Malaysia Trade: Foreign Investors Don't Like What They See

Hantu Laut

With Fitch's downgrade of Malaysia's sovereign credit outlook to negative, Malaysia will suffer more capital outlaw in coming months as foreign investors continue to dump Malaysian government bonds and liquidate equity stocks. The ringgit will slide down further against major currencies.

Foreign investors are jittery of the expected Malaysia's economic downturn, an uprise that depend much on Najib's transformation policy that ain't coming. 

I expect the economy to perform worse than the figure adjusted downward by the World Bank. I expect a worse scene scenario of less than 5 % of GDP growth for 2013.


Three days ago I bought physical US$ at US$1.00 to RM3.22. The lowest against the dollar in three years. In May this year it was RM2.96 to US$1.00.

The racial tension prevailing in the country is a cause for great concern and could get out of hand if both sides of the ethnic divide do not come to their senses.

DAP had thrown down the gauntlet on the ROS and I expect ROS will rise to the challenge with a well-deserved de-registration of the party. I say well-deserved because it is what the DAP wanted, a devious ploy to show the Chinese community that the government is taking revenge on the community for their wholesale support of the party in the 13th GE. 

DAP leaders, particularly the Lims, want the Chinese community to continue to be angry with the government so as to sustain the supports for DAP until the 14th GE, where DAP expect to gain more grounds if the momentum is kept alive.

DAP leaders knew by not acceding to ROS demand to hold fresh elections, which they should have, because the complaints came from party members who felt they have been cheated, the next action would be de-registration of the party by ROS. 

Both sides are testing each other's resolve.

There were rumours, true or not, that certain DAP leaders want a merger with PKR, which if materialised will make them very formidable. Out of PKR's 30 MP seats, only 14 or thereabout are held by Malays.

Fortunately for BN, Anwar Ibrahim will not allow it, not in a million years.


Najib's transformation seemed to be on delayed mode. His government spend more time on pettifogging and listening to leaders bankrupt of constructive ideas.


From the WSJ:

Malaysia’s exports continued to weaken Monday, another worrying sign for an economy facing increased investor scrutiny.

Read more.

Malaysia's Biggest Opposition Party Under Threat

On May 5, the opposition Democratic Action Party became the second-largest political party in Malaysia, drubbing its main rival for Chinese affections, the Malaysian Chinese Association and taking 38 seats in Parliament. The election made the DAP, as the party is known, a powerhouse in Malaysian politics, with the legitimate claim to represent the country's Chinese, who make up 24.9 percent of the country's population.

Today, however, the 48-year-old DAP's status is in doubt amid allegations that the government, headed by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, has set out to put the party out of business in the wake of its electoral success. 

Malaysia's Registrar of Societies on Monday invalidated the party's Dec. 15, 2012 central executive committee election over alleged intraparty irregularities during its annual general meeting after two DAP members, the vice chairman and secretary of a local branch, lodged reports in January, saying the party's election results had been manipulated to exclude them. 

Tellingly, the Home Minister, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, announced the decision against the DAP rather than waiting for the Registry of Societies to deliver a formal letter. The letter was delivered Thursday, containing the directive to hold fresh party elections.

In any case, the party's executive committee has now been ruled illegal and a new election of executive committee members must be held within a specified period, probably 30 to 60 days, according to the registry. The party, however, is refusing to hold a new election, meaning the registry could put the party out of business. 

The facts appear up for grabs. Certainly the DAP appears to have made an embarrassing error in the election. 

"It's their own members who took out the complaints," said the head of a think tank in Kuala Lumpur. "It was a huge embarrassment to them during the election. This is registry of societies business, it has nothing to do with anybody. The DAP, as paranoid as they are, say they are under siege." 

The DAP strategist Chin Tong acknowledged in an interview that the party had erred in computing results of the election, but that it had rectified the mistake. In any case, it is questionable why the action is being taken now. Although the agency investigated the situation earlier this year and issued a letter that put the validity of the central executive committee in doubt, in the end it cleared the party for the general election. After first refusing to allow the DAP to use its "rocket" symbol on election materials, the registry relented and allowed its use.Read more.

Crime Has No Statute Of Limitations

Hantu Laut

The 1974 killing of the IGP was never solved.

Questions are still being asked but Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak was reported to have said a couple of years back, it would be difficult to reopen the case as "it happened a long time ago."

Someone should tell the now Prime Minister that crimes have no "statue of limitations"

Onerous, is on the police to solve murder cases, but when luck ran out and lackadaisical attitude takes over the police ran into a brick wall. 

In the old days the police had better crime-busting work and higher rate of success.

Today, many high profile murder cases remained unsolved. The police found them too confounding to sleuth around and do a Sherlock. Detective work is also deductive work, needs not only lots of skill, but lots of passion to unlock the puzzle.

No justice system is perfect, innocent people have been sent to the gallows and the guilty have gone scot free, but police work to catch the perpetrators must not stop.A file can be closed, but should be reopened if new evidence surfaced. Serious crime has no "statute of limitations". Till death do us part.

Malaysian police seemed to have lost the passion for real detective work, depending too much on direct evidence rather than pursuing  circumstantial evidence where and when direct evidence is lacking. 

Collection of circumstantail evidence can become "colloborating evidence" that can establish or refute whether the accused is guilty or not.

The truth is, gathering circumstantial evidence is tedious and require much more police work than direct evidence and police investigators assigned to such work must have a nose for it, which is telling why many murder cases have gone unsolved. 

Read below how the police lost its mojo.

Good Cops, Bad Cops And All

Are We Going To The Dogs, Literally ?

Hantu Laut

I still can't get over the arrest of dog trainer Maznah Mohd Yusof for what she did some three years ago. The video must have been there all along until some religious zealots saw it that ignited their ire, ignorance and fanaticism.

For some Muslims dogs are not considered dirty if you handle it according to Islamic rites. My late grandfather and late father,  both devout Muslims kept two large German Shepherd as guard dogs at the house on a farmland up in the country completely isolated from other neighbours. The nearest neighbour was half a mile away. Your best security alarm those days were dogs. No wonder they called dog, a man's best friend.



Read here, how she was remanded on such ridiculous allegation.

Never mind that, but how the heck the police was so quick to the gun and arrested her on God knows what ground is beyond comprehension. Was the Home Ministry complicit to the quick action of the police?

It is obvious crime-busting has taken a back seat, more efforts are spent on this kind of inconsequential cases than going after real criminals.

How can the government allow such repugnant action against an innocent girl on such flimsy allegations of insulting the Islamic faith, pandering to a handful of religious zealots, that bespoke culture more than religion.

Who is running the country, the politicians or the ulamahs?

Read a percipient article on the unfortunate affair: In the dog house for being kind