Malaysian universities not among world’s top ‘young’ institutions, global survey shows

by Elizabeth Zachariah

The Malaysian Insider

MAY 01, 2014

Malaysian public universities have once again failed to measure up to higher learning institutions around the world, this time being left out of the latest ranking of the annual Times Higher Education (THE) Top 100 Universities under 50 years old.

Four Asian universities are ranked among the top 10 of the world’s young universities, including South Korea’s Pohang University of Science and Technology which took the top spot, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (3), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (4) and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (5).

Malaysia, however, failed to get on the list for the second year running. In the first rankings list in 2012, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) was ranked 98th.

This is despite Putrajaya’s claim that Malaysia has one of the best education systems in the world – better than United States, Britain and Germany.

One university each from both the US and the UK were also featured in the top 10 of the latest rankings released today.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are also on the list which comprises 29 countries – one more than last year, with the addition of India, which made it on to the list for the first time.

THE described these young universities (established before the cut-off year of 1964) as rising stars which showed great potential.

“While they may not have had centuries to accumulate wealth and cannot draw on generations of alumni and rich traditions of scholarship to drive their reputations, they are free from the burdens of history: free to be more agile, lean, flexible and risk-taking, giving them an advantage in a rapidly changing global marketplace,” THE’s rankings editor Phil Baty said of the young universities.

Malaysia was also absent from the Times Higher Education World Reputation rankings list which was released last month, losing out to other Southeast Asian countries.

Malaysia’s continuous failure to feature in any university rankings despite a huge education budget every year has not gone down well with the opposition, which has taken Putrajaya to task for the miserable performance.

The Education Ministry received RM38.7 billion in 2013 and has been allocated a total of RM54 billion this year – the biggest allocation yet.

DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang, one of the more vocal critics of Malaysian education standards, had previously warned that local universities were losing ground not only to top universities around the world, but also to less comparable institutions in the region.

DAP lawmaker Zairil Khir Johari described the Top 100 Under 50 rankings as a more level playing field than Times’s other lists such as the World University Rankings which includes long-established universities such as Oxford, Harvard and Cambridge.

“The failure of Malaysian universities, all of which are under 50 years old except Universiti Malaya, to get on the list is an embarrassment,” he told The Malaysian Insider.

“What makes it worse is the fact that UKM, which was placed in the list in 2012 as 98th in the world, has now dropped out of sight,” he added.

He said the fact that countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and India were making remarkable progress in the education field proved that adverse socio-political and economic situations were no barrier to academic excellence.

“Clearly, Malaysian universities are uncompetitive, and will continue to be so until fundamental problems are addressed, such as the lack of academic freedom, autonomy and the quality of the faculty,” the Bukit Bendera MP said.

He said the barring of former Bar Council president and prominent lawyer Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan from delivering a talk at a law event in Universiti Malaya last month was an example of these fundamental problems.

“If leading professional figures in our country are barred from speaking to future practitioners, how do we expect our university students to be able to develop critical thinking abilities that are necessary for a competitive economy?

“Clearly, there is political interference at play, which does not bode well for an institution that is meant to cultivate future leaders,” he said, adding that former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had received a “hero’s welcome” at the university prior to that. – May 1, 2014.

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U.S. begins to back away from soaring MH370 search costs

by Matt Siegel

The Globe and Mail

Apr. 30 2014

SYDNEY — Reuters

With the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 entering a new, much longer phase, the countries involved must decide how much they are prepared to spend on the operation and what they stand to lose if they hold back.

The search is already set to be the most costly in aviation history and spending will rise significantly as underwater drones focus on a larger area of the seabed that Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Monday could take six to eight months to search.

But despite U.S. President Barack Obama publicly promising to commit more assets, the United States appears keen to begin passing on the costs of providing sophisticated sonar equipment that will form the backbone of the expanded hunt.

That means Australia, China and Malaysia – the countries most closely involved in the operation – look set to bear the financial and logistical burden of a potentially lengthy and expensive search.

“We’re already at tens of millions. Is it worth hundreds of millions?” a senior U.S. defense official told Reuters last week. “I don’t know. That’s for them to decide.”

He made it clear that Washington was intent on spending less from now on, making it the first major donor country to scale back its financial commitment to the search.

“We’re not going to pay to perpetually use the equipment on an indefinite basis. Basically from here on out – starting next week or so – they need to pick up the contract,” he said.

At least $44-million was spent on the deployment of military ships and aircraft in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea in the first month of the search, about the same as was spent on the whole underwater search for Air France’s Flight 447, which crashed into the Mid-Atlantic in 2009.

The Malaysian jetliner carrying 239 people disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing more than seven weeks ago, and huge surface and underwater searches have failed to solve the mystery of what happened.

That mystery has major implications for airline manufacturers such as Boeing, which builds the 777 model that crashed and is awaiting a verdict as to what went wrong.

Malaysia is leading an investigation into the crash, but Australia has a key role in coordinating the hunt since the plane is believed to have crashed in its search and rescue zone.

Abbott said finding any wreckage on the ocean surface was now highly unlikely and Australia would forge ahead with the upcoming phase of the search despite it likely costing $60-million Australian ($55.69-million).

He added that while private companies under contract to Australia would soon be taking over from the military assets dispatched in the wake of the crash, he would be “seeking some appropriate contribution from other nations.”

Malaysia has repeatedly said cost is not an issue, but with searchers once again facing a potentially vast stretch of ocean, it acknowledged on Wednesday that money was up for discussion.

“I will be going to Australia to discuss the next phase. As we go into deep sea search it’s important that cost is discussed and we’ll discuss with all stakeholders,” Defence Minister and Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters.

“Hopefully by next week we will announce the cost sharing. But we won’t know what the cost will be until we decide where we’re going to search, what assets we will use and who will deploy those assets.”

Some safety experts fear the financial wrangling could take longer than expected and frustrate the next phase of operations.

“This risks delaying the next phase of the search. They need a new plan and they basically have to start from scratch,” an international search veteran said, asking not to be named.

The two-year search for Air France 447 was only completed after bitter rows over a cash crisis that saw searchers trade down to a cheaper ship, while accepting indirect contributions from planemaker Airbus and the airline.

The unprecedented donations of €8-million each had to be handled via specially created funds to avoid seeming to tarnish the probe’s independence, and experts say the delicacy of dividing up funding for the MH370 probe may be even greater.

At least 153 of the flight’s passengers were Chinese citizens, putting pressure on authorities there to keep up the search as distraught family members demand answers.

China has not addressed what portion of the funding it is prepared to take on as the search moves into the new phase.

“On the specific questions you just asked [about money], we will maintain communication and coordination with the Australian and Malaysian sides,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang.

A Western diplomat based in Beijing who has closely followed the case said that there was huge domestic pressure to find the aircraft, and for China to be the country which does so.

“China has made such a show of looking for the plane and so the pressure at home is enormous,” the diplomat said. “They’ve set expectations so high.”

Some of that pressure is being shifted onto Malaysia, which is desperate to limit the damage the missing flight has done to its international profile as a modern, successful Asian state.

“The Malaysian government will find the money for this search. The country’s reputation is at stake and you don’t want to risk that,” a source there involved in the search said.

Australia has a strong diplomatic incentive to provide funding, a former government official with foreign policy experience said, as the relationship with Malaysia is more valuable than the costs it is likely to incur.

Regardless of whether the plane is found, the official said, the kind of personal relationships that are forged during a crisis of this kind are seen as diplomatically advantageous.

Down the road, it could try to cash in on goodwill on issues including Malaysia’s role as a transit country for asylum seekers coming to Australia by boat or getting better treatment for Australian tourists detained on drug charges in Malaysia.

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Wee Ka Siong has finally asked the right question although he is still quite blur about the answer – that MCA cannot say “No” to UMNO because of the latter’s hegemony in Barisan Nasional while DAP and PAS can say “No” to each other as Pakatan Rakyat is a coalition of equals

MCA Deputy President, Datuk Dr. Wee Ka Siong has finally asked the right question although he is still quite blur about the answer.

Yesterday, Wee posed the question to me why I dare not say “No” to PAS President, Datuk Seri Hadi Awang but want MCA to say “No” to UMNO on the issue of hudud.

The answer which Wee is too blind to see or accept is that MCA cannot say “No” to UMNO because of UMNO’s hegemony in Barisan Nasional while DAP and PAS can say “No” to each other as Pakatan Rakyat is a coalition of equals.

Wee must belong to the infinitesimally small group of Malaysian politicians who do not know that the DAP has said “No” to Hadi and the PAS leaders about implementation of hudud as it is against the secular Malaysian Constitution and inappropriate for a modern, multi-racial and multi-religious nation like Malaysia.

This is why hudud is not part of the Pakatan Rakyat agenda or common policy platform, and is only the policy programme of PAS and which could undermine or even destroy the Pakatan Rakyat coalition if this agenda is pursued in utter disregard of the sensitivities, principles and objectives of the other Pakatan Rakyat parties.

All the three component parties of Pakatan Rakyat – DAP, PAS and PKR – are united in saying “Yes” to the PR common policy framework of restoring justice, the rule of law, democracy and good governance while outside the  PR common policy framework, the three parties respect differences of outlook, approach and objectives with each party able to say “No” on those issues outside the PR common policy framework.

This means outside the PR common policy framework, DAP can say “No” to PAS and PKR, PAS can say “No” to DAP and PKR and PKR can say ‘No” to DAP and PAS.

