Ilham Centre executive director Hisommudin Bakar says voters are focusing on the contest between various political parties.
Ilham Centre executive director Hisommudin Bakar said political parties had largely avoided using the Negeri Sembilan royal crisis in their campaigns because it involved the 3R (race, religion and royalty) elements. (Facebook pic)
PETALING JAYA: Voters in Negeri Sembilan are not linking the royal crisis in the state with the Aug 1 polls, says the head of a think tank.
Ilham Centre executive director Hisommudin Bakar said voters are focusing on the contest between the various political parties, citing on-the-ground observations.
“They do not link the dispute involving the Undang and the Yang di-Pertuan Besar (with the state polls),” he was quoted by Astro Awani as saying.
The royal crisis in Negeri Sembilan was sparked on April 19 by former Sungei Ujong undang Mubarak Dohak and three other undangs claiming that Tuanku Muhriz Tuanku Munawir had been removed as Yang di-Pertuan Besar.
The crisis turned political after all 14 Umno assemblymen withdrew support for then menteri besar Aminuddin Harun, citing his handling of the royal dispute. This subsequently led to the dissolution of the state assembly.
Hisommudin said political parties had largely avoided using the issue because it involved the 3R (race, religion and royalty) elements.
“The issue did come up in coffee shops and public discussions but I don’t think it was discussed on a wide scale.”
Last month, Syaza Shukri of the International Islamic University Malaysia told FMT that Umno might be at a disadvantage at the Aug 1 polls due to the part it played in the royal row.
Voters, she said, blamed Umno for the crisis and would want to punish the party.
Hisommudin had also told FMT last month that the outcome of the state polls would ultimately depend on voter turnout and where they are concentrated.
The Negeri Sembilan election will see Pakatan Harapan contesting all 36 seats on its own, while BN and Perikatan Nasional have reached an electoral understanding with BN contesting 25 seats and PN 11. - FMT
The Umno Supreme Council member says his projection is based on the strength of both coalitions.
Umno leader Ahmad Maslan said the BN-PN understanding was a strategic and tactical move to prevent the Malay vote from being split, which he said had previously benefitted PH. (Bernama pic)
PETALING JAYA: The cooperation between Barisan Nasional (BN) and Perikatan Nasional (PN) in the Negeri Sembilan state election is expected to win the two coalitions 25 out of the 36 seats, says Umno Supreme Council member Ahmad Maslan.
According to Harian Metro, Ahmad said his projection was based on the strength of both coalitions.
“It is possible that 25 seats will go to BN and PN. I am confident BN will form the Negeri Sembilan government,” he told reporters at the communications ministry’s media centre in Seremban.
Under the pact, BN is contesting 25 seats while PN is contesting the remaining 11 seats.
Ahmad said the BN-PN alliance was a strategic and tactical move to prevent the Malay vote from being split, which he said had previously benefitted Pakatan Harapan (PH).
“In the past, PH came out ahead because the Malay vote was split. In Malay-majority constituencies, the Malay vote was divided, and PH won as a result.
“BN therefore concluded that a tactical approach was needed to ensure the Malay vote was not split.”
Commenting on PH’s election manifesto launched yesterday, Ahmad said BN’s manifesto was in its final stages of preparation and expressed confidence that it would offer more than PH’s.
He said BN’s manifesto would focus on creating job opportunities, improving education, expanding skills training, providing housing, promoting racial harmony and strengthening efforts to promote Islamic values.
Earlier today, PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang said his party had no choice but to revive its cooperation with Umno to unite a divided Malay-Muslim community at “risk of losing” its political power.
Hadi rejected the notion that the BN-PN pact in Negeri Sembilan was merely a political game, reiterating that it was about uniting the ummah. - FMT
FOR decades, palm oil has been cast as a dietary villain. Its roughly 50% saturated fat content led public health authorities to group it with butter, lard and coconut oil.
The message was simple: saturated fat raises LDL cholesterol, so palm oil must be bad for the heart. Science, however, has proved more nuanced than the slogans.
