Barisan minister joins opposition in calling Sabah security ‘unsatisfactory’

by Diyana Ibrahim

The Malaysian Insider

April 08, 2014

A minister has criticised the security in Sabah, branding it “unsatisfactory” one day after Barisan Nasional MPs joined their opposition counterparts and castigated Putajaya over the slack arrangements in the state.

Tourism and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Aziz today said the arrangements were not up to mark in light of the latest kidnapping of a Chinese tourists and a Filipino worker on Singgahmata Island off Semporna, Sabah, last Thursday. The island is one of the top international diving destinations.

“This is not the first time this has happened. The arrangements in place should have ensured it did not happen.

“If we want tourists to come here, we must ensure that they feel secure and security has to be at the best,” he told reporters today.

Yesterday, debating a motion in Parliament, angry Barisan MPs jointed their opposition counterparts and demanded action in Sabah.

A backbencher even called on Putrajaya to dissolve the Eastern Sabah Security Command (Esscom), suggesting instead that the security efforts in the east coast of Sabah should come directly under the control of the Home or Defence Ministry, in the wake of the latest abduction.

Datuk Seri Abdul Ghapur Salleh said that the incident was a disgrace, adding that the federal government only realised that eastern Sabah was unsafe after the Lahad Datu intrusion by Sulu terrorists last year.

“And they put a civilian in charge of Esscom. How can he give instructions to the army and police personnel? Ghapur asked, in reference to director-general of Esscom Datuk Mohammad Mentek.

Police said initial investigations point to the Abu Sayyaf group as being behind the abduction, as a wide-scale manhunt involving Malaysia and the Philippines is under way to rescue the victims.

However, Esscom director Datuk Mohammad Mentek has dismissed reports that the kidnapping was linked to terrorists groups.

Nazri said the failure of the authorities there to improve security would not just affect tourist arrivals from abroad but also the local tourism industry.

“This matter is not just about foreign tourists. Locals will also not want to travel to these islands. There should be no excuse. Security has to be improved,” he said.

Nazri said despite the kidnapping, he would continue efforts to attract tourists to the country.

Nazri’s cabinet colleague, Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim, in defending security arrangements there, said although there were regular patrols carried out by Esscom personnel, the kidnappers in this incident had an organised plan, where they only carried out the abduction at 10.30pm, three hours after the Maritime Enforcement Agency left the area.

He said he could not agree with the suggestion that Esscom be dissolved, stressing instead that since its inception, it had managed to defend eastern Sabah.

Esscom covers 1,400km of the east coast of Sabah from Kudat to Tawau.

It was established in March last year by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, following the Lahad Datu incursion by armed Sulu militants, to strengthen maritime security in the eastern part of Sabah and to prevent terrorist activity in the waters off Sabah.

The latest kidnapping incident comes on the heels of a string of kidnapping incidents last year, including two cases involving fishermen on their boats in April and November, as well as last November’s kidnapping of a Taiwanese tourist from Pom-Pom Island. – April 8, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 9 April 2014, 8:33 am and is filed under
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Hishammuddin and Shahidan’s reneging on their undertaking to give briefing to PR  MPs and shooting down proposal for a Parliamentary Select Committee on MH 370 Disaster will reinforce adverse national and international perceptions about Malaysia’s transparency and crisis management of the MH 370 disaster

We had just experienced what I would describe as “mankind’s longest month” from March 8 to April 7, not only for the families, loved ones and friends of the 239 passengers and crew on board MH370 Boeing 777-200ER which had disappeared in the early hours of March 8, but also for Malaysians and well-wishers worldwide.

For the first time in human history, for  a whole month in real time, 24/7 (i.e. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 31 days a month), the world has been haunted and tortured by the question as to how in the modern age,  a hi-tech passenger plan can just vanish without a trace for a month with 239 passengers and crew onboard.

The families and loved ones of the 239 passengers and crew are drowned in grief and yet cannot really begin to grieve, for they are not prepared to abandon the glimmer of hope that there could be a miracle, for there has been no evidence or piece of wreckage to establish that MH370 had met a disastrous end.

On the 31st day of the disappearance of MH 370 Boeing 777 aircraft, three pings from deep in the Indian Ocean gave new hope to the world that they were signals from the plane’s black boxes before their beacons fall silent – promising a finality which had eluded the world’s longest and biggest-ever sea, undersea, air, satellite search which had involved 26 nations and scores of aircrafts, ships, submarines and even undersea drones.

But the latest sliver of hope has proved to be short-lived even before the launching of the Bluefin-21 , the US-supplied underwater drone fitted to Australia’s Ocean Shield, to probe the “most promising lead” with the detection of the acoustic events.   the bleak news received yesterday (the 32nd day) were: “Aussie ship fails to detect pings, fears batteries from MH370 black box are dead”.

These roller-coaster emotional developments had added to the suffering and anguish of the families and loved ones of the 239 passengers and crew as well as the well-wishers in Malaysia and worldwide, who have already been mentally and emotionally drained and  devastated by a long series of errors, contradictions and confusion in the month-long crisis. starting from the very first day on March 8.

The continuing “flip-flops”  and “turns and twists” of the Malaysian authorities have only added to these agonies, pain and trauma of the aggrieved families of the 239 passengers and crew – and the latest is the reneging by the Acting Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein and the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim on the  government’s commitment to brief Pakatan Rakyat Members of Parliament on the MH 370 disaster.

Hishamuddin has repeatedly said that the MH 370 disaster is “above politics”, that the government had been transparent with “nothing to hide” and publicly stated that he would give a briefing to Pakatan Rakyat MPs if requested.

But despite such repeated public assurances by Hishammuddin, and the undertaking both in and out of Parliament  by  Shahidan to arrange for a briefing by Hishammuddin to PR MPs if there is an official request, Hishammuddin and Shahidan have finally reneged on their undertaking for Hishammuddin to give a briefing to PR MPs.

I asked Shahidan in Parliament yesterday why he could not honour his word but he was quite apologetic, indicating with his fingers that he is only a “small Minister” who could not influence a senior Minister to do he had undertaken.

I have been quite sceptical that Hishammuddin would be prepared to give a briefing to PR MPs on the MH370 disaster and I  am not really surprised that there has been reneging of this undertaking. Reneging on undertakings on transparency and good governance seem to have become a special characteristic of the Najib administration.

I was also quite sceptical when Hishammuddin gave an assurance to  Parliament on  25th March, when winding up the special motion tabled by the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak to mourn the fate of flight MH370’s 239 passengers and crew, that he would propose to the Cabinet the call by MPs for a Parliamentary Select Committee and a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) to investigate the MH370 tragedy.

This was why my immediate response to Hishammuddin’s announcement on Saturday of an investigation team as well as three ministerial committees on the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 – airworthiness, operational as well as medical and human factor groups – was to ask whether Hishammuddin had abandoned the proposal of a Parliamentary Select Committee and a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the MH370 disaster.

Many would regard Hishammuddin’s announcement of an investigation team and three ministerial committees, without a Parliamentary Select  Committee on the MH 370 disaster, as an avoidance and evasion of  parliamentary responsibility and accountability,

This is because  the terms of reference of a  Parliamentary Select Committee on MH370 would be very much wider and more comprehensive than that of the Investigation Team as the Parliamentary Select Committee should go beyond the issues of the airworthiness of MH370 Boeing 777-200 aircraft, the operational aspects of the flight and the psychological and pathological aspects of the 239 passengers and crew, i.e. the “what, how and why” the plane disappeared on March 8.

A Parliamentary Select Committee on MH370 should also investigate  the whole series of events after the aircraft’s  disappearance which have provoked a thousand-and-one questions, controversies, confusion and conspiracy theories and most important of all, send out a clear and unmistakable message, both nationally and internationally, that Malaysia has nothing to hide and to restore national and international confidence in the transparency, good governance and reputation of the nation badly afflicted by the MH370 disaster.

Among the issues the Parliamentary Select Committee should investigate include:

– whether the MH370 disappearance could have been averted if Malaysia’s air traffic controllers and the Royal Malaysian Air Force radar operators had been more vigilant and acted promptly when the Boeing 777-200 aircraft vanished early March 8, with the immediate launching of a search-and-rescue operation.

– Whether a week had been wasted looking for MH370 in the South China Sea before switching the area of search from the east to the west, moving from the Straits of Malacca,  the Andaman Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Northern and Southern Corridors, and eventually to southern Indian Ocean; and

– Whether three days had been wasted looking for MH370 in the wrong part of the Indian Ocean because of poor co-ordinating among countries working on locating the missing aircraft.

Furthermore, in  the wake of the MH370 disaster, Hishammuddin has been talking about the need to strengthen Malaysia’s military assets and to review the civil aviation sector, expecting astronomical budgets in these two areas.

It will also be the proper province of the Parliamentary Select Committee on MH370 to review whether the MH370 disaster warrants new and additional budgets for more military assets and a more efficient civil aviation system and to make recommendations to Parliament, the government and the nation.

The Prime Minister and the Cabinet should seriously reconsider their refusal to establish a Parliamentary Select Committee on MH370 as Malaysia must show to the world that we have nothing to hide both in the disaster and its crisis management.

(Media Conference Statement in Parliament on Wednesday, 9th April 2014)

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 9 April 2014, 12:05 pm and is filed under
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RM300 million ESSCOM should not be a costly “April Fool’s joke” for Sabahans and Malaysians

ESSCOM (Eastern Sabah Security Command) has become a costly “April Fool’s joke” for Sabahans and Malaysians.

