Rita Moreno-Then and Now

I will start with Rita Moreno on the series called "Tribute to our Lovelies of Yesteryear".


Rita Moreno is exceedingly charming in her role as Tuptim in The King and I,excitingly fetching in West Side Story and many more.



Here in the following picture,see how age caught up with her.

Nasty but True

The Singapore Straits Times reported that former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has pooh-poohed the efforts of PM Najib to liberalise the economy,saying the moves were populist in nature, benefiting no one.

Najib's steps to open up the economy to make it more attractive for foreign investors included rolling back on foreign investment, particularly a policy requiring businesses to be partly owned by Malays.

To be specific, companies intending to list on the BSKL no longer need to allocate 30 per cent of their stake to Malays. All they need to do now is to ensure that 50% of the public issue of the 20% float be given for bumiputra subscription.

As such, stock brokers and unit trust management companies can now own 70 per cent foreign ownership, up from the current level of 49 per cent.

According to Mahathir, the current lack of growth is due more to external reasons. He also cautioned that foreign investors keen on total ownership of fund management companies do not have any loyalty to the country;citing that they are here just to make money. Once they exit, we will have to pay a dear price.

He asserted the potential hazard of capital flight should investors no longer find the Malaysian market lucrative saying: “In some instances, they come to build factories and produce things for export. Well, that's fine. But when they can openly go into the market, well, that's not good,” he said.

Isn't there a check and balance in place to ensure a regulated market if enormous capital flight should take place? Or is there a fallacy in Mahathir's perspective in the light of intensive globalisation,especially after the sub-prime fall-out?

Ambition,Affordability and Foreign Education

Is merit really the sole criteria for the award of a government scholarship to study at choice universities overseas? Do rich families need to crowd out the needy ones in securing these scholarships? Is foreign education that important for improving life-chances?

This has been going on since the introduction of the affirmative policy but its implementation by overzealous civil servants have brought about a disproportionate distribution of the scholarships in favour of the bumiputras. To make matters worse, the selection is done without much transparency resulting in many good students being left out of the net and instead students with lesser grades were given such scholarships.

The singapore Straits times has this report to share. Read on.

"KUALA LUMPUR, July 4 — Laura Foong scored 12 As in her O-levels three years ago but her application for an overseas government scholarship was rejected.

But Foong was offered a scholarship by the National University of Singapore and University of Melbourne.

“I have accepted the offer from University of Melbourne to study science and I will be leaving (Malaysia) soon,” said the 20-year-old, who has just completed her A-levels in a private college.

Foong is among many top non-Bumiputera students who applied for but were denied overseas government scholarships. In fact, many of them are upset that those with poorer results were awarded scholarships instead.

The government has been trying to tackle this problem by reducing the Bumiputera quota from about 85 per cent to 56 per cent last year.

Ten years ago, only about 15 per cent of non-Malay students received government scholarships to study abroad. This rose to 44 per cent this year, reflecting closely the population ratios.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak recently announced a new National Scholarship based on merit to be implemented next year. This will add to existing ones and create more opportunities for high achievers. But there have been mixed reactions to the plan.

The policy is good but the problem always lies with the government's implementation system, noted Educational, Welfare and Research Foundation Malaysia president S.P. Pathi.

He felt that the policy would not stop the brain drain and top students would still choose foreign scholarships.

“As long as they do not improve the implementation system, our top students will continue to be tapped by other countries. If our government can convince our students that the merit-based system prevails, people will flock to our country to study,” Pathi told The Straits Times.

Even under the existing scholarships, poor implementation and a lack of transparency were often cited as reasons why top students fail to receive the scholarship.

Opposition DAP MP Tony Pua, who is part of the party's education committee and runs a blog on education, said this year's complaints had less to do with race but more with the way scholarships were given to those with poorer results in the same ethnic group.

The Public Service Department which hands out the scholarships has never explained the reasons why better-qualified students were rejected.

“I don't get it, I scored 11 A1s and I represented my school in the basketball team but my application was still rejected. But I know of people with poorer results and they got the scholarship,” lamented another top scorer, Hew Yeong Han, now pursuing his A-levels in a private college. The 18-year-old said his mother, a single, would not be able to send him abroad.

Umno has so far welcomed the merit- based scholarship, dispelling any fears that Malays stand to lose out. “Only very short-sighted people and those who did not think hard enough or understand the new announcement will be angry. The Malays do not want to hang on to the golden crutches forever,” Ahmad Ikmal Ismail, a Kedah division vice-chairman, told The Straits Times.

