Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio.

I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Today, the former Prime Minister of Malaysia goes on trial.

Najib Razak is in the dock for his alleged involvement in a scandal that has outraged the country.

Billions of dollars have gone missing from a state-run development fund.

He denies all seven charges that he faces today in the first of several trials.

Scandals, though, take different forms,

from 1MDB's bilked billions

to Facebook's sloppy use of customer data

to Wells Fargo's millions of fraudulent accounts.

Now the spotlight has fallen on Purdue Pharma,

the maker of OxyContin.

Thousands of lawsuits have been filed against the company,

alleging that its business practices contributed to America's opioid crisis.

We take a look at what the scandals coming from American businesses seem to have in common.

And older TV viewers in China are scandalized, too,

about how a wildly popular soap opera depicts the realities of

adults' relationships with their elderly parents.

First up, though,

Najib Razak became Prime Minister of Malaysia in 2009, with a promise of political reform.

Early in his tenure, he began overseeing a national fund to pay for development projects

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