☕️ Teen acquitted of murder on insanity

1. MARKET SUMMARY 📈

2. NUMBERS AT A GLANCE 🔢

68 – That’s how many governments the country of Italy has seen over the past 80 years, which means each government served an average of 1.18 years (about 431 days). The longest-serving premier was the late tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, who held the top spot across four terms. However, the supporters of PM Giorgia Meloni’s government can now celebrate a new record – her party now leads the country’s longest-lasting government since WWII. However, while Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party claims newfound political stability, some experts believe that a government’s longevity is not a sign of political stability, due to Italy’s fragile economy, lacklustre growth, mounting debt, and dangerous social policies against the right to protest.

223cm – That’s the height of Chinese teenage basketball player Zhang Ziyu, who towered over opponents at the Women’s World Cup. Her age? 19. Some videos of her games here. In a sport where height matters, Zhang already stands taller than NBA great Shaquille O’Neal, who stands at 216cm tall. Even the official website for the Women’s Basketball World Cup described her as “epically tall”, but off the court, she is still “just a little girl”, according to her teammate Han Xu. Both Han and US superstar Caitlin Clark believe she still has room to grow as a player, but both warn against placing too many expectations on the teen. Living proof of that Chinese saying about how there will always be a higher mountain…

199cm (19.2 hands) – A Shire horse named Hugo, who lives in Towcester, Northamptonshire, has entered the record books as the world’s tallest living horse, measuring that much from the ground to his shoulders. The previous record for the tallest and heaviest horse was held by a Shire gelding named Sampson, later renamed Mammoth, from Bedfordshire in 1850, with a height of 219cm. However, Hugo still has room to grow, as the four-year-old horse still has “three years of growing left”. Hugo is given a huge amount of care, receiving regular massages, dentist visits every six months, constant vet checks, and treatments from a chiropractor. View Hugo here.

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2. NUMBERS AT A GLANCE 🔢

68 – That’s how many governments the country of Italy has seen over the past 80 years, which means each government served an average of 1.18 years (about 431 days). The longest-serving premier was the late tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, who held the top spot across four terms. However, the supporters of PM Giorgia Meloni’s government can now celebrate a new record – her party now leads the country’s longest-lasting government since WWII. However, while Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party claims newfound political stability, some experts believe that a government’s longevity is not a sign of political stability, due to Italy’s fragile economy, lacklustre growth, mounting debt, and dangerous social policies against the right to protest.

223cm – That’s the height of Chinese teenage basketball player Zhang Ziyu, who towered over opponents at the Women’s World Cup. Her age? 19. Some videos of her games here. In a sport where height matters, Zhang already stands taller than NBA great Shaquille O’Neal, who stands at 216cm tall. Even the official website for the Women’s Basketball World Cup described her as “epically tall”, but off the court, she is still “just a little girl”, according to her teammate Han Xu. Both Han and US superstar Caitlin Clark believe she still has room to grow as a player, but both warn against placing too many expectations on the teen. Living proof of that Chinese saying about how there will always be a higher mountain…

199cm (19.2 hands) – A Shire horse named Hugo, who lives in Towcester, Northamptonshire, has entered the record books as the world’s tallest living horse, measuring that much from the ground to his shoulders. The previous record for the tallest and heaviest horse was held by a Shire gelding named Sampson, later renamed Mammoth, from Bedfordshire in 1850, with a height of 219cm. However, Hugo still has room to grow, as the four-year-old horse still has “three years of growing left”. Hugo is given a huge amount of care, receiving regular massages, dentist visits every six months, constant vet checks, and treatments from a chiropractor. View Hugo here.

3. IN MALAYSIA 🇲🇾

Judgment day for teen boy; former minister charged
Teen acquitted of murder on insanity: The 15-year-old boy accused of killing a female student at a secondary school in Bandar Utama last year has been acquitted after the High Court found that he was legally insane at the time. The teenager had been charged with murdering his schoolmate in a female student toilet. His identity remains protected because he is a minor, while the entire trial was conducted behind closed doors. Judge Adlin Abdul Majid ordered the teenager to be placed at Hospital Bahagia Ulu Kinta in Perak for a period to be approved by the Sultan of Selangor. His lawyer said the court accepted the defence under Section 84 of the Penal Code after finding that the teenager was of unsound mind when the killing took place.

The court also accepted evidence from a consultant forensic psychiatrist at Hospital Bahagia, who diagnosed the teenager with severe and aggressive schizophrenia. According to the testimony, the condition caused him to lose his sense of self, believe that he was a god and hear voices giving him instructions. The teenager will now receive treatment at Hospital Bahagia, with his lawyer saying recovery is expected to take time.