The MCA has also supported the new scholarship but not everyone from the Chinese community is hopeful. “I doubt it is going to work because at the end of the day, it all boils down to race,” Foong said.

But Hew believes the new scholarship is a small step forward for the country. “All this while, Malaysia has been practising the quota system but we will move on with this new liberalisation system. It will take some time before we see improvement.”

He added: “A merit-based policy will encourage people to work harder as it gives everyone an opportunity to compete on a level-playing field.” — Straits Times

Clampdown on the Bursa's Wheels

Malaysia Boleh is now at work in the Bursa. Full speed!

While the political masters provided new macro policies to lift up the gloom of the recession, hoping to bring in a rush of fresh new FDI and to prop up the sagging capital market,Bursa Malaysia has gone the other way around, as if,subterfuging these efforts.

Bursa Malaysia's continuous clamping down on speculative trading in recent weeks has dampened trading interest,nullifying what great hopes the government has in mind in further opening up the economy and the market through these fresh policy initiatives.

Securities houses, subjected to intense scrutiny from regulators in recent weeks, has reported lower market volume all round.

Prime Minister Najib wide-ranging reforms this week, including cutting the Bumiputera listing requirements and drastically trimming the role of the Foreign Investment Committee (FIC) has not effectively up the tempo of trading.

As usual,traders blamed the clampdown and global recession for the softer market.

The daily market volume has been hovering between a low of just over RM800 million and just above RM1 billion a day this week.

"They have been calling and asking for names of people who trade in speculative stock so brokers have pulled back the margins on speculators, causing speculative stocks to drop," one broker said yesterday.

The recent retreat in the global stock markets as well as the impending introduction of a new index for Bursa is also causing some uncertainty in Bursa Malaysia.

"The global market looks a bit weak and we were hoping for more support from local institutions," says OSK Research chief Chris Eng.

Local institutions however feel they can get better returns from the Singapore and Hong Kong markets and are focusing there instead of the Bursa.

Foreign funds are also staying away from Malaysia due to better valuations in Singapore and Indonesia.

"There is no core attraction to Malaysia," said the head of research of one foreign fund. "Companies in Singapore and Indonesia are more global in scale but offer cheaper valuations. Even if there is a rebound, Bursa tends to be a laggard."

Fund managers are also adopting a "wait and see" attitude to the new FTSE Bursa Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (FBM KLCI) which will replace the current benchmark KLCI on Monday.

"Not many people know what to expect and they are not subscribed to the FBM KLCI. So fund managers will wait and see what happens," said one broker.

The cost of subscribing to the FBM KLCI is also putting off some fund managers who feel it is prohibitive.

OSK's clients are benchmarking their fund performance against the FBM 100 which they feel more closely matches the KLCI in addition to having a better spread of sectors and not wanting to give too much weightage to the stocks in the FBM KLCI.

Eng feels investors should get ready to sell and focus on defensive stocks.

"Be ready to take profit," he said. "Since global markets are in retreat, we should be in retreat as well."

From the above "wait and see" attitude to the new index,preference for trading overseas and an on-going messy witch-hunt for share speculators,do not expect the Bursa to go anywhere soon.

An Unusual Marriage?

Teenage model Manohara Odelia Pinot is clearly matured beyond her years. Married at the age of 17, the French Indonesian lass claimed to have been raped, kidnapped and abused by her 31-year-old royal husband.

Having made a dramatic escape last month, Manohara has since shot to fame in Indonesia and has been offered the starring role in a soap opera by Jakarta film production house Sinemart.

Manohara spoke about her tragic marriage to the Kelantan royal household.

I paraphrase the gist of her story from the first two-parter interview with Malaysiakini.

Manohara related that her marriage was unusual and rather complicated. She first met her husband at a party. He did not even introduce himself to her then. Subsequently they went out for dinner in a group, like casual friends.

As she recalled, one day in August 2008, he called us up and said: “Why don't you guys come down to KL, I'll introduce you to my parents.”

So she thought, “Sure why not? I can go visit Kelantan as well, it would be a nice experience”.

So she stayed for a couple of days and met his parents. Strangely the parents told her that the mufti had said that the prince and she had to get married. At that time she laughed it off as a joke.

Malaysiakini will continue the story in another posting and so I will look out for that.

And that is what we mean by portfolio diversification!

Believe it or not.

Reuters reported that for Dutch pension fund ABP, Michael Jackson’s death could be good for business.

