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Rakyat Post
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Rakyat Post
[Watch] Local Piano Star Melody Quah Returns Home For Chopin Festival
Subscribe to our FREE From performing at the Commonwealth Games to gracing stages at Carnegie Hall, celebrated Malaysian pianist Born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Quah has established a notable presence on the international classical music scene. The Canadian newspaper, Vancouver Sun, famously described her as 'a poet with titanium fingers who delivers with dazzling intensity'—and that's precisely the kind of artistry Malaysian audiences will witness on 16 August at Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS (DFP) in KLCC. Quah's journey from local stages to world-renowned concert halls is genuinely inspiring. She has performed on stages across Hungary, Canada, England, Australia, Japan, and the USA, collaborating with prestigious orchestras such as the Vancouver Symphony and the Richmond Philharmonic. A Masterpiece Meets a Master On that Saturday evening, Quah returns to her roots to perform the Polish composer Frédéric Chopin's iconic This romantic and melancholic masterpiece—first performed when Chopin was just 21—is perfect for showcasing Quah's emotional depth and technical brilliance. 'It's always special performing at home,' says the accomplished pianist, who now teaches at Penn State University in the USA. Her impressive credentials include degrees from the Juilliard School in New York, Yale School of Music (a graduate professional school within Yale University), and a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University's Peabody Institute, the first conservatory in the United States. More Than Just a Concert The evening also features Russian composer and pianist Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich's powerful It's part of a two-concert Chopin Festival, with the second performance on 11 October featuring Tickets range from RM229 to RM379, with premium suite options available. For a homegrown talent who's conquered international stages, this is your chance to see world-class artistry right here in KL. Visit Trust us—watching a local girl who made it big perform the classics is something every Malaysian music lover shouldn't miss. Share your thoughts with us via TRP's . Get more stories like this to your inbox by signing up for our newsletter.
New Paper
3 days ago
- New Paper
Jipson Quah statements to police in fake vaccine case involving Iris Koh allowed in court
The doctor in a fake Covid-19 jab trial had voluntarily given his statements to the police without threat, inducement or promise, ruled a district judge on July 28. So, six of the police statements given by suspended doctor Jipson Quah, 37 - which implicate his two co-accused Iris Koh and Thomas Chua Cheng Soon - were deemed to be admissible in court. District Judge Paul Quan found that the investigation officers whom Quah accused of inducing him to make those statements had not done so. Delivering his remarks on July 28, Judge Quan said any sort of inducement could well have been self-perceived by Quah. The ruling marks the end of the ancillary hearing, or a trial within a trial, to determine the admissibility of statements Quah gave to investigation officer (IO) Ng Shiunn Jye from Central Police Division. The issue came up during the main trial concerning Quah, his former clinic assistant Chua, 43, and Koh, 49, the founder of anti-vaccine group, Healing the Divide Thomas Chua Cheng Soon was a former clinic assistant of Jipson Quah. ST PHOTO: KELVIN CHNG The trio allegedly conspired to falsely inform the Health Promotion Board that patients had been given Covid-19 vaccination when they had not. During the main trial, Quah sought to throw out six of his 11 police statements on the basis they had been recorded under threat, inducement or promise by the authorities. The disputed statements were recorded between Jan 22 and Jan 29, 2022. Quah claimed IO Ng told him he would not be released on bail unless he provided the names of 15 patients mentioned in his statements to the Ministry of Health. Quah also spoke of a "secret meeting" he had with Superintendent Tan Pit Seng, the head of investigation at Central Police Division, while he was in custody. He said that at the meeting, Supt Tan suggested that Quah could show remorse and his willingness to cooperate by naming Koh as the mastermind of the scheme. Evaluating the interaction between IO Ng and Quah, Judge Quan said the investigation officer was giving factual replies to Quah's queries. The judge said: "Dr Quah was the one who initiated the conversation about bail, (and) IO Ng was merely responding to Dr Quah with factually neutral answers expected of him." Additionally, before Quah had a conversation with IO Ng, he had already named 15 to 17 patients implicated in the case when his clinic was raided on Jan 21, 2022. Judge Quan said: "At best, Dr Quah was not certain of what IO Ng asked of him. Any inducement from (IO Ng) could well have been self-perceived." As for Quah's conversation with Supt Tan, the judge found that the police superintendent had met Quah as there was due cause for concern due to the latter's referral to the Institute of Mental Health (IMH). Though some details of their meeting were disputed, Judge Quan found that Supt Tan was a credible and truthful witness and these discrepancies were not fatal to the prosecution's case. Noting that these discrepancies could be attributed to human fallibility, Judge Quan added: "A perfect, watertight and ironclad case would otherwise have been suspicious for an uneventful meeting that took place more than three years ago." Contrary to Quah's claim that he was asked by Supt Tan to name Koh as the mastermind of the scheme, the judge pointed out that Quah had already implicated Koh in two earlier police statements. Quah had also mentioned Koh's involvement in the case to a psychiatrist during an assessment at IMH. Quah, who was dressed in a navy three-piece suit and bow tie, listened to the ruling mostly with his eyes closed and brows furrowed. After Judge Quan delivered his remarks, Chua said he would also like to contest the voluntary admission of his police statements and intends to engage a lawyer. The trial continues.