But can MCA say “No” to UMNO outside the Barisan Nasional common policy framework?

The BN common policy framework was that Barisan Nasional would operate on the basis of consensus and the core principle of the BN common policy framework is to uphold the secular Malaysian Constitution with no hudud laws in the country.

Both these principles were violated when the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced on 24th April that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government had never rejected hudud.

Not only the early MCA Presidents like Tun Tan Cheng Lock and Tun Tan Siew Sin, but the first three Prime Ministers,  Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak and Tun Hussein would be turning in their graves at Najib’s announcement as it was clearly contrary to their wishes and vision of a secular Malaysian Constitution with no hudud laws in the country.

Najib had clearly violated and veered outside the Barisan Nasional  common policy framework when he declared that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government had never rejected hudud but MCA cannot say “No” to Najib to get the Prime Minister to retract his April 24 statement and return to the Barisan Nasional common policy framework!

This is the latest proof that MCA cannot say “No” to UMNO when UMNO violates the Barisan Nasional common policy framework.

Can  Liow, Wee and the other MCA leaders explain why their dreams of  ministerial and deputy ministerial posts on their return to the Barisan  Nasional Cabinet and government should take priority and precedence over the MCA political principles and the ability to say “NO” to UMNO when the Barisan Nasional common  policy framework are clearly and blatantly violated by UMNO?

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British marine archaeologist claims to have found flight MH370 3,000 miles from the search zone after spotting debris painted in the colours of Malaysia Airlines

Tim Akers believes he has discovered MH370 debris off the coast of Vietnam

He says satellite images appear to show tail, wings and other debris

Claims it is more likely plane crashed in South China Sea than Indian ocean

Authorities have been searching for aircraft off coast of Western Australia

Mr Akers had previously been studying Australian waters off Perth for years in search for remains of lost WWII ship – the HMAS Sydney

It comes as airline boss tells relatives of passengers onboard MH370 to go home and wait for further news

By JAMES RUSH and RICHARD SHEARS

Daily Mail

1 May 2014

A British marine archaeologist claims to have found the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 more than 3,000 miles from where authorities are currently searching.

Tim Akers, 56, had been studying Australian waters off Perth for years in a search for the remains of the country’s lost WWII ship – the HMAS Sydney.

The search for the vessel was in the same waters that are believed to contain the missing flight MH370 off the coast of Western Australia.

British marine archaeologist Tim Akers believes he has discovered debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 more than 3,000 miles from where everyone has been looking

A massive search operation involving satellites, aircraft, ships and sophisticated underwater equipment capable of scouring the ocean floor has failed to turn up any trace of the Boeing 777, which disappeared on March 8.

But Mr Akers, of North Yorkshire now thinks he might have discovered where the flight, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, went down after it went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

He claims to have identified what he believes is part of the tail of the jet off the coast of Vietnam – just around 1,000 miles from where the plane took off.

His findings appear to support reports this week from a US former pilot Michael Hoebel, from New York, who believes he found the wreckage of the flight off the coast of Thailand.

Mr Akers – who is referenced as an independent researcher with the National Maritime Museum – said he has now identified sections of the aircraft close to where Vietnam authorities received a report from oil workers who saw a plane burning coming out of the sky.

He said it was more plausible the jet crashed in the South China Sea than making it to the south Indian Ocean.

Images taken by Mr Akers from satellite scans appear to show what he claims are a ‘tail’, ‘wings’ and other debris.

He said: ‘The problem with the debris field in the southern Indian Ocean is that it has to be considered – what other material could be mimicking the debris?

‘The only material that could be giving off signals randomly and persistently and multi-coloured debris is remnants from the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 which is still trapped in currents.

‘The Japanese earthquake was the same magnitude and its debris is still travelling across the Pacific Ocean – it too will have things which are making noise on scans in the sea.

‘The very fact that no debris from a crashed aircraft has been seen or found at sea or on land or beach in Australia so far gives good reason to doubt there’s any truth in it ever having been there.

‘Reports from the pilot in the US that the plane is seen off Thailand would back up my findings because the plane would break up soon afterwards and the currents in that region are strong.’

Mr Aker said he believes in the South China Sea there have been witnesses, debris, aviation fuel and what he believes are jet aircraft parts.

He said it also appeared on his images that ships registered to Vietnam have been in contact with the wreckage.

He said: ‘There’s no question it could be anything else, because aircraft parts are very distinctive.

‘Having seen the oil rig worker’s report of the crash and NASA’s satellite images of the area it would seem strange the Malaysian authorities have dismissed the area out of hand.

‘Logically they should have checked it out by aircraft at low altitude and by a surface warship, but it looks like they chose not to. That in itself is very odd.

‘Fortunately the water there is shallow as it’s on the continental shelf and there will be debris all over the sea floor.’

Earlier this week, Australian tech firm GeoResonance said it had found what it believed was wreckage of a plane in the Bay of Bengal that should be investigated as potential debris from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, but the possibility was dismissed by search coordinators.

The Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) managing the multinational search for the missing plane said it believed that the plane came down in the southern Indian Ocean off Australia.

Australian geophysical survey company GeoResonance said it had been conducting its own search for the plane and had found what appeared to be plane wreckage in the Bay of Bengal, thousands of miles from the current search area.

PREVIOUS ‘SIGHTINGS’ BY INVESTIGATORS FROM ACROSS THE WORLD

Marine archaeologist Tim Akers is not the first who believes he may have found debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight.

From tech firms to web sleuths, there have been a number of possible sightings put forward by those investigating the disappearance.

On Tuesday, Australian private company GeoResonance claimed its sensor technology had found the wreckage of a plane in the Bay of Bengal, 118 miles south of Bangladesh.

The company said images taken of the same spot five days earlier showed it had appeared between March 5 and March 10. The plane disappeared on March 8.

A graphic from GeoResonance shows images depicting underwater ‘anomalies’ suggesting deposits of various metals in the approximate formation of a passenger airliner on the floor of the Bay of Bengal

‘The company is not declaring this is MH370, however it should be investigated,’ GeoResonance said in a statement.

The company’s director, David Pope, said he only went public with the information after he felt the authorities were disregarding it.

On Monday meanwhile, it was reported that a pilot from New York believed he had found the wreckage off the coast of Thailand after searching thousands of satellite images online.

Michael Hoebel, 60, spent hours trawling through the images made available to the public on a crowd-sourcing website, TomNod.com, before coming across what he believed was the plane.

The recreational pilot from Tonawanda said he was shocked to discover that the aircraft appeared to be in one piece beneath the water off the northeast coast of Malaysia, just west of Songkhla in Thailand. The image was taken days after the crash.

He told WIVB that he used the scale at the bottom of the map on TomNod and compared them to the specifications on Boeing’s website to establish that the white figure he saw was the perfect size.

Soon after the plane went missing, internet investigators from across the world were joining in the search by turning to TomNod.

Singer Courtney Love was just one of the website’s users who seemingly spent hours poring over images.

She posted a photograph of satellite imagery from the site on her Facebook page and suggested: ‘I’m no expert but up close this does look like a plane and an oil slick.’

Elsewhere, users of social networking site Reddit posted an image which they claim appears to show debris from the plane in the Strait of Malacca.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Monday the chance of finding floating debris was now remote, and a new phase of the search would focus on the seabed northwest of the Australian city of Perth.

Mr Akers has been searching for the missing aircraft by processing data from satellite images from Landsat 7 – NASA’s primary photographic satellite and the basis for Google Earth

In August 2006 Mr Akers claimed to the local press in Wetherby, North Yorkshire, to have found HMAS Sydney – despite 60 years of government and international searches.

His claim was then seemingly verified in March 2008 when the wreck was discovered by American marine scientist David Mearns near the same location Mr Akers had predicted off the coast of Australia.

Mr Akers said he uses a method of combining images from different parts of the light spectrum. Using software he developed he said he is able to look underground 75ft under the Earth and 10,000 feet under the sea.

Mr Akers has published his claims on his site australias-titanic.com.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 2 May 2014, 12:47 am and is filed under
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First official report into missing MH370 reveals nobody noticed the plane was missing for 17 minutes and no search was launched for another four hours

Five-page report details last known moments of doomed jet on March 8

It was released by Malaysian government in response to families’ anger

Document reveals first query about whereabouts was at 1.38am local time

But a rescue team was only alerted four hours later at 5.30am

Report recommends new worldwide standard of real-time plane tracking

Search is being scaled down and family help centres will close next week

By DAN BLOOM

Daily Mail

1 May 2014

Air traffic controllers did not notice Flight 370 was missing until 17 minutes after it vanished from radar, an official report has confirmed.

And they did not dispatch a rescue team until almost four hours later – despite contacting staff in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore.

The first official report on the plane’s disappearance was released by the Malaysian government today after politicians came under intense pressure from passengers’ families.

Written almost a month ago and dated April 9, the preliminary report has already been sent to the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

It was meant to stay confidential but Malaysian Prime Minister bowed to demands of families who complained the government had not done enough.

The report confirms the plane disappeared from Malaysian radar at 1.21 am on March 8 with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board, and no trace of it has been found since.

It was passing into Vietnamese airspace, and should have been picked up by counterparts there.

But the report reveals Vietnamese air traffic controllers only queried about it with their Malaysian colleagues at 1.38am.

