Sodomy 2 Ruling Creates New Excitement

By Kee Thuan Chye

Yahoo! News

8th March 2014

The buzz is all over town. And most probably outside of the country too. Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim has been found guilty by the Court of Appeal of sodomising Saiful Bukhari Azlan in 2008.

The High Court acquitted him of the charge in January 2012, but the Attorney-General appealed. Now it looks like Anwar’s luck has run out. The famous Sodomy 2 case has caught up with him this time.

The judge has sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment. Although Anwar’s lawyers have straight away filed notice of appeal to the Federal Court, his conviction should disqualify him from standing in the upcoming Kajang by-election, which had come about when the incumbent state assemblyman, Lee Chin Cheh, stepped down to actually pave the way for Anwar to contest – as part of the so-called Kajang Move engineered by PKR strategist Rafizi Ramli with the long-term view of possibly making Anwar menteri besar in order to prepare Selangor as the launchpad for Pakatan Rakyat to take Putrajaya.

What happens to that now?

Rafizi explained that Anwar was needed in the Selangor administration to save it from being surreptitiously ousted by BN, as what happened in Perak in 2008. He also said Anwar would be able to help make Selangor a model state and prove Pakatan worthy of taking over the federal government. With Anwar no longer able to play saviour and lead the charge for Putrajaya at least for now, will the outlook for Pakatan in Selangor be dim? What about its prospects for the next general election (GE14)?

More pressing – since nomination day is next Tuesday – who will replace Anwar as PKR’s candidate in the Kajang by-election? Who can the party field to ensure that it retains the seat?

The talk is, Rafizi could be the one. He is well-liked and highly intelligent. And he has been riding high since he helped blow the whistle on the National Feedlot Centre (NFC) scandal.

But perhaps an even more winnable candidate would be Nurul Izzah Anwar, MP for Lembah Pantai. She is winsome, also highly intelligent, and, like Rafizi, among the new breed of politicians who exude industriousness and sincerity. Above all, the fact that she is Anwar’s daughter will merely add grist to the mill.

Indeed, Anwar’s conviction will not be doing BN any favours even if it’s only too gleeful about locking him away; it will only make things worse for the coalition at the Kajang by-election. If PKR was hoping to win by a bigger majority, it looks pretty certain of getting it now. In fact, it will probably win by a landslide. Even the average Malaysian is saying that even if PKR were to field a nobody, it would still win hands down.

We have been through this before, we have seen how Anwar’s first sodomy conviction in 1999 affected voting patterns in the general election held later that year. The effects would be even more pronounced in a small by-election.

Imagine also what a powerhouse Anwar would be campaigning for the PKR candidate replacing him in Kajang. He was already being greeted like a rock star during his recent pre-campaign ceramahs; what will his status be when he does the rounds after nomination day?

Some people are even saying that BN’s candidate, Chew Mei Fun, might lose her deposit.

To be sure, when the campaigning starts, her coalition will bear the brunt of the public’s anger at the rising cost of living and the Government’s maladministration, and the poor woman will have to take much heat. Now she can count on the anger against Anwar’s conviction to raise the temperature even higher.

The fact of the matter is, Malaysians no longer believe that Anwar is guilty or care if he is truly so or not. His sodomy trials have come to be perceived as nothing but political stunts orchestrated by nefarious BN who are unable to take on Anwar fair and square and have therefore to resort to underhanded tactics.

Many have been sickened by these tactics, like my old friend who called me right after the court ruling came out and expressed his utter disgust. “This is what they wanted to do to him,” he said, “and they’ve done it.”

What will happen to Anwar in the longer term?

If he loses again at the Federal Court – which seems a likely scenario – he will have to go to jail and therefore lose his parliamentary seat of Permatang Pauh. His political career will be over.

Pakatan Rakyat will have to find a new Opposition Leader and regroup. If no leader arises among them to emulate Anwar’s ability in galvanising PKR, the DAP and PAS, Umno will make more intense overtures to PAS to get them to cross over for the sake of Malay and Muslim unity. If BN fails, its chances of survival at GE14 – assuming it will be fairly run – may be slim.

Anwar’s plight may still be a factor at GE14 – the flame of anger against his Sodomy 2 conviction may still burn strong – but, again, this is more likely to be so if the Pakatan pact holds together. Anwar, on his part, will try his best to drag out his Federal Court appeal as long as possible so that he will still be remembered during GE14. But with the law prohibiting a convicted person from being involved in politics until five years after the end of his sentence, he will not make prime minister if Pakatan wins Putrajaya. Unless perhaps he gets a pardon from the King. And even then …

So, the possibilities are … well, to borrow a catchline from an advertisement about Mongolia, almost endless. And this has come to pass because of the Court of Appeal’s ruling on Sodomy 2. It has made politics in Malaysia even more volatile and exciting, more dramatic than soap opera. In the coming days, more excitement is expected. Let’s see what can create even more buzz than today’s event.

* Kee Thuan Chye is the author of the new book The Elections Bullshit, now available in bookstores.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 8 March 2014, 9:32 am and is filed under
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Winners, losers and others in Sodomy II

BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER

March 07, 2014

Barisan Nasional (BN) got what it wanted. Datuk Seri Najib Razak got what he wanted. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad got what he wanted. Tun Daim Zainuddin got what he wanted.

Heck, any Umno politician will be celebrating today. The man who could have ended it all for Umno is back where they want him to be – in jail.

And this time, the keys will be thrown away, finally ending the political career of a man who has withstood 15 years of sledgehammer treatment from his political opponents, BN.

Here are some initial thoughts from today’s court decision.

a) Najib Razak

The weakest Prime Minister in history has bought himself some time. His political opponents in Umno will now give him some credit for taking their nemesis out of the picture. The appointment of Tan Sri Shafee Abdullah as the prosecutor was down to the PM, a rare, rare move which showed how much Putrajaya wanted the win.

With Anwar behind bars, Najib would also have one less formidable adversary to contend with. For a prime minister with an approval rating of just about 50%, any advantage is desirable. But Najib should not celebrate too long: there is still a groundswell of anger over the rising cost of living and the excesses of the first family.

Then there are his opponents in Umno. They need to be fed. All the time.

b) Dr Mahathir Mohamad

The former prime minister was mightily unhappy when the Federal Court released Anwar Ibrahim in 2006. He chalked it down as another failing of his successor turned punching bag, Tun Abdullah Badawi.

The fact that a resurgent Anwar galvanised, nurtured and eventually, led Pakatan Rakyat (PR) to shatter the myth of invincibility of BN at the polls in 2008 only served to turn up Dr Mahathir’s antipathy towards Abdullah.

Since his release, Anwar has been a thorn in the side of Dr Mahathir and in the run-up to the May 5th elections, the PKR leader hammered away at the former PM’s Achilles heel: his children’s astronomical wealth.

Apart from bare denials, Dr Mahathir could not offer any other comeback. The thought of Anwar as Menteri Besar, presiding over the richest state in Malaysia, would have been all too much for Dr Mahathir.

After all, the plan was to end his political career in 1998.

c) Khalid Ibrahim.

He will remain as the Selangor Menteri Besar. Nothing more needs to be said. The contest for PKR’s number two position now becomes even more important.

d) Shafee Abdullah.

This win puts him closer to his ultimate wish: to replace Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail as the Attorney General. Not bad for someone who been in the news for all the wrong reasons recently.

e) Anwar Ibrahim.

By showing his hand and announcing that he planned to become the Menetri Besar of Selangor, Anwar inadvertently galvanised all the forces against him. Yes, there was a fair amount of bluster about his ambitions, but his foes in Umno (especially those from the Mahathir era) were spooked.

They understood the grave consequences for Umno in the richest state if Anwar did a decent job as MB. And they understood the danger of Anwar having a platform. Any platform. He had to be finished off before he became the Selangor MB.

The picture is bleak for the opposition leader personally. One major consolation: PR’s continued gains in GE13, where it snared 52% of the popular vote, showed that many Malaysians want change.

Another nugget to digest: Umno’s support among all the races has dropped significant since May 5. So maybe the lesson is this: personalities matter, but not as much as the public’s desire for change.

f) The judiciary.

The less said, the better.

g) Rafizi Ramli, Saifuddin Nasution, Nurul Izzah Anwar, Tony Pua, Salahuddin Ayub and others.

With Anwar locked up, it is time for the younger PR leaders to step up and play a more central role in uniting the opposition and pushing for a more formal structure.

A great orator and campaigner, Anwar was less inclined to handle the nuts and bolts of the coalition. As a result, there was too much ad hoc decision-making. Time for a proper PR leadership council that meets every fortnight.

h) International condemnation.

Do not expect US President Barack Obama to tick off Malaysia or even cancel his trip here next month. It is not going to happen. Washington is too pre-occupied with taming Putin’s Russia.

Also, the Obama administration has been less emphatic to the woes of opposition politicians in Malaysia. All they care about is whether Malaysia is going to sign that Pacific trade treaty and whether Kuala Lumpur is a good friend in the fight against terrorism. – March 7, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 8 March 2014, 7:36 am and is filed under
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Anwar will miss the June meeting of Parliament if he is jailed in two months, which means Permatang Pauh by-election will have to be held in June or July

If Anwar Ibrahim is right in his winding-up speech at the Pakatan Rakyat 5th Convention in Shah Alam yesterday that he might be imprisoned within two months, it would mean another “rush to judgment” to dispose of Anwar’s Federal Court appeal to uphold his five-year jail conviction by the Court of Appeal on Friday.

