Trump Got a Red Card!

 

For 24 days, the World Cup seemed to achieve a rare feat in America in 2026: It had almost nothing to do with Donald Trump. But in an extraordinary twist following an appeal from the President, star US goal-scorer Folarin Balogun was permitted to play in the knockout clash with Belgium despite being sent off in the previous match and earning a one-game ban.

 

Trump added more rhetorical rocket fuel to the controversy, confirming that he’d called FIFA President Gianni Infantino to ask him to review the suspension. Balogun’s reprieve rocked global soccer, triggering fresh speculation about the cozy relationship between Trump and the FIFA supremo.

 

Source: https://www.wikiwand.com

 

Trump’s call to Infantino and FIFA’s ultimate decision lifted a controversy about soccer refereeing into an international incident surrounding the world’s most popular sporting showcase. The subsequent drama raises concerns about political interference and the integrity of the tournament. It doesn’t necessarily matter whether Trump’s muscling into the issue was decisive. Just the impression that it was risks souring global perceptions of an event that had generated remarkably positive headlines.

 

Controversy is guaranteed at World Cup finals. Who could forget Diego Maradona’s “hand of God” goal for Argentina in 1986 or French star Zinedine Zidane’s 2006 World Cup final headbutt? But there is no known precedent for a political leader pressuring FIFA about who can play in a game, let alone one that is so important to a host nation’s chances of advancing.

In isolation, there are good reasons to think Balogun got a raw deal when he was sent off during the national team’s win over Bosnia and Herzegovina. But Trump’s decision to get involved introduces the possibility that Balogun’s reprieve may not be on the grounds of fairness alone.

The FIFA disciplinary committee invoked Article 27 of its code, which allows the full or partial suspension of a disciplinary measure under a probationary period. The red card remains in place, and if Balogun commits another offense, the suspension will be restored, along with potential new penalties.

 

It was not the first time FIFA used the clause. It previously stirred accusations of favoritism toward a box-office player when it allowed Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo to play in the preliminary rounds of these finals despite facing suspensions for a red card in a qualifying game.

 

And Trump’s political career shows he hardly sees rules as an impediment. It’s not important how you win. It’s winning that counts. The two have had something of a bromance, and the FIFA chief’s support often seemed a direct political endorsement of a hugely controversial president.

 

Now the precedent is set, who is to say whether other powerful world leaders might think they can grab a political win by pressuring FIFA over an on-field incident? And every controversial challenge for the rest of the World Cup is now going to face huge scrutiny. If FIFA invoked its hazy powers to suspend the Balogun ban, is it not now honor-bound to do so for any player of any other nation?

 

But Belgium won by 4-1 and that settles it. Does it? No! It is a bad precedent. Why didn’t Trump ask FIFA to review the Belgium goals? It could be off-side? Maybe a replay or better still award the match to the USA? And while we are at it PMX should persuade Trump to ask FIFA to review the so-called “Malaysian” players status, so that they could continue to play for Malaysia?

 

Reference:

Trump’s red card call stirs political storm around World Cup, Stephen Collinson, CNN, 6 July 2026

Will Ordinary Malaysians Agree with the Release of Najib?

 

Nazifuddin Najib, who is Najib’s son stated that if Barisan Nasional (BN) achieves a landslide victory in the Johor state election, it should be interpreted as the people wanting former Prime Minister Najib Razak pardoned and released. A sweeping win would prove the public still supports his father and wants him set free. 

Mohamad Ghazali Maidin, 46, working as a security guard was fined RM1,500 by the Ayer Keroh Magistrate’s Court in Jan 2026 will definitely disagree. His crime? He was accused of stealing two packets of powdered milk, two bottles of shampoo and a bottle of laundry detergent, worth a total of RM131.50, from as supermarket. 

Mohd Rashid Mohd Noh, 44, an e-hailing driver, who was jailed for one month will also disagree. His crime? Stealing 20 items worth RM404.22, including a bottle of hair dye priced at RM46, instant coffee valued at RM38.43 and a bottle of shampoo costing RM26.45, at a supermarket in April 2026. 

M. Vaneesri, 43, and her husband, T. Sugumaran, 38, was jailed for one week for stealing a carton of beer and a tin of powdered milk worth RM252.30 from a convenience store in May 2026. 