Many are upset with this ruling. But, things are not always black and white and the situation points to bigger problems, to systemic issues that the younger ones are experiencing today. Read the testimony from the defence psychiatric expert.

Jamil Khir faces three Tabung Haji charges: Nothing black and white here. In a separate case, former minister Jamil Khir Baharom has pleaded not guilty to three charges of allegedly misappropriating nearly RM861 mil in Tabung Haji property. The former Minister in the PM’s Department, who was responsible for Islamic affairs, is accused of misappropriating funds involving Saudi company Al Rawda Investment for Real Estate Development and Projects Management. The first charge involves nearly RM43 mil allegedly transferred on Apr 3. The second concerns RM288.17 mil on Dec 14, 2016, while the third involves RM529.19 mil on Aug 17, 2017. All three alleged offences are said to have taken place at Jamil Khir’s ministerial office in Putrajaya. He has claimed trial to all three charges under Section 403 of the Penal Code.

Jamil Khir was granted RM300,000 bail with one surety and surrendered his passport to the court. He had earlier been remanded over investigations into Tabung Haji’s lease of two properties, one in Makkah and another in Medina, following a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the fund. His case comes shortly after former Tabung Haji chairman Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim was charged with a separate graft offence linked to construction company Putrajaya Perdana.
Learn: What is surety?

Home fertility kits face scrutiny
Artificial insemination kits sold online are drawing scrutiny from Malaysia’s Medical Device Authority, or MDA, over concerns about safety, proper use and whether some products are legally registered. Often marketed as cheaper and more convenient alternatives to fertility treatment, the MDA warned that using them without medical supervision can bypass important health screenings and infection controls. Home insemination is different from clinical intrauterine insemination (IUI). Home kits generally place semen in the vaginal canal near the cervix, while IUI involves processed sperm being introduced directly into the uterus by a healthcare professional.

The MDA said poor hygiene, contamination or incorrect use could lead to infection, vaginal irritation, discomfort or minor injury. There is also a risk that users may delay seeking medical advice for underlying fertility issues. Furthermore, the MDA also warned sellers against offering unregistered medical devices on e-commerce platforms. Under the Medical Device Act 2012, medical devices sold in Malaysia must be registered, while advertisements must meet legal and regulatory requirements.

Registered =/= risk-free
Some home insemination products are already registered as medical devices in Malaysia. However, the MDA stressed that registration does not mean a product is completely risk-free. It means the manufacturer has demonstrated compliance with requirements covering safety, performance, risk management, quality systems, labelling and intended use.

GXBank gets RM21 mil boost for MSME lending
GXBank has secured up to USD4.95 mil (RM21 mil) in first-loss coverage from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), to support more lending to underserved micro SMEs. The bank said the partnership could support a loan portfolio of up to USD110 mil. It’s like some form of insurance, to put it simply - what this means is IFC will absorb the initial losses on eligible loans, giving GXBank more room to lend to so-called thin-file businesses that may not have strong credit histories or traditional collateral. The bank also said the arrangement could reduce the amount of risk-weighted capital needed for covered loans under Bank Negara Malaysia rules, giving it more balance sheet capacity to expand automated lending.
Learn: What is risk-weighted capital? - It’s an interesting financial concept. In short, it means each asset although equal in value, is treated or measured differently for the purpose of capital assessment.

GXBank said around 15,000 MSMEs have already opened digital accounts, with more than 5,000 loan drawdowns recorded so far. Since Mar, it has also approved RM27 mil in facilities backed by Credit Guarantee Corporation Malaysia. At the same time, the bank has raised its maximum credit limit for growing businesses to RM350,000 from RM150,000. It has also completed a proof of concept with fintech start-up Finory to automate the onboarding of micro-traders using local authority business licences, making it easier for smaller businesses to access financing digitally.

4. AROUND THE WORLD 🌎

Trump tai chis high oil prices to Zelenskyy
The art of the deal has turned into an art of distraction. Trump is now calling for Ukrainian President Zelenskyy to stop hitting Russian diesel infrastructure. The logic is that the current shortage of diesel fuel in Russia is hitting the global markets as well. As a result, Americans are now facing higher diesel fuel prices. Last Friday, diesel prices hit an all-time high of USD6.06 (RM24.51) per gallon, compared to USD3.71 per gallon a year ago. He said the increase in the price of diesel “isn’t done by the Middle East, this is done by what’s happening with Russia and Ukraine”.

However, this does not align with what’s happening in the global oil markets. Crude oil prices crossed USD100 per barrel last week, and this was due to the US-Iran conflict intensifying.

Trump might be looking to shift attention away from the conflict in the Middle East, which has not gone well. That has hurt his approval ratings in the polls as the US prepares for the mid-term election. According to The Economist, his approval rating is only at 35%, with most voters putting inflation/prices and jobs & economy as the most important issues for them.