The passing of Michael, dubbed the “King of Pop” last week has created a run on his music, which is partly owned by Dutch state pension fund ABP. It is the world’s third-largest state pension fund after Japan’s and Norway’s.

“There are always certain songs that for whatever reason, in this case tragic, suddenly become very popular. The last fact is a basis for the investment,” an ABP spokesman said.

ABP bought two music catalogues last year, including the rights to some Michael Jackson songs like “You Are Not Alone”, according to the website of Imagem Music Group, which manages the music assets for ABP.

Apple Inc.’s iTunes, the biggest music retailer in the United States, reported last week that Jackson albums accounted for the top nine sellers, led by a hits package and his 1982 blockbuster “Thriller”.

The day after Jackson’s death, online retailer Amazon.com Inc. sold more Jackson merchandise than in the prior 11 years, an Amazon spokesman said last week.

The ABP spokesman declined to say what return the fund expects on its Michael Jackson songs but ABP said last year it expected its total portfolio of music rights to return just over 8 per cent annually.

ABP bought its pop music portfolio for €140 million (RM691 billion)last year from Universal Music Group, while it paid £126 million for the classical music portfolio of private equity firm HgCapital Trust.

Each time a CD is sold, or a radio station plays a song ABP owns, the fund makes money.

ABP, which invests in music to diversify its €173 billion portfolio, also holds the rights to pop artists such as Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, Kaiser Chiefs, and classical composers such as Stravinsky and Rachmaninov.

ABP was interested in buying the Beatles music collection that Michael Jackson owned if the Jackson family decided to sell, the spokesman said.


“We are always interested in good investment opportunities. The Beatles catalogue is of course one of the most beautiful in pop history,” said the ABP spokesman.

So, do you think Khazanah, EPF, EkuiNas, Value Cap and ASN will also diversify into buying music rights?

Beware-Exercise Extreme Caution

Global statistics have indicated that close to 100,000 people have been infected with the AH1N1 virus.

The numbers of affected persons in the UK is 7,447 which may jumped to 100,000 by August. In the US, to date 27,725 persons are infected and 127 have died.

according to the European Center for Disease Preventation and Contol, as of Thursday,2nd July 69,177 persons from various countries have been infected with the death toll at 328.

AH1N1 may evolved to become another deadly airborne disease to pandemically wipe millions from the face of the earth. Be extra careful. Take all precautions because it's spread through breathing. Contact with an infected human can spell the ultimate doom to you. One day you are here, next day you are gone with the wind.

As of today, 3rd July, 47 new cases of A H1N1 has been reported in Malaysia; of which 6 are locally transmitted.

The tally to date for the country has risen to 291 cases,of which 44 are local transmission.

Fortunately, there has been no fatal casualty and 175 infected patients have been allowed to go home after treatment. Another 116 patients are still in hospital quarantine, all without any complications, whatsoever.

A new vaccine to fight the A H1N1 virus will only be ready in August. European scientists are currently working ceaselessly to bring the vaccine onto the market by then.

Meanwhile,take all precautions. Do not shake hands, use rubbing alcohol and wear a msk if you are going to a public place for a long duration of time.

Yes, drink plenty of water,exercise and avoid stress.

Sweetmeats

Yes, the charsiew-sweetened barbequed pork.

As usual there are claims galore that this charsiew is better than that or that charsiew is the best.

If you are a recognized connoisseur of charsiew, then only you can really tell us professionally the difference between them. Moreover, there must be an established standard to benchmark against.


What makes a good charsiew?. It's as subjective as the fickled preference of our taste-buds.

Let's have some objective criteria to consider.

sweetness
fat content
streaky profile
tenderness

I do not claim to be a food epicure but here is my take.

I do not want the charsiew to be charred.It should not be saccharine sweet but should taste more like honey-cured meats. Yes, it must be tender and should "melt in your mouth" as the saying goes.I do like a certain amount of fat in my charsiew and so a streaky profiled charsiew with about a fifth of fat between lean layers would be visually appetizing and certainly will influence how the taste buds and mind think.

I do not know about the charsiew sold in a special restaurant called Meng Kee in Glenmarie or for that matter at Seremban Favourites Restaurant in Sunway Mas.
What I do know is the charsiew sold behind my house. In the evening, the wan tan mein seller will open shop. A crowd of people will suddenly appear from nowhere and they will take numbers to get their plates of charsiew which they buy as a side dish to accompany rice or noodles. From what I heard, the charsiew is sold by grams and at a premium to most charsiew in Petaling Jaya.

I have not tasted it but I guess, one of these days I will.