It celebrated its first anniversary on April 1, boasting about its success as “guardian” of security of Sabahans, and I quote from a Bernama write-up:

“ESSCOM Celebrates Its First Anniversary with Confidence.

“Come Tuesday (April 1, 2014), after officially starting operations on April 1, 2013, the Eastern Sabah Security Command (ESSCOM) celebrates its first anniversary…

“…Sabahans are increasingly confident with the ESSCOM’s ability in protecting Sabah’s sovereignty and maintaining security at the Eastern Sabah Security Zone (ESSZONE)”

The Director General of ESSCOM Datuk Haji Mohammad Mentek was then quoted as saying:

“ESSCOM has succeeded in stopping the attempts by foreigners to enter Sabah illegally to commit criminal acts like the kidnapping of Taiwanese tourists in Pulau Pom-Pom on 15 Nov 2013”.

However, within 24 hours  of the ESSCOM first anniversary celebrations, there was a second abduction of a tourist from China and a hotel employee of Singamata Reef Resort in Semporna on Wednesday, April 2, 2014 at about 10.30 pm

As a result, ESSCOM has become a costly “April’s Fool joke”, giving Sabahans a false sense of security although more than RM300 million has been spent on establishing it.

Barisan Nasional MPs have called ESSCOM  a “toothless tiger” but it would be more accurate to call it a useless “white elephant” costing over RM300 million with an establishment of over 500 people.

This is especially the case as ESSCOM has said that it is powerless to act in the abduction cases, as it has no authority to command, direct or order any action.

I agree that ESSCOM might as well be abolished if the government is incapable of carrying out a total revamp of ESSCOM to ensure the safety of Sabahans.

I believe needs an organization like ESSCOM to ensure the  security of the East Coast of Sabah.

I call on the Cabinet at its next meeting to give top priority for the revamp of ESSCOM so that it would not be a “white elephant” or a “toothless tiger”.

It is no use of the Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin ordering ESSCOM to boost its level of preparedness, surveillance and intelligence following the second kidnapping incident in the waters of Sabah without ensuring that ESSCOM can function authoritatively and effectively to ensure the security in the ESSZONE.

Barisan Nasional MPs have said the problem about the ineffectiveness of ESSCOM was because a Sabahan and a civilian had been appointed as its director-general, and who could  get the police and military heads to take orders from him.

This should not be the nub of the problem, as the question is not whether a Sabahan or a civilian had been appointed ESSCOM Director-General, but whether he has been vested with the full authority to carry out the powers and duties assigned to ESSCOM.

If this is indeed the problem, then the Cabinet should immediately ensure that the civilian and Sabahan ESSCOM director-general is given full authority and powers to carry out the tasks of ESSCOM, and any person, however high-up in the police and military hierarchy who countermands the directive of the civilian Sabahan ESSCOM director-general or guilty of insubordination should be disciplined immediately and severely.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 9 April 2014, 5:59 pm and is filed under
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Call on Cabinet tomorrow to vest the ESSCOM director-general with executive powers and not just co-ordinating responsibilities among the Police, Army, Maritime and public agencies in ESSZONE

Today, the Director-General of Eastern Sabah Security Command (ESSCOM), Datuk Mohammad Mentek publicly defended the ESSCOM’s security track record, which was in fact further evidence that he is “powerless” as he had to publicly “eat his own words”.

For the first anniversary celebrations of ESSCOM on April 1, Mohammad made a very clear and specific boast, i.e.

“ESSCOM has succeeded in stopping the attempts by foreigners to enter Sabah illegally to commit criminal acts like the kidnapping of Taiwanese tourists in Pulau Pom-Pom on 15 Nov 2013.”

But in less than 24 hours of the first anniversary ESSCOM celebrations, there was a second kidnapping of a tourist from China, which was why ESSCOM appeared to be a costly April Fool’s Joke.

But in his defence of ESSCOM’s security track record today, Mohammad made no reference to the second abduction and instead only talked about ESSCOM’s success “to ensure that there are no further intrusions similar to the Lahad Datu incident”!

Mohamad not only had to “eat his own words” about ESSCOM’s success in stopping criminal acts by foreigners entering Sabah like the kidnapping of Taiwanese tourists last November, he had also to “eat” the words of the ESSCOM Corporate Communications head, Newmond Tibin, who said after the Semporna abduction on April 2 that ESSCOM was “powerless” act with regard to the abductions as it has “no authority to command, direct or order any action”.

Just before the first anniversary of ESSCOM, Mohamad was very effusive about the success in combining the roles of the four components in the Eastern Sabah Security Zone (ESSZONE) – Malaysian Armed Forces (ATM), Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM), Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (APMM) and public agencies – but Newmond has given a very bleak picture of the “powerlessness” of ESSCOM, which Mohamad had to repudiate in his statement today!

In reply to a supplementary question in Parliament today, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim said that the question whether ESSCOM director-general will be given executive powers and not just co-ordinating responsibilities is a matter which had to be decided by the Cabinet.

If ESSCOM is going to be responsible for the security, not just intrusion like the Lahad Datu incident but also criminal activities by foreigners entering Sabah like abductions, then ESSCOM director-general must be vested with executive powers and not just co-ordinating powers, acting like a Super-Postman among the four ESSCOM components in ESSZONE.

This is a decision which the Cabinet at its meeting tomorrow should make – to vest the ESSCOM director-general with executive powers and not just co-ordinating responsibilities among the Malaysian Armed Forces,  Royal Malaysian Police, Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency and public agencies in ESSZONE.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 10 April 2014, 6:22 pm and is filed under
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Hunt for black box signals zeroes in on ‘final resting place’

The Malay Mail Online

April 10, 2014

PERTH, April 10 — The hunt for more black box “pings” from missing Malaysian airliner MH370 was narrowing today to a specific patch of remote ocean after two more signals were detected.

The head of the Australian-led search Angus Houston raised hopes yesterday that wreckage will be found within days even as the black box batteries start to expire.

Houston’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) announced today the search area off western Australia was now 57,923 square kilometres (22,364 square miles) — some 20,000 square kilometres down on yesterday.

But Australian ship Ocean Shield is focused on an area of the Indian Ocean 2,280 kilometres (1,400 miles) northwest of Perth where it picked up two fresh signals Tuesday to match a pair of transmissions logged over the weekend as searchers try to pinpoint the exact crash zone.

No debris from the Boeing 777 which disappeared on March 8 has yet been found.

A large number of objects were spotted on the surface yesterday, JACC said, “but only a small number was able to be recovered.

“None of the recovered items were believed to be associated with MH370.”

Officials had feared that the signals which were initially picked up might not be detected again, particularly since the batteries on the black box tracking beacons have a normal lifespan of about 30 days.

“Yesterday’s signals will assist in better defining a reduced and much more manageable search area on the ocean floor,” Houston told a press conference.

“I believe we are searching in the right area but we need to visually identify the aircraft before we can confirm with certainty that this is the final resting place of MH370.”

Houston, however, again urged caution for the sake of the families of those aboard the flight which mysteriously vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, and said the search for more signals would go on.

“Hopefully with lots of transmissions we’ll have a tight, small area and… in a matter of days we’ll be able to find something on the bottom that might confirm that this is the last resting place of MH370,” he said.

Clock ticking

Australia confirmed yesterday that the first signals were consistent with black box recorders.

“The analysis determines that a very stable distinct and clear signal was detected at 33.331 kHz and that it consistently pulsed at a 1.106 second interval,” Houston said, explaining that the exact frequencies can vary according to time and conditions.

“They (experts) believe the signals to be consistent with the specification and description of a flight data recorder,” he said.

No other ships will be allowed near the Ocean Shield, as its work must be done in an environment as free of noise as possible.

With the clock ticking on how long the black boxes could feasibly continue to transmit, Houston said it would not be long before a US-made autonomous underwater vehicle called a Bluefin 21 would be sent down to investigate.

“I don’t think that time is very far away,” he said.

Up to 10 military aircraft, four civil planes and 13 ships would take part in the search today, JACC said.

Fair visibility was predicted for the day with moderate southeasterly winds and isolated showers.

The case of the missing jet has baffled aviation experts and frustrated the families of those on board, two-thirds of whom were Chinese.

“I want to see the evidence that the plane is at the bottom of the sea,” said Malaysian Tan Tuan Lay, whose daughter, 31-year-old bank employee Chew Kar Mooi, was one of the passengers on board.

“I am really sad (about) what has happened but I am prepared to accept whatever comes,” Tan said when asked to comment on the fresh signals. — AFP

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 10 April 2014, 8:18 am and is filed under
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MH370 exposes Hall of Shame

Mariam Mokhtar

Malaysiakini

Apr 7, 2014

The grand self-proclamation of “Malaysia, the Best Democracy in the World”, with its fantastic education system which rivals the British, American and German systems is a myth designed for die-hard Umno Baru supporters. This fairy-tale was shattered by the disappearance of MH370.

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, like the prime ministers before him, has let down the nation, but the investigation into MH370 has trashed Malaysia’s reputation.

We need a cull of the political class to regain our credibility as a nation. We should start with the following initiates of the ‘Hall of Shame’. Politicians head the list, then civil servants. If the civil servants were to be replaced before the politicians, the new ones would be corrupted by their political masters, who dictate to them.

Malaysia has been on auto-pilot for several decades and the nation has been performing like a rudderless aeroplane. MH370 signals the beginning of the end of Umno Baru.

The Malaysian Hall of Shame

Number One:
 Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak. Two words describe the MH370 “investigations”: Mismanaged. Mishandled. (MM).

