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MH192 lands safely in KLIA



PETALING JAYA: A Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight bound for Bengaluru (Bangalore) which was forced to make a turn back, landed safely at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport early Monday.

                  MAS tweeted that the Boeing 737-200 aircraft landed at 1.56am, after a tyre in its right-hand landing gear burst during take off.

                  Earlier, MAS had issued a statement that Flight MH192, that departed from KLIA at 10.09pm bound for Bengaluru, had to make an air turn back.

                  It was scheduled to arrive in Bengaluru, India, at 11.35pm the same day.

                  The aircraft was carrying a total of 166 people, including 159 passengers and seven crew members.

                  MH192 has been re-timed to depart KLIA at 3.30pm Monday and arrive in Bengaluru at 5.00pm the same day.

                  All passengers are being accommodated at nearby hotels.

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Karpal Singh dies in road accident






KAMPAR: Bukit Gelugor MP and veteran DAP leader Karpal Singh was killed when the car he was travelling in collided with a five-tonne lorry near Gua Tempurung on the North South Expressway here early Thursday.

                The impact of the crash at about 1am killed the prominent lawyer and his assistant, C Michael, on the spot. Karpal's son, Ramkarpal, and the car's driver, C Selvam, were injured.

                Karpal's Indonesian domestic helper was also injured and is in critical condition.

               He was on his way to Penang to attend a court case later in the day.

               In 2005, Karpal was involved in an accident which left him paralysed and wheelchair-bound. He was returning to his home in Penang when a car hit his taxi at the rear.

               Karpal graduated from University of Singapore and started his law practice before becoming a DAP politician in 1978.

              He recently stepped down as DAP chairman pending his appeal against a sedition charge of uttering seditious words against the Sultan of Perak in 2009.

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Ferry sinks in South Korea, nearly 300 still missing



SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A multi-story ferry carrying 459 people, mostly high school students on an overnight trip to a tourist island, sank off South Korea's southern coast Wednesday, leaving nearly 300 people missing despite a frantic, hours-long rescue by ships and helicopters. At least three people were confirmed dead and 55 injured.

                        The high number of people unaccounted for — likely trapped in the ship or floating in the ocean — raised fears that the death toll could rise drastically, making it one of South Korea's biggest ferry disasters since 1993 when 292 people died.

                        One student, Lim Hyung-min, told broadcaster YTN after being rescued that he and other students jumped into the ocean wearing life jackets and then swam to a nearby rescue boat.

                        "As the ferry was shaking and tilting, we all tripped and bumped into each another," Lim said, adding that some people were bleeding. Once he jumped, the ocean "was so cold. … I was hurrying, thinking that I wanted to live."

                        Local television stations broadcast live pictures of the ship, Sewol, listing to its side and slowly sinking even as passengers were jumping out or being winched up by helicopters. At least 87 vessels and 18 aircraft swarmed around the stricken ship. Rescuers clambered over its sides, pulling out passengers wearing orange life jackets. But the ship overturned completely and continued to sink slowly. Within a few hours only its blue-and-white bow was seen sticking out of the water. Very soon that too had disappeared.

                       Some 160 coast guard and navy divers searching for survivors inside the ship's wreckage, a few kilometers (miles) from the shore of Byeongpung Island, which is not too far from the mainland. The area is about 470 kilometers (290 miles) from Seoul.

                     Those rescued — wet and many without shoes — were brought to the nearby Jindo Island, where medical teams wrapped them in pink blankets and checked them for injuries before settling them down on the floor of a cavernous gymnasium hall.

                     The ship had set sail from Incheon, a city in the northern part of the country and the site of South Korea's main international airport, on Tuesday night for an overnight, 14-hour journey to the tourist island of Jeju.

                     About three hours from its destination, the ferry sent a distress call at about 9 a.m. local time Wednesday after it began listing to one side, according to the Ministry of Security and Public Administration. Officials didn't know what caused it to sink, and said the focus was still on rescuing survivors.

                    Lee Gyeong-og, a vice minister for South Korea's Public Administration and Security Ministry, said 30 crew members, 325 high school students, 15 school teachers and 89 non-student passengers were aboard the ship.

                    Kang Byung-kyu, a government minister, said the two dead are a female crew member and a male believed to be a student. A third body was found in the water but details were sketchy.

                    He said 164 people were rescued, of whom 55 were injured. He said 292 people were missing, likely either trap

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Express bus falls into ravine near Gua Tempurung



IPOH: An express bus fell into a nine metre-deep ravine after veering off the North-South Expressway near Gua Tempurung in Gopeng.

                       Kampar OCPD Supt Ng Kong Soon said the driver of the Expres Konsortium bus was killed instantly while two passengers were left seriously injured as a result of the incident at KM301.5 of the expressway, at about 4.25pm on Monday.

                      Supt Ng said the injured victims, one man and one woman, were rushed to the Raja Permaisuri Bainun Hospital here for treatment.

                     The bus, he added, was heading north at the time of the incident.

                     "Initial investigations show that the bus driver could have lost control of the vehicle while trying to avoid a vehicle, which had skidded, in front of it.

                      "As far as we know, there were only three people onboard the bus.

                      "However, search and rescue efforts by the police and Fire and Rescue Department are still ongoing to ensure there are no other victims," said Supt Ng .

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Malaysia: Abductors Want $11.3M for Chinese Woman

         


               Gunmen have demanded a ransom of 500 million pesos ($11.3 million) for the release of a Chinese tourist abducted last week from a Malaysian resort off Borneo island, a Malaysian minister said Thursday.

               The gunmen, believed to be Abu Sayyaf militants, kidnapped a 28-year-old Shanghai woman and a 40-years old Philipino woman from the Singamata Reef Resort in the eastern Malaysia state of Sabah on April 2014.

                Philippine authorities believe the women were taken to the island township of Simunul in Tawi-Tawi, the Philippines' southernmost province. Sabah, a popular tourist destination, is just a short boat ride from the southern Philippines, home to Muslim militants and kidnap gangs.

               "The kidnapper, or kidnappers for that matter, have asked about 500 million pesos ... worth of ransom" for the Chinese tourist, Malaysian Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamid said on private television station TV3.

                "We have sent our team, the police and the negotiators ... to negotiate about the reduction of ransoms," he said. No ransom was asked for the Filipino woman, who was working at the resort, he said.

                Zahid was not able to be reached for further comment. An aide confirmed Zahid's comments and said investigations were ongoing.

                Mohammad Mentek, a senior Sabah security official, said the kidnappers have made telephone contact with the family of Gao Hua Yuan, the Chinese kidnap victim, but declined to say whether a ransom demand has been made.

               Philippine security official who monitors Muslim militant activities in the southern Philippines confirmed that a ransom demand was made.

            Zahid's aide and the Philippine security official both spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

             In carrying out the kidnappings, seven men armed with rifles, four of them masked, arrived at the resort on a speedboat and fled with the two women, according to Malaysian police.

             China's ties with Malaysia have come under stress recently because of anger among Chinese over the search for a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner carrying 153 Chinese passengers.

            The Abu Sayyaf, a militant Muslim group, has carried out seaborne kidnappings for ransom in the region before. In 2000, Abu Sayyaf gunmen snatched 21 European tourists and Malaysian and Filipino workers from Malaysia's Sipadan diving resort and brought them to the southern Philippines, where they eventually were released in exchange for large ransom payments.

             In November, suspected Abu Sayyaf militants killed a Taiwanese tourist and kidnapped his wife from another Sabah resort. The woman was released a month later in the southern Philippines.

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