KINI ROUNDUP | Key headlines that you may have missed yesterday, in brief.
Uproar in BN over 'Hudud Bill'
Kedah executive councillor Dr Leong Yong Kong has announced his resignation from MCA in protest against the Hudud Bill, accusing both the Chinese party and Umno of failing to safeguard the Federal Constitution.
While in his initial media statement MCA boss Liow Tiong Lai trained his guns on PAS over the matter, Chinese newspapers which interviewed him later reported that he opened fire on Umno as well, accusing the Malay party of being in cahoots with PAS and betraying the BN spirit.
In addition to his broadside in the vernacular press, Liow rallied other BN components – MIC, Gerakan and SUPP - and held a joint press conference in Putrajaya to protest the Bill.
Meanwhile, MCA Youth proposed that it was time for MCA to review its position in BN if Umno remains steadfast in its support for the Bill.
Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak however later claimed that he has explained the matter to Umno’s allies in BN. He said there was a misunderstanding - that PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang’s Private Member’s Bill is about implementing the Islamic penal code, when it is to “enhance the punishment that syariah courts can mete out”.
Furore over WSJ's Good Star letter
US financial daily The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) claimed that Bank Negara Malaysia wrote a letter to Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairperson Hasan Ariffin confirming that Good Star Limited was owned by tycoon Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, and not Petrosaudi International.
In an immediate reaction, Najib's press aide described the WSJ report, which alleged that the prime minister was not questioned by investigators in the 1MDB probe, as false and peppered with more "lies".
Meanwhile, Najib told reporters that Bank Negara governor Muhammad Ibrahim has lodged a police report against WSJ for having in its possession documents classified under the Official Secrets Act (OSA).
More Kini bites
Suspended Umno deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin’s fate appeared to still be in limbo as the party’s supreme council once again did not broach the matter at its meeting yesterday.
In a seemingly adroit move, the Penang government has appointed several BN and NGO leaders who are vocal government critics, into the 46-member Penang Transport Council (PTC), tasked among other duties, to review key documents related to the much criticised state Transport Master Plan (TMP).
Blogger Vivian Lee has been sentenced to six months’ jail by the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court after she was convicted under the Sedition Act 1948 over a Ramadan greeting where she and her then-boyfriend Alvin Tan told Muslims to break fast with bak kut teh.
Penan rights defender Komeok Joe and anti-Sarawak dams activist Peter Kallang have been honoured with the Bruno Manser Prize for Moral Courage for their work in defending native rights, announced Swiss NGO Bruno Manser Fund.
Looking ahead
BN will reveal its candidate for the upcoming Kuala Kangsar by-election today.
