☕️ The 1MDB-Tanore finals: Najib’s fate to be determined soon

1. MARKET SUMMARY 📈

2. NUMBERS AT A GLANCE 🔢

According to research firm Counterpoint, Apple’s iPhone 17 series has outsold the iPhone 16 series by 14% during their first 10 days of availability in the US and China, with sales of the base model iPhone 17 nearly double that of the iPhone 16 in China during the same time period. A Counterpoint analyst pointed to the value for money offerings of the base model as the reason consumers loved it. The base iPhone 17 offers a better chip, an improved display, a higher base storage, and a selfie camera upgrade, but at the same price as last year’s iPhone 16. The base model retailed in the US at USD799 (RM3,376.57).

According to OpenAI, ChatGPT gets at least 2.5 bil messages a day. This was based on active user numbers from Jul, when the chatbot had 700 mil users. The latest weekly count for users has since reached 800 mil, over 10% of the adult population. Another notable takeaway is how 70% of ChatGPT queries are actually unrelated to work. The three most common types of queries are practical guidance, seeking information, and writing help.

Did you know there are companies that will pay you up to USD50 (RM211.30) an hour for you to film yourself while doing chores like cooking dinner or folding your laundry? Sounds like a nice bit of pocket money while getting chores done. But why would a company want that kind of footage? The answer is to train robots. While AI companies like OpenAI can turn to the internet for its massive amounts of data, robots need different kinds of data to learn basic dexterity. What this means is that robots just don’t have that ready data set to draw upon.

3. IN MALAYSIA 🇲🇾

The 1MDB-Tanore finals: Najib’s fate to be determined soon
Former PM Najib Razak’s RM2.3 bil 1MDB corruption trial is in the final leg as proceedings are scheduled to run for nine days, from Oct 21 to 24 and Oct 27 to 31. The defence, led by our very own Johnnie Cochran, the infamous Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, will stage a last-ditch effort to clear his client’s name, arguing that the prosecution has failed to prove that Najib personally benefited from the alleged misappropriation of 1MDB funds. Plus, during the trial proceedings yesterday, Najib argued that several former 1MDB officials - including ex-chief executives Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi and Hazem Abdul Rahman, lawyer Jasmine Loo, CFO Azmi Tahir, and his former special officer Amhari Effendi Nazaruddin - were the actual perpetrators and directly involved in transferring and concealing billions of ringgit from the company. You can read Najib’s full written submissions here. Anyways, not entirely final final. He can still appeal.

How long has Najib been in ‘jail’ already? Since Aug 2022, initially for a 12-year term, but it was halved to 6 years in Feb 2024, and his term is now set to end on Aug 23, 2028. At the moment, he is attempting to go full Aung San Suu Kyi by pleading for a house arrest for the rest of his remaining sentence.

Meanwhile, Najib’s former deputy and also current DPM, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, announced the establishment of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), aimed at increasing ethical practices awareness among MSMEs. Wow.

Oil and gas ups and downs
PETRONAS stumbles again over patent dispute
From losing gas rights in Sarawak to the alcohol scandal during the Formula 1 race, PETRONAS really need to mandi bunga as another storm is coming their way. One of its subsidiaries, Petronas Carigali, lost a court appeal over a historical patent dispute relating to a mobile offshore production unit (MOPU) that it had acquired. The winner of the case, Kingtime International, successfully obtained a favourable Court of Appeal’s verdict, which overturned a 2023 High Court decision that had dismissed Kingtime’s infringement suit and invalidated its patents. Previously, Petronas Carigali had taken delivery of the MOPU from a third-party manufacturer, which incorporated Kingtime’s patented technology. The final financial damage for Petronas Carigali is still undetermined as the damages are now headed back to the High Court for assessment.