This is because Anwar would have exhausted his legal remedies and once his 5-year jail conviction is upheld by the Federal Court in two months, Anwar will have to start his second jail incarceration.

It would also mean that Anwar will not be able to attend the June meeting of Parliament, and the forthcoming parliamentary meeting beginning tomorrow will be Anwar’s last parliamentary meeting.

Furthermore, it would also mean that Anwar would be disqualified as MP and the Permatang Pauh parliamentary by-election would have to be held in June or July.

These are among the consequences of the Court of Appeal’s extraordinary five-year jail conviction for Anwar on Friday.

I said on Feb. 28 when Anwar was named the PR/PKR candidate for the Kajang by-election that his real enemies in the Kajang by-election are not the independent candidates, MCA or even UMNO but PR/PKR internal feuds and infighting.

It is heartening that after a week of “free for all” in such internal feuds and infighting,  which greatly exasperated PR/PKR supporters, my concern of a PR/PKR “house divided” has been resolved on the evening of  Thursday 6th March – the eve of the Court of Appeal’s infamous “black Friday” with its five-year conviction for Anwar  – where all PR/PKR national and Selangor leaders were committed to ensure a solid and united front in  facing the challenge of the Kajang by-election.

The infamous Court of Appeal five-year conviction judgment the next day on Friday, 7th March  which knocked out Anwar as a candidate for Kajang by-election can only solidify the PR/PKR unity and cohesion to ensure that PR/PKR will be facing the Kajang by-election challenge as one solid fighting team.

As I said at the PR 5th Convention yesterday, it is not enough for the Pakatan Rakyat/PKR candidate just to win, or even to win with a bigger majority than last year during the 13th general election.

The Kajang voters should be asked to do the impossible in the by-election on March 23 by making the Barisan Nasional candidate lose deposit.

I agree that this is a very “tall order” but the occasion warrants going for such an extraordinary result.

This will a clear and unmistakable verdict that the people disapproves of any return to authoritarian rule or reversion to blatant and flagrant subversion of the independence, impartiality and integrity of the judiciary and other important national institutions to serve the political interests of the powers-that-be, as is clearly evident in the five-year jail conviction of Anwar Ibrahim yesterday.

Next Tuesday, DAP National Chairman Karpal Singh is being sentenced for sedition. Will Karpal be jailed or lose his qualification as an MP leading to a parliamentary by-election in Bukit Gelugor?

In actual fact, Karpal should never have been charged at all.

This is why the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has urged the Malaysian government to review the conviction of Karpal  for sedition and to repeal the Sedition Act as promised two years ago.

Expressing “serious concern”, its spokesperson Rupert Colville said the Sedition Act is inconsistent with international human rights law and infringes on freedom of expression.

Rupert said that Karpal as a lawyer must be able to discharge his duty “without intimidation, hindrance or improper interference of any sort”.

“(Lawyers) should be entitled to express views in their professional capacities on matters concerning the law,” he said.

But Malaysia, despite Najib’s claim to want to make Malaysia “the best democracy in the world”, is heading in the opposite direction –  plunging international respect for our judiciary after  nosediving of other indices for a respected developed nation, losing even to  Myanmar in the latest 2014 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), with Malaysia not only falling to the lowest-ever ranking of 147th but two places behind Myanmar which is ranked No. 145.

Is Najib taking Malaysia into a new “Dark Age”?

(Speech when opening the meeting of DAP state political education directors at DAP Hqrs in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday, 9th March 2014 at 10am)

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 9 March 2014, 12:50 pm and is filed under
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Call on Kajang voters to do the impossible in the by-election by making the Barisan Nasional candidate lose deposit

[Speech (Part 2) at the 5th Pakatan Rakyat Convention at Setia City Convention Centre, Shah Alam on Saturday, 8th March 2014 at 4.30 pm]

The Kajang voters should do the impossible in the by-election on March 23 by making the Barisan Nasional candidate lose deposit.

It is not enough for the Pakatan Rakyat/PKR candidate just to win, or even to win with a bigger majority than last year during the 13th general election.

Pakatan Rakyat  should set out to ensure the achievement of the impossible in the Kajang by-election by getting the Barisan Nasional candidate to lose  the deposit.

This is a very “tall order” but the occasion warrants going for such an extraordinary result.

This will a clear and unmistakable verdict that the people disapproves of any return to authoritarian rule or reversion to blatant and flagrant subversion of the  independence, impartiality and integrity of  the judiciary and other important national institutions to serve the political interests of the powers-that-be, as is clearly evident in the five-year jail conviction of Anwar Ibrahim yesterday.

I have been saying that in the past 10 months since the 13th General Elections on May 5 last year, the country has been plagued by a quintuplet (i.e. five) of national crisis – nation-building, economic, educational, security and corruption.

Today, it is not only Malaysians, investors and tourists who do not feel safe in the country because of the prevalence of crime in the country – even police personnel themselves are no longer safe as evident from a recent incident.

Since yesterday, a sixth national crisis has been added to the list to make the country face a sextuplet of national crisis – a return of the crisis of the judiciary because of the  relapse in the long and hard journey to ensure that there is a truly independent judiciary and just rule of law in Malaysia.

The voters of Kajang in the by-election of March 23 has a special responsibility to address this sextuplet of national crisis plaguing the country.

Never before in the nation’s history has Malaysia been so polarized than in the past 10 months because of incessant incitement of racial and religious ill-will, animosities and hatred through lies and falsehoods, and what is worse, the ability of the instigators and extremists to carry out their  nefarious and treacherous plots and activities with immunity and impunity without fear that they would be brought to book because of their open defiance and breaches of the law.

Earlier this week, the UMNO organ, Utusan Malaysia made the preposterous allegation that DAP has “a grand licence” to cause extreme racial and religious provocations without fear of action of the authorities.

The Utusan editors know that nobody believes such garbage, as Pakatan Rakyat  leaders are often victims of selective and malicious prosecution evenwhen there had been no transgressions against the law.

But Utusan still went ahead with such garbage for their purpose is to send a strong message to the powers-that-be that they should continue to enjoy “immunity and impunity” for their incessant incitement of racial and religious animosities and hatred through lies and falsehoods, which is why I had described such Utusan writings as “Thief Shouting Thief”.

As a result, the fabric of Malaysian society faces the gravest threat from such irresponsible and reckless attempts to pit race against race and religion against religion, with the authorities abdicating their responsibilities to protect the peace, harmony, goodwill and tolerance in our multi-racial and multi-religious nation.

Today, the Pakatan Rakyat of PKR, PAS and DAP is the only political coalition of Malaysian patriots which stands up to protect  the peace, harmony, goodwill, progress and prosperity of multi-racial and multi-religious Malaysia, as UMNO and Barisan Nasional parties retire to the  sidelines to allow the instigators and extremists to do their worst to incite racial and religious animosities and hatred even if this can result in  racial chaos and religious conflagration.

This is why Pakatan Rakyat must ask the Kajang by-election voters to be in the very forefront of the “Love Malaysia, Save Malaysia”  campaign to rescue the nation from the plots and machinations of the instigators and extremists who want Malaysia to fall apart through the incessant incitement of racial and religious animosities and hatred.

Let Malaysians, regardless of race and religion, be united by a common Malaysian Dream to ensure that our nation can succeed in building an united, harmonious, free, just, progressive and prosperous society for all our citizens – starting with the Kajang by-election on March 23.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 9 March 2014, 7:10 am and is filed under
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Judicial process and timing in Anwar’s case implies persecution not prosecution, says Bar Council

The Malaysian Insider

March 09, 2014

The charge against Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and the manner in which his appeal was handled fuels the perception that the opposition leader was persecuted and not prosecuted, the Bar Council said.

Malaysian Bar president Christopher Leong said that in the first place, the archaic provision under the Penal Code which criminalises sodomy and oral sex should never have been brought against Anwar.

“The case has unnecessarily taken up judicial time and public funds, and has muddied the waters of our justice system.

“We also have grave misgivings with respect to the manner and timing in which the appeal was handled, especially over the way in which mitigation and sentencing proceeded,” Leong said.

The Court of Appeal had found Anwar guilty of sodomy on Friday, overturning the Kuala Lumpur High Court’s January 2012 decision that had found him innocent.

Leong, in a statement today, said that Anwar’s legal team was notified on February 27 that substantive appeal would be heard on March 6 and 7, and that lawyer Karpal Singh only had seven days to prepare for a criminal appeal over a case that had gone through a lengthy trial and which involved 32 witnesses, including expert evidence.

According to Leong, prior to this, the Court of Appeal registry had informed Anwar’s lawyers to reserve April 7 to 10 as the proposed hearing dates, to which the team agreed.

However, these dates were abandoned and replaced with earlier dates.

“If this is true, it raises the question as to why the Court of Appeal brought forward the appeal to be heard when the April dates had been agreed on.

“After all the defendant was facing a possible 20-year jail term and the April dates would have given the legal team more time to prepare,” he said.

Leong further said that while the hearing of the appeal which extended until past 6pm was not unheard of, it was a rare occurrence.

Further to this, after hearing submissions on March 7, the court had taken approximately 90 minutes to consider before giving a unanimous decision in reversing the acquittal by the High Court.

