PRESENT POINT POWER

For the latest UPDATE (Jan 20 07) on

MURDER Altantuya Shaariibuu; Jan 19 07; COURT DISMISSES Abdul Razak Application for BAIL. BACK To JAIL For 13 months Before Trial on 10th March 2008. Rowena seems to be telling her mum, "Look this is not the end of the world yet!!!!!!" Be Strong!" Counsel sumbitted afidavit with DETAILS ...

= = = == = = = UPDATE: JAN 20 2007; 00:52 Pm; MORE Sensational Details from the SUN

Mongolian’s murder: Razak reveals his relationship with Altantuya

Read from H E R E

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Illegal business is always "great business" but risky indeed. How can they bring in these machines in the first place? Must be done so under "false declaration" as the customs are not able to determine the nature of use of any sophisticated equipment such as these confiscated machines which can do high speed duplication of VCD/DVD disks.
Apart from duplication other machines are need to print the colourful covers and packaging. This raided outfit is a complete processing one-stop-centre

Which are more profitable, running an ILLEGAL Disc manufacturing factory or building & operating the LDP Toll highway? Lirak (Gamuda) 2006 - RM80 million profit and ONLY only RM6 million flowed into the company. RM150 Million Compenastion ALL Of it to improve the highways. Believe it or NOT! Read on.. at bottom.

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January 17, 2007 21:02 PM

RM10 Mln Machines Making Pirated Discs Seized In Factory Raid

KLANG, Jan 17 (Bernama) -- Police have seized 10 machines used to manufacture pirated music and video compact discs (VCDs), each worth over RM1 million in a raid on a factory at Lot 8999,Telok Gong in Pandamaran, here, Tuesday night.

Selangor Police Chief Datuk Ismail Omar said four men in their 30s were also caught red-handed in the factory during the raid, conducted at 11.45pm by a team of 10 policemen from the Pandamaran Police Station, headed by its OCS ASP Badrul Azham. He said each machine was capable of manufacturing 4,000 pirated optical discs within its daily operation time of eight hours, which translated into some 40,000 discs a day.

However, he was unable to disclose the number of optical discs seized in the raid, saying that it numbered in tens of thousands and had yet to be tallied. "But we know that each CD costs less than RM1 to produce, and they are sold at least for RM5 each, so there is a lucrative profit.

ABOVE & BELOW: Another sets of the similar machines; A total of 10 were taken away and what would they do with them?

"Initial investigation shows that everything from the copying, printing and packing were done at the factory.. we also found 53 master copies of CDs and VCDs in the raid," he told reporters at the site here, Wednesday. A Bernama survey found stacks of unused boxes with "styling mousse" printed on its side in the factory, believed to be used to dupe the authorities when transporting the pirated discs to distributors and resellers.

ABOVE: looks like the a printing machine and (Below) probably anothe duplicaing machine looking from another direction

Ismail said the four men caught would be remanded and believed that they belonged to a major syndicate supplying pirated discs across the country. He said the raid was conducted after a month of investigation on the activities at the premises, which was supposed to be a factory manufacturing plastic goods.

ABOVE & BELOW: These are the automatic disc stacking machines

However, Ismail could not ascertain how long the illegal factory had been in operation, but believed the illegal activity had been going on for less than a year. He said police would also be arresting the owner of the factory, which location was obscure as it was tucked behind another factory which was operating legally.

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Litrak director Datuk Lin Yun Ling

Litrak defends toll hike, compensation; By Adeline Paul Raj; adeline@nstp.com.my

January 17 2007

HIGHWAY concessionnaire Lingkaran Tran Kota Holdings Bhd (Litrak) defended its January 1 toll rate increase and the RM150 million government compensation yesterday, saying the company's cash flow was not as large as people perceived. Litrak director Datuk Lin Yun Ling said although the company's accounts show that it had made a net profit of RM80 million last year, it did not mean that RM80 million had flowed into the company's pockets. "This is not so. What the accounting profit does not reflect is that if Litrak were to repay a huge loan or part of a huge loan, it is not reflected in the profit," Lin told reporters after the annual general meeting of Gamuda Bhd yesterday, in which he is, group managing director.

Gamuda owns 42 per cent of Litrak, the operator of the Damansara-Puchong Highway (LDP). The LDP was one of five highways in the Klang Valley on which toll rates were increased on January 1. Lin said the bulk of revenue collected from the toll over the next eight years would go towards loan repayment. Litrak still has some RM800 million in loans to service, he said. "Any financial analyst and investment manager will tell you that for a company like Litrak, you should look at the cash flow statements (rather than the profit and loss accounts) for a true measure of financial performance," he said. Cash flow statements show how much revenue was collected, all the operating expenditure and loans repaid by the company.

"When you take all that into account, you'll find that only RM6 million flowed into the company," he said. Lin lamented that few people realised that a toll highway takes time, at least six years, to reach a good level of traffic volume. "By then, a RM1 billion loan will snowball into a RM1.5 billion loan. So even if you appear to be doing well, you already have an even bigger mountain to climb," he remarked. He pointed out that traffic on Litrak's Sprint Highway, for example, is quite busy now after five years with over 150,000 vehicles per day. "But if you look at the audited accounts, the loss is over RM40 million a year and it will have accumulated losses of RM200 million before it starts turning profitable," he said. He noted also that in an open-toll system like the LDP, only one-third of the traffic actually pays toll as many had already worked out ways to use the toll-free sections and bypass the toll gates. He went on to say that if people only focused on "negatives", it would be detrimental to future investments in road infrastructure."Certainly, there would be reluctance by the authorities to approve new highways, especially in the Klang Valley.

In 6 years from now, you can expect to see massive gridlock in the Klang Valley. For every two cars on the road today, there will be 3 by then," he remarked. On the RM150 million compensation it will receive from the Government, Lin said ALL OF IT would be used over the next three years to reduce traffic congestion on all highways.