Straits Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- Straits Times
Police statements by Jipson Quah in fake vaccine case involving Iris Koh allowed in court: Judge
SINGAPORE - The doctor in a fake Covid-19 jab trial had voluntarily given his statements to the police without threat, inducement or promise, ruled a district judge on July 28 . So, six of the police statements given by suspended doctor Jipson Quah, 37 - which implicate his two co-accused Iris Koh and Thomas Chua Cheng Soon - were deemed to be admissible in court. District Judge Paul Quan found that the investigation officers whom Quah accused of inducing him to make those statements had not done so. Delivering his remarks on July 28, Judge Quan said any sort of inducement could well have been self-perceived by Quah. The ruling marks the end of the ancillary hearing, or a trial within a trial, to determine the admissibility of statements Quah gave to investigation officer (IO) Ng Shiunn Jye from Central Police Division. The issue came up during the main trial concerning Quah, his former clinic assistant Chua, 43, and Koh, 49, the founder of anti-vaccine group, Healing the Divide. The trio allegedly conspired to falsely inform the Health Promotion Board that patients had been given Covid-19 vaccination when they had not. During the main trial, Quah sought to throw out six of his 11 police statements on the basis they had been recorded under threat, inducement or promise by the authorities. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore Tanjong Katong sinkhole backfilled; road to be repaved after LTA tests Singapore Tanjong Katong Road sinkhole did not happen overnight: Experts Singapore Authorities say access to Changi intertidal areas unaffected by reclamation, in response to petition Singapore New Mandai North Crematorium, ash-scattering garden to open on Aug 15 Singapore Not feasible for S'pore to avoid net‑zero; all options to cut energy emissions on table: Tan See Leng Singapore With regional interest in nuclear energy rising, S'pore must build capabilities too: Tan See Leng World US and EU clinch deal with broad 15% tariffs on EU goods to avert trade war Asia Displaced villagers at Thai-Cambodian border hope to go home as leaders set to meet for talks The disputed statements were recorded between Jan 22 and Jan 29, 2022. Quah claimed IO Ng told him he would not be released on bail unless he provided the names of 15 patients mentioned in his statements to the Ministry of Health. Quah also spoke of a 'secret meeting' he had with Superintendent Tan Pit Seng, the head of investigation at Central Police Division, while he was in custody. He said that at the meeting, Supt Tan suggested that Quah could show remorse and his willingness to cooperate by naming Koh as the mastermind of the scheme. Evaluating the interaction between IO Ng and Quah, Judge Quan said the investigation officer was giving factual replies to Quah's queries. The judge said: 'Dr Quah was the one who initiated the conversation about bail, (and) IO Ng was merely responding to Dr Quah with factually neutral answers expected of him.' Additionally, before Quah had a conversation with IO Ng, he had already named 15 to 17 patients implicated in the case when his clinic was raided on Jan 21, 2022. Judge Quan said: 'At best, Dr Quah was not certain of what IO Ng asked of him. Any inducement from (IO Ng) could well have been self-perceived.' As for Quah's conversation with Supt Tan, the judge found that the police superintendent had met Quah as there was due cause for concern due to the latter's referral to the Institute of Mental Health (IMH). Though some details of their meeting were disputed, Judge Quan found that Supt Tan was a credible and truthful witness and these discrepancies were not fatal to the prosecution's case. Noting that these discrepancies could be attributed to human fallibility, Judge Quan added: 'A perfect, watertight and ironclad case would otherwise have been suspicious for an uneventful meeting that took place more than three years ago.' Contrary to Quah's claim that he was asked by Supt Tan to name Koh as the mastermind of the scheme, the judge pointed out that Quah had already implicated Koh in two earlier police statements. Quah had also mentioned Koh's involvement in the case to a psychiatrist during an assessment at IMH. Quah, who was dressed in a navy three-piece suit and bow tie, listened to the ruling mostly with his eyes closed and brows furrowed. After Judge Quan delivered his remarks, Chua said he would also like to contest the voluntary admission of his police statements and intends to engage a lawyer. The trial continues.