All About SEA-blings
Six killed, 130 missing in capsized Indonesian ship heading to Banjarmasin
Tragedy again on the high seas of Indonesia. The passenger ship Virgo Transport 8, carrying 243 passengers and crew, lost contact with its operator on Sunday and was capsized en route from Surabaya to Banjarmasin, a port in Borneo. It faced rough weather on the Java Sea, and its last location was about 150 km away from Banjarmasin. View incident here.

Currently, 107 people have been rescued, with 130 missing, and six confirmed dead. Rescue operations are underway but are difficult, with 2.5-meter waves hampering the operation. There is no cause for the sinking yet, and authorities are still investigating. If you remember, there was a fire on a ferry sailing between Bali and Lombok that killed one person and left five missing last month. And in Jul, a boat carrying 74 people sank near Selayar, a small island south of Sulawesi. According to the National Transportation Safety Committee, there were 190 major maritime transport accidents between 2015 and 2025, resulting in more than 787 deaths.

Singapore considers chemical castration for sex offenders
It seems like Singapore might be considering the stick approach to sex offenders. And a very big stick too. Senior Minister K Shanmugam said that Singapore is open to considering chemical castration to tackle sex crimes if there is clear evidence that it is effective in reducing crime.

Chemical castration is a drug-based method to reduce sex hormones and suppress libido or sex drive. However, at the current stage, the evidence is inconclusive. Punishment for sex offences is heavy now, according to him, with rape or penetrative sexual assault of a minor under the age of 14 carrying a jail term of between 8 years and 20 years with a minimum of 12 strokes of the cane. Outrage of modesty against a minor under the age of 14 is punishable with up to five years’ jail, a fine and caning.

In Malaysia, experts are also now debating this. Criminologist Dr P. Sundramoorthy said that chemical castration could be considered for high-risk offenders but should not be regarded as a ‘cure’. Meanwhile, senior lawyer Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla said that Malaysia’s existing laws are sufficient to deal with sexual offences and that chemical castration is not necessary.

In South Korea, the government has enacted a law that allows the use of chemical castration on convicted paedophiles as far back as 2011. In 1952, Alan Turing (Yes, THE Alan Turing that was played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who cracked the Enigma code during World War 2) was convicted of homosexual acts and opted for chemical castration rather than prison. Two years later, he was found dead from cyanide poisoning.

Philippines’ Bangsamoro votes for first parliament
Is peace finally here? Voting is now underway in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) in southern Philippines. About 2.3 mil people are eligible to vote, with an expected 80% voter turnout. There will be 80 parliamentary seats, which, after being elected, will then appoint the region’s chief minister. This is a crucial step towards self-governance after the Muslim-majority region went through decades of rebellion and violence. Since the 1970s, about 150,000 people have died in the conflict. And lots of violence is still ongoing - shooting and bombing.

The Bangsamoro region was established under a peace deal brokered by Malaysia in 2014 where the largest Muslim rebel group (MILF - Moro Islamic Liberation Front, not the MILF you are thinking of) gave up its goal of a separate Muslim state in the south of majority Catholic country in exchange for broader autonomy. The area has been governed by former guerrilla leaders under a transition period that ends with the first regular elections on Sep 14.

Latham & Watkins going DIY for AI systems
If you can’t beat them, join them. But Latham & Watkins, a US multinational law firm, took this another way. It is now buying up Nvidia’s graphics processing unit (GPU) clusters to customise its own AI models, rather than relying on AI service providers. If you can’t beat their computing power, buy your own. In recent years, it has purchased several servers, which hold multiple GPUs. It wants to keep its clients’ sensitive data entirely within its own systems, instead of on other service providers’ cloud.

With its own GPU stacks, it can potentially run AI loads without sending clients’ data to a legal AI vendor, model provider or hyperscaler. However, this requires a lot of initial capital expenditure spending to build up the required infrastructure. Latham is the US’ second-largest law firm, which generated USD8.3 bil (RM33.6 bil) in revenue last year.

5. FOR YOUR EYES 📺

Survived, surviving, survival

1. US declassified videos of the rescue of 2 of its pilots behind enemy lines in Iran back in Apr. One of the pilots involved has gone on CBS News’s 60 Minutes programme to speak about their ordeal. Real-life movie. Sure Hollywood going to seize this opportunity. Starring Matt Damon perhaps? Full interview here.

60minutes

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2. Some survival tips. Not beneficial now, but when you somehow find yourself in this situation, comes handy. Just like insurance.

3. Survive financially - how much insurance needed? Advice from Mr Money.

Happy holiday! Survive Wednesday, see you Thursday.