34-year-old Hamim Heji, who has three children aged 3, 5 and 7 and working as a pasar malam helper was sentenced to two months in jail in Jan 2025 for stealing 261 cartons of 1L UHT chocolate milk and 336 cartons of 1L UHT full cream milk belonging to Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad. 

An unnamed woman in Terengganu, a mother of 4 was sentenced to 14 months' jail in July 2022 for stealing two packets of Milo worth RM73 to feed her children. 

Chong Ann Ni, mother to a 15-month-old baby girl whom she has to breastfeed was jailed for 5 days in 2019 for stealing diapers and infant milk powder worth RM291.39. 

Lini Ahmat, 38 who has a six-month-old child and is supporting a 76-year-old ailing father was sentenced to three months in prison in April 2025 for stealing 30 types of items, which included personal care products, bread, eggs, biscuits, soy milk, tissues and toothpaste, worth RM374.69 from a supermarket. 

The above cases are just a few of the many that happened regularly. What is the commonality in all the above cases? Stealing milk powder, diapers, essentials for their children. What drove them to steal? Is it because the government that they voted for, failed them? 

If the people do really agree and want Najib pardoned and freed, the crime by Najib wasn’t corrected. It was protected. Accountability will enter the lexicon of words that define Malaysia, just like Malaysia Boleh. Steal millions, destabilise institutions, mislead the nation, justice meted out but serve only a fraction of the sentence. Steal milk for your children, serve the full sentence meted out. 

Malaysians are telling their future generations that the real crime in this country is poverty, not power. Hunger is prosecuted faster than corruption. Desperation gets handcuffs; deception gets immunity. So for those who will be voting on 11 July 2026 across Johor, don’t ask what the future generations can do for you, ask what you did for them.

 

Reference:

How many ordinary Malaysians agree with the release of Najib from prison?, FLK, Opinion, Newswav, 7 July 2026

Malaysia’s 15 million “Ghost Vehicles”

 

According to figures from the relevant government sources, there were over 38 million registered vehicles against a population of just 34 million – a ratio of more than 1,100 vehicles per 1,000 people. (This article is adapted from a letter by Yap Yok Foo to FMT). 

By per capita income, Malaysia does not rank among the world’s highest. Our motor vehicle taxes are among the steepest, cheaper only than Singapore’s. How could we possibly have more vehicles than citizens? The road transport department (JPJ) runs a meticulous system for registering new vehicles, but a shockingly poor one for deleting old ones.

 

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org

 

Compiled from global transport data aggregates, including from the World Bank, International Organisation of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Malaysian transport ministry updates.

 

The answer does not lie in a sudden explosion of wealth or multi-car garage ownership. It lies in a systemic, bureaucratic anomaly. The root cause of Malaysia’s bloated motorisation rate is the way data is catalogued. JPJ, formerly known as the Registrar and Inspector of Motor Vehicles, apparently has a register for birth, but none for death. Unlike developed nations that clean their registries annually, Malaysia includes virtually every vehicle ever registered that has not been explicitly reported as scrapped. In essence, millions of “zombie vehicles” – rusted chassis sitting in remote kampungs, decades-old motorcycles abandoned in back alleys and vehicles long cannibalised for parts in scrapyards – remain permanently active in JPJ books. This oversight warps international comparisons. When evaluating the metric of motor vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants, Malaysia appears neck-and-neck with the most motorised nations on earth. 

Malaysia’s tax structure deepens the mystery. The country imposes some of the world’s highest excise duties on imported vehicles, second only to Singapore within the region. While this protects local manufacturers like Proton and Perodua, it makes automotive acquisition a serious financial commitment. Logically, high costs should suppress a vehicle population. The fact that the register says otherwise exposes the lack of an exit pathway for old metal. 

The problem is simple. There is no penalty for failing to report a scrapped vehicle – in fact, there is a significant disincentive. To deregister a dead car, an owner must tow it to a Puspakom inspection centre (recently liberalised) to verify chassis and engine numbers. A person with a rusting hulk in their backyard is not going to pay for a tow truck. Instead, they abandon it on public roads or sell it to a scrapyard for cannibalisation. The result? The vehicle remains “alive” in JPJ’s database and the local council is at a loss to do what is needed to tow the car away. 

