Gabungan Rakyat Sabah’s viability in question, and 9 news you may have missed

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

1. The viability of the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah coalition is in question when it emerged that Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) will not be attending a key event with BN and Perikatan Nasional today.

2. Parti Solidariti Tanah Airku president Jeffrey Kitingan has sought the prime minister’s intervention against PBS, whom he accused of breaking promises to avoid electoral clashes for the Sabah election.

3. Political allegiances among the opposition in Sabah are further muddied as Bersatu supreme council member Azmin Ali campaigned for a PBS candidate, while BN and PAS have different ideas on who should be the next chief minister.

4. The Health Ministry will step up testing and establish temporary hospitals in Sabah as the Covid-19 infectivity there remains high and briefly exceeded pre-movement control order levels. A new cluster has also been discovered in Sabah.

5. An aide to Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Khairuddin Aman Razali denied claims that his boss was told to take leave pending investigations on his quarantine breach. This prompted questions from DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang on why the government is dragging its feet in taking action against Khairuddin.

6. A former 1MDB chief executive testified that then prime minister Najib Abdul Razak had pressured him to get KPMG to sign off on 1MDB’s 2013 accounts, but the auditors refused and were subsequently replaced.

7. Rosmah Mansor’s former aide Rizal Mansor testified that RM5 million received from former Jepak Holdings Sdn Bhd managing director Saidi Abang Samsudin was intended as a political donation for Najib.

8. Five people were charged at the Selayang Sessions Court over pollution that caused the recent water disruption that affected more than 1.2 million people in the Klang Valley.

9. The MACC is expected to charge several people over the Mara Inc scandal that involved property purchases in Melbourne, Australia.

10. Contractor IWH-CREC Sdn Bhd has paid deposits and advances amounting to RM1.24 billion to TRX City Sdn Bhd, which would allow it to finally commence work on the long-delayed Bandar Malaysia project.