The Malaysian authorities then contacted area control centres in Singapore, Hong Kong, Cambodia and an operations centre at Malaysia Airlines, and none could find any trace of the plane.

But it took another four hours, until 5.30am local time, before a Rescue Coordination Centre in the Malaysian city of Kuala Lumpur was activated.

The report said the International Civil Aviation Organisation, which sets worldwide standards, should discuss new methods of real-time tracking to ensure a huge passenger jet is never lost again.

It said: ‘While commercial air transport aircraft spend considerable amounts of time operating over remote areas, there is currently no requirement for real time tracking of these.

‘There have now been two occasions during the last five years when large commercial air transport aircraft have gone missing and their last position was not accurately known.

‘This uncertainty resulted in significant difficulty in locating the aircraft in a timely manner.

‘Therefore, the Malaysian Air Accident Investigation Bureau makes [its] safety recommendation to the ICAO.’

As well as the five-page report the government released other information from the investigation into the flight.

It included audio recordings of conversations between the cockpit and air traffic control, the plane’s cargo manifest and its seating plan.

Malaysia also released a map showing the plane’s deducted flight path and a document detailing actions taken by authorities in the hours after the Boeing 777 disappeared from radar.

Another report showed Malaysia Airlines at one point thought the plane, built in 2002, may have entered Cambodian airspace.

The airline said in the report that ‘MH370 was able to exchange signals with the flight and flying in Cambodian airspace,’ but that Cambodian authorities said they had no information or contact with Flight 370.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak last week appointed a team of experts to review all the information the government had and decide what should be made public.

Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said today: ‘The prime minister set, as a guiding principle, the rule that as long as the release of a particular piece of information does not hamper the investigation or the search operation, in the interests of openness and transparency, the information should be made public.’

Hishammuddin said Malaysia’s military radar tracked the jet making a turn-back in a westerly direction after playing back radar data the next morning, nearly seven hours after the plane vanished from civilian radar.

He said he was informed about the military discovery two hours later and relayed this to Najib, who immediately ordered a search in the Strait of Malacca.

He defended the military’s inaction in pursuing the plane for identification.

‘The aircraft was categorized as friendly by the radar operator and therefore no further action was taken at the time,’ Hishammuddin said.

The cargo manifest, meanwhile, includes a receipt for a package containing lithium ion batteries, noting that the package ‘must be handled with care.’

Some questions had been raised in March about the batteries and whether they could explode.

But Malaysia Airlines said then that they were in compliance with international requirements and classified as ‘non-dangerous goods.’

Meanwhile, Malaysia Airlines today advised relatives of passengers who were aboard Flight 370 to move out of hotels and return home to wait for news on the search for the plane.

Since the jet disappeared, the airline has been putting the relatives up in hotels, where they have been briefed on the search.

But the airline said today it would close its family assistance centers around the world by May 7, and that the families should receive search updates from ‘the comfort of their own homes.’

The airline said that it would establish family support centers in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, and that it would keep in close touch with the relatives through means including phone calls and meetings.

Malaysia Airlines also said it would soon make advanced compensation payments to the relatives.

No wreckage from the plane has been found, and an aerial search for surface debris ended Monday after six weeks of fruitless hunting.

An unmanned submarine is continuing to search underwater in an area of the southern Indian Ocean where sounds consistent with a plane’s black box were detected in early April.

Additional equipment is expected to be brought in within the next few weeks to scour an expanded underwater area.

The head of the search effort has predicted that the search could drag on for as long as a year.

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GLC dominance disproves Dr M’s claim of non-Malay stranglehold, says DAP MP

by Joseph Sipalan

The Malay Mail Online

May 2, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, May 2 ― The economic dominance of government-linked corporations (GLCs) negates Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s assertion of a non-Malay monopoly over the country’s wealth, a DAP MP said yesterday.

Swatting aside Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed’s claims of Chinese dominion over the country’s wealth and Indian command of its professions to justify pro-Bumiputera affirmative action, Kluang MP Liew Chin Tong argued that GLCs masked the community’s true control on the economy.

“Look at most of the private hospitals, any of the big ones you can name. Take Subang Jaya Medical Centre, that is owned by Sime Darby,” he said, referring to the now renamed Sime Darby Medical Centre.

“Prince Court, which is the country’s most expensive hospital, is owned by Petronas. Pantai hospital and Gleneagles are owned by Kazanah through its subsidiaries.

Sime Darby and Petronas are both state-owned corporations while Khazanah Nasional is state asset manager; these and other GLC’s come under the control of the government headed by Malay nationalist party Umno.

A steadily growing force since the Mahathir administration, GLCs such as Khazanah Nasional, Sime Darby and DRB-Hicom have amassed overflowing war chests and built networks that far surpass that which smaller firms and start-ups can muster.

Putrajaya estimates that firms linked to it employ around 5 per cent of the national workforce, and hold 36 per cent market capitalisation of Bursa Malaysia and 54 per cent of the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) respectively.

On Wednesday, Dr Mahathir defended pro-Bumiputera policies championed by the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, after US President Barack Obama said Malaysia will not prosper if minority groups continue to be marginalised, during his first visit to the Southeast Asian country over the weekend.

The country’s longest-serving prime minister said at a press conference that despite preferential treatment for the Bumiputera, the Chinese and Indian communities have had more than enough space to build their wealth and establish themselves in professional lines such as doctors and lawyers.

Liew said it was misleading for Dr Mahathir to claim that the non-Malays flourished under the BN’s affirmative action policy, arguing that even the majority of the Bumiputera themselves did not benefit.

GLCs were established as part of the Barisan Nasional (BN) government’s affirmative action policies for Bumiputera citizens under the New Economic Policy (NEP), but its effectiveness has been questioned even by those it is meant to help ― Bumiputera entrepreneurs.

The DAP lawmaker also stressed that the racial breakdown of the country’s wealthiest citizens is in no way a reflection of the living standards of ordinary Malaysians.

“I think the whole problem with Mahathir is he is reading it from a race and elite perspective. He looks at the top and think every group has a fair share, forgetting the people who are suffering at the bottom.

“Let’s admit it. Most Malays are poor, most Indians are poor, many Chinese are also poor. The people in Sabah and Sarawak could live a much better life if the system is not against them… the gap between the rich and poor is huge in Malaysia,” he said.

Liew said Dr Mahathir’s argument for race-based economic policies should be relegated to the past if Malaysians want to put an end to crony capitalism.

“The problem is that in the name of the Bumiputera, everyone else suffered. The majority of Bumiputera are not helped by the system, nor are they given a chance to succeed.

“Today we are in a situation where we should put forward a new argument, not a 1920s argument. Mahathir has been saying the same thing since 1947 when he started his column in the Straits Times in Singapore, but he has never helped the poor Malays.

“Whatever he says needs serious scrutiny,” Liew said, while calling for a non-racial discussion of economic inequality.

Malaysia’s Bumiputera majority enjoys privileges under a system of preferential treatment in jobs, housing and access to government funding.

Among others, these have been blamed for Malaysia’s chronic brain drain that has seen its non-Malay communities leaving the country, with southern neighbour Singapore the main beneficiary.

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Investigation Finds 17-Minute Delay in Reporting Missing Plane

By CHRIS BUCKLEY and MICHAEL FORSYTHE

New York Times

1st May 2014

HONG KONG — Seventeen minutes passed after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared from civilian radar screens before air traffic controllers in Vietnam and Malaysia raised any concerns about it, according to a Malaysian government report released on Thursday that described confusion and miscommunication in the hours that followed.

The details of delays and miscues came in a preliminary report by Malaysia’s chief inspector of air accidents on the investigation into the missing jet, which left only tantalizing clues to its likely whereabouts that were not recognized or understood for days after it disappeared on March 8. Experts eventually concluded that the plane must have fallen into the southern Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia, thousands of miles from its planned route to Beijing over the Gulf of Thailand, where searchers initially wasted crucial days on a fruitless hunt.

The hunt for debris or flight recorders from the plane has so far yielded nothing solid, and investigators have said that the final signals from the place, received by an Inmarsat communication satellite, gave them only a general idea of where the plane probably fell into the ocean. The government report suggested that commercial planes should be tracked constantly throughout their flights, and not just when they are within range of ground radar and their transponders are working, to avert another such baffling loss.

The Malaysian government released a map Thrusday showing several possible flight paths for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

“While commercial air transport aircraft spend considerable amounts of time operating over remote areas, there is currently no requirement for real-time tracking of these aircraft,” the report noted. “It is recommended that the International Civil Aviation Organization examine the safety benefits of introducing a standard for real-time tracking.”

Malaysian officials have said that the public report issued on Thursday was similar to one they had already submitted to the organization.

The report and accompanying documents indicated that the initial search efforts for the missing plane were dogged by miscommunication and mistakes that began while the plane was still in flight — and that appeared to cement initial, mistaken assumptions that the plane had fallen somewhere much closer to the Malaysian peninsula.

The plane took off at 12:41 a.m. from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, bound for Beijing. It disappeared from Malaysian air traffic controllers’ radar at 1:21 a.m. local time, when the plane was near airspace managed by controllers in Vietnam. Seventeen minutes later, at 1:38 a.m., the Vietnamese controllers noted that something was amiss and “made a query” to their Malaysian counterparts, the report said.