A recent scientific review revisits this question through a crucial but often overlooked lens: the sn-2 hypothesis. Its conclusion invites a long-overdue rethink of how we judge dietary fats. Not all saturated fats are created equal.
Palm oil is unique. Unlike animal fats, its saturated fatty acids, mainly palmitic acid, are not distributed randomly across the glycerol backbone.
More than 80% of the palmitic acid occupies the sn-1 and sn-3 positions of the triglyceride molecule, while the sn-2 position is dominated by oleic acid, a monounsaturated fat.
Why does that matter?
During digestion, enzymes preferentially cleave fatty acids from the sn-1 and sn-3 positions, leaving the sn-2 fatty acid intact as a 2-monoacylglycerol. That fatty acid, in this case oleic acid, is absorbed differently.
It does not form the insoluble calcium soaps that increase faecal fat loss and appears to influence lipoprotein metabolism in ways that simple saturated fat tables cannot predict.
What the lipid profiles show
The aforementioned scientific review explored a range of controlled human studies. Their headline finding is that palm oil does raise LDL cholesterol compared with unsaturated oils such as olive or canola, but significantly less than its palmitic acid content alone would predict.
Crucially, palm oil also raises HDL cholesterol, helping maintain a more favourable total cholesterol-to-HDL ratio than many other saturated fats.
In direct comparisons with partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, the old industrial source of trans fats, palm oil consistently produced a superior lipid profile.
That may be a low bar, but it illustrates an important point: judging palm oil solely by its saturated fat content is like judging a house by its brick count without considering its architecture.
(Image: Pexels/Abdulaziz Hasan)
The missing piece: Clinical outcomes
No op-ed should overstate the evidence.
The review acknowledges a major limitation. Most available evidence comes from intermediate biomarkers such as LDL, HDL and triglycerides rather than hard cardiovascular outcomes like heart attacks or strokes.
The sn-2 hypothesis is biochemically compelling, but proving that palm oil’s unique molecular structure translates into lower cardiovascular risk would require large, long-term clinical trials. Such studies are expensive and unlikely to be conducted anytime soon.
Context matters too.
Palm oil is rarely consumed in isolation. It appears in products ranging from margarines to instant noodles, often alongside refined sugars and low-fibre ingredients.
Blaming palm oil alone for the metabolic consequences of ultra-processed foods is intellectually lazy.
A cautious reappraisal
The sn-2 hypothesis does not transform palm oil into a health food. It does, however, challenge the simplistic equation that “all saturated fats are equally harmful”, an assumption that has shaped dietary guidelines for decades.
If the position of a fatty acid on the glycerol backbone influences its physiological effects, then food labelling and dietary advice, which still treat all palmitic acid as identical, are overdue for reappraisal.
The scientific review has done the field a service by bringing together a scattered body of research. The review suggests that, for the average person replacing trans fats or butter, palm oil is a reasonable alternative.
It may not lower LDL cholesterol as effectively as olive or canola oil, but it appears far less harmful than previously assumed.
In food systems where affordability, availability and oxidative stability matter, particularly across much of the Global South, that distinction carries real significance.
The takeaway
It’s time to retire simplistic food morality plays.
Fats are neither good nor evil. They are molecules whose structure determines their function.
The sn-2 hypothesis invites us to move beyond outdated fat phobia and towards a more sophisticated understanding of fat chemistry.
The author, Professor Datuk Dr Ahmad Ibrahim is affiliated with the Tan Sri Omar Centre for STI Policy Studies at UCSI University and is an Adjunct Professor at the Ungku Aziz Centre for Development Studies, Universiti Malaya.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.
MALAYSIA is facing a silent epidemic. It’s not a virus, inflation or unemployment. It’s online fraud bleeding the nation dry.
Every day, ordinary Malaysians watch their life savings disappear. Teachers, retirees, small business owners and young professionals are being out-manoeuvred by increasingly sophisticated criminal syndicates operating through fake investment schemes, spoofed phone calls, phishing links and fraudulent banking transactions.