The panel then rejected Karpal’s request for an adjournment to the following week for the mitigation and sentencing for the purpose of obtaining a medical report on Anwar and instead gave the legal team one hour to prepare.

The Court of Appeal then sentenced Anwar to five years jail that evening with proceedings ending only at 7pm.

“These matters raise many questions, cause much speculation, and lend to the perception that justice may have been hijacked, Leong said.

He said that questions that must be answered was whether the cause of justice was best served by the manner and timing in which this appeal was handled and whether the administration of justice was compromised or interfered with.

“Justice and independence are not only facts to be established, it is imperative that they are seen to be so established,” Leong said. – March 9, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 9 March 2014, 8:31 pm and is filed under
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Oil slick found between Vietnam and Malaysia ‘suspected of being crashed Boeing aircraft’

The Malaysian Insider

Latest Update: March 09, 2014 12:00 am

A 20km-long oil slick spotted between Malaysia and Vietnam this afternoon may be the first sign that missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 with 239 people aboard went down in the waters between Vietnam and northern Malaysia, according to Vietnam’s director of civil aviation.

“An AN26 aircraft of the Vietnam Navy has discovered an oil slick about 20 kilometres in the search area, which is suspected of being a crashed Boeing aircraft – we have announced that information to Singapore and Malaysia and we continue the search,” Lai Xuan Thanh, the director of the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam, was quoted as saying by The New York Times.

He said he did not know whether the slick was closer to the Malaysian or Vietnam side of the entrance to the Gulf of Thailand.

The report said the last coordinates automatically transmitted by the aircraft were from near the midpoint between the two countries, when the plane appeared to be in stable flight at 35,000 feet.

The discovery came as an international team of rescuers from, among others, Vietnam, Malaysia, China, the United States, Singapore and the Philippines search for the Beijing-bound aircraft which vanished after taking off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 12.41am.

Fredrik Lindahl, the chief executive of Flightradar24, an online aircraft tracking service, said that the missing plane, a Boeing 777-200, had been equipped with a transponder that regularly transmitted its position, as calculated from the global positioning system of satellites.

The last recorded position of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was 150 kilometres northeast of Kuala Terengganu he wrote in an email to The New York Times.

That position is a little less than halfway across the entrance of the Gulf of Thailand from northern Malaysia toward southernmost Vietnam.

“Vietnam has ordered airplanes and military ships to help in the search and rescue,” Lai said, adding, “the possibility of an accident is high”.

Lt Col Pham Hong Soi, the head of the propaganda department of the Vietnam Navy for the region near the crash site, said that one rescue vessel had already been ordered to sea and two more had been made ready for departure.

China Central Television said that according to Chinese air traffic control officials, the aircraft never entered Chinese airspace.

Malaysia Airlines said that the plane had 227 passengers aboard, including two infants, and an all-Malaysian crew of 12.

The passengers included 154 citizens from China or Taiwan, 38 Malaysians, seven Indonesians, six Australians, five Indians, four French and three Americans, as well as two citizens each from New Zealand, Ukraine and Canada and one each from Russia, Italy, the Netherlands and Austria.

The airline said that it was notifying the next-of-kin of the passengers and crew. Hundreds of family members gathered in rooms set aside for them at a Beijing hotel, and at least two medical personnel went in to monitor them, reported The New York Times.

Boeing said in a statement that it was assembling a team of technical experts to advise the national authorities investigating the disappearance of the aircraft.

The New York Times said in its report that one uncertainty about the flight was when it disappeared from the radar and how quickly the search began in the Gulf of Thailand.

Malaysia Airlines said that the plane took off at 12.41am Malaysia time, and that the plane disappeared from air traffic control radar in Subang, a suburb of Kuala Lumpur, at 2.40am.

That timeline seemed to suggest that the plane stayed in the air for two hours – long enough to fly not only across the Gulf of Thailand but also far north across Vietnam. But Lindahl of Flightradar 24 said that the last radar contact had been at 1.19am, less than 40 minutes after the flight began.

A Malaysia Airlines spokesman said on Saturday evening that the last conversation between the flight crew and air traffic control in Malaysia had been around 1.30am, but he reiterated that the plane had not disappeared from air traffic control systems in Subang until 2.40am.

Arnold Barnett, a long-time Massachusetts Institute of Technology specialist in aviation safety statistics, said that prior to the disappearance of Saturday’s flight, Malaysia Airlines had suffered two fatal crashes, in 1977 and 1995.

Based on his estimate that Malaysia Airlines operates roughly 120,000 flights a year, he calculated that the airline’s safety record was consistent with other fairly prosperous, middle-income countries but had not yet reached the better safety record of airlines based in the world’s richest countries.

The New York Times report said with no new information about the missing plane, China’s civil aviation authority urged the Malaysian government to be more forthcoming.

“The Civil Aviation Administration of China has urged the Malaysian civil aviation authority to clarify the situation of flight MH370 as quickly as possible, and to brief the Chinese side as quickly as possible,” it quoted a report by the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua which cited an unnamed Chinese aviation official.

“It also urged Malaysia Airlines to provide active assistance to families of passengers in accordance with the regulations in international civil aviation covenants.”

Speaking on the search and rescue efforts, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said: ”Our thoughts and prayers are with those who are missing on flight MH370.

“An extensive search and rescue mission is underway. We are grateful for the support in this effort from around the world.

“Fifteen aircraft and nine ships are currently searching for the missing plane. Our priority now is to widen the search area and provide support to relatives of those missing.

“Today, all Malaysians stand in solidarity with those on flight MH370 and their loved ones.” –  March 8, 2014.

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Possibility of Foul Play Raised in Disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Jet

By KEITH BRADSHER

New York Times

MARCH 8, 2014

HONG KONG — As searchers scoured the Gulf of Thailand early Sunday for a Malaysia Airlines jet with 239 people aboard, investigators examined the usual causes of such disappearances: bad weather, possible mechanical failures, pilot error. But the discovery that at least two passengers were carrying stolen passports also raised the unsettling possibility of foul play.

As of the predawn hours Sunday, there was little to go on: no wreckage of the jet, a Boeing 777-200 on a red-eye flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Beijing, had been found, and other than a 12-mile-long oil slick on the surface of the gulf, there was no hint that a crash had even taken place.

Officials stressed that the investigation was in its earliest stages and that they were considering all possibilities. The airline said the plane had recently been inspected and had no history of malfunctions. Malaysia’s deputy minister of transport, Aziz bin Kaprawi, said the authorities had received no distress signal from the aircraft.

But limits of the fuel tanks board the jet on Flight MH 370 meant that it came down somewhere instead of reaching Beijing at dawn on Saturday as scheduled If it did end up in the Gulf of Thailand , rescuers would have one advantage:the gulf is a shallow arm of the South China Sea, with no comparison to the inky depths of the Atlantic.

Officials in Vienna and Rome confirmed that the names of two citizens, an Italian and an Austrian, listed on the manifest of the missing flight matched the names on two passports that were reported stolen in Phuket, Thailand.

A European counterterrorism official said the passport of the Italian man, whom the official identified as Luigi Maraldi, had been stolen at a vehicle rental shop in Phuket on Aug. 1. The official said the passport of the Austrian man, Christian Kozel, was stolen two years ago.

A senior American intelligence official said law enforcement and intelligence agencies were investigating the matter. But so far, they had no leads.

“At this time, we have not identified this as an act of terrorism,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing inquiry. “While the stolen passports are interesting, they don’t necessarily say to us that this was a terrorism act.”

The European counterterrorism official, who also declined to be publicly identified discussing an ongoing investigation, said he was “surprised that it was possible to check-in with stolen passports in Kuala Lumpur.”

“Normally this should not be possible,” he said, adding: “I think this should be checked thoroughly. Maybe they were careless – or somebody helped them.”

The chief executive of Malaysia Airlines, Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, told reporters at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Saturday night: “We are not ruling out anything. As far as we are concerned right now, it’s just a report.”

Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, reported that the Chinese prime minister, Li Keqiang, held an urgent telephone call with his Malaysian counterpart, Najib Razak, telling him, “The urgent task now is to quickly clarify the situation, and use a range of means to enhance the intensity of search and rescue.”

Malaysia Airlines said the plane had 227 passengers aboard, including two infants, and an all-Malaysian crew of 12. The passengers included 154 citizens from China or Taiwan, 38 Malaysians, seven Indonesians, six Australians, five Indians, four French and three Americans, as well as two citizens each from Canada, New Zealand and Ukraine and one each from Austria, Italy, the Netherlands and Russia.

Among the Americans was Philip Wood, an IBM employee in Kuala Lumpur, whose family lives in Texas.

Malaysia, the United States and Vietnam dispatched ships and aircraft to the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand on Saturday to join an intensive search. China said it had sent a vessel to the area at top speed that would arrive there on Sunday afternoon.

Lai Xuan Thanh, the director of the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam, said a Vietnamese Navy AN26 aircraft had discovered the oil slick toward the Vietnam side of the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand.

Fredrik Lindahl, the chief executive of Flightradar24, an online aircraft tracking service, said the missing plane had been equipped with a transponder that regularly transmitted its position via GPS satellites. The last recorded position of Flight MH370 was 93 miles northeast of Kuala Terengganu, a port on the northeast coast of Peninsular Malaysia, he wrote in an email.