The investigation revealed that the Malaysia Airlines operations center sowed confusion when it told Kuala Lumpur air traffic control at 2:15 a.m. that the plane’s signals showed it was “flying in Cambodian airspace,” according to a timeline accompanying the report. At 2:35 a.m., nearly an hour after the plane disappeared from civilian radar, the airline’s operations center told the Kuala Lumpur control center that a “signal download” from the plane indicated that it was halfway up the Vietnam coast on its regular flight path.

The Kuala Lumpur controllers passed that information to Vietnam two minutes later, and for the next hour, air traffic controllers in the region tried in vain to contact the plane.

Only at 3:30 a.m. did the airline tell controllers that the information it had given was “not reliable for aircraft positioning,” according to the timeline. The Kuala Lumpur Rescue Coordination Center went into action two hours later, after “all effort to communicate and locate the aircraft failed,” the report said. The plane was probably still flying at that time, investigators have since concluded.

The investigator’s account of actions by air traffic controllers does not mention any effort to contact any of the three Malaysian military bases whose radar systems tracked the aircraft as it veered off course and flew west across the country. In an email accompanying the investigator’s report, Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia’s defense minister, wrote that the “aircraft was categorized as friendly by the radar operator, and therefore no further action was taken at the time.”

Mr. Hishammuddin did not explain how the military operator made that judgment. Nor did the report explain why the Malaysian military radar installation at Butterworth, which doubles as a civilian air traffic control station, did not take part in communications among air traffic controllers across the region about the missing plane.

Military radar last recorded a trace of the plane at 2:22 a.m., as it was flying west past the Malacca Strait and out into the ocean, according to a map provided with the investigator’s report. Experts believe that the plane made a mystifying turn to the south shortly thereafter.

Mr. Hishammuddin wrote that he was told at 10:30 a.m. of the “possible turn-back of the aircraft,” and then notified the country’s prime minister, Najib Razak, who ordered that searchers look for the plane in the Strait of Malacca, west of the Malaysian peninsula, as well as in the waters east of the peninsula where they were already hunting.

Along with the report and documents, the government released recordings of conversations between air traffic controllers and the pilots of Flight 370. The exchanges were routine and did not appear to reveal anything sinister. The last words heard from the cockpit, at 1:19 a.m. were “Good night, Malaysian Three Seven Zero.”

Firm conclusions about the specific causes of Flight 370’s disappearance are likely to elude investigators unless the plane’s flight recorders are recovered and analyzed. They are believed to be somewhere on the ocean floor, beneath 15,000 feet of water or more.

Searchers have been using the Bluefin-21, a submersible vehicle with sonar, to hunt in an area about 1,000 miles northwest of Perth, Western Australia, where acoustic signals believed to have come from beacons attached to the two flight recorders were detected. Prime Minister Tony Abbott of Australia said on Monday that the deep-sea search would be intensified and expanded to cover a “probable impact zone” 435 miles long and 50 miles wide, a task he said could take six to eight months to complete.

Malaysia Airlines said on its website that it would begin making compensation payments to passengers’ next of kin as soon as possible “in order to meet their immediate economic needs,” and that accepting the payments now would not “affect the rights of the next of kin to claim compensation according to the law at a later stage.”

The airline, which is controlled and part-owned by the Malaysian government, said it would “keep in close touch with the families on news updates through telephone calls, messages, the Internet and face-to-face meetings,” and would open offices in Beijing and Kuala Lumpur to provide support for the families of missing passengers, most of whom were Chinese citizens.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 2 May 2014, 6:02 am and is filed under
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MH370: Compilation of Bizarre Conspiracy Theories – Aliens, Pilot Suicide, Rapper Pitbull’s Prediction, Bermuda Triangle, and More Mind-Boggling Ideas

International Business Times

Thursday, May 1, 2014

The question still remains – will the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 ever be found? A number of conspiracy theories with capricious notches of reputation regarding the disappearance of Malaysia Ailrines Flight MH370 have spread online ever since the jetliner went missing on March 8.  Some people have rich imagination to propose such mind-boggling ideas and suggest the most enduring conspiracy theories about the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

Here, we round up the most controversial theories that had beleaguered the search for the missing jetliner.

Pilot Suicide

It has been speculated before that the pilot of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 could have committed suicide and taken the lives of the total 239 people aboard the aircraft. One of the pilots had intentionally crashed the jetliner to the Indian Ocean.

Landed in Diego Garcia

The remote island located near the Indian Ocean, Diego Garcia, had been rumoured to have housed all the passengers of the missing jetliner. It started when it was revealed that the flight simulator of pilot captain Zaharie Shah had the runway location of Diego Garcia. However, the U.S. dismissed such claims, saying that there was neither indications nor signs that the plane flew near the said remote island.

UFOs and Alien Abduction

Before the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went missing, a few UFO sightings had been allegedly recorded. According to a report by Forbidden Knowledge TV, there were a couple of “distinct anomalies” seen on the radar before the plane’s disappearance.

Rapper Pitbull’s Prediction

Did rapper Pitbull predict the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370? In 2012, Pitbull released a track titled Get it Started which features Latina singer Shakira, The Mirror reported. “Lyrics include: ‘Now it’s off the Malaysia’ and ‘two passports, three cities, two countries, one day.'” YouTube commenters alleged that the two passports pertain to the “stolen Austrian and Italian passports used by two Iranians.” “The three cities refer to the capital cities of Malaysia, China, and Vietnam and the two countries are Malaysia and Vietnam.”

Bermuda Triangle

Another conspiracy theory claimed that the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 had gone missing in the Bermuda Triangle. A Facebook video suggesting that the plane had been found in the Bermuda Triangle instantly went viral. The alleged video were found to be bogus in an attempt by hackers to capitalise on the story and trick Internet users to participate in fraudulent surveys.

Passengers Alive in Afghanistan

As if there weren’t enough conspiracy theories, another mind-boggling idea on the topic of Malaysia Airlines disappearance circulated online. According to a report, the 239 aboard the aircraft were being held hostage in Afghanistan.

Illuminati Participation

It is speculated that an alleged Illuminati member named Jacob Rothschild played a role in the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 2 May 2014, 5:24 am and is filed under
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MH370: Malaysia report indicates plane flew route to avoid detection

By Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney

Telegraph

01 May 2014

Map released as part of government findings on flight disappearance suggest it deliberately evaded military radars

Malaysia on Thursday released a preliminary report on the missing Flight MH370 which confirmed that the plane avoided flying over land after an unexplained westward turn and flew along a route apparently designed to prevent it being detected by military radars.

Releasing its first findings on the aviation mystery, the Malaysian government provided a detailed map showing the flight’s unusual path after it disappeared from the screens of air traffic controllers on March 8.

The map indicated that the plane did not – as previously believed – follow a series of predetermined navigational waypoints but instead flew directly above the Strait of Malacca and then turned again and travelled south above seas for about seven hours before crashing in the Indian Ocean. This route would have ensured the plane avoided flying over Indonesian territory – thereby reducing the risk of detection – though it may have passed over the northern tip of Sumatra.

David Learmount, an aviation expert, said the route suggested the aircraft was trying to evade detection and to ensure it was not tracked or targeted by the Indonesian air force.

“It does look like the plane was trying to avoid Indonesian air space,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “It was an aircraft that has gone rogue. It didn’t need to follow waypoints. There are no roads in the sky – pilots can go wherever they want.”

The investigation report released on Thursday by the Malaysian government offered no explanation of why the Boeing 777 – carrying 239 passengers and crew – flew off course during a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

But it admitted that air traffic controllers did not realize that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was missing until 17 minutes after it disappeared from civilian radar.

The report also confirmed there was a four-hour gap between the plane’s disappearance from air traffic control screens and the activation of a rescue operation.

The plane’s unexpected westward turn was observed by the Malaysian military, which took no action because it believed the aircraft was “friendly”.

The report detailed the baffled attempts by authorities in Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia to locate the plane, which had its communications system disabled about 40 minutes after take-off. It recommended that the International Civil Aviation Organization consider measures to ensure commercial planes are tracked in real time, citing the disappearance of an Air France flight in 2009 which crashed in the Atlantic Ocean and was only found in 2011.

“While commercial air transport aircraft spend considerable amounts of time operating over remote areas, there is currently no requirement for real-time tracking of these aircraft,” the report said.

It did not provide any further detail about the plane’s final location, though it offered a range of areas it could have landed in the southern Indian ocean.

The report included new information about the flight, including the seat location of each of the passengers, the cargo manifest and the audio recording of the communication between the cockpit and air traffic controllers. But none of the details shed further light on the reason for the plane’s disappearance.

A police investigation in Malaysia is continuing, but nothing has been found to suggest the pilot or co-pilot – or anyone else on board – was suspicious or had links to terrorism or were psychologically disturbed.

The report, which was dated April 8 and has been submitted to ICAO, was released following an order by Najib Razak, Malaysia’s prime minister, whose government has come under heavy criticism for its handling of the ordeal. It is not clear why it waited three weeks before releasing the five-page document.

Malaysia’s long-ruling government has been heavily criticised for a seemingly chaotic response and contradictory statements on MH370 in the early days of the crisis.

Malaysia Airlines on Thursday asked relatives of the missing passengers to return to “the comfort of their own homes” and to leave the hotel accommodation that has been provided by the government since the plane disappeared.

The hotels in Beijing and Kuala Lumpur have at times been the venues for harrowing scenes, in which some family members of the 153 Chinese passengers aboard have insisted their relatives are alive and accused Malaysian authorities of a cover-up.