MH370 may have been an unprecedented incident but the crisis management team was shambolic, with several people issuing contradictory official statements. Our confidence and trust has been shaken to the core despite all the big talk and the hundreds of billions of ringgits spent on military hardware and sophisticated equipment. We may have the best machinery that money can buy, but are monkeys operating them?

In the first few days of MH370’s disappearance, Najib and his wife, the self-styled ‘First Lady of Malaysia’ (FLOM), sought to gain cheap publicity by “weeping with the families of the passengers and crew of MH370”.

Did Najib make a premature announcement that MH370 had crashed into the Southern Indian Ocean, based on one mathematical interpretation by one company? The local press are conditioned not to ask awkward questions but foreign journalists demand answers.

Number Two:
 Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein. Hishammuddin (left in photo) justified Malaysia’s mismanagement of the MH370 investigations by saying that history will judge Malaysia well.

People ask, “Who writes the history books if not the Malaysian cabinet and their proteges?”

Hishammuddiin told the families of passengers and crew of MH370 that miracles do happen. The act of giving false hope is as bad as trading on people’s grief.

Number Three:
 Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. His response to the stolen passport fiasco at KLIA is symptomatic of a sick nation. He told parliament, “Furthermore, Interpol’s information of lost (passports) may slow down the process of immigration checks at counters.”

Zahid prefers speed to efficiency and safety/security concerns. Interpol has since given Zahid a dressing down and said the checks take 0.2 seconds per passport.

Malaysia is a hub for human trafficking and people have alleged that our police and immigration officials are involved. Will Zahid clean up his department?

Number Four:
 Deputy Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Bakri. Abdul Rahim told Parliament that the RMAF “assumed” that Flight MH370 had been ordered to turn back by the civilian air traffic controllers.

Following a public outcry, he backpedalled and said that HE had made this assumption. So did the RMAF make this assumption or was Abdul Rahim forced to retract his statement. His U-turn is typical of the tactics of the government of Malaysia.

Lack of communication

Number Five:
 The Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) director-general Azharuddin Abdul Rahman. Azharuddin contradicted the statements of the home ministry and the inspector-general of polcie (IGP). More worrying than this is the lack of communication between the military and civil aviation authorities.

The MH370 investigation has lacked transparency and is mired in intrigue. This incident has reminded us of the question, by the opposition MP Nurul Izzah Anwar in June 2012, about the roles of the DCA and the Transport Ministry in the award of the contract for the supply of the RM128.4 million air traffic control system to a minster’s family through “closed tender”.

Three weeks ago, we were told that the final words from the cockpit were “All right, good night”. In the past few days, the DCA issued a correction and said the final words were “Good night. Malaysian Three-Seven-Zero”.

How can the public be expected to put their faith in the DCA or the investigative bodies with such a simple error as this? So what else is wrong?

Number Six:
 MAS CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya. When the reputations of the pilot and co-pilot on MH370 were being trashed, Ahmad Jauhari (right) failed to defend his men. Although he did speak on their behalf, he waited several days and the damage was already done. His failure to act immediately demoralised all of the MAS employees.

The sending of a text message to the families of the passengers and crew of MH370, ahead of Najib’s announcement that MH370 had gone down in the southern Indian Ocean, is symptomatic of the poor customer relations in MAS. Many people have previously stated that their complaints are rarely acknowledged or addressed.

Number Seven:
 Chief of the Armed Forces Zulkifeli Mohd Zin. He despatched ships from Lumut on the night MH370 disappeared. He then claimed that a C-130 plane was sent to scout the area the following morning.

What made Zulkifeli confident that he was scouring a potential crash site, thousands of kilometres from where Najib had directed others in the search and rescue (SAR) operations? Is Zulkifeli hiding something from us?

Number Eight:
 Chief of the RMAF Rodzali Daud. An unidentified plane was picked up by military radar around 200 nautical miles northwest of Penang in the Straits of Malacca, at about the time MH370 went missing. The military failed to act on this information, wasting both time and opportunity.

Number Nine:
 IGP Khalid Abu Bakar. When asked about the contradictory descriptions of the men using stolen passports, a dismissive Khalid said, “Why ask me? Ask Immigration, or ask Interpol.”

The defence minister asked everyone to avoid speculation, but Khalid said that his policemen were analysing all the speculation on the Internet to help in the MH370 investigations.

The IGP should focus on facts, rather than investigating speculation and rumour. He should chase criminals, rather than hound opposition politicians and NGOs.

Number Ten:
 Witch-doctor Ibrahim Mat Zain, or Raja Bomoh. This shaman heaped ridicule on the country when, at the entrance to KLIA, he used his bamboo binoculars and two coconuts to divine that MH370 had been hijacked by elves and the plane was either suspended in mid-air or had crashed into the sea. He should be jailed if he refuses to say who sent him to KLIA, to mock the suffering of the passengers and crew of MH370.

Bonus:
It is reported that Najib’s favourite number is 11. When former PM Mahathir Mohamad resigned, he continued to make his presence felt by refusing to hand over the controls of the airship Malaysia, which he was flying to mediocrity. Mahathir completes the list by being the eleventh member of Malaysia’s Hall of Shame.

MARIAM MOKHTAR is a defender of the truth, the admiral-general of the Green Bean Army and president of the Perak Liberation Organisation (PLO).

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 10 April 2014, 11:38 pm and is filed under
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Missing Plane Will Haunt Malaysia’s Future

William Pesek

Bloomberg

8th April 2014

The Flight 370 crisis has fully exposed the dangers of allowing one party to rule a nation for six decades.

President Barack Obama always knew his Asia tour later this month would be fraught with political landmines. The two nations that lead off his itinerary — U.S. allies Japan and South Korea — have been squabbling for more than a year over World War II history. Another, the Philippines, is one of Asia’s economic bright spots even as President Benigno Aquino’s government is locked into a dangerous maritime territorial spat with China — a country Obama would rather not antagonize.

But most problematic of all may be Obama’s time in Malaysia. Obama’s visit — the first by a U.S. leader to Kuala Lumpur in 50 years — was meant to celebrate a nation viewed as a high-tech hub of moderate Islam and a democratic contrast to China. Six months ago, Obama hailed Malaysia as “an example of a dynamic economy” and touted its multiethnic society as a model to others. Today, amid the global outcry over the loss of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, such praise sounds naive. The past month has highlighted Malaysia’s deepest flaws, and all-too-few of its strengths.

The international press has pilloried Prime Minister Najib Razak‘s government for its initial response to the crisis, which was marred by conflicting information, poor coordination with neighboring countries, defensiveness, and an apparent lack of transparency. Fairly or not, since March 8 when Flight 370 disappeared on its way to Beijing, Malaysia has lost a great deal of its standing both in the region and around the world.

At the same time, Najib’s government has been clamping down on internal political dissent. Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim once again faces the specter of jail on sodomy charges; Karpal Singh, chairman of the Democratic Action Party, is defending himself against sedition allegations. Local media outlets critical of Najib are on the defensive. The government has by contrast been silent on efforts by Islamic conservatives to limit who can use the word “Allah” — a campaign that has eroded Malaysia’s reputation for religious tolerance.

What can Najib’s government do, post-Flight 370, to improve its image at home and abroad? This isn’t a mere PR challenge. The country needs nothing less than a political revolution.

The Flight 370 crisis has fully exposed the dangers of allowing one party to rule a nation for six decades. Since rising to the top job in 2009, Najib has had to divert his attention from revitalizing Malaysia’s economy to maintaining the United Malays National Organization’s long hold on power. It’s a full-time job: For years populist handouts, gerrymandered districts, and political arrests secured the party comfortable majorities, but in last year’s election the ruling coalition lost the popular vote for the first time. Its ethnically Malay, largely rural base is dwindling.

Early on, Najib thrilled global investors by hinting that he would scrap his party’s 40-year-old affirmative-action policies, which favor Malays. But UMNO’s troubles prompted Najib to expand rather than eliminate such apartheid economics.

These affirmative-action policies stifle innovation and drive away investment. They disenfranchise the country’s Indian and Chinese minorities, forcing many of them to seek their fortunes overseas. Malaysia is blessed with enviable natural resources. But it is willfully squandering its equally enviable human capital.

The longer Malaysia sticks with the racial preferences, the more graft and opacity will worsen and undermine growth. The only way to unshackle the economy — which should be performing a lot more like South Korea than Vietnam — is to end such policies.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 10 April 2014, 11:21 pm and is filed under
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RMAF deployed search aircraft on March 8, but did not inform anyone

The Malaysian Insider

April 10, 2014

A senior Malaysian government official has revealed that the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) had scrambled search aircraft at 8am on the morning of March 8, soon after Malaysia Airlines had reported that flight MH370 was missing.

In a surprising new development, CNN reported today that it was informed by the official that the RMAF search aircraft were scrambled well before authorities had corroborated data indicating that the missing commercial aircraft had turned back westward from its last-known location over the South China Sea.

A source involved in the investigation into the missing MAS plane has confirmed this latest information, CNN reported.

According to CNN, the source also told them that RMAF did not inform the Department of Civil Aviation nor anyone in the search and rescue operations team until March 11, three days after the aircraft disappeared.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 left the Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 12.41am on March 8, and was en route to Beijing when it lost contact with Malaysian air traffic control at about 1.20am, while over the South China Sea.

The plane, with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board, was scheduled to land in Beijing at 6.30am the same day.

It was later confirmed by Malaysian military that its radar had detected the plane making a turn-back and then crossed over the peninsula heading to the Strait of Malacca before moving on to the Indian Ocean.

