By Neelam Rahim

Apple is going to have the iPhone 14 produced in India. Speaking to Radio Islam International, Senior Research Fellow at Institute for Global Dialogue, Sanusha Naidu said it’s a big step for Apple. For the past few years, they have been looking at the structural economic conditions in China, even though Washington and Beijing are in this protracted trade war.

Apple talks about a simultaneous launch of its Apple iPhone in terms of the launch in China and the launch in India. The simultaneous launch will have about a two-month lag, as per Sanusha.

She said Apple is not giving up its intellectual properties. The simultaneous launch will take place around November 2022, when a security architecture will be worked out regarding the moving of the phone assembly.

The former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razack has been found guilty of fraud and is the first leader to be jailed. Many are hailing this as a very significant moment.

He is the first Prime Minister to lose an election and the first to be jailed. It has to do with a 1MDB investment fund he set up when he was in office.

According to the charges and the prosecution, about 4.5 million dollars has gone missing from the fund. It is being argued that it was fraud and corruption, as per Sanusha.

Sanusha stated that the PM tried to get the lower port in Malaysia to stop his prosecution and this jail term. He also tried to remove the judges, but the High Court continued and said the judgement against him stands.

“This is a dynastic family, all been in politics, so this a big moment for Malaysia in terms of accountability, corruption transparency and the judicial system.”

Meanwhile, China has been struggling with rampant temperatures impacting factory output on electricity outages, including the dropping dam and river levels. All of this is affecting the economy and growth expectations.

Sanusha tells Radio Islam that China’s growth expectations for this year by the Chinese State and the IMF were predicted around 5, 5.5 per cent.

“China is heading for a severe heat wave coupled with a severe drought. The heat wave has now caused an interruption to the electricity supply.”

She added that China’s electricity blackouts are happening because most electricity is driven by hydro, and the dams are losing water with the heat wave.

Listen to the Asia Pacific Report on Radio Islam’s podcast below.