Vantris Energy Bhd seeing light at the end of the tunnel
Meanwhile, another oil & gas player in Malaysia, which has often been saddled with bad omens previously, has now turned its fortunes around. Vantris Energy Bhd (formerly known as Sapura Energy Bhd) has announced that its joint-venture company has secured a contract to provide diving support services in Saudi Arabia. The joint-venture company, Rawabi Sapura Ltd Co, is a joint venture with Rawabi Vallianz Offshore Services Company Ltd, where Vantris Energy holds a 50% stake. Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, Saudi Aramco, will be the sole client of the diving support services contract, and it will run for seven years, until 2034.

Shorts:

1. Putrajaya approves RM1.5 bil MY-Thai border wall 
   Kelantan police chief Mohd Yusoff Mamat announced that he has received the memo from the National Security Council (NSC) that Putrajaya has green-lit a RM1.5 bil allocation for the construction of a security wall along the Malaysia-Thailand border in Kelantan. He said the security wall will be built along the border from Tumpat to Tanah Merah. The border wall is intended for dual purposes - to curb smuggling and cross-border crime, but it will also function as a flood barrier. Sape akan dapat kontrak?

2. “I am only an independent director in charge of overseeing sound governance”
   Shorts, but not really shorts. Former BNM governor Muhammad Ibrahim clarified that his role as a director of Cambodia-based Prince Bank was purely ‘non-executive and independent’ and he is responsible for overseeing sound governance and compliance with local laws. Well, perhaps his due diligence is not properly done, as Prince Bank is facing a bank run after its parent company, Prince Group, was slapped with US and UK sanctions. However, Muhammad Ibrahim insisted that the bank operates independently of its shareholders. Well, potato, po-tah-to. Why this news matter so much? Only last week Prince Bank's parent company, Prince Group, was sanctioned by the US for running one of the largest transnational criminal organisations in Asia. You know those online investments scams? Allegedly, operated by them with their funds laundered through our neighbour.

   What is a bank run? A bank run happens when a large group of depositors rush to withdraw their money at the same time from a bank deemed at risk of going under. For Malaysians, if something like this happens, do not worry, as Perbadanan Insurans Deposit Malaysia (PIDM) is a body that protects your eligible bank deposits up to RM250,000 in the event a member bank becomes bankrupt.

4. AROUND THE WORLD 🌎

Israel violence continues amid ceasefire
Several outbreaks of violence have taken place since a fragile US-brokered ceasefire began on Oct 10, with at least 97 Palestinians killed in total, according to Gaza officials. It was reported that Israel has continued air strikes and shootings in Gaza, with four people killed in two separate attacks as they made their way back to their homes. Israel’s military claimed it had fired at militants who crossed the so-called yellow line of demarcation and had approached troops in the Shujayea neighbourhood, which is adjacent to Tuffah, and “posed a threat” to Israeli soldiers, but Gaza City residents reported confusion over the line’s location because of a lack of a visible boundary amid the ruins. Both Israel and Hamas have pointed the finger at one another for breaking the terms of the ceasefire as well, with Israel saying the strikes were in retaliation for a truce violation by Hamas fighters, who it claimed shot and killed two Israeli soldiers in Rafah. Meanwhile, reporters are saying that several military checkpoints are still blocked for humanitarian aid to pass through.

Returned mutilated bodies of Palestinians were held in notorious Israeli prison
Meanwhile, at least 135 mutilated bodies of Palestinians returned by Israel to Gaza as part of the ceasefire deal had been held at Sde Teiman - a notorious detention centre already facing allegations of torture and unlawful deaths in custody. Gaza officials said that the documents found inside each body bag indicated the bodies all came from Sde Teiman, a military base in the Negev desert where, according to photos and testimonies published by the Guardian last year, Palestinian detainees were held in cages, blindfolded and handcuffed, shackled to hospital beds and forced to wear nappies. While there is substantial evidence that many of the returned Palestinians had been executed, it is much harder to determine where the victims were killed. Sde Teiman is a storage facility for bodies taken from Gaza, but it is also a prison camp that has become notorious for deaths in captivity. Human rights activists are demanding an investigation to find out whether any of the dead were killed there, and if so, how many.