The airline said it would keep families informed of any developments and would soon make compensation payments.The disappearance of the plane has led to the largest search in aviation history, involving 26 countries and spanning half the globe.

An air search was called off this week after more than 330 flights failed to find floating wreckage. An unmanned submarine continues to search an area where pings were detected that are believed to have been emitted by the plane’s black box locator beacon.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 2 May 2014, 5:01 am and is filed under
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Not a good day to be a Malaysian as the world wakes up to critical and adverse media headlines that nobody noticed MH 370 was missing for 17 minutes and no search was launched for another four hours

Today is not a good day to be a Malaysian as the world wakes up to critical and adverse media headlines on the Malaysian preliminary report on the missing MH370 Boeing 777-200 completing its eighth week of vanishing into the air with 239 passengers and crew on board without leaving any wreckage or clue as to what had happened on the fateful morning of March 8.

All over the world, the media splashed the shocking headlines  of the admission from the  first Malaysian official report that  nobody noticed that Flight MH370 was missing for 17 minutes and no search was launched for another four hours.

Instead of answering the many questions that have been raised in the past eight weeks of the MH 370 disaster, both the preliminary report and the statement by the Acting Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, accompanying it have only provoked more questions.

Firstly, the five-page preliminary report on the missing MH 370 had been described as “scant at best” in contrast to  the preliminary report into Air France 447 which was released one month after the plane disappeared and which was 128 pages long, while a preliminary report into the Qantas engine explosion over Singapore in 2010 was more than 40 pages with diagrams and charts.

The Malaysian government preliminary report makes one safety recommendation, for real-time air tracking to be installed on all commercial aircraft, viz:

“There have now been two occasions during the last five years when large commercial air transport aircraft have gone missing and their last position was not accurately known. This uncertainty resulted in significant difficulty in locating the aircraft in a timely manner.”

The same recommendation was made after the Air France jet crashed into the Atlantic in 2009, though nothing was done to satisfy the proposal.

More pertinent, however, is why the preliminary report which was dated three weeks ago on April 9 was not made public earlier, and why the relatives of the passengers and crew on board the missing plane had not been briefed on its contents before its public release.

For the first time in 56 days, Malaysians are told that  the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had on the very same morning of the missing MH370, ordered the search and rescue operations to be extended to the Straits of Malacca, alongside that being carried out in the South China Sea.

Was this true that right from the very beginning of the search-and-rescue operation for the MH 370 on the morning of May 8, the search area had been extended from South China Sea to the Straits of Malacca?

If so, why didn’t Hishammuddin announce it earlier, instead of waiting for 55 days  until yesterday in a statement accompanying the publication of the government’s preliminary report on the missing MH370?

It is to be noted that this new and hitherto unknown information to the public that the SAR operation area had right from the beginning on the same morning of the missing Boeing 77 been extended from the South China Sea to the Straits of Malacca was not disclosed in the preliminary report dated April 9 but in Hishammuddin’s statement dated May 1, 2014!

Furthermore, Najib himself did not seem to know that he had ordered the search area to be extended from the South China Sea to the Straits of Malacca the very same morning of the missing aircraft, for he made no mention of such extension in his press conference on May 8 held just after  7 pm where he announced the expansion of the search area after the SAR mission team found no wreckage in the plane’s last location before it disappeared from radar at 1.21 earlier in the morning.

Najib had said then that the first phase of the search efforts focused on the area where the plane’s signal was last picked up, had proved unsuccessful in locating it, and the search area was being “expanded as wide as possible”.

Civil Aviation Department director-general Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, who was present at Najib’s press conference, spelt out the meaning of this expansion of the search area by saying that “we are searching in Malaysian and Vietnamese waters”.

The next day, on Sunday, 9th March, Azharuddin told the press that the search operation had been expanded further  from the initial 20 nautical miles in the South China Sea to 50 nautical miles – no mention whatsoever of its expansion to the Straits of Malacca.

Unless Hishammuddin can give satisfactory explanation for these new additional discrepancies in the latest official accounts of what happened in the first crucial days of the SAR for the missing MH 370, he has only himself to blame if the government preliminary report and his statement accompanying it suffer a serious credibility gap.

This is why a report by an Opposition-headed Parliamentary Select Committee on the MH 370 disaster would have greater credibility than a unilaterial statement by Hishammuddin, especially when new facts suddenly surface as if to embellish the government’s version of what happened in the crucial first few days of the MH 370 disaster.

There are many fatal omissions in the government preliminary report – for instance, the failure to explain  the many flip-flops, contradictions and confusions in the information given out by the various authorities, for instance, the initial information that MH 370 had lost contact at 2.40 am when it was subsequently established that the aircraft disappeared from the Malaysian air traffic controllers’ radar at 1.21 am Malaysian time.

But the most fatal error which still cries out for explanation is why it took another four hours before the search-and-rescue (SAR) operation was launched, when time is of the essence in such cases as the sooner a SAR mission is initiated, the greater the possibility of finding the wreckage and casualties.

Under civil aviation emergency standard operating procedures, an Uncertainty Phase (INCERFA) should be invoked within 30 minutes when there is concern about the safety of an aircraft or its occupants.

An Alert Phase (ALERFA) should be invoked when there is apprehension about the safety of an aircraft and its occupants, or when communication from an aircraft has not been received within 60 minutes.

A Distress Phase (DETRESFA) should be invoked when there is reasonable certainty that the aircraft or its occupantsw are threatened by grave and imminent danger – or when following an Alert Phase, further attempts to establish communications with the aircraft are unsuccessful

All these emergency standard operating procedures were violated in the MH 370 case, for ALERFA should have been declared at 1.51 am, ALERTA at 2.21 am and DETRESFA before 3 am to lauch a full-scale SAR operation  instead of delaying until 5.30 am that day!

Another grave omission is the role of the Royal Malaysian Air Force and the military radar in the MH 370 disaster.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 2 May 2014, 11:21 am and is filed under
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A year after GE13, Malaysia remains in a political rut

by Sheridan Mahavera

The Malaysian Insider

May 03, 2014

As the country marks one year after arguably the most fiercely fought general election, The Malaysian Insider takes a step back to look at how the country has come since then. In this first part, we look at what has changed since then and if we are better off under the second Barisan Nasional administration of Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

One year after winning an even smaller majority and his first personal mandate, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his Barisan Nasional (BN) find themselves in the same position as before GE13 – running a country divided by race and religion, and a majority dissatisfied with the ruling government.

Islamic fundamentalists want the Shariah criminal law, hudud, which prescribes amputation for theft; racial friction remains as right-wing groups stoke issues; inflation spiked to 3.5% in March; while three out of five people surveyed are against a 6% consumption tax due April 2015.

Loss-making flag carrier Malaysia Airlines has mysteriously lost a Boeing 777-200ER with 239 on board without any trace after a hunt that now enters its 57th day after days of confusion over its location. It has yet to be found.

Political scientist Dr Wong Chin Huat has described the atmosphere of the past year after the May 5 general elections as being the same as the first four years when Najib took over in 2009 from predecessor Tun Abdullah Badawi who quit over BN’s historic loss of the two-thirds parliamentary super-majority in Election 2008.

“The Najib government in the year after May 5 is characterised by both active suppression of dissents and minorities and passive failure in governance.

“(This is) represented by the persecution of Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders and marginalisation of non-Muslims, and its failure in managing the MH370 crisis,” Wong told The Malaysian Insider.

The academic with the Penang Institute was referring to a sodomy conviction for opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and a sedition conviction for the late Karpal Singh, the prominent lawyer and former DAP national chairman, last month.

Wong said that work to check PR’s influence is still being done through the courts and allied NGOs in Najib’s second term of power, after his four years were marked by various transformation programmes under the 1Malaysia banner that failed to capture the electorate’s support.

Analysts said the BN government was seen to be slow in responding to increased tensions between ethnic and religious communities. It was also losing support as the pain of inflation bites deeper.

PR, which organised an anti-Goods and Services Tax (GST) rally on May 1 during the Labour Day public holiday hoped, just like it did four years ago, to create a wave of public anger towards pricier goods and services.

This climate, said Associate Professor Dr Shaharuddin Badaruddin of UiTM, reflected an unhealthy winner-takes-all political structure, where political players constantly have to unseat the other guy.

A healthy democracy has competing forces and ideologies. But a winner-takes-all culture drives political players to tear down some of the things that make a democracy healthy, the analysts said.

The numbers do not look good

Recent polling data from respected pollster Merdeka Center seemed to reflect a general unhappiness about the direction of the country and how it is being managed by the government.

In an opinion survey in March 2014, 49% of those polled felt the country was headed in the wrong direction. This is the highest its ever been in all of the center’s survey dating back to 2008.

Only 38% felt that the country was headed in the right direction. This too is the lowest it’s ever been.

The survey polled 1,005 voters over 21 years old in Peninsular Malaysia across ethnicity, gender, age and locality.

More than half of those polled were also unhappy with the government. A total of 41% said they were dissatisfied and 7% said they were angry.

In comparison, 42% said they were happy with the government.

When it came to their feelings about BN, the sentiment was even worse. At least 52% were not happy with the BN, where 42% expressed dissatisfaction and 10% were angry.

Of those polled, 38% said they were happy with the BN.