Straits Times
18-07-2025
- Business
- Straits Times
RHB Bank's Singapore unit to drive Malaysia lender's regional growth under new 3-year roadmap
Find out what's new on ST website and app. Singapore is part of RHB's group international business arm, which also covers Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Brunei. SINGAPORE – The Singapore unit of Malaysian lender RHB will lead the bank's drive to expand in Asean in the next three years. Speaking on July 18 at the unveiling of the bank's new three-year roadmap for regional growth, the bank's managing director of group international business Danny Quah said that Singapore is a key growth engine to its international business arm. 'We will use Singapore as a growth engine, because we have been doing well here, and we have built enough fundamentals to be strong on its own to continue growing. It is also strong to be a strategic hub to the four countries that we have,' he said at a media briefing. Singapore is part of RHB's group international business (GIB) arm, which also covers Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Brunei. GIB accounted for 12 per cent of the group's total income in 2024, with RHB Singapore contributing about 80 per cent of GIB's total income, said Mr Quah. 'RHB Singapore has been designated the group's regional hub due to its strong and consistent contribution to GIB, mature capabilities and strategic proximity to both customer networks and capital flows,' he added. Profit before tax for Singapore in 2024 nearly doubled, reaching $98.7 million, a 95.6 per cent jump from a year earlier. Meanwhile, slower growth was observed from other Asean businesses. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore 30% of aviation jobs could be redesigned due to AI, automation; $200m fund to support workers: CAAS Singapore HSA looking to get anti-vape cyber surveillance tool with AI capabilities Singapore Alleged Kpod peddler filmed trying to flee raid in Bishan charged with 6 offences Singapore NTU upholds zero grade for student who used AI in essay; panel found 14 false citations or data Singapore Character counts as much as grades: Desmond Lee tells students after a class on race and culture Singapore Residents in South West District get help to improve employability, find career opportunities Life Kinokuniya opens third bookstore at Raffles City, weeks ahead of schedule Business DBS shares rally to a new record as STI clocks yet another high The Singapore unit also expanded its sustainable financing portfolio by 40 per cent to $972 million. Mr Goh Ken-Yi, chief executive of RHB Singapore, said that the bank is targeting the larger commercial banking clients here, of which some are listed companies, by supporting them in investment banking. The bank has also been supporting Singapore-based clients' expansions into Malaysia with financing and advisory services. 'We've also helped Singapore-based clients or international private equity firms with financing and M&A (mergers and acquisitions) advisory solutions to invest into Malaysia. In fact, we are actually marketing Malaysia and Singapore as a single hub to support our private equity and larger corporate clients,' he said. RHB is also optimistic about expanding its cross-selling within Singapore, and will make efforts to market to corporate investment banking clients, especially the C-suite clients, its retail banking experience, said Mr Goh. The lender is planning on expanding its secured lending approach and continuing efforts to move away from non-performing loans. 'When I joined RHB about 10 years ago, there was an active effort to pivot the business away from some of the industries and sectors that were hurting us and causing us a fair bit of non-performing loans, to one where we did a lot more secured financing, specifically in the real estate space,' Mr Goh said. Currently, about two-thirds of the bank's Singapore loan book is made up of real estate-related loans and it hopes to deepen its support for other sectors such as healthcare and construction, he added. Under the three-year roadmap, RHB aims to achieve a return on equity of 12 per cent by 2027, up from 10 per cent in 2024. It also targets to reduce cost-to-income ratio, which measures operational efficiency, to below 44.8 per cent, down from 46.7 per cent in 2024. It further aims to maintain a gross impaired loan ratio not exceeding 1.3 per cent by 2027, down from 1.47 per cent in 2024.
