☕️ Works Minister: New highways proposals approved, no guarantee to resolve traffic congestion.

1. MARKET SUMMARY

2. NUMBERS AT A GLANCE

Month 4 - today marks the fourth month since Russia started invading Ukraine on 24 Feb with no end in sight.

USD19.8 bil — the amount of economic aid the Group of Seven (G7) leading economies agreed to provide to Ukraine to ensure its finances do not hinder its ability to defend itself from Russia’s invasion.

£185 million (RM1,013 bil) — Britain’s biggest ever lottery win. Joe and Jess Thwaite said the win gives them time to dream. Joe and Jess now plan to support members of the family. Durian runtuh indeed.

174 — the total medals won by Malaysian athletes in SEA Games, ranking sixth. The last time Malaysia ranked 6th was almost 40 years ago, in 1983.

3. IN MALAYSIA 🇲🇾

1. Works Minister Fadillah Yusof said the government has approved proposals for the construction of new highways from the private sector, including around the Klang Valley, to address the problem of traffic congestion. However, the minister says there is no guarantee that this will resolve traffic congestion given the rise in the number of vehicles on the road. An integrated, well-planned public transport infrastructure would have resolved this long, long time ago- alas, the government’s approach was and has always been piecemeal, reactive and thinking one step ahead only. When I grow up, I aspire to be a highway concessionaire.

2. The government decided to halt monthly chicken export of 3.6 mil chickens effective June 1 until supply stabilises. This decision will affect Singapore, Malaysia’s biggest chicken importer. The government has also warned poultry players that manipulate the supply of chicken to the market. The matter is not as straightforward as suppliers strangling supply to the market. Adverse weather conditions affecting chicken feed, depreciating MYR, and the heatwave affecting chicken growth are among the contributing factors to this supply chain mess. Read Malaysiakini’s deep dive into this chicken supply issue here.

3. Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has been appointed as one of the five vice-presidents of the 75th World Health Assembly (WHA), currently ongoing now in Geneva, Switzerland. He will be representing the Western Pacific region consisting of 37 countries and one-quarter of the world’s population. The other four appointees hail from Bulgaria, Indonesia, Togo and the US. The WHA is the main governing body of the World Health Organization that is responsible for setting health goals and strategies to meet the WHO’s priorities and policies. Read more about WHA here.

4. Last week, a viral photo was circulating on social media showing Najib with his arm being held closely by a woman (not Rosmah), with rumours spreading that it was Najib’s second wife. Najib and Rosmah have filed a report with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) on this matter through “a close friend”. The couple was shocked by the photo and accompanying caption and said the photo was not real.

5. Meet GrabFin, the new brand Grab Financial Group introduced after combining its payment and financial services features to streamline into a single entry point to access payment, investment and insurance services on the Grab application.

6. Sabah’s ongoing water supply disruptions have reached a crisis level, even affecting the state’s capital Kota Kinabalu. Deputy Chief Minister Bung Mokhtar Radin said short and long-term solutions were being planned to address the issue across the state.

4. AROUND THE WORLD 🌎

1. Russian soldier Vadim Shishimarin is jailed for life after being convicted of killing Oleksandr Shelipov, 62, in the northeastern village of Chupakhivka. He admitted to shooting Mr Shelipov, a civilian. Ukraine says more than 11,000 crimes may have occurred, while Moscow has continued to deny its troops targeted civilians during the invasion.

2. Russia has been unwilling to repatriate its dead soldiers. Ukraine claimed it was storing more than 7,000 unclaimed Russian corpses in its morgues. Ukraine’s wartime railway chief has claimed that it treats “dead Russians better than they treat live Ukrainians”.

3. US President Joe Biden has unequivocally stated the US would defend Taiwan if China attacked, prompting an angry rebuke from Beijing. Mr Biden drew a comparison between Taiwan and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. China has long regarded Taiwan as a breakaway province that must be reunified with the mainland.

4. Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have ordered female TV news anchors in the country to cover their faces while on-air. The order is non-negotiable. Earlier this month, the Taliban has also ordered all women in public to wear head-to-toe clothing that leaves only their eyes visible. Should the women fail to adhere to the dress code, male relatives would face punishment.

5. The Dechenonba lithium mine in Sichuan, China, received 3,448 bids after auctioning as its owner Yajiang Snowway Mining Development is undergoing bankruptcy. The mine, which has an estimated reserve of 24.9 million tons of lithium, was sold for about 2 billion yuan (RM1.3 bil), nearly 600 times higher than the starting price of 3.35 mil yuan (RM2.21 mil). No more gold rush, now it’s lithium rush.

6. After the collapse of Terra (UST), another stablecoin, Tether (USDT), has seen its circulating supply plunge from a record USD84 billion on May 11 to around USD73 billion as of Monday. Regulators and economists have long questioned whether Tether has enough assets in its reserves to maintain its peg to the dollar.

5. FOR YOUR EYES 👁👁

1. A tiger shark attacking a turtle. The turtle made it out.

2. The cat-catching tool.