Insecure governance

Wong said that much of the political strife was because of feelings of insecurity on the part of the BN after it only won 47% of the popular vote last May 5.

Analysts have in the past shown that had Malaysia’s constituencies been more equal in terms of voter population, the current government would be reflected by the amount of votes each coalition received.

Also, said Shaharuddin, the GE13 results entrenched an urban-rural gap in terms of political loyalties. PR had won mostly urban, more populous seats while BN garnered mostly rural support.

“This tug of war continues just like the previous four years. Pakatan tries to increase rural votes and BN tries to go for urban votes,” said Shaharuddin, who is attached to UiTM’s administrative science and policy studies faculty.

To cement its power, said Wong, the BN administration was using a two-pronged strategy. First, it is going after its critics in Pakatan and NGOs by hauling them to court, mostly through the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012, he said.

Playing defence, provoking offence

In fact, the BN administration seemed to be leading defensively after a slew of unpopular policies.

It backtracked on some of its promises such as getting rid of preventive detention. It repealed the Internal Security Act and removed the Emergency Ordinance in 2012.

But it passed the Prevention of Crime Act 2013, which also provides for preventive detention.

After it cut fuel subsidies and allowed Tenaga Nasional Berhad to raise electricity prices, the administration has been on the back foot.

Najib’s own attempts to defuse anger over rising food prices were turned on its head and caricatured in the now infamous kangkung meme.

This has led PR leaders and civil society groups to believe that the racist flare-ups against DAP leaders and the raid on The Bible Society Of Malaysia (BSM) in January were to divert attention from cost of living issues.

The day before the raid, the youth-led Turun movement, which PR supported, had mounted a peaceful 10,000-person strong rally that took over the traditional New Year’s celebration at Dataran Merdeka.

Strike breeds fear, fear breeds mediocrity

Wong believed that this was the second prong of the BN administration strategy to contain PR.

“Because it is surviving on a narrow base of 47%, the Najib government has resorted to playing up Malay-Muslim sense of insecurity and of being under-siege to consolidate its support.

“Under Najib, the country is on auto-pilot while the ultra-right Malay-Muslim nationalists like Isma and Perkasa hijack our attention,” he added.

Shaharuddin believed the continued use of racism in pursuit of political support is holding Malaysia back from developing into a mature democracy.

That immaturity would eventually drag the country down, the analysts said, and added that when institutions were used for partisan reasons, they lose their ability to act impartially and equally towards every citizen.

Case in point, the police who, under the BN administration, were mysteriously unwilling to go after the Malay extremists who threatened Seputeh MP Teresa Kok, while Kok herself was probed for sedition for poking fun at the government through a satirical video, they said.

The politics of fear and intimidation through racist threats act as a curb on freedom of expression, the analyst said.

And lesser freedoms dampen the individual’s ability to innovate and be creative, which is the software that powers dynamic economies, said Shaharuddin.

“Don’t be surprised, by 2025, Indonesia’s economy would probably overtake ours because of their political maturity,” he added. – May 3, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 3 May 2014, 8:25 am and is filed under
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Guan Eng: Seah a resolute defender of the underdog

Malaysiakini

May 2, 2014

Deceased Teluk Intan MP Seah Leong Peng was a true party loyalist who had stood by the DAP in its darkest days since he became a member in 1995, said secretary-general Lim Guan Eng.

Lim said Seah had stood by the DAP whether from crushing electoral reverses or from the mindless persecution and prosecution of party leaders by the BN “totalitarian” government.

“He was an idealist and a fighter, who refused to bow down to threats and a determined defender of the underdog in his 19 years with the party and 15 years as a wakil rakyat,” the Penang chief minister added.

Seah, 48, died of cancer yesterday after he was diagnosed of the sickness in February.

“When I last saw him in the Kuala Lumpur Hospital, he looked positive and determined to fight this latest battle,” Lim said.

“He spoke about future plans and we never expect to lose him so quickly. His death will not only be a personal loss but also a loss to the party, people and the nation,” Lim added.

Lim said Seah will be sorely missed and the DAP extends its deepest condolences to his wife and family.

He added that Seah, a loyal DAP grassroots activist joined the party on May 31, 1995 at its “lowest ebbs, after suffering one of the worst electoral defeats in the April general elections that year.

“A talented grassroots activist, Seah was instrumental in providing the machinery and organisational manpower that enabled DAP to achieve a shocking upset victory by DAP’s M Kulasegaran during the Teluk Intan by-election in May 1997,” Lim said.

“During that election, DAP had turned around a BN majority of 13,968 in the 1995 general election to a DAP majority of 2,916 in the 1997 by-election,” Lim added.

Seah subsequently stood for and won the Pasir Bedamar state seat in Teluk Intan town in the 1999 general election, which he defended successfully in 2004 and 2008 general elections.

He switched to and won the Teluk Intan parliamentary seat in the 2013 general election.

Lim was in Bangkok for a short break with his  family when Seah passed away, but will be rushing back to attend his funeral in Teluk Intan at 10am  tomorrow.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 3 May 2014, 7:46 am and is filed under
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Hishamuddin’s reiteration umpteenth time yesterday that “we have nothing to hide” is most potent proof he realizes he  is fighting losing battle in the  credibility war both nationally and internationally because of lack of openness and accountability in MH 370 disaster crisis management

Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammddin Hussein in his statement yesterday repeated ad nauseum that “we have nothing to hide” demonstrating a grave guilt complex on this issue.

In fact, Hishammuddin’s reiteration umpteenth time yesterday that “we have nothing to hide” is the most potent proof that he realizes that he is fighting a losing battle in the credibility war both nationally and internationally because of lack of openness and accountability in the MH 370 disaster crisis management.

While continuing to declare that “we have nothing to hide”, he continues to evade accountability and responsibility for what happened in the crucial and critical first  few hours of the first day of the missing MH 370 tragedy on March 8, and even enlisted the help of Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) chief Angus Houston in  the latter’s first public appearance in Malaysia yesterday since heading the multinational search for MH370.

I could not believe it when I read the media report that when asked about the Malaysian government’s preliminary report on the missing MH 370  made public on May 1 and how much attention should be given to past mistakes, Houston parroted Hishammuddin saying that efforts should be focussed “wholly and solely” on the ongoing search.

Houston was reported to have said: “We need to continue the search. We owe it to the families, and I think we owe it to the flying public around the world that we continue this search, so that we can get to the bottom of what happened to MH370”.

Houston was not being very professional in parrying the question with a non sequitur, as nobody is suggesting any halt to the search for the missing MH 370, which is now beginning the ninth week of its disappearance, i.e. 57th day.

However,  the inability for eight weeks to find any wreckage or clue of the aircraft can no more be the reasons for the authorities concerned to avoid answering questions about past mistakes in the first few critical and crucial hours of the disaster – or the world’s longest-search for the missing aircraft which some said could drag on for years would also  be the world’s  longest-running cover-up for human and technological  faults and mistakes resulting in the MH370 disaster.

If Hishammddin and Houston are right that the focus on the missing MH 370 should be on the search and not on past mistakes, then Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, the director-general of the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA), had no business complaining that Vietnam’s air controllers having breached protocol by enquiring about the missing Flight MH 370 only 17 minutes after the plane vanished from radar on March 8.

Azharruddin said that at  1.19 am on March 8, Kuala Lumpur air traffic control had ordered the Beijing-bound MH 370 to change frequency to their Ho Chi Minh counterparts, but Ho Chi Minh only enquired about the jet at 1.38 am, when they were not contacted.

Azharruddin said: “If Ho Chi Minh wasn’t contacted by the aircraft, the protocol is five minutes.”

He said that once MH370 had passed the Igari navigational waypoint in the South China Sea, the plane was officially the responsibility of the Vietnamese air traffic controllers.

Azharuddin said it was for the controllers at Ho Chi Minh to say why it took them 12 minutes longer than prescribed by aviation protocol before contacting their Malaysian counterparts for verification.

I support not only Azharuddin’s right but responsibility to raise this question about Ho Chin Minh air controllers in breaching protocol in taking 17 minutes before enquiring  about the missing MH 370.

Similarly, all Malaysians have the right to inquire why after Ho Chi Minh control tower enquired about the missing MH370 at 1.38 am on March 8, it did not trigger sufficient alarm until four hours later before a  search-and-rescue (SAR) operation was launched.

But Hishammuddin does not want such questions to be asked, as he wants everyone to focus on the search for the missing Boeing after 57 days and not on past mistakes.

Similarly, why was there a three-hour gap between the launching of the SAR operation at 5.30 am and the review of the military radar at 8.30 am, and the further 2-hour gap between the review of the military radar and report to the Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein and the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

There was also another half-an hour gap before the first RMAF plane was scrambled in search of the missing MH370 at 10.54 am.

All these gaps as well as many other questions call for answers, including Hishammuddin’s flip-flop on the issue of a Parliamentary Select Committee or a Royal Commission of Inquiry on the missing MH370 disaster.

Hishammuddin cannot regain national and international confidence in the crisis management of MH 370 disaster by reiterating umpteenth times the refrain that the Malaysian government has nothing to hide, but only by fully observing the principles of openness and accountability in every aspect and facet of the handling of the Mh370 disaster in the past nine weeks.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 3 May 2014, 3:15 pm and is filed under
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Hudud, Islamic State and Malaysia’s future

Neil Khor

Malaysiakini

May 2, 2014

COMMENT
 Come June 2014, some 56 years after independence, Malaysian parliamentarians will decide whether we are going to evolve into an Islamic State as a private members bill allowing the implementation of Hudud Laws in Kelantan is put to them.