The plane had, however, disappeared from military radar for about 120 nautical miles after it crossed back over the peninsula, the source told CNN.

Investigators say that the available data points to this being caused by the plane most likely dropping in altitude to between 4,000 and 5,000 feet.

The source also revealed that investigators have confirmed that MH370’s pilot, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, was the last person to speak to air traffic controllers with the words “Good night Malaysian three-seven-zero”.

According to CNN, the Malaysian source told them that there was nothing unusual about the voice and there was no indication of stress. Confirmation of the voice belonging to Zaharie came after police played the recording to five other Malaysia Airlines pilots who knew the pilot and co-pilot, first Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid.

“There were no third-party voices,” the source told CNN. – April 10, 2014.

MORE TO COME.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 10 April 2014, 10:43 pm and is filed under
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Utusan Malaysia  tickled Malaysians no end with its preposterous allegation of “stone age” journalism against Malaysiakini when all Malaysians know that Utusan is the most egregious perpetrator of this sin in history of Malaysian journalism

Utusan Malaysia tickled journalists in particular and Malaysians generally no end with its preposterous allegation of “stone age” journalism against Malaysiakini when all Malaysians know that Utusan is the most egregious perpetrator of this sin in the history of Malaysian journalism.

This is another classic case of “Thief Shouting Thief” by Utusan Malaysia, continuing its most reprehensible brand of unethical, dishonest and gutter journalism in the past six years as the mouthpiece of UMNO,  totally in contrast to the high standards of journalism set and maintained by Utusan Melayu in the early decades of its history.

The Utusan editor, Zulkiflee Bakar, in an analysis piece yesterday, accused Malaysiakini of putting up a facade of transparency, but “everyone” knows its inclinations, purpose and hidden agenda.

He wrote: “Responsible journalism does not entail the reporting of facts that have yet to be verified, not reporting issues that can cause controversies and definitely not distorting the facts for the political purpose of some quarters.”

Zulkiflee does not seem to realise the irony that he was in fact making a confession the journalistic sins and misdeeds committed by Utusan Malaysia under his charge.

No media in Malaysia except for Utusan Malaysia could be more guilty of the journalistic sins and misdeeds he had outlined.

The MCA-owned Star is bad, but not as bad as the UMNO-owned Berita Harian and New Straits Times.

But even Star, Berita Harian and New Straits Times are light years away from the egregious dishonesty and depravity of the “stone age” journalism practised by Utusan Malaysia, which does not bat an eye-lid to disseminate downright lies and falsehoods as truth and fact.

This is why Utusan Malaysia has repeatedly broken its own record for having lost the most number of defamation suits.

The question is when the most egregious perpetrator of “stone age” journalism in the country would turn over a new page and begin to be guided by ethical and responsible canons of journalism?

Utusan Malaysia has fathered many myths, including the fictitious “Red Bean Army” (RBA), at one time even influencing UMNO Ministers to publicly join the Utusan “chase” of the RBA.

Almost a year ago, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim had even proposed a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the RBA.

I have publicly challenged Shahidan to get the Cabinet to set up a RCI on the RBA, for it will expose how wild, reckless, time-wasting and unproductive are all these baseless allegations about the fictitious RBA, distracting not only journalists but also political leaders and civil servants from the real and important challenges of ensuring the success of Malaysian nation-building and economic development.

Utusan’s continuing obsession with RBA is the most potent sign that it has yet to be weaned from the vices of  “stone age” journalism.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 10 April 2014, 3:49 pm and is filed under
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What is ‘the best interest of everyone’ by retracting invitation to opposition lawmaker?

COMMENTARY BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER

April 10, 2014

DAP’s Tony Pua has been ‘uninvited’ by the organisers of the Malaysia Summit Australia conference due to pressue from sponsors of the event. – The Malaysian Insider pic, April 10,2014.DAP MP Tony Pua is not speaking at the Malaysia Summit Australia (MASA) in Melbourne on April 22 because the event’s main sponsors felt that “it was not in the best interest of everyone” to have him on the panel.

Among the sponsors are Shell Malaysia, Astro, Education Malaysia Australia, Ayam Brand, Malaysian Australian Alumni Council and Kelab Umno Australia.

Obviously, it is their right to decide on the speakers line-up as they are funding the annual summit that features Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin and Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir.

This is not the first time that those who are critical of the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) government are barred from students events. Last week, Universiti Malaya (UM) refused to allow former Bersih co-chair Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan to speak at a law convention.

Pua, the Petaling Jaya Utara MP, also revealed that he had been barred from speaking in UM on at least three occasions. Again, that is UM’s right.

These incidents reflect the mindset of the varsities, organisers and the sponsors, who are more interested in being in the good books of the ruling government than being the catalysts for students to listen and learn from those on all sides of the political divide.

As MASA told Pua, “despite our best efforts to convince them otherwise, our main sponsors strongly feel that it was not in the best interest of everyone to have you in the line-up of panellists”.

For the organisers, the show must go on and they are at the mercy of these sponsors. It would be unthinkable for them to make a stand and cancel the summit just because they cannot get Pua as a speaker.

But Malaysians and students in Australia should not feel the same way as the organisers.

It would be an insult for the students in Australia now to attend the summit and only listen to a limited list of speakers rather than the diverse opinions that was first suggested when the event was being planned.

They can send a signal to both the organisers and sponsors by making a stand to boycott the summit.

While the sponsors and organisers might feel an obligation to the powers that be, the students have no such obligations and insist on their right to listen to all and sundry rather than a sanitised list of speakers.

Perhaps the other speakers too should boycott the event or be gracious enough to insist that the original speakers line-up is reinstated.

Malaysians too should show their displeasure that such controls exist in this day and age. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said this at the outset of his administration that “the era of government knows best is over”.

That idea should also be extended to the organisers and sponsors of the April 22 summit in Melbourne – that they do not know what is best for the students and no one should be barred from speaking on the vague notion of “best interest of everyone”.

It is in the best interest of the sponsors that people and consumers think better of them than believe they are part of a movement to keep people blinkered and brainwashed.

No one knows who among the sponsors have such veto powers that the MASA organisers capitulated to them. But Malaysians should punish these sponsors because they are doing a great disservice to the country’s future.

It is up to Malaysians and Malaysian students to listen to as many people as they want and decide who they want to follow – not sponsors who think their money can dictate who should and should not speak at an event. – April 10, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 10 April 2014, 6:43 pm and is filed under
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An earthly beginning

By Dyana Sofya |
MalaysMailOnline

Apr 10, 2014

The Bakau program organised by Jaring NGO and Impian Malaysia took place at Pontian Johor, last Saturday. I managed to drag my anti-social younger brother to join in the fun planting mangrove seedlings in the muddy mangrove site.

We had 500 mangrove seedlings and close to 100 volunteers participating in the program. The program was video-recorded and I was asked whether I was disgusted being in a muddy mangrove site for the activity. I replied saying I had no problem being with nature and I was actually enjoying myself while doing good for the environment. Also, a thought that crossed my mind was, even, we human beings originated from earth.

We, Muslims believe that we are made of earth. It is stated in the Quran, Surah Al-Mu’imun (The Believers : 12, “And indeed We created man (Adam) out of an extract of clay (water and earth).”

The earth, the humble stuff beneath our feet. Whenever I am reminded of this fact, massive wave of humility rushes over me and the voice of my mother would rang in my ears, ‘Wherever you go and whatever you do, jangan sombong’, she always reminded me.

We have to remember it was arrogance that caused an archangel to be cast out of heaven, stripped of his beauty, position and his rights to heaven. He believed himself of an elevated status, better than any creation.

Based on this Islamic virtue of humility that I fail to understand when one argues ones’ race is above the others. I cannot comprehend masquerading to be religious police but tolerating double standard treatment to others who are different. To the extent that one even state ‘there is a price for the citizenship to non-Muslims’. Was the Federal Constitution amended while I was asleep last night stating that citizenship is granted based on one’s religion? I cannot recall any other country practising the same. This statement came from an Ustaz, a leader of a self-claimed Islamic and ethno-nationalist organisation.

They are also claiming that non-Muslims should not be so greedy to the point that they want to interfere with the exclusive rights and interests of the Malays and Bumiputera, who are the original inhabitants of the country. I refuse to indulge in the argument on who was here first (although there are physical evidence of Kedah Tua being heavily influenced by Buddhism and Hinduism) because like it or not, Malaysia is tanah tumpah darah all of us and no one should be treated differently just because (arguably) their ancestors missed the earlier boat.

How does one lay claim to the earth but treat the others who have as much claim so badly?

The Malays should be reminded over and over again that our non-Malay, non-Muslim fellow Malaysians were never our enemy. Our own enemy is within ourselves.

It was arrogance that caused the death of Sultan Mahmud in Sultan Mahmud Mangkat Dijulang. He was assassinated by Laksaman Bentan whose wife was put to death for eating a piece of the Sultan’s jackfruit.

It was arrogance that caused the downfall of Temasek by eliminating smart people like Hang Nadim for being too brilliant and deemed to be a threat to those in power.

Humility means not putting oneself either above or below others; it means not thinking about one’s position on a scale. The challenge is not thinking less of oneself but thinking of oneself less often.

If we really grasp the idea of humility, we will have respect for each other despite our differences.  We would stand together for our common good and fight against morally-wrong conducts such as discrimination, corruption, unethical conducts and equal monsters. It is humility, not discrimination based on skin colour that is championed by many religions across the Earth if not all.

