Ex-PM and Ex-DPM claim trial, and 8 news from yesterday

KINI ROUNDUP | Here are key headlines you may have missed yesterday, in brief.

1. Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak’s application to postpone his 1MDB audit tampering trial was dismissed and his trial commenced immediately.

2. Former 1MDB chief executive officer Arul Kanda Kandasamy, who is being jointly tried with Najib, is expected to appear as a prosecution witness against Najib.

3. Concurrently, former deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s criminal breach of trust and money laundering case commenced with the prosecution stating that not a single sen from his charity organisation was used to help the poor and was instead for his personal use.

4. MCA's Wee Jeck Seng was sworn in as the new Tanjung Piai MP, bringing the party's total representatives in the Dewan Rakyat to two.

5. Economic Affairs Minister Azmin Ali, who is also the PKR deputy president, called for Harapan to back Dr Mahathir Mohamad amid voices blaming the prime minister for the coalition's landslide defeat in the Tanjung Piai by-election.

6. Talk emerged that Mahathir would resign as prime minister but this was dispelled by his aide.

7. Mahathir admitted that the Tanjung Piai defeat was worse than he expected and promised to conduct a "detailed, serious and honest" assessment.

8. Later that night, Azmin hosted BN MPs at his official residence in Putrajaya. A few PKR MPs aligned to Azmin were also present but all were tightlipped about the event and their presence there.

9. Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng is adamant that MCA should give up Tunku Abdul Raman University College (TAR UC), since it wanted government funding, despite Deputy Education Minister Teo Nie Ching acknowledging that the move to slash funding for TAR UC was among the reasons for the Tanjung Piai by-election defeat.