Bernama opens Beijing bureau

Bernama, the Malaysian national news agency, has opened a bureau in Beijing as part of its international expansion programme. With the announcement today, Beijing adds up to existing Bernama bureaus in Singapore, Jakarta and Bangkok. After Beijing, Bernama plans to open offices in Dubai and New Delhi. The agency also has stringers in Melbourne, Washington, London, Bonn and Colombo. Bernama has 500 staff and provides news and information in Bahasa Malaysia, English, Mandarin and Arabic to newspaper, news agency, magazine and other subscribers. It also produces television news bulletins.
While the news was greeted with much enthusiasm, the agency mourned the death of a former editor, Louis Donald Baptist, 57. He died after he collapsed while shopping with his wife in a supermarket. Baptist was one of the early recruits into Bernama, joining the news agency in April 1969 after stints with the Penang Straits Echo and Eastern Sun. He made his name as a court reporter and served as the Bernama correspondent in Bangkok before rising to become editor of the English sub-editors desk. He resigned from Bernama in 1997 to join a daily as a copy editor before returning to the agency in 2003 to work as a copy sub-editor on the foreign desk until last year when he retired.