For those committed to secularism like this writer, the mind boggles with questions of how we came to this cross-roads after half a century of urbanization and industrialization?

Did Globalization pass us by and left us more conservative or did we take a peek at the world and have decided to reject it.

Confucius said that one has to walk in the shoes of others to understand their perspective. To some Malaysians, the journey from independence through nation building is only meaningful if we recover our full integrity by returning this land to its original state prior to Western colonialism.

To them, Malaya continues to be defined not by its multiculturalism but by its Islamic heritage. Society can only fully recover if Muslims live by the laws of their religion.

Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) remains committed to its aim of establishing a full-fledged Islamic State with Hudud as only one of its defining features.

Undoubtedly, some of these defining features are positive including equality and respect for human dignity. This, they believe, should extend to all citizens including non-Muslims. This was the basis of their cooperation with Pakatan Rakyat partners DAP and PKR.

However, their solution to the ills that affect Malaysia is a simple one: a return to Islamic principles. A complete and perfect system, Islam is the key to good governance.

There is really little point in continuing with the inherited Western-inspired governance system. Just look at the West today, some will say, and the state of the world. It is clear that a godless system, a system of governance without god at its centre, will never work.

Behind the scene plot

To them, there is really little reason for the alarmist response from non-Muslims on the issue of Hudud. Firstly, the laws apply only to Muslims, so why should it concern the non-Muslims?

It is an matter internal, a sure way to secure en-block Muslim unity and cooperation. Surely, a united Muslim community makes for a stronger Malaysia.

Those of us who decided to support Pakatan Rakyat cannot now say that we did it without the full knowledge of PAS’s ultimate goal.

That would be naive and politically expedient.

 In short, all of Malaysia’s political parties are fighting for different Malaysias and only a fool will continue to believe that they will set aside these goals for the common good. Grow up, wake up and get real.

How will PAS achieve its aim through the implementation of Hudud in Kelantan? It will call out to Muslim parliamentarians across all political lines to put religion ahead of nationalism, race and economic interests. By doing so, it will out-flank the disunited Umno, with a much-reduced Dr Mahathir Mohamad finally put out to pasture.

By successfully securing a simple majority in parliament this June, PAS will be able to amend the Constitution not only to transfer the rights of judicial powers from the federal to the state governments, it would have started on the first move to re-work the Constitution to eventually impose Shariah Laws on all Malaysian citizens.

Nature of the Charter

As Constitutional expert Shad Faruqi said in his recent column (due to the gravity of the subject, I am quoting Professor Shad extensively):

Article 8 forbids differentiation between persons on the ground of religion “except as expressly authorised by this Constitution”. There is an exception in Article 8(5) in relation to personal law. “This Article does not invalidate or prohibit any provision regulating personal law”.

Matters of theft, robbery, rape, incest and homosexuality are by no stretch of imagination matters of personal law. This means that it is arguable that our Constitution does not permit two thieves, similarly situated, to be treated differently for purposes of the law relating to punishment.

Alternatively, the Kelantan hudud law could apply to both Muslims and non-Muslims alike. In such a case, constitutional objections will arise that our Constitution does not permit the syariah to be imposed on non-Muslims.

It would be different, of course, if Malaysia were a full-fledged Islamic state. Then the hudud or any other uniform criminal law would apply to all.

Which leads one to the perennial polemic about whether Malaysia is an Islamic or secular state? The issue is immensely complicated and cannot be covered here in detail save to say that we have a supreme Constitution. The syariah applies in only a limited (though expanding) field and only to Muslims.

Any change to this arrangement will necessitate radical amendments to many provisions of the Constitution, require special two-third majorities in both Houses, consent of the Conference of Rulers and consent of the Governors of Sabah and Sarawak.

It is clear that the PAS attempt to secure the enforcement of its 1993 Islamic criminal law is part of its broader aspiration of an Islamic state. There are many slippery slopes and constitutional conundrums.”

It is very clear that the matter that will come up before parliament in June is of utmost importance. For those of us who have decided not to emigrate, the Hudud issue facing us is of great concern.

Keeping true to founding fathers

Whilst I wish to believe that our politicians have our best interests at heart, I cannot trust them to ensure that Malaysia remains a secular state as intended by our founding fathers.

 It is only with secularism, which is now a bad word in this country that we can co-exist in relative peace and harmony.

PAS and those supporting Hudud will argue that they do not have such intentions and that Hudud will only be applied to Muslims.

The reality is that to be able to meet the main objective of Hudud, which is justice, we cannot have two sets of laws and punishments for the same act. It will be grossly unfair and may end up tarnishing Islam as much as it upholds its laws.

So, going forward, right thinking Malaysians have but 30 days to make our case to the sitting prime minister, who must make the right decision either to enforce the whip and uphold the consensual politics of BN or release his parliamentarians to vote according to their conscience. Whatever his decision, we will know what direction Malaysia takes in July 2014.

NEIL KHOR completed his PhD at Cambridge University and now writes occasionally on matters that he thinks require better historical treatment. He is quietly optimistic about Malaysia’s future.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 3 May 2014, 11:13 am and is filed under
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Karpal thrilled us with his delivery in court, former judge recalls

by Anisah Shukry

The Malaysian Insider

May 02, 2014

Judges at the Court of Appeal used to eagerly anticipate Karpal Singh’s presence before them, and news of his appearance would immediately give them a ‘lift’, a former appellate court judge recalled this evening.

Speaking at a memorial service for Karpal in Petaling Jaya, Datuk Mahadev Shankar remembered how the fiery lawyer was popular with the judges, all of whom held him in high esteem.

“After I became a judge, I had the opportunity to watch Karpal in action, and I found that he was the best lawyer who ever appeared before me.

“I would rank him the best lawyer in the country,” Mahadev told some 100 people at the memorial organised by Karpal’s former schoolmates from SMK La Salle and St. Xavier’s Institution.

Other speakers at the memorial were Karpal’s son and Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo, DAP advisor and Gelang Patah MP Lim Kit Siang and former deputy minister of Land and Cooperative Development and former Penang deputy chief minister Dr Goh Cheng Teik.

“He never wasted the court’s time. When he came into court, he went straight for the jugular, without mincing his words.

“More often than not, I agreed with him. Other times, I did not, and I judged against him.

“But this was the opinion of all the judges that time: we put him as number one. When we heard he was coming to court that day, we immediately got a lift,” said the former judge.

Mahadev described every moment of Karpal in court as memorable, stressing that it was impossible to choose one example to illustrate the late veteran lawyer’s prowess.

He said one of the cases in which he disagreed with Karpal was over former deputy speaker of Parliament, D.P. Vijandran, whom Karpal had accused of being an actor in pornographic tapes in 1989.

“Karpal appeared before me in Shah Alam (court), and I thought the matter was related to Vijandran’s life, something he did in private, so I did not approve of Karpal bringing this up.

“I called him to my chambers and told him, ‘Karpal, I am very disappointed with what you are doing. Can you explain to me why you are doing this?’

“Karpal said: ‘I am an MP, and the father of that girl in the video came to me and told how traumatised she was, how she did not know she was being filmed.

“I must seek justice for her. As an MP, what would you expect me to do?

“I then told him: ‘Karpal, go out there and do your worst’,” Mahadev recalled, to laughter from the audience.

Mahadev said the last time he presided over a case in which Karpal appeared was at the VK Lingam inquiry, where Karpal made a “very forceful submission” to have one of the judges recused.

“Again, it was one of his best moments, although at the time he was in a wheelchair.

“However, when he starts talking, you don’t see the chair; you see a force coming out from that personality with all its logic and common sense and eloquence,” he said.

Mahadev added that he counted himself lucky for not ever having to face Karpal in court as a lawyer.

Recalling the impression Karpal made in the courts after graduating from university, Mahadev said: “In 1969 or 1970, when Karpal had just got out of university, I was regarded as a hotshot lawyer among my peers.

“One day a friend called me and said: ‘You’d better come to court and listen to Karpal, because I think he is much better than you’,” chuckled Mahadev.

Karpal, 73, died in an accident at 1.10am on April 17 when the multipurpose vehicle he was traveling in collided with a lorry near Gua Tempurung in Perak on the North-South Expressway.

His personal assistant Michael Cornelius, 39, also died in the accident. – May 2, 2014

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 3 May 2014, 11:36 am and is filed under
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Hudud’s practical problems: The non-Muslim witness, state boundaries and the Constitution

by Boo Su-Lyn and Joseph Sipalan

The Malay Mail Online

MAY 4, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, May 4 — Even if PAS wins Parliament’s nod for its hudud bid, lawyers say the Islamist party will face even greater hurdles when the controversial law is implemented in Kelantan.

They said not only does the Islamic penal code run contrary to the Federal Constitution, it would also have limited reach in that it could not prescribe punishment on criminals who flee the state’s borders.

To complicate things further, the Shariah Court cannot compel a non-Muslim witness to testify before it and cannot cite them for perjury or contempt of court as its jurisdiction only covers Muslims, they said.

“It’s unworkable because non-Muslims will not be subject to those provisions, which means your witnesses, your accomplices who are non-Muslims, will not appear in those cases,” Malaysian Bar president Christopher Leong told The Malay Mail Online.