To transform Malaysia’s transport data from a work of fiction into a reliable planning asset, the transport ministry must implement structured, pragmatic systemic updates. 

1. Automated ‘dead car’ purge

The most immediate fix is a rolling bureaucratic sunset clause. Any vehicle that has failed to renew its road tax (annual licence) for five consecutive years should be automatically classified as inactive or dead, and purged from active transport planning databases.

2. Liberalising inspection and scrapping incentives

The recent steps toward liberalising the vehicle inspection market by breaking old monopolies must be extended to include authorised treatment facilities for end-of-life vehicles. If local certified scrapyards are given the legal digital authority to deregister a vehicle instantly via a smartphone app upon receipt, the friction vanishes. Owners could even be offered minor tax rebates on their next vehicle purchase if they turn in an old clunker to a certified facility. 

3. Unlocking federal revenue

Automated deregistration would instantly free up an immense archive of alpha-numeric combinations. The government could systematically reclaim these dormant, high-value license plates and re-release them through the JPJ e-Bid system. This clean-up process turns a data maintenance chore into a multi-million-ringgit revenue generator for the national treasury. 

Let us not be a country that forgets to bury its dead. Zombies exist on paper. Isn’t it better to auction those zombie plates? Like “JT 1”? ha-ha.  It is time to stop counting ghosts and start counting real vehicles. Our roads – and our Treasury – will need that for planning the future! 

Reference:

Malaysia’s 15 million ‘ghost vehicles’: why our car statistics are a myth, Yap Kok Foo, Letter to the Editor, FMT, 24 June 2026

 

Raising the Ceiling, Raising the Floor

 

Malaysia has expanded education, employment, and incomes over two decades of steady growth. Yet real wage gains, while broadly aligned with productivity, have been modest relative to rising education, aspirations, and living costs. 

The Special Issue of the Malaysia Economic Monitor by the World Bank argues that Malaysia’s central challenge is no longer job creation per se. With labour force participation at historically high levels and unemployment remaining low, the economy has demonstrated a strong capacity to generate jobs in aggregate. The more pressing challenge, rather, is the creation and scaling of high-quality, and well-matched roles which result in significant wage growth. This means jobs in higher value-added activities generated by productive firms that are able to pay higher wages, which allow workers to better utilize and upgrade their skills, and which support durable gains in purchasing power. 

Durable wage growth is the product of a virtuous cycle linking opportunity creation with capability building. It cannot be delivered by wage-setting policies alone. On the opportunity side, this means an ecosystem where productive businesses can enter and expand; on the capability side, it means skilling and upskilling the workforce in line with the opportunities created. Productivity growth—driven by firm upgrading, the business environment, and effective use of skills—is the binding constraint. Evidence from Malaysia confirms this: labor productivity has lagged real wage growth, particularly when examined on per worker basis, though with notable variation across states and groups of workers.

 

 

Rising skills-related underemployment over the last decade signals that high-productivity job creation is not keeping pace with rising workforce capabilities. Despite some improvement in recent years, more than one-third of tertiary-educated workers are now employed in jobs below their qualification level, weakening the translation of human capital into higher productivity and earnings. This primarily reflects demand-side constraints—firms not creating enough high-skill, high-productivity jobs to absorb an increasingly educated workforce. Skills mismatches and capability gaps, however, compound the problem. 

As said before, Malaysia needs to invest more in R&D and create an environment for innovation and invention. Our R&D is at 1.0% (or thereabouts) of GDP. Other nations are above 3.0%. Next, our education system from school to tertiary is not geared for the future. Both Ministers of Education and Higher Education cannot envisage the future! 

Reference:

Malaysia Economic Monitor, World Bank Group, April 2026

 

Time to Halt New Data Centres?

 

Malaysia's rise as a regional data-centre hub has been hailed as evidence that the country is becoming a major player in the digital economy. Many Ministers proudly announce billions of ringgit in investments from global technology giants. State governments compete to attract new projects. Consultants celebrate Johor's emergence as Southeast Asia's data-centre capital. One fundamental question however, is being neglected: Should Malaysia continue approving new data centres when many Malaysians still face concerns over water security, electricity reliability and rising utility costs?