Business Times
18-06-2025
- Business
- Business Times
BlackRock launches absolute return hedge fund for retail investors in Singapore and Hong Kong
[SINGAPORE] BlackRock has launched an Asia-Pacific-focused hedge fund for retail investors in Singapore and Hong Kong, the world's largest asset manager with US$11.6 trillion in assets under management announced on Wednesday (Jun 18). The fund, titled the Systematic Asia Pacific Equity Absolute Return Fund, employs a market-neutral strategy that is designed to be resilient to volatility in the broad equity markets by taking long and short positions in select stocks. Put simply, 'the strategy aims to give you non-market-driven returns', said Dennis Quah, head of Singapore wealth at BlackRock, in an interview with The Business Times. 'We pick stocks that we expect to do well, taking a long position on those, and take a short position (on) stocks that we expect not to do well. And we do it with a systematic investing approach,' he explained. A short position is the monetising of a stock-price or asset-value depreciation, he added. 'If you expect something to go up in value, you take a long position. If you expect something to go down in value, you take a short position.' The fund, which was open to institutional investors in Singapore in 2017, had US$727 million in net assets as at May 31, 2025, and more than 2,800 holdings. In 2024, it delivered a 23.7 per cent return, according to the fund fact sheet. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up 'In Singapore, the fund is available in UOB personal financial services, Citibank Singapore and other platforms,' a spokesperson said. Vital for investors to understand the approach Part of the challenge in launching a hedge fund for retail investors is ensuring that they understand the investment strategy, and managing the negative impressions people have of hedge funds. 'To those who are not familiar with hedge funds, some words that typically get associated with them, are risky, heavily leveraged, dangerous, opaque, black box… Hedge funds as a category of investment product generally have had a negative connotation to it emanating from past crisis events such as the Asian financial crisis (and) the global financial crisis,' Quah admitted. 'But if you actually break down the word hedge fund – hedging means, actually, to reduce risk, not necessarily to increase it. So a hedge fund is actually, by construct, supposed to hedge away the risk that you don't want, to isolate the risk that you want,' he said. Given the right framework and in the right hands, hedge funds can add value to a portfolio, he added. However, he warns that the fund should not be consumed on its own, but be commingled with a larger portfolio. In BlackRock chairperson Larry Fink's 2025 annual letter to investors, he said that the future standard portfolio will no longer be 60/40, where 60 per cent of assets are allocated to equities and 40 per cent to bonds. Instead, he noted, the proportion would be 50/30/20 – with 50 per cent and 30 per cent allocated to stocks and bonds, respectively, and 20 per cent to alternatives. Still, the fund is not without its risks, conceded Quah. It might not deliver returns if the portfolio managers get the investment strategy wrong by consistently going long on the companies that lose value and going short on the companies that rise in value. Also, if the dispersion between good and bad-performing companies narrows dramatically where everything goes up or down at the same time, there will be little or no opportunity to make money or deliver absolute positive returns. 'So that's an extreme situation that we don't expect to happen for protracted periods of time. It may happen sporadically, like what we saw with the Magnificent Seven a few months ago, but, even then, you saw that massive mean reversal later on,' he said. The Magnificent Seven refers to the top seven mega-cap companies in the S&P 500, and includes Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Meta. The fund has also put in place risk-mitigation measures, he added. 'We have a very diversified approach. We have 2800 securities in this portfolio, so it runs systematically. No one human being can manage that number of stocks in one portfolio on a purely fundamental basis. So we combine human expertise with technology to help us implement the investment strategy.' BlackRock's systematic platform brings research and measurement techniques to the investment process with the use of data and technology. This involves using machine-learning systems to weight investment signals that indicate how companies might perform – from tweets by chief executive officers, to public sentiment about a company that might indicate fundamental data such as sales and revenue numbers, for instance.
