The Malaysian Insider

PETALING JAYA, Nov 21 – The Selangor State Development Corporation (PKNS) expects to accrue RM380 million from the sale of properties next year, said its Deputy General Manager (Administration and development) Md Nasir Md Arshad.

He said the corporation hopes to sell RM342 million in properties this year as demand from the upper middle class was growing.

“PKNS will continue to engage with potential customers on new projects to be launched next year through a comprehensive awareness campaign,” he told Bernama after the official sale of Kasturi Idaman apartments here today.

LOS ANGELES, Nov 21 — Las Vegas has cleaned up since its days as a magnet for ill-gotten mobster gains, but a Canadian insider trading scam has exposed the smaller-scale money laundering still going on in the desert city’s casinos.

Canadian Stanko Grmovsek admitted in a Toronto court earlier this year to making US$9 million (RM30.6 million) with a law school buddy in a 14-year illegal scheme. Court documents show he said he laundered some of it by gambling wads of cash on games like blackjack in Vegas’ world-famous casino strip.

His confession was a flashback to an era when Las Vegas’ “Sin City” image made it a playground for gangsters offloading their loot in glittering gambling parlours.

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 21 — The Najib administration received a fillip yesterday with new economic data showing that the prime minister’s moves to rev up the economy are working.

Gross domestic product contracted 1.2 per cent in the third quarter from a year earlier, shallower than the 2 per cent drop predicted by most economists.

The economy shrank 6.2 per cent in the first quarter of the year, but improved a bit in the second quarter by contracting 3.9 per cent.

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 21 — Google Inc has won a seat at the smartphone table.

Two years after the Web search leader announced its plan to barge into the market, a dozen phones are using Google’s Android mobile operating software, including Motorola Inc’s heavily promoted Droid phone.

And software developers have created more than 12,000 games and other applications that run on Android phones, second only to the 100,000 apps on Apple Inc’s iPhone.

PHILADELPHIA, Nov 21 — US chocolate maker Hershey Co is considering launching a bid of at least US$17 billion (RM58 billion) for chocolatier Cadbury Plc as it seeks to trump a hostile offer by Kraft Foods Inc, a source familiar with the matter said yesterday.

Hershey has lined up deal funding from Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase & Co to make a solo offer for Cadbury, but is also still weighing a joint bid with Italy’s Ferrero Spa, the source said.