airlines worldwide to strengthen its competitive position, including in British Airways parent IAG, South American carrier LATAM and Virgin Australia. Nevertheless, Cathay and Qatar Airways said they would continue their partnership through the oneworld Alliance.

Shorts:

1. Mexican president groped as she attends to citizens on the street
   No woman is immune to sexual harassment in Mexico, not even President Claudia Sheinbaum. Sheinbaum was groped by a man as she mingled with citizens on the streets of Mexico City on Tuesday, highlighting not only the broad security risk she faces on the street, but also the reality of the level of sexual harassment the country’s women face. The man has been arrested and Sheinbaum will be pressing charges on the man. She said “If I do not file a complaint, where does that leave all Mexican women?”. Watch the incident here.

2. Indonesian activists rally in Jakarta against Suharto’s national hero bid
   Activists in Indonesia are demanding the government cancel a plan to grant late authoritarian leader Suharto the status of national hero, an award given every year on Nov 10 to those considered to have made a significant contribution to the country. It’s understandable, as Indonesia faced decades of repressive rule under Suharto for 32 years, where historians say at least 500,000 people were killed from late 1965 after he took power following an abortive communist coup. Suharto was a key military commander at the time. Suharto was also current president Prabowo’s former father-in-law, whom Prabowo openly praises. The current president has a tendency to turn to the military to pursue his agendas as well.

3. Typhoon Kalmaegi bears down on Vietnam
   Typhoon Kalmaegi battered the Philippines yesterday, killing at least 142 people and leaving more than 500,000 people displaced in its wake. 127 people were still missing at the time of writing. The worst may also be yet to come with Kalmaegi, as meteorologists reported that the storm had regained strength as it bears down on Vietnam’s central regions. Vietnamese authorities began mobilising thousands of soldiers to assist in the evacuation of some 260,000 people in the central highland province of Gia Lai and issued warnings to airports likely to be affected. Ever wonder what the difference is between typhoons, cyclones, and hurricanes? Learn here.

5. FOR YOUR EYES 📺

1. AI bubble?

2. Your weekend entertainment - 75 minutes of jam-packetd comedy by Dr Jason Leong. This section here on how Asian superheroes have to work harder than Western superheroes is f-ing hilarious.

3. Another entertainment - ego-mopping. Vladimir Shmondenko, is a professional Ukrainian powerlifter who has gained his fame from his alter ego, Anatoly, a cleaner in a gym. Vladimir doesn’t look his size, given his strength and he humbles those gym bros.