Despite leaving the mangrove site tired and covered in organic mud facial mask, I was satisfied with my tiny contribution to the environment, spending time with my younger brother and rewarded with soft skin by nature itself, almost immediately!

Surah Al Hujurat (The Dwellings) : 13

O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 11 April 2014, 11:28 am and is filed under
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DAP is not MCA 2.0

Wan Hamidi Hamid

The Malaysian Insider

April 08, 2014

Wan Hamidi is a veteran journalist who has a penchant for rock music.

DAP, or Democratic Action Party, is still seen by many as a political organisation with a lot of Chinese leaders and members. Therefore, it is often perceived as a Chinese party.

However, the real Chinese party in Malaysia is MCA or the Malaysian Chinese Association. Only Chinese join this party, and it is only interested in serving the Chinese community, although in practice it is more about the interest of the Chinese Malaysian capitalists and their government cronies.

Due to its Chinese characteristics, MCA is not an organisation for all Malaysians. It is only limited to the Chinese community who represent less than 25% of the country’s population.

By its minority nature, MCA is usually bullied by its de facto leader in the Barisan Nasional coalition – Umno – an ethnic Malay party claiming to represent most of the 60% of Malaysian population.

Umno was originally a Malay nationalist party formed in the 1940s but has transformed itself into some sort of a supremacist party of today – although there are some leaders and members who are not too happy with its current insular tendency.

For parties, such as MCA and its Indian-based counterpart MIC, they are trapped in a racial game where Umno leaders will always be in charge of everything. Umno will always lead merely by claiming racial superiority in terms of numbers, that is, Malays being the majority ethnic group in Malaysia.

However, in reality, by selling the propaganda that Umno “protects” the Malays, Umno leaders and their cronies managed to keep the economic cake for themselves, leaving the poor Malays poorer while antagonising all other Malaysians who have no connections with the big business.

Such is a vicious cycle of a race-based political system. Under BN, it has become the epitome of racism; and racism hurts everyone, including the Malays who do not agree with the views of the Malay supremacists.

An example of this arrogance of power is when a government minister Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim proposed that Malaysians should vote along racial lines. This means Malays vote for Malay candidates, Chinese vote for Chinese candidates and so on. If accepted, this could further segregate Malaysians who are already separated by race and religion.

So where does DAP fit into this scenario?

DAP is not a race-based party. It has never fought for merely the sake of Chinese community. It fights for the rights of all Malaysians.

Its first ever slogan was Malaysian Malaysia – where Malaysia belongs to every Malaysian, and not any person from any particular race or religion, where equal opportunity is the norm of our daily life.

From day one, DAP is a multiracial party. But the Umno-led government has used and continued to misuse state apparatus and the media to vilify DAP, to falsely accuse DAP of being racist.

After almost 50 years being fed with such a lie, it is not surprising some Malays believe it to be true. They believe that DAP is a Chinese party that fights only for the Chinese.

But it’s not just the Malays who believe it. Some Chinese believe it, too.

Apparently some of these Chinese actually joined DAP, thinking that DAP is MCA 2.0, that is, an alternative party for the Chinese Malaysian. These people must have thought that since MCA had failed to help them, DAP should be the next best choice.

The problem with this line of thinking is that it is racial in nature, and will only perpetuate segregation and racial hatred.

This is why it’s important for some DAP leaders and members to realise that DAP is a party for every Malaysian; its ideology is social democracy and its core values are freedom, justice and solidarity. It also believes in freedom of religion and that religion is personal. It is not for any particular ethnic group or any particular religious organisation.

However, screaming about idealism without putting into practice those good, positive fundamental values does not mean much in real life.

When all DAP members are clear about it, it will only be a matter of time they will work harder towards sharing the idea of DAP with all Malaysians; seeing everyone as Malaysian, as human being regardless of gender, and not as a race or a person representing a certain religion or belief. – April 8, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 11 April 2014, 6:53 am and is filed under
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DAP offers to school MCA on party’s hudud stance

BY MELISSA CHI

The Malay Mail Online

April 11, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, April 11 — Frustrated by repeated calls from MCA leaders for the DAP to make a stand on hudud, Lim Kit Siang told his political rivals today that his party will offer a free “kindergarten course” to set the record straight.

At a press conference here, the DAP veteran told MCA leaders that his party has never changed its position on hudud and will continue to maintain the opinion that the controversial Islamic penal code does not suit a multi-racial society like Malaysia.

“It is against the secular constitution of Malaysia and it’s not part of the Pakatan Rakyat policy consensus and therefore there is no change in DAP’s position or of any of the DAP leaders or DAP MPs, our position remains the same as in the past.

“So if MCA leaders find that they need to go to kindergarten to know our position, please read up on our statements, we have a full archive for them, we are prepared to give MCA leaders including their president and it’s deputy president a kindergarten course about DAP’s stand on hudud and other matters, we’ll give it free of charge also,” he told reporters at the DAP headquarters.

The PAS-led Kelantan government is planning to table two private Bills in Parliament, allowing the state to enforce hudud by early 2015.

Once implemented, crimes such as theft and liquor consumption could be punished with corporal punishment, even amputation.

Lim pointed out that each component party in Pakatan Rakyat (PR) respects the different position outside the common policy platform and they are bound only by its common policy platform.

“That does not mean that the individual component parties cannot have other positions on other issues because if that’s the case, there is no need for three separate parties, we’ll only have one party.

“But as far as Pakatan Rakyat is concerned, we are only bound by our common policy platform and that is very simple and straightforward. Somehow there are people who couldn’t understand,” the Gelang MP said.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 11 April 2014, 3:06 pm and is filed under
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Defence minister denies Malaysia scrambled fighter jets after MH370 plane vanished

The Malay Mail Online

April 11, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, April 11 — Malaysia did not deploy any military aircraft to chase down Flight MH370 after the Beijing-bound passenger plane went off civilian radars on March 8, Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein posted on Twitter.

The denial was first tweeted by Hishammuddin’s communications team late last night, in response to a news report broadcast on US network CNN that cited an unnamed senior government official saying Royal Malaysian Air Force fighter (RMAF) jets were scrambled at about 8am on March 8, shortly after the Malaysia Airlines jet was reported missing.

“Latest from @CNN claiming that Msian Air Force aircraft scrambled soon after @MAS reported #MH370 missing early 8/3 is a false allegation,” Hishammuddin’s communication team posted on its official Twitter account, @H2OComms) at 10.29pm.

Hishammuddin, who is also acting defence minister and has been the country’s official face in charge of the search, later retweeted the message on his official Twitter account, @HishammuddinH2O.

In a news programme yesterday, CNN cited an unnamed senior government official involved in the search for MH370 saying RMAF had mounted a hunt even before authorities were able to corroborate the Boeing 777-200ER had made a turn back over the Malay Peninsula.

According to the source, RMAF had only informed the Department of Civil Aviation of this deployment three days later, on March 11.

CNN also reported the source relaying that the final message from MH370 to air traffic controllers, “Good night, Malaysian three-seven-zero” was uttered by pilot, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, and not co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid as previously said.

According to the source, the verification was made after police played the recording to five other Malaysia Airlines pilots who knew the pilot and co-pilot.

Flight MH370 left the Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 12.41am on March 8, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew on board, and was scheduled to land in Beijing at 6.30am the same day.

Air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane over the South China Sea, some 120km off the coast of Kelantan, just as it was to enter Vietnamese air space.

Malaysia Airlines sounded the alarm after the plane failed to arrive at its scheduled destination, triggering a search first in the South China Sea before investigations showed the plane had turned back west and headed out to the Indian Ocean.

Australia is now leading a multination hunt for the plane where satellite data last tracked its signal before it disappeared entirely.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 11 April 2014, 8:50 am and is filed under
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For Karpal, no going out the back door

Aimee Gulliver

Malaysiakini

Apr 11, 2014

INTERVIEW
 Nearly 30 years on from one of the first of many threats on his life, Karpal Singh still refuses to slip quietly out the back door.

Then, he was urged by police officers to secretly leave a courtroom to avoid the danger posed by a man, claiming to have spiritual powers, who threatened to attack Karpal for suing the sultan.

Karpal refused, saying “if I go through that back door now, I will go through back doors all my life.”

The 74-year-old lawyer-politician maintains the same stoicism today, in the face of yet another attempt by the government to not only kill his political career, but also to put him in jail.

The sentence for his recent sedition conviction, a RM4,000 fine, precludes Karpal from holding political office and imposes a five-year disqualification period on running for Parliament again.

Malaysia has no upper-age limit to enter Parliament, and Karpal said he would be 82 when he would be eligible to return to politics.

“They are not doing it fairly; it is not the right way to do it,” Karpal said of the attempt to remove him from politics.

But he plans to give the government “a run for their money” on appeal.

“I will fight them to the Federal Court, and if at the end of it I have to go, then that’s too bad. I’ve got nothing left to lose.”

He laments the loss of the Privy Council as Malaysia’s final court of appeal, as “you could expect justice” from the English judges, who were objective to the political implications of the verdict.

Antiquated British law

Yet for the enviable justice administered by British courts, it is an antiquated British law that Karpal has been convicted under.

“Sedition was a law brought by the British, way back in 1948. I don’t think any other country has sedition anymore, because what it amounts to is criticism of the government, which is allowed in a democracy. But here, you have no right.”

Malaysia kept the offence of sedition because “they want it as a political weapon against critics of the government, an easy way out,” Karpal said.

