Irene Omar and any Khazanah, PNB complot need a life too

The public pressure was unbearable that the owner of FashionValet (FV), Vivy Yusof and Fadza Annuar officially apologised and resigned from the company. 

Off course, they have to resign now that Afzal and his company, NBXT Partner have majority control. Its unlikely of him to keep the never profitable FV team. Otherwise, the member of the BOD of CIMB would be seen as in collusion.

Khazanah too issued a statement and cited the Covid 19 pandemic as the primary reason for the company's failure. 

A member of the Board of Director of FV, former CEO of Air Asia Berhad, and current President of Capital A Berhad, Irene Omar too spoke of the financial devastation of the pandemic on businesses including Air Asia. 

Snippet of her video below:

Frankly she better put her life in order because she will be facing public scrutiny and someone could be facing "life sentence" for trying to cover-up for allegation of squandering public money. 

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FashionValet: Who is Vivy's father, Yusof Perancis?

The humongous loss and the fire sale of FashionValet.com has been the buzz within the local tech community for a while, but it did not catch on publicly till Yeo Bee Yin recently raised the issue in Parliament.  

Typical of Malaysians to immediately point fingers at politicians. The imprisoned Najib was blamed. Daim and his then "Council of Elders" (Council of Emminent Persons) linked. His puppet Economic Minister, Azmin Ali implicated.  

But then the nicnamed father of Vivy, Yusof Perancis immediatey became a conversation. 

He was PMX's former Secretary when he was DPM. Yusof is close with Deputy Prime Ministers - past and present, and also past Ministers like Annuar Musa and Maszlee Malek. And, said to be capable at structuring schemes in investment, business and funding. [Read Carigold HERE]

Afzal, the man behind the buyer, NVBT Partner can be given a political spin, but better not to go through that path. Everythng can be spinned to PH, BN and PN, so stick to the facts, issue of accountability, and individuals' integrity. 

As Scoop.com's A Azam Aris wrote:

Given that taxpayer funds and deposits are either directly or indirectly involved, Malaysians feel justified in asking for comprehensive accountability. Transparency in such high-stakes investments is paramount to upholding public trust, particularly when public funds are involved.

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Is PAS seriously anti-China or merely 3R political rhetorics against Chinese?

Taken from Malaysiakini here

During the heat of the controversy over Chinese foreign students at a private High School waving China flag to welcome their countryman - Navy Cadet making a port-of-call at the Penang port, the emotional outburst by Malays as provoked by politicians - be them from PPBM or PAS or few UMNO politucians.

To the servicemen, its a common practise in military diplomacy. The US's 7th fleet manned by real navy routinely do port-of-call in Penang, Port Klang and Kota Kinabalu. 

Few yeas ago an aircraft carrier stopped over at Port Klang. Within days after the incident, Russian and German Navy made port-of-call. 

The uproar over China flag waving by Chinese tourist at a recent Guan Gong festival in Telok Intan seemed to be an extension from the sentiment provoked by the Penang port-of-call. 

Its unfathomable for Malaysians to get upset over the China flag when its common to see Malaysian displaying paraphenalia with Union Jack or Star Spangled Banner. 

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Western media downplay Russia's proposed BRICS payment system

The 16th BRICS Summit is currently being held at Kazan, Russia from October 22nd to 24th. Malaysia sent its Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister of Economy to attend the Summit as BRICS plus members and pending full membership. 

The western-controlled foreign media seemed to playdown the importance of the event. It is highlighted as Putin show. He did not attend the earlier summit in South Africa following the arrest warrant issued by the ICC. 

Putin boasted the emergence of a multi-polar world order and media maintained focus on Russia's on-going war with Ukraine. The Japan Times depicted Putin as describing BRICS as a "multipolar world” created to challenge to the U.S.-dominated global order.

Being downplayed is Xi Jin Peng's emphasis on BRICS as a platform aimed at  "fostering an inclusive economic globalisation". This comes at a time the west is imposing sanctions on China and protectionism has returned. 

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Successful manouvering of contentious citizenship issue

Today is Budget day and all eyes will focus on it, but it should not deny due recognition to Home Minister, Dato Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail for successfully manouvering this decades-long and contentious issue of citizenship to do the amendment to the act. 

Saifuddin is Anwar's main man and Secretary General of PKR. And, PKR was formerly a bitter rival of BN, but credit where it is due. 

It is a long overdue amendment to a long-standing gender inequality issue and grave injustice towards Malaysian women. Their off-springs were denied citizenship for the simple reason they fell in love and had foreign husbands. 

Since it was difficult for the foreign husband of Malaysian wives to gain employment in Malaysia, they ended up being uprooted abroad. Its common to encounter Malaysians living abroad and contemporaries stuck in this predicament with family ended up in limbo from being denied access to employment, health services and education. 

The citizenship problem also contributed to the Malaysian brain drain. Once abroad it is not easy to bring them back. The reason the Talent Corp initiative once led by MOF Sec-Gen ended up as a failure.    

The constraint to greater gender inequality still remain and the group Family Frontier wanted the amendment to be restrospective. But thats too much to ask. At least, Saifuddin had the political will kick start by moving ahead and pursue this low hanging fruit. 

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Trump pulls even on the polls, UBS predict 10% drop on S&P

The latest stories this morning on the US election indicate Kamala Harris losing ground, and Donald Trump pulls even on the poll. Forbes reported all 6 battleground states are neck to neck with Trump apparently leading Pennsylvania. 

Local Malaysian bar room political soothsayers been telling all along not to believe a woman and more so, Black and Asian descent will ever make US President. At the final stretch, skin colour will be the deciding factor, they claimed.

Well, Dean from the tiktok of Alexis and Dean have taken the safe view that it is a 50:50 situation three days ago. Both Harris and Trump's campaign team have been taking the attitude it will be down to the wire. Do not read too much into the poll. Hillary had the poll in her favour, but lost the electoral college count. 

In the meanwhile, Forbes reported Trump's tariff could pull the S&P down by 10%. The Forbes report below:

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Challenging budget to be tabled Oct 18th

Government Budget for 2025 will be tabled in Parliament next week on October 18th. The conversation in the mainstream, on-line and social media have begun to pick up and the coverage will be bigger next week leading to Budget day. 

Seldom this blog delved on the Budget before it is tabled. Its decades since this blogger bothered to watch the live Budget presentation. Prefer to buy up all the newspapers the next morning to read the highlights and wait for analysts' reports on Monday. Perhaps, this year will be an exception. 

It is not because of the turmoil in Europe. Middle East and on-going "pivot" on China. And, not because media was mum prior to the Bukit Mahkota by-election and only started to deal with the less-than-rosy news coming.  

The boring predictability of Budget discussion by politicians and public is that its too focused on the spending side. Repeatedly discussed are demand for larger allocations, arguement for prioritising this over that, and what government should do, et al, but hardly anyone talks about where the revenue will be coming from.

For almost a year, this blogger have been concerned with the declining tax revenue despite Royal Customs delivering beyond expectation under its new and lady Director General. The percentage decline heard to be about 15%.  

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