 

Source: https://wikilabs.asia

Before arguing for a moratorium, it is important to establish the scale of Malaysia's data-centre boom and the growing concerns over electricity and water security. Malaysia has emerged as Southeast Asia's fastest-growing data-centre hub, driven largely by demand from global technology companies relocating capacity from Singapore and expanding AI infrastructure. Key figures include:

 

·           Between 2021 and June 2025, the federal government approved 143 data-centre projects with total investments of RM144.4 billion.

·           As of early 2026, Malaysia reportedly had 34 operational data centres and 33 more under development, according to Malaysia Digital Investment Department data.

·           Johor, Selangor and Negeri Sembilan together host around 101 data centres, with Johor accounting for about 72 facilities, making it the country's main data-centre hub.

·           Johor alone had 51 approved projects by late 2025, of which 17 were operational and 11 under construction.

Malaysia's operational data-centre capacity is projected to grow from roughly 1,025 megawatts (MW) at the end of 2025 to more than 2,000 MW by the end of 2026, with an additional 3,500 MW in the pipeline. 

By the end of 2024, 38 projects had already secured electricity supply agreements with a combined maximum demand of 5.9 gigawatts (GW), equivalent to approximately 43% of Tenaga Nasional's contracted capacity. 

Malaysia's National Water Services Commission (SPAN) estimates that 104 data centres could require approximately 876 million litres of water daily for cooling purposes. 

At the same time, Malaysia is already experiencing record electricity demand. Reuters reported in May 2026 that power demand in Peninsular Malaysia rose by 11.5% year-on-year, driven partly by data-centre expansion and extreme heat. Energy analysts expect electricity demand to continue growing by about 4% annually, largely because of data centres.  The federal and state governments should impose a moratorium on approving new data centres until they can guarantee adequate energy and water supplies for citizens and local industries. 

Unlike manufacturing plants that create large numbers of jobs and extensive supply chains, modern hyperscale data centres consume enormous quantities of electricity and water while employing relatively few workers once construction is completed.  This growth is being driven largely by artificial intelligence, cloud computing and the relocation of facilities from Singapore, where land, water and energy constraints have forced policymakers to slow expansion.  

The crucial question is not whether Malaysia can eventually generate more electricity. The question is whether Malaysian households and local industries should compete with foreign-owned data centres for power supply. No government should approve projects that could jeopardise domestic energy security. 

Before a single new data-centre licence is granted, the government should publicly demonstrate:

·                     sufficient reserve electricity margins;

·                     guaranteed domestic supply for households;

·                     no increase in electricity tariffs arising from data-centre demand;

·                     adequate grid infrastructure; and

·                     clear renewable-energy commitments from operators. 

Without such guarantees, citizens are effectively subsidising private digital infrastructure. Should they not pay a higher tariff for both power and water? They (data centres) should subsidise building of new facilities. 

Malaysia is not alone in facing this dilemma. Many governments are beginning to ask whether the economic benefits justify the environmental and infrastructure costs. Malaysia should ask the same questions:

 

·                     What is the real return to society from these projects?

·                     How many permanent jobs do they create?

·                     How much tax revenue do they generate after incentives?

·                     What are the long-term costs to water systems, electricity networks and public infrastructure?

The federal government and state governments should jointly suspend approvals for new data centres until the following conditions are met:

 

·                     Independent assessments confirm adequate long-term electricity supply.

·                     Independent assessments confirm adequate water availability.

·                     Citizens' domestic consumption is guaranteed priority access.

·                     Data-centre operators pay the full environmental and infrastructure costs they impose.

·                     Mandatory renewable-energy targets are enforced.

·                     Full transparency is provided regarding water and electricity consumption.

·                     Highter tariffs for data centres. 

Malaysia should embrace digital development, but not at the expense of its people. Economic growth must serve society, not the other way around. When electricity and water become scarce, the first responsibility of government is to citizens, not foreign investors.  

Reference:

Put Malaysians first: Time to halt new data centres, Kua Kia Soong, MalaysiaNow, 26 June 2026