It is the second time he has been charged under the same legislation; the first, for a statement he made in court in the defence of Anwar Ibrahim, then facing charges of sodomy.

It was the only known charge of sedition brought against a lawyer for remarks made in court in defence of a client in any country in the Commonwealth. In the face of intense pressure from the international community in Karpal’s defence, the government backed off.

“I think they were waiting for some other chance, which I think they thought they have got now.”

The government has filed a cross-appeal on Karpal’s sentence, seeking to imprison him. The maximum penalty available under the law is a three-year jail term.

“Yes, they want to put me inside. They want a custodial sentence. Can you imagine it?” he asked, laughing.

The threat of incarceration does not worry the veteran politician – “not at all.”

“If they put me inside, they are dead. Internationally, there will be a hue and cry, especially with me in my state,” he said, referring to the wheelchair he has been forced to use since 2005, when a car accident left him with spinal injuries and severely limited mobility.

Political martyrs

The jail term sought by the government carries an additional penalty – a five-year suspension on holding political office would, in that case, apply from the date Karpal was released from jail.

Yet Karpal knows both he and Anwar – sentenced to five years’ imprisonment on the latest sodomy charges – would become political martyrs if imprisoned.

“Once you do that injustice, then the ballot box will bring about the justice which you have denied others. But these are challenging things. It makes it more interesting, but also very dangerous at times.”

In the face of seemingly never-ending challenges, few would begrudge Karpal a peaceful retirement away from the persecution he has suffered for decades at the hand of the government, as an ever-present thorn in their side.

But he already has plans for his first act should the opposition win its hard-fought battle to come to power in Malaysia.

“The first thing I will ensure is that all convictions made against us will be set aside, declared invalid.

“We won’t go for a witch-hunt, but we will make sure to nail the buggers who did wrong to us. That will be nice,” he said, with a small smile at the idea of finally being vindicated after so many years.

Asked why he stays in Malaysia in the face of so much adversity, Karpal’s answer is simple.

“They want to make it as difficult as they can for us here so we’ll go away. But we will not go – that would be giving them what they want, and that would be wrong.

“We have to stay and fight.”

AIMEE GULLIVER is a New Zealand journalist interning with Malaysiakini for six weeks, courtesy of the Asia New Zealand Foundation.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 11 April 2014, 8:54 pm and is filed under
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Latest bombshell on 34th day of MH 370’s disappearance fuelled further doubts about government’s readiness to be fully transparent following reneging of promises to brief PR MPs and to establish PSC

A bombshell was dropped on the grieving families and loved ones of the 239 passengers and crew, Malaysians and the world on the 34th day of MH370’s disappearance –  CNN report last night that the  Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) had scrambled its search aircraft on the morning of the missing Malaysian Airlines Boeing 737 at around 8 am, but did not inform authorities until three days later and the denial by the Defence Minister, Datuk Hishammuddin Hussein.

Quoting a senior Malaysian government official and another source involved in the investigation, CNN reported last night that  “Malaysian air force search aircraft were scrambled around 8am, soon after Malaysia Airlines (MAS) reported that its plane was missing early March 8.”

It reported that aircraft were scrambled before authorities could corroborate data indicating the Boeing 777 turned westward from its northbound flight path.

The unnamed source stated RMAF had “not informed the Department of Civil Aviation or search and rescue operations until three days later, March 11″.

It further reported Flight MH 370 disappeared from military radar for some 120 nautical miles after it crossed back over Peninsular Malaysia.

“Based on available data, this means the plane must have dipped in altitude to between 4,000 and 5,000 feet,” claimed the senior government official.

Hishammuddin has denied the CNN report,  describing it as “a false allegation”.

Who is right, Hishammuddin or CNN?

Unless CNN is prepared to name the “senior Malaysian government official and another source” to substantiate its report, it would be difficult for anyone to accept it as gospel truth.

But the bare denial by Hishammuddin, after the  drips and drabs of information being doled out; clarifications, confusions and contradictions; frequent  twists and turns and “flip-flops” and the vast  “black holes” in information in the past 35 days of the MH370 disaster is just not adequate, satisfactory or acceptable.

If  an opposition-headed Parliamentary Select Committee on the MH 370 has been set up before the Dewan Rakyat adjourned yesterday, it would be a proper body to investigate into the veracity or otherwise of the CNN report that  Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) had scrambled its search aircraft on the morning of the missing Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777, but did not inform the authorities until three days later, and come out with a credible and authoritative report to back Hishammuddin’s denial and put all doubts  on the matter to rest.

In fact, the Parliamentary Select Committee could not only inquire whether RMAF had scrambled search aircraft on the morning of March 8 at about 8 am,  but also:

– whether or why there was no scrambling of RMAF search aircraft when the military radar tracked MH370 as having diverted from its course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, when in the first few minutes between 1.40 and 1.45 am, at least two RMAF Sukhoi-30s from Gong Kedak could have been scrambled to intercept the jetliner in Kelantan airspace; and

– why a second chance was lost  to intercept the plane when it approached Penang and it was picked up on the  military radar in Butterworth, although  the RMAF with its F/A squadron was on 24-hour standby at the airbase.

These and many other  questions have been waiting for answer in the past 35-days of the MH 370 disaster, but as I said in Parliament in the presence of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Hishammuddin on March 25 (18th Day),  I agree that the utmost priority must continue to be given to SAR – search and rescue – operation and the many questions that have arisen about the whole tragedy, including the crisis management, can wait until the discovery of the aircraft and hopefully,  the passengers and crew on board.

This is now 35th Day of the MH370 disaster. I have just received reports that a Perth radio station has announced “Unconfirmed report says Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 black box has been found”, and quoting an aviation expert as saying that if these “unconfirmed reports  are firm enough to say we have located the black box, that is enough for them to launch the Bluefin 21 to go down to the bottom and take photographs or scan the bottom with a sonar scanner”.

I hope this is not another false alarm as the families of the 239 passengers and crew are awaiting for a closure.

However, after 35 days of the MH370 disaster, I believe we have come to a stage where even the families and loved ones of the 239 passengers and crew on board MH370 would want answers to all the thousand-and-one questions that have surfaced about the whole tragedy instead of waiting for a finality and full closure of the tragedy with the discovery of the black box or wreckage, and this process of finding answers to these questions should begin without any delay.

In these circumstances, the CNN report and Hishammudin’s denial  that RMAF had scrambled search aircraft on morning of March 8 had fuelled further doubts about government’s readiness to be fully transparent following the reneging of promises to brief Pakatan Rakyat  MPs and refusal to establish a Parliamentary Select Committee on MH370.

For these reasons, I would call on the Prime Minister to honour his word that Malaysia has nothing to hide by honouring two broken promises so far – an authoritative briefing to Pakatan Rakyat MPs on the MH370 tragedy and the establishment of an Opposition-headed Parliamentary Select Committee on MH 370 tragedy.

(Media Conference Statement in Kuala Lumpur on Friday, April 11, 2014 at 12 noon)

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Malaysia Airlines criticised over London incident

The New Zealand Herald

Friday Apr 11, 2014

Britain’s air accidents investigator has criticised Malaysia Airlines for its lack of proper oversight in preserving flight recordings during an incident at London’s Heathrow Airport in 2012.

A Boeing 747 bound for Kuala Lumpur, carrying 340 passengers, had to return to Heathrow soon after takeoff because of engine and electrical failures on Aug. 17, 2012.

The pilots flew the plane manually and returned to the airport safely.

In a report issued overnight, Britain’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch said all the audio information relating to the incident was lost because the cockpit voice recorder ran on long after the landing. The body said the airline’s “procedures for the preservation of flight recordings were not sufficiently robust.”

The Heathrow incident was not related to Flight MH370, which went missing last month.

-AP

                This entry was posted on Friday, 11 April 2014, 8:02 am and is filed under
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More questions arise in search for MH370 following detection of signals, says report

The Malaysian Insider

April 10, 2014

Investigators searching for missing flight MH370 are adopting a cautious stance despite the discovery of more pulse signals in the Indian Ocean over the weekend and yesterday, a sign that the task ahead remains an arduous undertaking.

Simon Boxall, lecturer in ocean and earth science at the University of Southampton, said any confirmation that the signal comes from the Boeing 777-200ER’s locator beacon would mean “the possibility of recovering the plane – or at least the black boxes – goes from being one in a million to almost certain,” CNN reported.

However, Angus Houston, who heads the rescue effort, warned against expecting a quick resolution.

“It could take some days before the information is available to establish whether these detections can be confirmed as being from MH370.

“In very deep oceanic water, nothing happens fast,” CNN quoted the retired Australian Air chief marshal who is chief coordinator of the Joint Agency Coordination Centre as saying.

The Australian naval ship Ocean Shield – a hand-me-down from Norway’s oil and gas industry – equipped with high-tech US equipment had detected signals along the suspected flight path of the airliner off the country’s western coast.

Houston had told reporters that a device called a towed pinger locator being pulled by the vessel Shield detected signals similar to those emitted by flight data and cockpit voice recorders.

The first detection, which occurred over the weekend, lasted more than two hours before the ship lost contact, Houston said. A second detection several hours later lasted 13 minutes, and included two separate signals audible to the locator device, he said.

Ocean Shield again picked up two more signals yesterday in the southern Indian Ocean.

“It’s probably the best information that we have had,” CNN quoted Houston, who added that, “We haven’t found the aircraft yet; we need further confirmation.”

Investigators are hopeful that the signals are from the missing plane’s black box and flight data recorder as they were near the standard 37.5 kHz frequency used by the recorders, a frequency chosen to limit the possibility that it would be confused with other ocean noises.