Mr. Ahmad of Malaysia Airlines said in a statement that there had been speculation that the plane landed safely somewhere along the route to Beijing, and said the airline was investigating. But in a telephone interview before reporting the sighting of the slick, Mr. Lai expressed concern about the aircraft’s fate.

“The possibility of an accident is high,” he said.

Relatives of those on the missing flight who were waiting at Beijing Capital International Airport were taken to a hotel and kept waiting in a room for hours, prompting complaints. One woman said no one from Malaysia Airlines had come to the room to talk to relatives.

Liu Meng, 26, who works for a communications company, said he had been waiting for his boss to arrive from Malaysia since 6 a.m. “I was able to contact him up until yesterday afternoon,” Mr. Liu said. “After that, nothing.”

At the Kuala Lumpur airport, a grief-stricken relative of a passenger aboard MH370 screamed uncontrollably as he was escorted out of the terminal by airline employees.

“Be truthful about this!” said the man, Koon Chim Wa, whose booming voice echoed through the cavernous terminal.

“They say they don’t know where the plane is,” Mr. Koon said, his hands and body shaking. “Is this a joke?”

Lt. Col. Pham Hong Soi, the head of the propaganda department of the Vietnam Navy for the region near the crash site, said one rescue vessel had already been ordered to sea and two more were ready for departure.

Malaysia’s prime minister, Mr. Najib, said in a statement that 15 aircraft and nine ships were searching for the missing plane. Without saying where his government suspected that the plane disappeared, he added, “Our priority now is to widen the search area and provide support to relatives of those missing.”

The United States Seventh Fleet said it was sending a destroyer, the Pinckney, and a P-3C maritime surveillance aircraft to join the search for Flight MH370.

In addition, the Chinese State Oceanic Administration said it had sent a Coast Guard ship to the area where the plane might have gone down. “It is traveling at full speed to the waters, and is expected to reach there on the afternoon of the 9th,” said a statement on the administration’s website.

The Chinese Ministry of Transport said a team of scuba divers who specialize in emergency rescues and recovery had been assembled on Hainan, the southern island-province, to prepare to go on Sunday to the area where the where airliner may have gone down.

China Central Television said that according to Chinese air traffic control officials, the aircraft never entered Chinese airspace.

Boeing said in a statement that it was assembling a team of technical experts to advise the national authorities investigating the disappearance of the aircraft.

One uncertainty about the flight involved the timing of its disappearance from radar. Malaysia Airlines said it took off at 12:41 a.m. Malaysia time and disappeared from air traffic control radar in Subang, a suburb of Kuala Lumpur, at 2:40 a.m.

That timeline seemed to suggest that the plane stayed in the air for two hours — long enough to fly not only across the Gulf of Thailand but also far north across Vietnam. But Mr. Lindahl of Flightradar 24 said that the last radar contact had been at 1:19 a.m., less than 40 minutes after the flight began.

A Malaysia Airlines spokesman said on Saturday evening that the last conversation between the flight crew and air traffic control in Malaysia had been around 1:30 a.m., but he reiterated that the plane had not disappeared from air traffic control systems in Subang until 2:40 a.m.

Arnold Barnett, a longtime Massachusetts Institute of Technology specialist in aviation safety statistics, said that before the disappearance of the plane, Malaysia Airlines had suffered two fatal crashes, in 1977 and 1995. Based on his estimate that Malaysia Airlines operates roughly 120,000 flights a year, he calculated that the airline’s safety record was consistent with that of airlines in other fairly prosperous, middle-income countries but had not yet reached the better safety record of airlines based in the world’s richest countries.

Malaysia, near the Equator, is a popular winter vacation destination for affluent residents of chilly, smoggy Beijing.

The list of Chinese passengers aboard the missing flight included the names of artists who had attended a meeting in Kuala Lumpur, said the newspaper Beijing News. Other reports said the missing included members of a returning delegation of Buddhists.

If the plane is confirmed to have crashed into the sea, the disaster would add to a difficult week for China and its government. Last Saturday, a group of assailants used knives and daggers to kill 29 people and wound more than 140 at a train station in Kunming, a city in southwest China.

China’s growing wealth has brought a steep rise in the number of its citizens traveling overseas, especially throughout Asia, and the government has sometimes faced allegations, especially from Internet users, that officials failed to adequately help victims of emergencies abroad and their families. This time, President Xi Jinping of China and other senior officials swiftly issued statements to show they were closely following developments.

Correction: March 8, 2014

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article referred incorrectly, on second reference, to the chief executive officer of Malaysia Airlines, Ahmad Jauhari Yahya. He is Mr. Ahmad, not Mr. Yahya.

Reporting was contributed by Thomas Fuller from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia;  Eric Schmitt from Washington; Chau Doan from Hanoi, Vietnam; Amy Qin from Beijing; Chris Buckley from Hong Kong; and Alison Smale from Berlin. Bree Feng contributed research from Beijing.

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Questions about crisis management, like why the PM  and acting Transport Minister not informed immediately  when MH370 went missing but only after several crucial hours later, will have to wait as top priority now is to  find aircraft and address the grief of bereaved relatives

The last 24 hours had been a very distraught time not only for the bereaved relatives and friends of the 239 passengers and crew on Malaysia Airlines’ MH370 flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, but to people in the  whole world as the passengers involved 14 different  nationalities.

When I first read of the shocking news some 24 hours ago, I tweeted a local online report by The Malaysian Insider “MAS says ‘lost contact’ with plane carrying 239 passengers” and an international news report in The Los Angeles Times “Malaysia Airlines says flight to Beijing missing” – as this is not just a national concern, but a riveting international mishap.

For the last 24 hours, I joined not only Malaysians but people world-wide hoping and praying that the 239 passengers and crew of MH 370 would miraculously survive their ordeal.

The missing MH370 flight and the fate of the 239 people on board dominated the thoughts of all the Pakatan Rakyat leaders and members who attended the Pakatan Rakyat Fifth Convention, and although Parliamentary Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and DAP National Organising Secretary Anthony Loke were the only two leaders to touch on the ongoing search for the MH370 in their speeches, the Convention was united in their unspoken prayers and hopes that 239 people on board the MH370 would able to pull through safely.

After 24 hours, one would have to face up to the reality that something terrible had happened in the tragedy of MH370.

There are many questions about crisis management, for instance, why the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the acting Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein were not informed immediately when the MH370 with 239 people on board went missing as they only knew about it several crucial hours later, and why a Search and Rescue Operation (SAR) mission was not initiated within an hour of a “missing” aircraft as delays will result in SAR aircraft equipped with systems like forward-looking infrared being unable to detect the “heat signature” from the engine fuselage and bodies.

But these critical questions about crisis management, as well as the actual cause of  the “missing” MH370, will have to wait as the top priority now is to  find the aircraft and to address the grief of bereaved relatives and friends over the tragedy which had befallen the 239 passengers and crew of MH370.

At this hour of greatest grief and trial for the relatives and friends of the 239 passengers and crew aboard the MH370, MAS and the Malaysian government are duty-bound to do whatever is possible to lighten their grief and sorrow.

I join all Malaysians, and I believe the common humanity world-wide,  to extend the deepest condolences to the bereaved relatives and friends of the 239 passengers and crew of MH370, and  pray that they find the strength from the support of Malaysians and like-minded people world-wide to face their great grief and trial.

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Some theories behind why MH370 might have vanished

The Malaysian Insider

March 09, 2014

As the search continues for Malaysia Airlines’ missing flight MH370, international aviation experts have weighed with their theories on what caused it to vanish the radar screens early Saturday morning.

The experts told the Associated Press that the most dangerous parts of a flight are takeoff and landing. Rarely do incidents happen when a plane is cruising seven miles above the earth.

In a report this morning, the news agency said the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines jet well into its flight Saturday morning over the South China Sea has led aviation experts to assume that whatever happened was quick and left the pilots no time to place a distress call.

It could take investigators months, if not years, to determine what happened to the Boeing 777 flying from Malaysia’s largest city of Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

“At this early stage, we’re focusing on the facts that we don’t know,” said Todd Curtis, a former safety engineer with Boeing who worked on its 777 wide-body jets, and is now director of the Airsafe.com Foundation.

If there was a minor mechanical failure — or even something more serious like the shutdown of both of the plane’s engines — the pilots likely would have had time to radio for help. The lack of a call “suggests something very sudden and very violent happened,” said William Waldock, who teaches accident investigation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz.

AP said it initially appears that there was either an abrupt breakup of the plane or something that led it into a quick, steep dive. Some experts even suggested an act of terrorism or a pilot purposely crashing the jet.

“Either you had a catastrophic event that tore the airplane apart, or you had a criminal act,” said Scott Hamilton, managing director of aviation consultancy Leeham Co. “It was so quick and they didn’t radio.”

No matter how unlikely a scenario, it’s too early to rule out any possibilities, experts warn. The best clues will come with the recovery of the flight data and voice recorders and an examination of the wreckage, the US news agency said.

Airplane crashes typically occur during takeoff and the climb away from an airport, or while coming in for a landing, as in last year’s fatal crash of an Asiana Airlines jet in San Francisco.

Just 9% of fatal accidents happen when a plane is at cruising altitude, according to a statistical summary of commercial jet airplane accidents done by Boeing.

