KINI ROUNDUP | Here are key headlines you may have missed, in brief.
1. Nasi Kandar Salleh restaurant (above) operator Nezar Mohamed Sabur Batcha, who is the index case in the Sivagangga Covid-19 cluster, has been sentenced to five months’ jail and a fine of RM12,000 for four counts of breaching his home quarantine order.
2. Despite an ongoing exodus, Bersatu secretary-general Hamzah Zainudin said more members are joining Bersatu than those leaving the party.
3. As the government cracks down on undocumented migrants, some with work permits are also caught in limbo and are forced to do illegal business to survive, while employers find local workers to be unreliable in carrying out out manual labour.
4. Human Resources Minister M Saravanan said employers have the flexibility to hire foreign workers who have been laid off by their previous employers, but he urged them to prioritise local workers.
5. Electoral reform group Global Bersih has called for a longer campaign period for the Sabah state election, so as to ensure postal ballots from abroad will arrive in time to be counted, in light of the disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
6. Former auditor-general Ambrin Buang testified that the then chief secretary to the government, Ali Hamsa, had told him to remove his (Ambrin’s) opinion from the 1MDB final audit report.
7. Several pharmaceutical societies across the country have urged the government to engage with stakeholders, before setting a new ceiling price for face masks, after the government moved to lower the price to RM1 per piece, beginning tomorrow.
8. Inspector-General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador said police are trying to convince M Indira Gandhi’s Muslim convert ex-husband, Muhammad Ridzuan Abdullah, to return to Malaysia with the help of several senior state politicians.
9. The idea of “modernising” the Sedition Act 1948 by including the element of intent was mooted by two MPs on opposing sides during debates in the Dewan Rakyat.
10. Parti Bersatu Sabah politicians accused Sabah Chief Minister Shafie Apdal of taking credit for BN’s work by going on a roadshow to present land titles to natives, while Warisan countered that the titles were meant to reverse attempts to gazette native land as forest reserves.