They were detected along the missing plane’s estimated flight path, which was calculated based on its direction and fuel capacity and which has helped narrow the search area, the CNN report said.

“With the acoustic events that we’re getting in the area, we are encouraged that we’re very close to where we need to be,” Houston said. “This is quite an extraordinary set of circumstances that we’re now in a very well-defined search area, which hopefully will eventually yield the information that we need to say MH370 might have entered the water just here.”

On Saturday, a Chinese ship reported that it detected a single pulse signal more than 300 miles farther south, also near the most recently projected flight path.

Houston, however, had warned that it was important to have visual confirmation before any conclusions could be made.

“I believe we are searching in the right area but we need to visually identify wreckage before we can confirm with certainty that this is the final resting place of MH370,” he had said at a press conference yesterday.

For now, the pulse signals are the most promising leads, said Houston.

“Hopefully with lots of transmissions we’ll have a tight, small area and hopefully in a matter of days we’ll be able to find something on the bottom that might confirm that this is the last resting place of MH370,” he added. – April 10, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 11 April 2014, 6:34 am and is filed under
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Hishammuddin is supremo of the MH 370 SAR (search and rescue) mission but he should not be supremo or even have any role in the MH 370 disaster investigation stage

Last Saturday, the Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein announced an investigation team as well as three ministerial committees on the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, viz:

1. an independent “investigator-in-charge” to lead an investigation team comprising three groups

*an airworthiness group, which will look into maintenance records, structure and system of the airline;

*an operational group, which will examine flight recorders operations and meteorological aspects of the investigation; and

*a medical and human factor group, which will look into psychological and pathological aspects as well as survival factors of those on board the plane.

2. Three ministerial committees, namely a next-of-kin committee, headed by Hamzah Zainuddin, the Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister; a technical committee led by Abdul Aziz Kaprawi, the Deputy Transport Minister and a deployment of assets committee, helmed by Deputy Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Bakri.

These announcements should not have been made by Hishammuddin.

Hishammuddin is the supremo of the missing MH 370 SAR (search and rescue) operation, which is entering into its 36th day with its relentless roller-coaster anguish and torture for the families and loved ones of the 239 passengers and crew onboard.

The new development yesterday  was the news that MH370’s “black box” had been located , followed by a swift subsequent denial and the disturbing report today asking “Where are the debris” and the aviation expert opinion that the aircraft’s “black boxes” are not likely to be located without the discovery  first of the aircraft’s debris, which have not been found so far.

However, although Hishammuddin is the supremo of the missing MH 370 SAR, he should not be supremo or  even have any role in the investigation stage for the MH370 disappearance disaster, especially with regard to the conduct of the SAR operation.

The  principle that the supremo of the MH 370 SAR should not be the supremo of the MH 370 disaster investigation must be observed in the interests of ensuring the confidence and credibility    of the MH 370 disaster inquiry, especially as there is a crisis of trust and confidence  in the SAR among the families and loved ones of the 239 passengers and crew on board, Malaysians in general and the international community.

This important principle was highlighted by the denial of the RMAF chief General Tan Sri Rodzali Daud of the CNN report two nights ago that military aircraft were scrambled  to pursue Malaysia Airlines’ MH 370 on March 8, saying it was “totally false” and confirming Defence Minister Hishammuddin’s earlier denial.

Despite the denial of Hishamuddin and Rodzali, the CNN news report should be the subject of an independent and intensive  investigation,  which is another reason why Hishammuddin should not have any role in the investigation phase of the MH 370 disaster as he would be an important witness of the investigation.

The most appropriate vehicle for such an independent investigation would be an Opposition-headed Parliamentary Select Committee on MH 370, and if what Hishammudin and Rodzali had said in response to the CNN report are the truth, a report by the opposition-headed Parliamentary Select Commirtee  endorsing Hishammuddin and Rodzali ‘s explanations would only further reinforce national and international confidence in the credibility  and authority of the Malaysian system of governance.

The CNN report two nights ago and the special Reuters write-up yesterday entitled “Putrajaya starts investigating confused initial response to disappearance of flight MH370” cannot be shaken off by a bare denial or by disregarding it, as both have brought about a sea-change in public expectations, whether among  the families of the 239 passengers and crew but also in the national and international community, for answers to the thousand-and-one questions about the many confusions, contradictions and weaknesses in the initial response to the disappearance of MH370, particularly in the first eight hours.

Answers to the mistakes and weaknesses in the system of governance in the initial hours and days of the MH 370 disaster are being sought now, and cannot wait until the discovery of MH 370’s black-box or wreckage which can be for an indeterminate period, for this has become an important and integral part of the closure for the anguish and suffering of the families of the 239 passengers and crew, concerned Malaysians as well as concerned well-wishers worldwide.

The RMAF chief was also reported today as saying that after the MH 370 disaster, the Royal Malaysian Air Force needs sophisticated aircraft for SAR operations.

It is totally premature for RMAF  to ask for a bigger budget and more sophisticated assets when it has as yet to come out with a coherent statement as to what RMAF had done in the initial hours  and days of  the MH 370 disaster.

Let the RMAF come out with a coherent and credible statement as to its role in the initial  hours and days of the missing MH370 before RMAF start asking  for more budgetting  and an increase of defence assets.

Malaysian MPs are patriots and will support additional budgets or more sophisticated assets for the RMAF where there is a real national need, but RMAF must be able to present a case for more defence budgets and expenditures for more sophisticated assets – starting with producing a coherent statement of what the RMAF had done to avert the MH 370 disaster, and its conduct in the initial hours and days of the MH 370 disaster.

Are the problems faced by the RMAF a problem  of lack of sophisticated military assets or failure of a  defence system in being able to make full use of the available assets to forestall a disaster like the MH 370 tragedy?

(Media Conference Statement in Batu Pahat on Saturday, 12th April 2014 at 11.30 am)

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How deep is deep? Imagining the MH370 search underwater

By Holly Yan and Ed Lavandera, CNN

April 11, 2014

(CNN) — Just how hard is it to find a plane at the bottom of the ocean?

Imagine standing on a mountain top and trying to spot a suitcase on the ground below. Then imagine doing it in complete darkness.

That’s basically what crews searching for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 have been trying to do for a month.

Thursday is Day 34 in the search for the plane that disappeared March 8, taking with it 239 passengers and crew members.

Officials believe the Boeing 777, while en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

Pinning their hopes on signals they think came from the plane’s black boxes, they narrowed the focus of their search Thursday to a 22,400-square-mile (58,000-square-kilometer) area — about 45 times the size of Los Angeles.

But the real challenge is the depth of the water they’re dealing with.

Staggering depths

The underwater pulses that were detected Saturday, and again Tuesday, came from the ocean floor 15,000 feet below the surface. That’s 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometers). On Thursday, said officials said another signal may have been detected from sonar buoys.

How deep is 2.8 miles? It’s deeper than an inverted Statue of Liberty (305 feet), deeper than an inverted Eiffel Tower (1,063 feet), deeper even than an inverted Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world (2,717 feet).

In fact, if you stacked the Burj end-to-end five times, it would reach only 14,000 feet — still not deep enough to reach the spot searchers believe the pings are coming from.

At these depths, marine life is unlike anything most people have ever seen.

“The deeper you go you find less and less,” marine biologist Paula Carlson said. “They have to be very cold tolerant, they might not even have eyes. They may be blind, because they don’t need to see, there’s no light down there.”

Keep plunging

The pressure at nearly 15,000 feet is crushing — so much so that very few manned submarines can withstand it.

“There are only about half a dozen subs that can go to half the ocean depth with a number of countries having that capability,” said Sylvia Earle, an oceanographer for National Geographic. “If it gets to the point of collapse, it basically implodes, it just crushes.”

Only a handful of people have traveled to such staggering depths. One of them is movie director James Cameron, who using a state-of-the-art vessel, dropped 35,000 feet, or about 7 miles, to the deepest place on Earth — the Challenger Deep in the western Pacific Ocean.

Finding the plane is daunting. Bringing it back from the deep will be even more difficult.

“At these depths … there’s no recovery like it,” said Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation.

When the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in the Atlantic, it took some 70 years to discover the wreckage. It was resting 12,500 feet below the ocean’s surface, and it still lies there today.

When Air France Flight 447, with 228 people on board, plunged into the South Atlantic Ocean during a storm in 2009, the precise location of the wreckage remained a mystery for almost two years.

Then the plane and its dead were found in a mountain range 13,100-feet deep on the ocean floor. Miniature submersible vehicles retrieved the Flight 447’s voice and flight data recorders.

Eventually 154 bodies were recovered. Seventy-four still rest in the watery grave.

Not giving up

But Amirtham Arupilai isn’t accepting that fate for her son, Puspanathan, who was on board MH370.

“My inside and my heart is telling me still they are alive — all the passengers are alive,” Arupilai said.

Her son, an IT specialist, was headed to Beijing to begin a new job. To his parents, he was everything.

She calls Puspanathan’s cell phone and hears his voice mail greeting. She takes it as a sign he must be safe.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 12 April 2014, 6:27 am and is filed under
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Khalid Abu Bakar should step down as IGP if he is not prepared to uphold the law in the Seremban child abduction case  and enforce High Court order giving custody to the mother

Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar should step down as Inspector-General of Police if he is not prepared to uphold the law in the Seremban child abduction case and enforce the High Court order giving custody to the mother.