Capt. John M. Cox, who spent 25 years flying for US Airways and is now CEO of Safety Operating Systems, said that whatever happened to the Malaysia Airlines jet, it occurred quickly.

The problem had to be big enough, he said, to stop the plane’s transponder from broadcasting its location, although the transponder can be purposely shut off from the cockpit.

One of the first indicators of what happened will be the size of the debris field. If it is large and spread out over tens of miles, then the plane likely broke apart at a high elevation. That could signal a bomb or a massive airframe failure. If it is a smaller field, the plane probably fell from 35,000 feet intact, breaking up upon contact with the water.

“We know the airplane is down. Beyond that, we don’t know a whole lot,” Cox was quoted as saying by AP.

The Boeing 777 has one of the best safety records in aviation history. It first carried passengers in June 1995 and went 18 years without a fatal accident. That streak came to an end with the July 2013 Asiana crash. Three of the 307 people aboard that flight died.

Saturday’s Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 239 passengers and crew would only be the second fatal incident for the aircraft type.

“It’s one of the most reliable airplanes ever built,” said John Goglia, a former member of the US National Transportation Safety Board.

Some of the possible causes for the plane disappearing include:

    *A catastrophic structural failure of the airframe or its Rolls-Royce Trent 800 engines. Most aircraft are made of aluminum which is susceptible to corrosion over time, especially in areas of high humidity. But given the plane’s long history and impressive safety record, experts suggest this is unlikely.

More of a threat to the plane’s integrity is the constant pressurisation and depressurisation of the cabin for takeoff and landing. In April 2011, a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 made an emergency landing shortly after takeoff from Phoenix after the plane’s fuselage ruptured, causing a 5-foot tear. The plane, with 118 people on board, landed safely. But such a rupture is less likely in this case. Airlines fly the 777 on longer distances, with many fewer takeoffs and landings, putting less stress on the airframe.

“It’s not like this was Southwest Airlines doing 10 flights a day,” Hamilton said. “There’s nothing to suggest there would be any fatigue issues.”

    *Bad weather. Planes are designed to fly through most severe storms. However, in June 2009, an Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed during a bad storm over the Atlantic Ocean. Ice built up on the Airbus A330’s airspeed indicators, giving false readings. That, and bad decisions by the pilots, led the plane into a stall causing it to plummet into the sea. All 228 passengers and crew aboard died. The pilots never radioed for help.

In the case of Saturday’s Malaysia Airlines flight, all indications show that there were clear skies.

    *Pilot disorientation. Curtis said that the pilots could have taken the plane off autopilot and somehow went off course and didn’t realise it until it was too late. The plane could have flown for another five or six hours from its point of last contact, putting it up to 3,000 miles away.

This is unlikely given that the plane probably would have been picked up by radar somewhere. But it’s too early to eliminate it as a possibility.

    *Failure of both engines. In January 2008, a British Airways 777 crashed about 1,000 feet short of the runway at London’s Heathrow Airport. As the plane was coming in to land, the engines lost thrust because of ice buildup in the fuel system. There were no fatalities.

Loss of both engines is possible in this case, but Hamilton said the plane could glide for up to 20 minutes, giving pilots plenty of time to make an emergency call.

When a US Airways A320 lost both of its engines in January 2009 after taking off from LaGuardia Airport in New York, it was at a much lower elevation. But Capt. Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger still had plenty of communications with air traffic controllers before ending the six-minute flight in the Hudson River.

    *A bomb. Several planes have been brought down including Pan Am Flight 103 between London and New York in December 1988. There was also an Air India flight in June 1985 between Montreal and London and a plane in September 1989 flown by French airline Union des Transports Aériens which blew up over the Sahara.

    *Hijacking. A traditional hijacking seems unlikely given that a plane’s captors typically land at an airport and have some type of demand. But a 9/11-like hijacking is possible, with terrorists forcing the plane into the ocean.

    *Pilot suicide. There were two large jet crashes in the late 1990s — a SilkAir flight and an EgyptAir flight— that are believed to have been caused by pilots deliberately crashing the planes. Government crash investigators never formally declared the crashes suicides but both are widely acknowledged by crash experts to have been caused by deliberate pilot actions.

    *Accidental shoot-down by some country’s military. In July 1988, the United States Navy missile cruiser USS Vincennes accidently shot down an Iran Air flight, killing all 290 passengers and crew. In September 1983, a Korean Air Lines flight was shot down by a Russian fighter jet. – March 9, 2014.

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Where is Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?

By Chelsea J. Carter. Jim Clancy and Ralph Ellis, CNN

March 8, 2014 — Updated 2136 GMT (0536 HKT)

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (CNN) — What happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?

The closest thing to a clue in the search for a missing commercial jetliner are oil slicks in the Gulf of Thailand where all contact was lost with the flight, which was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

A Vietnamese search plane, part of a massive, multinational search effort, spotted the oil slicks that stretch between 6 and 9 miles, the Vietnam government’s official news agency reported. The traces of oil were found about 90 miles south of Tho Chu Island, the report said, in the same area where the flight disappeared from radar early Saturday morning.

The oil discovery only added to a growing list of questions about the fate of the plane carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members: When and where did the plane go, and who exactly was on board?

“It has been more than 24 hours since we last heard from MH370. …The search and rescue team is yet to determine the whereabouts of the Boeing 777-200 aircraft,” the airline said in a statement posted to its website. At this stage, search and rescue efforts “have failed to find evidence of any wreckage.”

In the meantime, the search area in the South China Sea is being expanded and efforts to locate the plane will continue overnight and into early Sunday morning, said Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director general of civil aviation in Malaysia.

Passenger manifest questioned

Bits and pieces of information have begun to form, but it remains unclear how they fit into the bigger picture, if at all.

For instance, after the airline released a manifest, Austria denied that one of its citizens was aboard the flight. The Austrian citizen was safe and sound, and his passport had been stolen two years ago, Austrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Weiss told CNN.

Similarly, Italy’s foreign ministry confirmed that no Italians were on MH370, even though an Italian was listed on the manifest. Police in Italy said the man’s passport was stolen last year.

A U.S. intelligence official said authorities are aware of reporting about lost or stolen passports used by passengers on the missing flight.

“No nexus to terrorism yet,” the official said, “although that’s by no means definitive. We’re still tracking.”

Malaysian authorities reiterated during a news conference that they are not ruling anything out regarding the missing aircraft.

China, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia were conducting search and rescue operations south of Tho Chu island in the South China Sea, according to the airline and reports from Xinhua, China’s official news agency. Ships, helicopters and airplanes are being utilized.

The USS Pinckney, a destroyer conducting training in the South China Sea, is being routed to the southern Vietnamese coast to aid in the search, the U.S. Navy said. The United States is also sending a P-3C Orion surveillance plane from Japan to provide long-range search, radar and communications capabilities, the Navy said.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Coast Guard has ordered on-duty vessels to aid in the search, Xinhua reported, citing government officials. China also sent a diving and salvage team to the area where the airplane is suspected to have gone down, as well as a Coast Guard vessel, the news agency reported.

Even so, officials appeared resigned to accepting the worst outcome.

“I’d just like to say our thoughts and prayers are with the bereaved families,” Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said during a news conference.

Grief, especially in China

More than half the passengers were Chinese.

Relatives of the 154 Chinese citizens on board gathered Saturday at a hotel complex in the Lido district of Beijing as a large crowd of reporters gathered outside.

“My son was only 40 years old,” one woman wailed as she was led inside. “My son, my son. What am I going to do?”

Family members were kept in a hotel conference room, where media outlets had no access. Most of the familymembers have so far refused to talk to reporters. The airline said the public can call +603 7884 1234 for further information.

The Boeing 777-200 ER departed Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 12:41 a.m. and was expected to land in Beijing at 6:30 a.m., a 2,300-mile (3,700 kilometer) trip. It never arrived.

The plane carried 227 passengers, including five children under 5 years old, and 12 crew members, the airline said. Air traffic control in Subang, in Malaysia, had last contact with the plane.

At the time of its disappearance, the Malaysia Airlines plane was carrying about 7.5 hours of fuel, an airline official said.

Among the passengers there were 154 people from China or Taiwan; 38 Malaysians, and three U.S. citizens.

The airline’s website said the flight was piloted by a veteran.

Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, a 53-year-old Malaysian, has 18,365 total flying hours and joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981, the website said. The first officer is Fariq Ab Hamid, 27, a Malaysian with a total of 2,763 flying hours. He joined Malaysia Airlines in 2007.

Still an ‘urgent need’ to find plane

“The lack of communications suggests to me that something most unfortunate has happened,” said Mary Schiavo, former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation, in an interview with CNN International.

“But that, of course, does not mean that there are not many persons that need to be rescued and secured. There’s still a very urgent need to find that plane and to render aid,” she said.

Malaysia Airlines operates in Southeast Asia, East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and on the route between Europe and Australasia.

It has 15 Boeing 777-200 ER planes in its fleet, CNN’s Richard Quest reported. The missing airplane was delivered to Malaysia Airlines in 2002.

Part of the company is in the private sector, but the government owns most of it.

Malayan Airways Limited began flying in 1937 as an air service between Penang and Singapore. A decade later, it began flying commercially as the national airline.

In 1963, when Malaysia was formed, the airline was renamed Malaysian Airlines Limited.