The numbers are staggering. Between 2024 and May 2026, Malaysians lost RM5.37 billion to online scams. That’s enough money to build thousands of schools, equip hospitals or fund critical infrastructure projects across the country.
Almost half of these losses, RM2.68 bil, came from fake investment schemes. Telecommunications scams accounted for RM1.54 bil, while e-financial crimes totalled RM660.6 mil. Together, these three categories made up more than 90% of all scam losses.
The trend is equally alarming. Scam losses nearly doubled from RM1.57 bil in 2024 to RM2.97 bil in 2025. In just the first five months of 2026, victims have already lost RM830 mil, and the figure continues to rise.
The uncomfortable truth is that we’re still treating these as isolated criminal cases when they have evolved into a national security and economic crisis.
The government has taken encouraging steps. The National Scam Response Centre (NSRC) now operates around the clock, bringing together the Royal Malaysia Police, Bank Negara Malaysia, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), and financial institutions.
The 997 hotline has enabled faster action to freeze suspicious accounts, while amendments to the Penal Code have introduced tougher penalties for online scammers.
Those efforts have delivered some encouraging results. Since its establishment, the NSRC has frozen RM32.49 mil, with RM10.9 mil successfully returned to victims. The recovery rate has also improved from 29% between 2022 and 2025 to 49% in the first five months of 2026.
That’s progress worth acknowledging. But we’re still fighting fires instead of preventing them.
Today, we chase scammers after they’ve struck, freeze accounts after money has been transferred, and investigate only after lives have been upended.
We need to stop these crimes before money ever leaves victims’ bank accounts. That requires a shift in mindset and a greater sense of urgency.
What needs to change
First, every investment advertisement on social media should require prior verification by the Securities Commission Malaysia.
Digital platforms must face legal consequences if they continue hosting fraudulent investment advertisements after receiving official notice. The excuse of “we’re just a platform” is no longer acceptable.
Second, banks should deploy advanced artificial intelligence capable of detecting unusual transactions in real time.
High-risk transfers should automatically trigger a brief cooling-off period, giving customers an opportunity to verify the legitimacy of a transaction before funds are released. A few minutes of inconvenience could save a lifetime of savings.
Third, telecommunications companies must strengthen caller authentication to eliminate spoofed phone numbers.
Many telecom scams begin with criminals impersonating police officers, bank representatives or government officials. The technology exists. Wider adoption should become mandatory.
Fourth, Malaysia must launch a nationwide education campaign that matches the scale of the threat.
Scam awareness should become part of school curricula, workplace induction programmes and community outreach initiatives. Prevention remains our cheapest and most effective defence.
Finally, Parliament should consider establishing a National Anti-Scam Commission with dedicated powers to coordinate intelligence, monitor emerging fraud trends, regulate digital platforms and publish quarterly performance reports.
Cybercriminals are organised, well-funded and technologically advanced. Our response must be equally coordinated.
We should never lose sight of the human cost behind these statistics.
Online scams do more than steal money. They wipe out retirement savings built over decades, force families into debt, erode confidence in digital banking and undermine trust in Malaysia’s growing digital economy.
Every ringgit stolen represents years of hard work, sacrifice and hope.
Behind every scam report is a real person. Someone who believed they were making a sound investment or helping a family member in need. The financial losses are devastating, but the emotional scars often last even longer.
The government must build a digital future Malaysians can trust.
Malaysia aspires to become a high-income digital nation. That ambition cannot succeed if citizens fear every phone call, every online advertisement and every banking transaction. A thriving digital economy cannot be built on a foundation of distrust.
The fight against scams is no longer just about catching criminals. It’s about protecting public confidence, safeguarding national wealth and ensuring technology remains a force for progress rather than exploitation.
This is a moment that demands leadership, urgency and collective action, not only from the government, but also from banks, telecommunications companies, digital platforms and every Malaysian.
If we fail to act now, the next RM5.37 bil won’t just be another statistic. It will be our parents’ retirement savings, our children’s education funds and our neighbours’ hard-earned livelihoods.
KT Maran is a Focus Malaysia viewer.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.
