Of Election Spending

Malaysia Facts and Figures of the Day

- Government spending on 5 recent by elections - total of RM33.4 million

i. Permatang Pauh - RM2.9 million
ii. Kuala Terengganu - RM12 million
iii. Bukit Gantang - RM7.6 million
iv. Batang Ai - RM5.4 million
v. Bukit Selambau - RM5.4 million

- Sukuk Simpanan Rakyat - began as a RM2.5 billion Islamic bond promising 5% returns anually (double the current fixed deposit rates) - another RM2.5 billion to be introduced soon

- PLUS Expressways Berhad (PLUS) has set up a RM54 million Traffic Monitoring Centre - main function of the centre is to collect and send out realtime traffic information to highway users

- Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Ismail Merican said 30% of Malaysians remained overweight and another 30% listed as obese based on the Asia Pacific Body Mass Index guidelines

- Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek, MCA Deputy President, has been accused of trying to cause instability among party members in Kapar by calling for secret meetings with eight branch chairmen

- Luo Zhi Liang, 47, of Miri, Sarawak died while waiting to collect a RM20,000 prize money at a 4-Digit outlet

- One of the key performance indicators (KPIs) for Singaporean Cabinet ministers is the real rate of growth of gross domestic product (GDP)

- Paloh (2003) which lost RM3.96 million, was the biggest flop in Malaysian movie history - Backed by RM4.1 million of taxpayers' money through Finas, the film directed by Adman Salleh could only recoup RM140,000 at the box office

- List of Malaysian movie flops


World Facts and Figures of the Day

Item 1: "Is China's Economy Strong Enough to Save the World" by Simon Elegant
- Retail sales are still growing at a robust 16% annual rate
- The stock market, which had plunged by some two-thirds from its peak in 2007, has clawed back 25% in the last few months
- Car sales in China have been "artificially boosted on a temporary basis by incentives" and so are unlikely to sustain their rise
- China's trade surplus rose 42% on an annualized basis to a record $19 billion last month, despite the fact that the country's exports are declining at double-digit rates. That's because its imports are dropping even faster
- "household savings are high (and their consumption low) because of structural factors" says Roubini in his report, citing such factors as the lack of adequate health care and unemployment benefits, poor rural infrastructure and public services, lack of a proper social security system, and underdeveloped credit markets for mortgage and consumer finance
- Domestic consumption accounts for about one-third of China's GDP, compared with around 70% in the U.S.
- In the months ahead, China's economy will instead be driven by the government's $585 billion stimulus spending program and easy credit

Item 2: "Anarchy on Land Means Piracy at Sea" by Robert D. Kaplan
- Somalia is a failed state and has the longest coastline in mainland Africa, so piracy flourishes nearby
- Fernand Braudel called piracy a “secondary form of war,” that, like insurgencies on land, tends to increase in the lulls between conflicts among great states or empires
- These pirates are fearless because they have grown up in a culture where nobody expects to live long
- The challenge ahead for the United States is not only dealing with the rise of Chinese naval power, but also in handling more unconventional risks that will require a more scrappy, street-fighting Navy

Item 3: "Which Globalisation will Survive" by Joseph Nye
- The world economy will shrink this year for the first time since 1945
- Globalization has several dimensions, and though economists all too often portray it and the world economy as being one and the same, other forms of globalization also have significant effects
- The oldest form of globalization is environmental - the first smallpox epidemic was recorded in Egypt in 1350 B.C. It reached China in A.D. 49, Europe after 700, the Americas in 1520 and Australia in 1789
- In the 20 years after HIV/AIDS was identified in the 1980s it killed 20 million people and infected another 40 million around the world. Some experts project that number doubling by 2010
- Military globalization, consisting of networks of interdependence in which force, or the threat of force, is employed - During the Cold War, the global strategic interdependence between the United States and the Soviet Union was acute and well recognized
- Social globalization consists in the spread of peoples, cultures, images and ideas.

Item 3: "Can the United States Put Pressure on Israel?: A User's Guide" by Stephen M. Walt
- Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and now Barack Obama have all publicly stated that the United States seeks a "two-state" solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- Instead of the current "special relationship" -- where the U.S. gives Israel generous and nearly-unconditional support -- the United States and Israel would have a more normal relationship, akin to U.S. relations with other democracies (where public criticism and overt pressure sometimes occurs)
- Usable sources of leverage that the United States could employ to nudge Israel away from the vision of “Greater Israel” and towards a genuine two-state solution:
i. Cut the aid package
ii. Change the rhetoric
iii. Support a U.N. Resolution Condemning the Occupation
iv. Downgrade existing arrangements for “strategic cooperation.”
v. Reduce U.S. purchases of Israeli military equipment
vi. Get tough with private organizations that support settlement activity
vii. Place more limits on U.S. loan guarantees
viii. Encourage other U.S. allies to use their influence too