Within 20 years, it had grown from a single aircraft operator into a company with 2,400 employees and a fleet operator.

If this aircraft has crashed with a total loss, it would the deadliest aviation incident since November 2001, when an American Airlines Airbus A300 crashed in Belle Harbor, Queens, shortly after takeoff from JFK Airport. Killed were 265 people, including five people on the ground.

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As search expands, MH370’s disappearance remains puzzling

The Malaysian Insider

MARCH 10, 2014

It was a clear night and the weather was good. Oil rigs and fishing boats blinked lights like a string of pearls across the shallow Malay Basin northeast of Kota Baru. And Flight MH370 flying above in the night sky disappeared.

For a third day in a row, more ships and aircraft are searching for the missing Boeing 777-200ER which was carrying 239 people when it lost contact with air traffic controllers at 1.30am Saturday.

No one has reported a mid-air explosion and US authorities have also discounted that from data obtained from satellites and radars in the area, which is one of the busiest parts of the South China Sea.

The Wall Street Journal reported today that for many, the mystery over the disappearance of Flight MH370 is deepened by its occurrence in what is quickly becoming one of the world’s most militarised zones, with hundreds of millions of dollars being expended to detect fighter jets, missiles, submarines and other threats.

The multinational force scouring parts of the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea includes some of the most advanced military surveillance equipment, but the only potential wreckage fragment to date came via a revamped version of a 50-year old propeller plane best known for operating in rough terrain, such as Canada’s Far North.

The strategic goals of China and the US have driven a broader arms race that is peppering the region with more military surveillance equipment above and below the water, including spotter planes and unmanned aerial vehicles, submarines, sonar buoys and helicopters.

They have put behind their animosities and are working together to search for the jet that has 14 nationalities onboard, the majority being Chinese passengers.

All have so far been unable to find solid evidence of the missing jet’s fate, or its whereabouts.

The Vietnamese Navy revealed on Sunday that it spotted a possible fragment from the missing Malaysia Airlines jet during a patrol by a Twin Otter turboprop some 50 miles south-southwest of Tho Chu Island.

The navy in 2010 ordered six DC-6-400 Twin Otter Series 400 aircraft – which can take off and land on water – from Canada’s Viking Air Ltd. It was due to resume its search at first light Monday.

The navy received its first plane at the end of last year, an updated version of the venerable twin-propeller de Havilland Twin Otter, that costs around C$6 million (RM17 million), excluding its sophisticated electronic sensors, the business daily reported.

It joined a force of more than 40 ships and 20 aircraft scouring the area, also drawn from China, the US, Malaysia and Singapore.

Other navies are now expanding the search as far wide as the Andaman Sea on the Thai west coast and the Straits of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia.

The U.S. Navy dispatched a destroyer equipped with two helicopters that arrived in the search area early Sunday, while a Lockheed Martin Corp. P-3C Orion surveillance aircraft from Kadena Air Base in Okinawa is due to start a second day of searching Monday.

The MH-60R helicopters built by the Sikorsky Aircraft unit of United Technologies Corp. are based on the USS Pinckney, which was diverted from a training and maritime security mission in international waters in the South China Sea. – March 10, 2014.

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Conspiracy theories abound as search for MH370 enters third day

by Clara Chooi

The Malay Mail Online

March 10, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, March 10 — Over 50 hours have passed since MH370 was reported lost from radar and still, there is little to go on.

Intensive, round-the-clock efforts by an army of rescue workers from at least seven countries, manning as many as 72 vessels by air and by sea have failed to turn up a single indication that the Boeing B777-200 aircraft carrying a staggering 239 people had crashed.

There has been no confirmed signs of wreckage or debris, no distress signal from the aircraft before it lost contact with ground control, and no clear indication that the plane had experienced any technical failure in mid-air.

During take-off at 12.41am on Saturday, weather conditions appeared normal.

The aircraft, described as one of the “safest”, was said to be equipped with the ASD-B flight transponder, which transmits data on its altitude, speed and direction back to air traffic controllers every second.

It also has the Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT), which can be manually activated by the pilot or should transmit information on the aircraft’s location in the event of a crash.

As such, if the plane was experiencing problems in mid-flight, it should have been able to transmit a distress signal back to ground control. The fact that this did not happen has led to speculation on the behaviour of the aircraft at the time it went missing.

The Beijing-bound airship was piloted by 53-year-old Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, a man described by news reports as a “tech geek” so passionate about flying that he even practices on his own flight simulator at home. Zaharie has more than 18,600 flying hours under his belt in the three decades he has served MAS.

Was MH370 Captain Zaharie’s last flight?

If indeed the aircraft had disintegrated in mid-air due to mechanical failure, it would have happened so quickly that there was no time for the plane to inform ground control. Even so, there should be some semblance of debris in the water for rescuers to find.

If indeed the aircraft had crashed into the ocean, search and rescue efforts should have turned up some telltale discoveries by now.

If indeed the aircraft sank into the waters without leaving behind signs of wreckage, it would have taken some time before it disappeared completely from sight. Again, rescuers should have caught at least a glimpse of the airship before it went down.

But Malaysians and the rest of the world woke this morning only to find out that search and rescue efforts, now entering into their third day, have turned up nothing.

It was as if flight MH370 had vanished into thin air, taking with it the lives of 239 people.

Without any sign of the missing aircraft, the only leads the authorities, and the watching world, have to go on are the many speculative, conspiracy theories that have emerged since MH370 disappeared from sight.

Most significant are the reports alleging the possibility of terror links to some of those onboard the missing aircraft.

It has been confirmed that two passengers were allowed to board the aircraft using the stolen passports belonging to one Italian and one Austrian national.

Officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) touched down in Kuala Lumpur yesterday and met with Malaysian intelligence officers to investigate the possibility that a more serious security breach had led to MH370’s disappearance.

According to Interpol, there were no checks on the two passports that were listed on its database between the time the documents were stolen and the flight’s departure.

“Whilst it is too soon to speculate about any connection between these stolen passports and the missing plane, it is clearly of great concern that any passenger was able to board an international flight using a stolen passport listed in Interpol’s databases,” Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said in a statement, according to international news agency Reuters.

Adding to the intrigue, Interpol said it has widened its probe to other suspect passports, “which may have been reported stolen”.

“This is a situation we had hoped never to see. For years Interpol has asked why should countries wait for a tragedy to put prudent security measures in place at borders and boarding gates,” Noble was quoted as saying.

The two tickets were bought from China Southern Airlines in Thai baht for identical prices and had contiguous numbers, the international broadcaster reported on its website yesterday, citing information from China’s official e-ticket verification system Travelsky.

That the two tickets had adjoining numbers showed they were issued together, CNN said.

The revelation is likely to deepen speculation of foul play over the missing plane.

Malaysian authorities have also confirmed that two passengers had boarded the missing Beijing-bound flight under dubious identities.

“There are only two passengers on record on this aircraft with false passports and we have the CCTV recordings of those passengers from check in, right to the departure point and this record of the CCTVs are now being used in investigations on this,” Department of Civil Aviation Director-General Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman told reporters at the Sama Sama Hotel in Sepang earlier.

Following these reports, talk of terrorism, bombing and hijacking of MH370 were bandied about repeatedly yesterday.

According to Singapore’s The Straits Times yesterday, the authorities were not ruling out Uighur involvement in the mysterious disappearance of flight MH370.

Quoting Malaysian officials familiar with the ongoing probe, the daily said investigators are keeping their minds open to the possibility.

The daily noted that the plane’s disappearance had coincidentally come just a week after knife-wielding assailants killed nearly 20 people at a train station in Kunming, China. The killings have been linked to China’s Uighur Muslim minority group.

“One of the Malaysian officials said the authorities were not ruling out Uighur involvement in the jet’s disappearance, noting that Uighurs were deported to China from Malaysia in 2011 and 2012 for carrying false passports,” ST reported.

“This is not being ruled out. We have sent back Uighurs who had false passports before. It is too early to say whether there is a link,” one official was quoted as saying.

ST reminded that in 2011, Malaysia had deported 11 Uighurs who were allegedly linked to a human trafficking syndicate.

Back in Kuala Lumpur, the official line taken by Malaysian government and aviation officials was one of caution.

Asked if terrorism and hijacking have been ruled out in the disappearance of MH370, acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein and Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) director-general Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman only had one response: “We are looking at all possibilities.”

Despite the authorities’ refusal to divulge more information, and the endless number of theories and uncertainties, however, only one thing has remained true so far — flight MH370 still remains missing.

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MH370 pilot an aviation tech geek, spends off days on flight simulator at home

The Malaysian Insider

March 10, 2014

The pilot of a Malaysia Airlines jet that went missing on Saturday enjoyed flying the Boeing 777 so much that he spent his off days tinkering with a flight simulator of the plane that he had set up at home, current and former co-workers said.

Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, captain of the airliner carrying 239 people bound for Beijing from the Malaysian capital, had always wanted to become a pilot and joined the national carrier in 1981.

Airline staff who worked with the pilot said Zaharie knew the ins and outs of the Boeing 777 extremely well, as he was always practicing with the simulator. They declined to be identified due to company policy.

“He was an aviation tech geek. You could ask him anything and he would help you. That is the kind of guy he is,” said a Malaysia Airlines co-pilot who had flown with Zaharie in the past.