What would be China’s next Five-Year Plan?
Every year or so, China’s highest political body, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, convenes for a week of meetings, also known as a Plenum, to decide on the country’s key goals and aspirations. Decisions from the Plenum will then form the basis for China's next Five Year Plan - the blueprint that the world's second largest economy will follow between 2026 and 2030. While the full plan won’t come until next year, looking back at the past Five-Year Plans does show solid results.

In the period of 1981-1984, after the country's new leader Deng Xiaoping declared that it was time to embrace some elements of the free market during the Plenum, China’s policy began to reform and “open up”, creating the free trading Special Economic Zones that transformed the lives of people in China.

In 2011-2015, as climate change became increasingly important in Western politics, China focused into a "strategic emerging forces" and mobilised an unprecedented amount of resources into green technology, making them the undisputed world leader in renewables and EVs and a near monopoly over the rare earth supply chains.

In 2021-2025, China focused on “high-quality development”, challenging American dominance in technology and putting China at the forefront of the sector. Domestic success stories such as the video sharing app TikTok, telecommunications giant Huawei and even DeepSeek, the AI model, are all testament to China's technological boom this century. Proof that solid goals and ultimate focus can really bring in all the returns.

Myanmar military raids notorious KK park scam compound
Myanmar’s army has carried out a raid on KK Park, a well-documented cybercrime centre located on the outskirts of Myawaddy, a major trading town on the border with Thailand in Myanmar’s Kayin state. More than 2,000 people were detained and dozens of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet terminals seized. The raid is part of operations starting early Sept to suppress online fraud, illegal gambling, and cross-border cybercrime. Myanmar’s scam operations usually involve gaining victims’ confidence online with romantic ploys and bogus investment pitches. Victims were lured under false pretences, promising them legitimate jobs and then holding them captive and forcing them to carry out criminal activities. There have been previous crackdowns on cyberscam operations in Myanmar earlier this year and in 2023, but scam operations was under international spotlight last week when the US and Britain enacted sanctions against the alleged organisers of a major Cambodian cyberscam gang, and its alleged ringleader was indicted by a federal court in New York.

Shorts:

1. Sanae Takaichi is Japan’s first female PM 
   The Japanese parliament has elected the nation’s first female PM Sanae Takaichi, an ultraconservative figure and a protege of former PM Shinzo Abe. The victory follows a last-minute coalition deal by her Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) with the right-wing Japan Innovation Party (JIP). However, her government is still two seats short of a majority, suggesting a risk of instability. The historic appointment marks a pivotal moment for a male-dominated political system but it is also likely to usher in a sharper move to the right on immigration and social issues, with little expectation that it will help to promote gender equality or diversity due to Takaichi’s ultraconservative stance.

2. Life-changing eye implants help patients regain vision 
   Curing blindness - the scientific way. People suffering from an advanced form of dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), called geographic atrophy (GA) can now hope to regain their vision, thanks to a new technology that involves inserting a tiny 2mm-square photovoltaic microchip, with the thickness of a human hair, under the retina. The images are then sent back to the patient's brain, via the implant and optic nerve. A surgeon who inserted the microchips in five patients at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London says the results of the international trial are "astounding".

3. Protect the black cats 
   Terassa, a town in north-eastern Catalonia in Spain, has temporarily banned the adoption of black cats from animal shelters during Halloween, largely to avoid the risk of the cats being used for potentially sinister and macabre “rituals” during the festival. Terassa's city council said there had been no record of cruelty towards black cats in the town, however there have been incidents in other areas and the decision was taken after warnings from animal welfare groups.

5. FOR YOUR EYES 📺

1. Farm Fresh, in a short span of few months, dominated 2/3 of Cambodia’s chilled milk market. YTD, its share price is up 31.7%, valuing it at RM4.53 bil. Here’s the story.

2. What does it take to run a PETRONAS station?

3. The original reason why prices ending .99 was more practical than psychological (which only came much later on).