☕️ TH scandal - tangkap ramps up

1. MARKET SUMMARY 📈

2. NUMBERS AT A GLANCE 🔢

9.1 mil – The population of Kuala London dropped by almost 27,000 to that amount in mid-2025, falling from the record high seen the previous year, according to new estimates released by the Office for National Statistics. This also marks the first time London’s population has dropped since the 1980s, excluding a brief exodus during the COVID-19 pandemic. London was also the only region in England to see a fall in its population last year. This outflow was driven by people leaving for other parts of the country as they are driven out by the steep cost of living in the capital. England also has levels of remote working that are still higher than other major economies, leading workers to retain London salaries while avoiding its elevated rental prices.

1,687 – The Nara Deer Preservation Foundation announced that the population of deer inhabiting Nara Park has reached that number, up 15% from the previous year. This not only marks a fifth consecutive year of growth, but also a record high. The rebound in the deer population is attributed to the return of foreign tourists to the popular spot, whose feeding of the deer has increased food availability. The abundance of food provided by tourists feeding the deer special shika senbei crackers is believed to have improved the nutritional condition of the deer, leading to more females giving birth. The deer in Nara are protected as a national natural monument, with the current population made up of 411 males, 990 females, and 286 fawns.

10 to 13 – That’s the estimated number of Malayan tigers recorded at Malaysia’s newest protected tiger landscape, marking the first population baseline for the Al-Sultan Abdullah Royal Tiger Reserve since it was gazetted in 2023. This number includes cubs and juveniles, and is indicative of active breeding within the reserve, which covers an area of 134,183ha and borders Taman Negara Pahang. The estimate is based on camera trap surveys conducted since monitoring began in 2023. According to Panthera Malaysia country director Wai Yee Lam, it takes time to establish a reliable baseline, since a tiger’s home range extends beyond a single protected area.

3. IN MALAYSIA 🇲🇾

Tabung Haji scandal continues:
Free renovations and RM8 mil contracts: The declassified Tabung Haji Royal Commission of Inquiry report has led to several arrests by the MACC. On Aug 3, MACC detained a design firm director in his 50s for allegedly providing RM300,000 worth of free renovations for four homes belonging to a statutory body’s former COO. The renovations were allegedly kickbacks intended to help the firm secure projects from the organisation between 2014 and 2018.

RM370 mil share deal: MACC’s investigation widened on Aug 4, when it arrested the former CEO and CFO of a government-linked company over the purchase of shares in two plantation companies worth RM370 mil. The former executives, aged 68 and 60, were released later that night on health grounds and ordered to return the next morning. The 60-year-old former CFO, identified as a woman, returned to MACC headquarters on Aug 5 to continue giving her statement. She was the third person called to assist with the investigation. MACC suspects both former executives of abusing their positions during the share purchase. Chief commissioner Abd Halim Aman confirmed that the case is being investigated under Section 23 of the MACC Act, which covers abuse of power.

BN prepares for Parliament: Barisan Nasional will hold a special briefing on the declassified Tabung Haji RCI report on Aug 10, ahead of a special Dewan Rakyat sitting the next day. BN chairman Zahid Hamidi is expected to chair the meeting. Leaders, senators and MPs from the coalition’s component parties have been invited. The RCI examined Tabung Haji’s management and operations between 2014 and 2020. It identified problematic investments, suspicious transactions and the concealment of information. The report also recommended a forensic audit of past investment decisions that caused a severe decline in the fund’s asset value. A special task force is now reviewing possible offences highlighted in the report, including corruption, criminal breach of trust, document forgery, abuse of power and money laundering.

Serba Dinamik - whatever that’s left of it
KPMG faces RM1.56 bil claim: Serba Dinamik Holdings Bhd and three subsidiaries have sued former auditor KPMG PLT, seeking at least RM1.56 bil in damages plus interest over alleged audit failures. The lawsuit, filed in the Shah Alam High Court, claims that KPMG failed to spot major problems in the group’s accounts between 2016 and 2019. The liquidator alleges that Serba Dinamik reported billions of ringgit in sales that did not take place. In 2018 alone, RM2.85 bil of the group’s reported RM3.28 bil revenue was allegedly overstated. The companies claim that KPMG’s audits led the group to pay large sums in dividends, finance costs and taxes based on profits that were not accurate. They argue that the problems should have been uncovered earlier, which could have prevented more debt from building up before the group collapsed. So like student blaming the teacher?

Amanah Raya seeks RM100 mil: Whilst Serba Dinamik sues KPMG, AmanahRaya Investment Management Sdn Bhd (ARIM) is suing Serba Dinamik and 12 other parties over an RM100 mil investment. The asset manager paid RM95.77 mil for Islamic commercial papers on May 24, 2021, but claims that the investment became worthless after Serba Dinamik defaulted on its debts. The lawsuit, filed on Apr 30, also names KPMG, RHB Investment Bank (RHBIB), Malaysian Rating Corporation Bhd (MARC), Malaysian Trustees Bhd (MTB) and eight other individuals who are former or current directors. ARIM claims that key information, including audit concerns raised by KPMG and a Securities Commission raid, was not disclosed before it invested. It is seeking repayment, compensation, costs and additional damages. Serba Dinamik and several other defendants say ARIM made its own investment decision, while KPMG says it was not involved in issuing the papers. Serba Dinamik was ordered to be wound up on Jan 10, 2023, and was delisted from Bursa Malaysia in June 2024.