Zaharie set up the Boeing 777 simulator at his home in a suburb on the outskirts of the Malaysian capital where many airline staff stay as it provides quick access to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

Pictures posted by Zaharie on his Facebook page show a simulator with three computer monitors, a tangle of wires and several panels.

“We used to tease him. We would ask him, why are you bringing your work home,” said a pilot who knew Zaharie for 20 years.

Zaharie’s passion for aviation went beyond the Boeing 777. Other photos posted up by him on Facebook show he was an avid collector of remote-controlled, miniature aircraft, including a lightweight twin-engined helicopter.

Zaharie was certified by Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) as an examiner to conduct simulator tests for pilots, said several officials from Malaysia Airlines.

They said it was impossible that Zaharie would be in any way to blame for the disappearance of the aircraft.

“He knew everything about the Boeing 777. Something significant would have had to happen for Zaharie and the plane to go missing. It would have to be total electrical failure,” said another Malaysia Airlines pilot who knew Zaharie.

Zaharie has flown Fokker F50s, Boeing 737s and the Airbus A300 in over three decades with Malaysia Airlines.

He had over 18,000 hours of flying experience. His 27-year-old co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid had clocked 2,763 hours – having joined Malaysia Airlines in 2007.

“The Boeing 777 doesn’t just stall like that,” said a former Malaysia Airlines pilot who works for a rival airline. “It is one of the safest planes out there. It doesn’t just fall out of the sky like that.” – Reuters, March 10, 2014.

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MH370’s disappearance exposes global air safety flaws, says paper

The Malaysian Insider

MARCH 10, 2014

The mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 over a busy part of Southeast Asia has exposed flaws in global air safety, from usage of stolen passports and outdated black box technology, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported today.

It said that as a search for clues to the fate of the Boeing 777-200ER aircraft resumed in the waters off Vietnam, air safety and anti-terror authorities on two continents appeared equally stumped about what direction the probe should take.

The passenger jet was cruising over the Gulf of Thailand with 239 people on board when it suddenly dropped off air traffic radar screens, less than an hour after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur, early Saturday morning. None of the Beijing-bound plane’s transmitters appeared to signal distress before shutting down.

In a massive international investigation, no early theory has emerged about what transpired on the airplane, which was traveling in good weather at cruising altitude of 35,000 feet. The known sequence of events includes elements that seem different from anything in the annals of recent jetliner accidents, the business daily said.

“For now, it seems simply inexplicable,” said Paul Hayes, director of safety and insurance at Ascend Worldwide, a British advisory and aviation data firm.

“There’s no leading theory,” he noted, but jetliners “simply don’t vanish or disintegrate” and fall out of the sky without warning, unless there is sabotage or some catastrophic structural failure.

So far, investigators have not hinted that they have firm leads on either front, WSJ reported.

A Vietnamese search-and-rescue plane spotted suspected fragments of the plane as night fell Sunday evening, about 100 miles west of the jetliner’s intended route, and officials said the search would resume today.

The fragments were believed to be a composite inner door and a piece of the plane’s tail, Vietnam’s ministry of information and communication said.

Over the weekend, family members and loved ones desperate for information about the flight camped out in hotels near the airports in Beijing and Kuala Lumpur.

As night fell Sunday, many were increasingly distraught over the lack of news.

“We’re actually prepared for the worst,” said Che Yutian, a relative of a 24-year-old Chinese passenger. “We just want to know what happened. We need answers.”

But the plane’s disappearance has already exposed flaws in global air safety, said WSJ, adding that the disclosure of stolen passports by two passengers led Interpol to warn that few countries are rigorously checking its database to foil that practice.

The probe is also expected to reignite debate over upgrading so-called black box technology to better track problems with flights as they develop, it added.

Some answers could come as pieces of the wreckage are retrieved, WSJ said.

But some of what is known, air safety experts said, underscores how unusual this probe will take shape.

Normally, a range of electronic transmissions help investigators and controllers track a plane’s altitude, direction and speed. But those so-called transponders aboard the Boeing 777 apparently didn’t report anything amiss, until they stopped working altogether.

Big jets also carry sturdy emergency transmitters to identify an aircraft’s location in the event of a mishap, so rescue teams can quickly reach the site.

These devices, designed to be activated by impact on land or water, have not sent any signals that were picked up by searchers, Malaysian aviation regulators said over the weekend.

“Never have I seen an aircraft losing control and losing all communication” simultaneously, said Mark Martin of aviation consultancy, Martin Consulting.

Even in the crash of an Air France flight in the Atlantic Ocean in 2009, the emergency beacon directed rescuers to the site of impact, though strong currents had dispersed the debris across a wide area.

Malaysian military radar readings indicated the plane may have reversed course, the air force chief said yesterday, and investigators were examining whether the plane attempted to turn around after encountering a problem.

Against this backdrop of uncertainty, US counterterrorism officials were still puzzled over the mysterious details and were hesitant to say terrorism could be involved. But they also didn’t rule it out.

In recent weeks, US officials have been tracking possible airliner terrorist plots, such as ones involving toothpaste bombs.

“That’s why we’re so concerned,” a senior US official said. “We are tracking several airline plots.”

The official was quick to note there was no evidence of terrorism in the case of the missing MAS flight.

Republican US congressman Mike Rogers, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, told ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” that the US military didn’t detect any type of midair explosion.

“There is nothing that… I have seen that would indicate anything of the sort, which is certainly adding to the mystery,” Rogers said.

“They’re going to have to find some part of the wreckage somewhere in order to start making those determinations, if it was mechanical or something else.

US intelligence and law-enforcement officials were working to identify two passengers who checked-in using stolen passports, scouring airport surveillance video and hunting for evidence such as fingerprints or other biometric identifiers, the senior US official said.

One of the most immediate questions to be answered was which nation would conduct an accident probe, the paper said.

The role typically falls to the country where the bulk of the wreckage is located, but search teams are still trying to verify that.

If it turns out to be Vietnam, air safety and industry experts say there is a good chance local investigators relying heavily on their US and Malaysian counterparts for testing and technical advice.

A team of American aviation accident investigators, which includes technical advisers from Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration, led by National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) experts, were dispatched Saturday to Southeast Asia to provide assistance.

The NTSB’s decision, according to air safety officials, indicates that at least at this point, US aviation regulators and safety watchdogs are treating the plane’s disappearance as an accident rather than an act of terrorism.

NTSB investigators, rather than US  law enforcement or national security officials, are the public face of America’s response.

Even small pieces of wreckage can yield significant insights about what transpired before a crash. In the case of Air France Flight 447 five years ago, French investigators used fragments from the plane’s tail fin, storage units from a galley and some cabin crew seats to determine – quite accurately, it turned out – what happened.

The fractures on the tail and bending of galley shelves indicated the direction and strength of forces, indicating the plane hit the water at great velocity and largely intact. The fact that the crew seat was not folded down and the seat belt wasn’t used indicated there was no sense of crisis on the plane.

Once debris is collected from the Malaysia flight, investigators will likely begin to painstakingly analyse the condition of each of the pieces.

In one of its most exhaustive investigations, the NTSB combed the floor of the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island in July 1996 for the remains of Trans World Airlines Flight 800 which exploded shortly after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The Boeing 747 was reassembled piece-by-piece in an NTSB hangar, and investigators ultimately were able to pinpoint how frayed wiring touched off volatile vapors in one of the jet’s fuel tanks.

Radar data of the Gulf of Thailand will also play an important role in understanding what may have happened to flight MH370.

Hijackers aboard the four aircraft commandeered during the 9/11 terrorist attacks deactivated each jet’s transponders that transmit identifying data to air-traffic controller.

That did not make the aircraft invisible, however, and air traffic control was still able to follow each jet’s position on radar.

Radar data can illustrate if an aircraft has broken into multiple pieces, each providing unique signatures for investigators to analyse. – March 10, 2014.

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Where in the world is flight MH370 and other questions

The Malaysian Insider

March 10, 2014

An extensive air and sea search resumed for the third day this morning for Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370, as more questions arose over its last known location and the identity of some of its passengers on board the Boeing 777-200ER that vanished early Saturday morning.

Vietnamese authorities found fragments believed to be the composite inner door and tail section of the 11-year-old passenger jet, 50 miles south-southwest of Tho Chu island.

Malaysian authorities also found oil slicks some 20 nautical miles from MH370’s last known position when it disappeared from radar screens without even a distress call or signal.

Officials investigating the disappearance of flight MH370 with 239 people on board are narrowing the focus of their inquiries on the possibility that it disintegrated in mid-flight.

The MAS jet vanished after climbing to a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing in the early hours of Saturday, but search teams have not been able to make any confirmed discovery of wreckage in seas beneath the plane’s flight path almost 48 hours after it took off.

“The fact that we are unable to find any debris so far appears to indicate that the aircraft is likely to have disintegrated at around 35,000 feet,” said the official, who is involved in the investigations in Malaysia.

If the passenger jet had plunged intact from such a height, breaking up only on impact with the water, search teams would have expected to find a fairly concentrated pattern of debris, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

While 40 ships and 22 planes scour the South China Sea and Malacca Straits for the plane, other questions abound about some of the passengers on board the Kuala Lumpur-Beijing flight.

At least five people on board the plane were believed to have travelled with suspect documents, with at least two of them using passports stolen from Thailand’s holiday island of Phuket.