“It’s non-compellable. I don’t have to answer your questions, let alone attend court,” he added.

PAS is attempting to enforce an Islamic penal code in Kelantan as early as next year, which comprises “hudud” and “qisas” (retribution) laws that cover offences like murder, causing hurt, rape, robbery and theft.

Leong also noted that according to the Federal Constitution, criminal law falls under federal jurisdiction.

Syarie lawyer Nizam Bashir said the Ninth Schedule of the Federal Constitution states that the Shariah court only has jurisdiction over “persons professing the religion of Islam”, and thus would need to be amended if Kelantan desired to allow the Islamic court to hear non-Muslims.

Kelantan Deputy Mentri Besar Datuk Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah said recently that cases involving Muslim perpetrators and non-Muslim victims would still go to the Shariah Court under the state’s Islamic criminal justice system.

“I find it repugnant for any rules relating to evidence that a person not subject to the control of the court can come to court, and the court can’t do anything if the person lies,” Nizam told The Malay Mail Online.

The syarie lawyer highlighted the recent controversial child custody disputes between non-Muslims and Muslim converts, where calls for the Shariah court to be given jurisdiction over such cases were problematic because the Islamic court could not hear non-Muslims.

He also pointed out that under an Islamic criminal justice system in Kelantan, a state-born resident who commits a crime in another state can only be arrested once they enter Kelantan.

“Keeping that in mind, pursuant to the 9th Schedule, every state has jurisdiction to enact legislation only within the confines of its state. In other words, it cannot enact an enactment with extraterritorial effect,” said Nizam.

Civil liberties lawyer Syahredzan Johan said that implementing Islamic criminal laws violated the Federal Constitution as Muslims in the country would be subjected to two legal systems.

“That in itself is inequality and is not in conformity with Article 8 of the Federal Constitution which guarantees equality,” Syahredzan told The Malay Mail Online.

“When it comes to criminal laws, a Muslim person is liable to suffer a more severe punishment for the same act compared to a non-Muslim,” he added.

Syahredzan cited an example where a pair ― a Muslim and non-Muslim ― commit theft together, but the Muslim is liable to lose his hand, while the non-Muslim may just receive a fine or a jail sentence.

“The issue of unconstitutionality arises in the implementation, and that is when it will be ripe for a constitutional challenge,” he said.

Constitutional lawyer Edmund Bon said an Islamic criminal justice system ― which mandates punishments like death by stoning, amputation, and 100 lashes ― violates Article 5 of the Federal Constitution that protects one’s freedom from torture.

“Article 5 of the Constitution encompasses the right to life. The right to life includes the right not to be subject to torture, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment.

“We would be ready to challenge hudud laws under the constitution should it come into force,” he said.

Bon also pointed out that the Federal Constitution limits the Shariah court’s jurisdiction to family law, personal law and offences against the “precepts” of Islam for Muslims.

But hudud, the lawyer argued, was not envisaged to be part of the offences that violate Islamic precepts.

In 1993, the PAS state government passed the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code Enactment II, allowing it to impose the strict Islamic penal code in the state. But the laws have not been implemented.

PAS is now looking for parliamentary approval to implement hudud. It plans to put forward two private members’ bills in Parliament. One seeks approval for unconventional punishments, some of which are for offences already covered in the Penal Code. The other seeks to empower Shariah courts to mete out the unconventional punishments.

According to the Shariah Courts (Criminal) Jurisdiction Act 1965, the Islamic court cannot sentence offenders to more than three years in jail or fine them more than RM5,000. It also cannot sentence offenders to be whipped more than six times.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 4 May 2014, 7:55 am and is filed under
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In MH370 search, incompetence, lost time

By Bill Palmer

CNN

May 2, 2014

(CNN) — If we were hoping that the finally released — but month-old — preliminary report on the March 8 disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 would help explain what happened, we were mostly disappointed.

But the report, issued Thursday and dated April 9, does add new insights on snafus in crucial communication between air traffic control centers and Malaysia Airlines on the morning Flight 370 disappeared. They are disturbing — and put the competence of the airline’s operations center in question.

Indeed the brevity of the report (five pages) seems to show a Malaysian Ministry of Transport still interested in sharing as little information as possible, especially when compared with the extensive detail in preliminary reports from other accidents, such as the loss of Air France Flight 447 in June 2009.

What we do learn from this new report is that the airline told controllers — who were already looking for Flight 370 — that everything was normal, delaying the realization that the plane was many hundreds of miles from where it was thought to be, and any attempts at finding it.

In fact, it would be three hours and 52 minutes between the time that the controller in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, reported to air traffic control in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that Flight 370 had not contacted him as instructed, and the time that the Kuala Lumpur rescue center was activated.

Here’s what the report says happened:

The Ho Chi Minh controller reported he saw the aircraft over the IGARI navigational waypoint, a position still within Malaysian airspace where the flight had been instructed to contact Ho Chi Minh, but he did not have verbal contact. The controller further noted the observed “radar blip” disappeared over another waypoint along the aircraft’s route northeast of IGARI, within Ho Chi Minh airspace and less than 100 miles from the southern tip of Vietnam.

After not hearing from the flight for 17 minutes after expected, the two controllers spent 20 minutes trying to contact the aircraft on “many” frequencies, the report says, and through relays from other aircraft in the area, as would be expected.

Then the controllers turned to the airline, and here things became odd.

 Flight 370 report raises serious questions Why 4 hours to start MH370 search? Report shows mistakes in MH370 search Sounds from inside Flight 370’s cockpit

At 2:03 a.m. local time, Malaysia Airlines’ operation control center told the watch supervisor at Kuala Lumpur air traffic control that the flight was in Cambodian airspace. It was not planned to enter that airspace. The Ho Chi Minh controller, apparently skeptical of the airline’s information, requested confirmation. When queried, the airline said it was able to “exchange signals” with the flight.

Apparently still unaware that something was amiss, at 2:35 a.m., nearly an hour after last contact with air traffic control and more than 30 minutes after reporting the airplane to be in Cambodian airspace, the airline informed Kuala Lumpur air traffic control that the airplane was “in normal condition based on signal download” and placed its position on course a few miles off eastern Vietnam.

The report makes no mention of whether the airline attempted to contact the airplane directly through satellite calls or data-link messages. At 03:30 a.m., almost an hour after the airline’s last report put the aircraft in normal condition east of Vietnam, its operations center reported the position was based on a prediction of the flight’s progress, not its actual position. Controllers expanded their contact attempts to include the Hong Kong and Beijing air traffic control centers, which also had no contact with the aircraft.

Controllers don’t instantly sound the alarm when an airplane doesn’t call them as expected. Air traffic communications are not perfect in day-to-day operations, and the controller exchanges reflect that. A gap in radio coverage, a misdialed frequency and other everyday occurrences were good reason for the controllers not to react immediately.

Controllers took the expected actions in attempting to reach the flight on various frequencies and by other aircraft. A transponder, too, occasionally fails, and air traffic control will ask an airplane’s crew to reset it, but radio contact is required to do so.

There are three phases of alerts in an air rescue situation, based on international protocols: The uncertainty phase, when no communication is received for 30 minutes after it should have been; the alert phase, when attempts to contact the crew or inquiries to other relevant sources have failed to reveal any information; and the distress phase, when further inquiries have failed to provide any information or when fuel on board is considered to be exhausted.

Clearly the misinformation provided by the airline that had controllers searching and attempting to contact the aircraft over much of Southeast Asia kept officials from realizing the airplane had never even reached the coast of Vietnam. That conclusion was not drawn until 5:20 a.m., after which the watch supervisor at Kuala Lumpur air traffic control activated the distress protocol.

By then the airplane was likely somewhere well out over the Indian Ocean. By then it had already been off air defense radar for hours, though it would take a replay of that data to see if it were ever on there in the first place.

This scenario highlights some of the real-life difficulties associated with the current state of international air traffic control. We rely on electronic equipment on board the airplane reporting its position — secondary radar (using transponders) and data-link communications. In remote oceanic areas, airplanes operate for many hours beyond any radar contact, where radio communication is also difficult.

Position and voice transmissions are periodic, not constant. For the modern air traffic control system, the current technology works well nearly 100% of the time. However, when the electronics fail for whatever reason — and there are many possibilities — we are left with nothing.

In the case of Air France Flight 447, controllers looking for contact with the aircraft and the airline had similar communications issues. The investigation of that disappearance revealed a surprising lack of coordination between air traffic control agencies, their inability to contact each other and clarity on who should be initiating emergency protocols when contact is lost.

In that case, too, there were erroneous reports — that the flight was OK and nearing Portugal airspace — though this time from controllers. Air France had, just before then, become anxious about the error messages sent from the airplane — which unbeknown to anyone had crashed more than four hours earlier north of Brazil. Many controllers and agencies were asking about the flight, but no one had triggered the uncertainty, alert and distress phases of the process.

Details of these same processes in the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 case remain unclear.

The preliminary report on Flight 370 concludes with one safety recommendation: to examine the safety benefits of introducing a standard for real-time tracking of commercial air transport aircraft. Systems such as Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast — essentially GPS — currently offer that type of coverage over or near land, and Flight 370 was so equipped. However, over remote areas the problem is more complex and expensive, and it still depends on whether or not the equipment on the plane is working.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 4 May 2014, 8:20 am and is filed under
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