Read: What Serba Dinamik didn’t want you to know? (2022)

DAP on Aug 18 - to stay or not to stay
DAP delegates will decide whether the party stays in the unity government until the end of the current parliamentary term. The vote will take place by secret ballot at the party’s National Congress on Aug 16. Secretary-General Anthony Loke Siew Fook said the motion will cover DAP’s continued role in the administration, including whether its representatives should remain in government. DAP is currently the largest party in PM Anwar Ibrahim’s unity government, with 40 MPs, five ministers and seven deputy ministers. The Central Executive Committee discussed the issue but chose not to take a formal position, leaving delegates free to make the final decision. Loke also made it clear that the vote only concerns DAP’s place in the federal government. Its membership in Pakatan Harapan is not part of the motion and remains unchanged for now.

4. AROUND THE WORLD 🌎

Geopolitics
Russia’s ‘Human Safari’ tactics on Ukrainian civilians
A Russian drone operator holding a controller spots a Ukrainian vegetable seller setting up shop. He or she steers it over to him, with a grenade in hand, hoping to detonate it on him. The seller’s name is Yuriy, a 52-year-old street vegetable vendor, married with a wife, who is now in a hospital bed after running for his life from the drone before he was caught in the blast. Ukraine’s President Zelensky showed this video on social media in Southern Ukraine, describing it as Russia’s ‘safari’ attacks against Ukrainian citizens. Watch incident here (warning - graphic).

A 2025 UN Report detailed that it had found Russian armed forces recurrently killing and injuring civilians by using drones to target them. Ukraine condemns it as a ‘barbaric war crime’ and says the ‘world must see this’ that ‘Russia has gone mad, and every fact that Russian soldiers are enjoying killings and tormenting people’. Russia, of course, denies that it is targeting civilians.

China retaliates with drone export restrictions
An eye for an eye. In a series of retaliatory measures, China is tightening the export nozzle for drones to the US. The Chinese Commerce Ministry refers to a US ban on foreign-made robots and power inverters and the blacklisting of more than 40 Chinese companies that are accused of using Uyghurs as forced labour. So, it is now subjecting sales of drones, their key components, and related technologies to the US to ‘strict case-by-case review’.

China is the world’s dominant manufacturer of unmanned aerial vehicles. China-based DJI holds a 70% market share in the global drone market. Aside from that, China’s Commerce Ministry also put six US entities into its sanction list, which includes Applied DNA Sciences, Stratum Reservoir, and Compliance Testing for their involvement in US sanctions. Lastly, it will conduct foreign trade national security investigations that target imported printers, copiers, and other office imaging equipment with imported software. Tit-for-tat diplomacy at its finest.

AI
The Filipino workers ‘digging their own graves’ for AI
What if you have to train an AI to do your job? You know full well that the company will probably be laying you off. That’s what’s happening to many Filipino outsourcing workers right now. Business process outsourcing (BPO) is one of the Philippines' most successful economic stories. It currently employs up to 1.9 mil people and generates about USD40 bil (RM164 bil) in revenue per year.

It accounts for about 10% of the economy. But the industry is now under threat. The industry was built up to encourage foreign firms to set up offices there with generous tax incentives introduced by the government. It was positioned as an alternative to India, considering that it is also an English-speaking country. Companies are now ‘integrating’ AI into their companies to cut costs and increase productivity, and they have started to lay off workers in the name of AI.

The International Labour Organisation estimates that 12.7 mil Filipinos, or one in four workers, are exposed to generative AI, which is the highest share in Southeast Asia. Multinational firms have promised to invest in AI capabilities and workforce training to ‘augment’ rather than replace workers. Some Filipinos are not convinced, as they are uneasy about AI and want to slow down adoption. However, the outsourcing sector is not unionised. So, their voices are probably going to be soft when the email comes to their inbox that starts with ‘We are sorry’.

OpenAI, Anthropic AI agents implicated in new security breaches
The Brits are not happy. That’s because they found an AI agent that was creating fake online identities to hack secure systems during tests of models from OpenAI and Anthropic. They were doing some tests to see their capabilities but instead found spy agents hacking into their systems. Britain’s AI Security Institute (AISI) said that ‘Some of the agents being tested had engaged in sustained, potentially harmful activity directed at real people and organisations’. 

AISI ran the challenge 122 times, identified 19 sanctioned actions, with Anthropic making up 17, and OpenAI the remaining two. One agent even wrote malicious code and created fake online identities to get a human to approve the code. AISI didn’t say who the agent was, but Anthropic said that its agent was responsible. Anthropic is working with AISI to get more details, while OpenAI is doing the same too. Luckily, there was no real-world harm, as no AI agents escaped from their containment like what one OpenAI agent did previously.

Imagine this, matter of time AI threatens a real human to serve its agenda in the physical world. It happened before last year, somewhat.

The most dangerous traits in killers — psychopathy
Candice DeLong interviews killers, a lot of them. She started as a psychiatric nurse at Northwestern University Hospital in Chicago before joining the FBI. She was 30 years old then. Two decades on, and countless interviews later, she said one trait separated the most dangerous killers from everyone else. They didn’t feel any guilt or remorse. She said, ‘I've never interviewed or studied a serial killer that was not a psychopath.’ Their detachment allows them to kill again and again to relive the ‘moment’ of killing. Some revisit scenes, while others keep souvenirs from victims. Some killers are convinced that they are innocent. But the biggest distinction comes from what happened after the first murder. If the killer gained from the first killing, the success reinforces the behaviour. And with success comes confidence. Each crime lowers the anxiety and convinces them that they can escape again. That’s a chilling thought.

5. FOR YOUR EYES 📺

1. Improve your vocab. Financially, are you impecunious?

2. The biological reasons why some like or hate the smell of durian, and why its smell travels far.

3. Rempit turns entrepreneur selling Quesillo - a Latin American dessert made purely with 100% fresh kampung eggs and milk.