If anything, 2009 will be remembered as the year many celebrities passed away.

At one point, it seemed like one famous person died every week.

KUALA LUMPUR: Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat today expressed sadness over the unnecessary loss of lives and injuries in a tragic bus accident which claimed 10 lives along the North-South Expressway near Ipoh today.

Ong, who is currently overseas, extended his condolences to the families of those who died in the accident, in a statement issued by his office.

The MCA president said he had also directed Perak MCA to render any immediate assistance required by the victims.

IPOH: Ng Poh Ngoh, 23, one of the 10 passengers killed in the express bus tragedy near here today, was due to report for work on Jan 4.

Her father Ng Chin Beng, 62, said Poh Ngoh, the eldest girl among four siblings, was returning home to Alor Star after attending a job interview in Kuala Lumpur and was scheduled to start in her job on Jan 4.

"She had a bright future ahead but it's now all over," he told reporters outside the mortuary of the Raja Permaisuri Bainun hospital here.

A BANGLADESHI man trying to flee from 10 armed robbers at his flat unit in Section 24, Shah Alam, fell to his death on Tuesday night.

In the 2.30am incident, police said the victim, in his 30s, had tried to crawl out through a window but slipped and fell four-storeys to the ground. The victim died on the spot.

Shah Alam police chief ACP Noor Azam Jamaluddin said the robbers, believed to be locals, had earlier barged into the victim’s unit after breaking the front grill door.

A two-month-old toddler succumbed to internal bleeding. A post-mortem had classified the death as being due to 'shaken baby syndrome' -- which is a type of child abuse that can show no signs of external injuries at all. Baby's parents have gone missing.

FULL STORY IN MALAY MAIL PRINT COPY TODAY

 

CONAKRY: Guinea’s military leader banned all gatherings and demonstrations yesterday, as the United Nations pressed for an independent investigation into why troops opened fire on 50,000 pro-democracy protesters.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay condemned the soldiers’ use of live ammunition against the unarmed people who gathered on Monday in a stadium here to protest Capt Moussa “Dadis’’ Camara, the country’s military leader.

A human rights group said 157 people were killed and more than 1,200 were wounded. — AP

THE Home Affairs Ministry has no objection to the Health Ministry releasing the post-mortem results of detainees who die in various detention centres.

Some of the deaths were believed to have been due to leptospirosis, an infectious disease affecting humans and animals who come in contact with contaminated food and water.

“There is no problem in releasing the post-mortem results if the Health Ministry intends to,” ministry secretary-general Datuk Seri Mahmood Adam said yesterday.

AN unemployed man, said to have been depressed by his unchanging luck, jumped off the 14th floor of a condominium at Jalan Duta Kiara near Mont Kiara yesterday.

The 45-year-old victim, married with two children, had been staying at one of the units there since last year.

An actress’ son fell to his death while pursuing a thief, who had broken into a Murni Titiwangsa Apartment, in Keramat at noon yesterday.

 

IT will be a sad Deepavali for S. Malarkodi, 42, and her four children. Her husband, a security guard, was brutally murdered by robbers at a factory in Kapar early yesterday.