The International Criminal Police Organisation, or Interpol, confirmed that two passports used by passengers on board the missing flight were recorded in its database as lost or stolen.

“While it is too soon to speculate about any connection between these stolen passports and the missing plane, it is clearly of great concern that any passenger was able to board an international flight using a stolen passport listed in Interpol’s databases,” Interpol secretary-general, Ronald Noble, said in a statement yesterday.

Global TV station CNN reported that the two people who traveled on the flight under the passports of an Italian and an Austrian citizen appear to have bought their tickets together.

The tickets were bought from China Southern Airlines in Thai baht at identical prices, according to China’s official e-ticket verification system, Travelsky.

The ticket numbers are contiguous, which indicates the tickets were issued together. China Southern Airlines sold seven tickets for the code share flight, another media reported yesterday.

Italy and Austria have said that none of their citizens were on board the plane. And officials say the Italian and Austrian, whose names were on the passenger manifest, both had their passports stolen in Thailand in recent years.

The two tickets booked with China Southern Airlines both start in Kuala Lumpur, flying to Beijing, and then onward to Amsterdam. The Italian passport’s ticket continues to Copenhagen, the Austrian’s to Frankfurt, CNN said.

It is understood the tickets were sold in Pattaya, but authorities are looking into the reasons for the roundabout journey to the European cities via Beijing when Kuala Lumpur has direct flights.

“Why did the two travel from Thailand to Malaysia to China and then Europe? There are direct flights from Thailand so this does not make sense,” a source said.

It is also understood that the passengers did require a Chinese visa as they were Europeans and were using Beijing as a transit point to Europe. The other curious part is that the tickets were bought on March 6, a day before the passengers checked in for the redeye flight.

Two other European passengers aboard MH370 are still having their identities checked while China’s Xinhua news agency said there were discrepancies for a Chinese man who never left China but had his passport number listed in the flight manifest.

Also another mystery is the reasons for the Boeing 777-200ER to change course and turn back toward Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian military officials said at a news conference today.

But the pilot appeared to have given no signal to authorities that he was turning around, the officials said, attributing the change of course to indications from radar data.

“The fact that we are unable to find any debris so far appears to indicate that the aircraft is likely to have disintegrated at around 35,000 feet,” a source involved in the investigations told Reuters.

If the plane had plunged intact from close to its cruising altitude, breaking up only on impact with the water, search teams would have expected to find a fairly concentrated pattern of debris, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to discuss the investigation publicly.

Asked about the possibility of an explosion, such as a bomb, the source said there was no evidence yet of foul play and that the aircraft could have broken up due to mechanical causes.

Dozens of military and civilian vessels have been criss-crossing waters beneath the aircraft’s flight path, but have found no confirmed trace of the lost plane, although oil slicks have been reported in the sea south of Vietnam and east of Malaysia.

Late on Sunday, the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam said on its website that a Vietnamese navy plane had spotted an object in the sea suspected of being part of the plane, but that it was too dark to be certain. Search planes were set to return to investigate the suspected debris at daybreak. – March 10, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 10 March 2014, 8:32 am and is filed under
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Woke up with heavy heart like majority of Malaysians as MH370 tragedy enters third day with nothing to go on about  the mysterious disappearance of the aircraft and 239 persons on board

I woke up this morning with a heavy heart like the majority of Malaysians with the news that over 50 hours have passed since MH370 was reported lost from radar and there is nothing to go on as to what happened to the 239 passengers and crew of the Boeing B777-200 aircraft on its flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

There has been no confirmed signs of wreckage or debris, no distress signal from the aircraft before it lost contact with ground control, and no clear indication that the plane had experienced any technical failure in mid-air.

Hopes  of Malaysians and people around the world who prayed for the safety and a miracle to ensure that the 239 people on board MH370 could survive their mysterious disappearance have become more and more tenuous.

This has brought  home the stark reality that something terrible had in fact  happened to the aircraft and the 239 passengers and crew although the  international search and rescue (SAR) operation for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane with 239 on board has intensified.

Regardless of political affiliation, race, religion or nationality,  all concerned Malaysians and like-minded people world-wide, particularly in the 14 countries whose citizens are on board, should come together as one unit to continue to give support and strength to the families, relatives and friends of the 239 passengers and crew members in their hour of greatest sorrow, trial and tribulations.

With the MH 370 tragedy and mystery entering the third day, there are more and more questions whether about crisis management,  the disappearance of the aircraft or the rescue and search operation.

But all these questions should be put aside as they should wait as efforts are  focused on finding the aircraft and giving support and strength to the affected families, relatives and friends of the 239 people on board.

For this reason, I will not make any comments, criticisms or responses (including to misconceived or malicious charges against me) for these two days.

Let us focus all our thoughts and prayers on the 239 persons on board MH 370 and their aggrieved families, relatives and friends.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 10 March 2014, 4:28 pm and is filed under
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A nation responds to loss of MH370

by Bridget Welsh

Malaysiakini

March 10, 2014

COMMENT
 The loss of MH370 will be a defining moment in the country’s history. While attention rightly focuses on comforting families, finding the plane and what has caused this tragedy, the event has shown the depth of caring among Malaysians.

Across faiths, ethnic groups and borders, Malaysians have reached out to each other and to friends. Pride has been put aside in accepting international help and social media on the whole has shared more messages of hope than division. In the shared sadness of loss, the tragedy had revealed and reinforced a strong sense of community.

The image of an interfaith prayer led by former PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was perhaps the most powerful moment over the weekend, as it reflected what had been happening in society itself as Malaysians from all walks of life reached across their differences for those affected by the missing plane. It did not matter what word was being used, as the sentiment was the same.

Crises like these reveal character. They tell us who can handle pressure, test leaders and what are the real priorities. The character that was revealed is a society that cares for each other.

Despite all of the anger and stupidity surrounding recent events – from red paint throwing to unjust legal decisions – the ties among Malaysians are strong and resilient.

The silent majority of people who go about their lives, take planes, go on vacation and work, came out this weekend in the phone calls made to each other, recollections of classmates and on Facebook. This same silent majority is the one who is fed up with politicians abusing power and attacking each other, and wants more emphasis on solving the country’s problems and more dignity in political engagement.

They put Malaysia, its citizens and visitors first. If anything, this is a silver lining of the tragedy.

Never the same

Crisis also bring changes. This loss will bring home how globalised the country is – and take away some of innocence of many Malaysians who have been gratefully largely sheltered. This event is a country’s shared trauma on many levels, and this involves careful outreach to children and others who need help to process and understand.

MH370 will likely bring small changes in everyday life. The area most affected will be travel, as it will introduce new security protocols and make the time of travel in airports longer. The changes will also extend to visas, code sharing and travel destinations.

This event will hit Malaysia in its Visit Malaysia year, and expectations need to be adjusted. People who travel are more likely to stay connected with loves ones, who are likely to worry a bit more. Despite this crisis, it is important to remember that air travel is still among the safest means to get around.

The airline affected will face even greater challenges. MAS was in trouble before this terrible loss. The airline will now deal with even more scrutiny as it moves ahead. While its staff are valiantly working day and night to engage – and there will most certainly be lessons on how crisis management could have been improved – there are dark clouds on the horizon for the national carrier.

One of the most difficult tasks ahead will be strengthening the airline and this will involve more interventions than have happened so far, with security and safety a crucial element of this review and recovery effort.

Malaysia’s practices in immigration and security will also come under heavy scrutiny. The longer the uncertainty surrounding the flight’s status goes on, the more intensity and speculation. The government cannot ignore that something went wrong in its management in this area.

As a regular traveler, I see first-hand the pressures many of the immigration staff face in long hours and from long lines. The focus needs to be on the system as a whole, rather than the possible shortcoming of a few officers. The fault is with inadequate enforcement procedures from the top and leadership.

The loss of faith in security will require meaningful reforms and improvements in governance. This loss can be an opportunity to bring about much-needed changes in areas of rule of law, safety and security.

Dark side surfaces

There is more international attention on Malaysia than ever before. Not all of the intensity of exposure has been positive. MH370’s loss will also bring to the fore serious issues that are facing Malaysia in other areas of governance.

These include concerns with the illegal economy, human trafficking and corruption. It is estimated that Malaysia’s illegal economy is almost 20 percent of its economy. Illegal outflows of capital are massive, with the latest report of the Global Financial Integrity putting the country at the second highest in the world.

Legitimate concerns also have been raised about transparency, information-sharing, treatment of different ethnic communities and more. These issues have long been raised in the domestic arena, and will remain prominent.

In this age of globalisation, the actions at home are shared abroad. The ability of the government to manage messaging to an international stage in the age of social media is minimal. The impact on Malaysia’s economy longer term cannot be ignored. This is a wake-up call that more needs to be done to protect ordinary people and simple principles of fairness and dignity in governance can go a long way in this protection and protecting Malaysia’s national interest.

The choices ahead are stark – to continue to allow the dark forces to grow or to meaningfully address them. MH370 on many levels shows that the time for denials and dismissals is over. Approaches that emphasise particularism and exceptionalism do not help the country.

The tragedy has brought people together and put the interests of ordinary people centre stage. Malaysians should be proud of how they have come together and in the process have reminded their leaders of the real priorities to build their country and community.

DR BRIDGET WELSH is associate professor of political science at Singapore Management University. She can be reached at
[email protected]
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