The failure and refusal of the Inspector-General of Police to  uphold the law and to ignore the Seremban child abduction case is the height of irresponsibility for the top policeman in the country, despite the fact that  a police report has been lodged by the mother S Deepa that her son was snatched by her estranged Muslim convert husband although she had won a custody through the civil court.

It is reported that her husband Izwan Abdullah has also obtained a similar order from the Syariah Court.

I agree with the former de facto law minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz that the IGP was mistaken in thinking syariah law allowed a Muslim convert to abduct his child after losing custody to the mother and that the father was clearly wrong to have taken his son without his estranged wife’s permission as the High Court has given her custody of their two children.

On Monday, the Seremban High Court granted S. Deepa full custody of her two children ― a nine-year-old daughter and a six-year-old son ― as her marriage to N. Viran in 2004 was a civil union and did not come under Shariah law.

Justice Datuk Zabariah Mohd Yusof also permitted her to divorce Viran who converted to Islam in 2012, and had taken the Muslim name of Izwan Abdullah.

The IGP should remember his sworn oath to uphold the  law and the Constitution and should take immediate action to ensure that the “abducted” son is immediately returned to her mother who has lawful custody under following their civil union.

(Media Conference Statement2 in Batu Pahat on Saturday, April 12, 2014 at 11.30 am)

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 12 April 2014, 5:58 pm and is filed under
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#MH370: Tragic Flights of Fancy

By Kyle Sanders and Brad “RenderMan” Haines, Combat Pilot and Hacker

Re-Code

April 10, 2014

The disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 has been tragic — and the grief of the families involved cannot be overstated. But adding to that sadness and bewilderment, another tragedy has taken place: An array of wild speculation and fallacious reporting of the event by news and popular media outlets around the world.

Perhaps the long search for evidence of the aircraft’s fate has paid off. Perhaps not. In any case, now is a good time to look back at the coverage that has displayed a disheartening lack of respect for the families of the passengers and crew, whose grief demanded — and was too often denied — the consideration of due diligence in reporting. Here are some perspectives on just a few of the fallacious stories that surfaced during these recent difficult weeks.

A hacker may have gained control of the plane from the ground.

Modern airliners are an alphabet soup of radio communications systems: ACARS, ADS-B, TCAS, to name just a few. Given the array of technical details, it’s not uncommon for laypeople to be confused about what can and cannot happen in this area, and many theories were reported — particularly during the early days of the investigation — suggesting that the flight was hijacked remotely and guided to destinations unknown.

To understand what’s possible and what’s not, it’s important to note the airline industry’s transition to a system generally referred to as NextGen, or Next Generation Air Traffic Control. A core part of this system is a move from radar on the ground to determine a plane’s position to aircraft automatically reporting their position via GPS to air traffic controllers. This data transfer amounts to location information sent over radio using the ADS-B protocol. ACARS is a system to send short messages to and from the plane, usually weather updates and maintenance data.

Of the myriad of radio protocols on a plane, there is pretty much nothing that has the capability to “hook” into the system to control and remotely fly a plane — and lock out the pilots. Moreover, even if this were possible, pilots can simply disconnect the autopilot from the cockpit at any moment with the press of a button, or by pulling a circuit breaker within arm’s reach to cut off power to the system. In the case of MH370, it’s also important to note is that the various radio systems the pilots used went quiet within a few minutes of each other. Even if it were possible, it would be fairly difficult to remotely control a plane when all communication channels have been disabled.

It could be someone onboard with an Android phone.

This oddly specific speculation is based on a presentation made by Hugo Teso at the Hack in the Box conference in 2013. As part of his talk, he created a “test cockpit” from avionics systems and training software that supposedly used almost all the same code as an actual airliner. In this experiment, he was able to develop a system that an attacker could use while on a flight to interfere and inject commands into several of these systems. The brand-name phone angle comes from the fact that he was using an Android phone as a front-end to control a bag full of other equipment that actually performed the attack. But the Android phone was simply the interface. A real-life attack would require the perpetrator to be on the plane with a great deal of other equipment, powered up and running in checked or carry-on baggage, and focusing a great deal of attention on the task at hand. Getting onboard with that amount of equipment and a power source would probably draw a lot of unwanted attention to the attacker.

They should know where it is by now.

Douglas Adams’s description of space in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” can also be applied to the ocean: It “is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.” Considering that voice and even digital communication from the plane to ATC and other aircraft only occurs periodically, one can imagine how searchers can end up with a massive target area even if a plane was on course. (Flight 370 appears to have deviated from its planned course and out over the Indian Ocean.) On top of that, of course, is the fact that planes are made of things that can sink. While there is often some detritus left floating, its coverage area is going to be a speck compared to the search area. A visualization created from real flight data shows how aircraft generally operate in specific “lanes” when over the ocean. (More on this later.) If MH370 deviated into an area well outside these lanes, the search area becomes a not insignificant percentage of the earth’s surface, where traffic and monitoring simply don’t exist.

The plane was deliberately flown off course.

The assumption at play here was that because the plane seemed to fly on a course to GPS waypoints (common points on a chart that define traffic lanes and are stored in the plane’s flight computer), only a pilot who knows how to enter the five-digit waypoint names could have done so. But looking for malicious intent in months-old videogame save files is grasping at straws. The resulting crass accusations and scrutiny leveled at both pilots is premature and unwarranted, and may sully the memory of two competent aviation professionals.

Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah is a pilot of 33 years with 18,000 flight hours of experience, an impressive achievement among pilots. This is an aviator on par with hero pilot Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who famously landed on the Hudson River, with about 20,000 flight hours of experience.

One possible answer could be a simple one: That the pilots “fat-fingered” it. This happens all the time, which is why pilots must double check with each other when entering waypoints and coordinates. One wrong letter can send you thousands of miles away from where you intend to go. In an emergency or stressful situation, it would be easy to misspell an identifier while you were busy troubleshooting more pressing issues. Think of it as texting while driving — without an autocorrect function.

There was no continuous radar tracking.

This theory shows a lack of understanding of air traffic operations. Where are you going to put the radar dishes and associated power and communications relay equipment in the middle of the ocean? The previously discussed air traffic lanes exist because, at a distance of 20 to 50 miles away from coastlines, there is no radar coverage. These lanes represent an invisible highway system that ensures that planes don’t cross paths, and that pilots stick to their lane and call out their position over radio for everyone to hear. ADS-B and NextGen are efforts to provide better location data to pilots and to Air Traffic Control, but these systems do not work if the plane or ATC is not yet equipped, which is the case in many countries, as the NextGen upgrades are not expected to be completed until 2020. In many cases, smaller airlines do not have the budget to equip all of their fleet all at once, so they’re spacing out upgrades over several years.

Imaging satellites should be picking up pictures of debris.

In this age of Google Earth, everyone assumes that the entire planet is constantly under eagle-eyed scrutiny from space. This is far from the truth. First, many of the detailed images on Google Earth were taken by aircraft, and not by satellite. Second, searchers would, of course, like satellite images of the entire ocean if they could have them, but there are limits to satellite technology — memory, software, ground path and look angle to the area you want to search, among others. There are also optics equations that dictate the tradeoffs between image width and resolution.

Hypothetically, if enough satellites were available for use, you could slowly stitch together a composite of the ocean one image at a time. But then what? Someone would have to visually scan all those images one acre at a time. While crowdsourcing such an effort has been an interesting solution (note the 2007 search for missing Microsoft researcher Jim Gray), it would still take time for the right picture to be found. As an exercise, try using Google Earth — without labels or overlays — to try to find the Sydney Opera House. This should be an informative exercise, considering that the combined search areas are larger than the continent of Australia.

One more note here: Even if you knew where exactly where you wanted to look, competition is also a problem. You have to fight for priority to obtain satellites images against many paying governments and industries. Without knowing exactly where to look, and without someone to pay for it, it’s not easy to commandeer all that data.

Some entirely new, mysterious and powerful force is at work on our planet.

Sadly — and not insignificantly — when it comes to popular media reports and the too many people who accept them whole-cloth, “disappearance” cases like this result in a slew of illegitimate and non-science-based theories. People like Mike Adams (author of “Natural News” and purveyor of alternative health products) and others offered up articles claiming the airliner was snatched from the sky by a super-weapon, kidnapped for secret governmental reasons, or had flown through a quantum “stargate.” While some of these reports cover themselves in an “it’s a possibility” cloak, it’s clear that they suggest that unlikely (at best) conspiracies or supernatural forces are to blame. How could such positions possibly be taken seriously? It’s surprisingly easy when you don’t bother researching.

A quick example: Some of Adams’s suggestions are based on his representation of the flight data recorder, and how it should have transmitted data that would have quickly identified the location of the aircraft. First, the “black box” is not made of adamantium, a fictional indestructible alloy found in comic books. (It’s also not black, by the way. It’s orange.) The device is simply a solid-state hard drive, sealed in a protective steel or titanium case with the hopes that it might survive an impact intact — many of them don’t. In optimal conditions, its water transmitter can “ping” up from a depth of around 14,000 feet, not enough to reach the surface from some Indian Ocean depths that can be near twice as deep. In any case, dozens of ships are combing the ocean for this signal as we speak, and again it is a large ocean. It took search and recovery assets almost two years to find the black box of Air France 447, which crashed in 2009.

We’ll pass here on much of the other over-reported gibberish regarding aliens, et al, but suffice it to say that all these types of speculation dishonor the memories of those who perished in the disaster, and their families who are suffering from their loss.

What happens when they do find evidence?

Finally, before more guessing games begin, here are a few things to keep in mind when — indeed, if — evidence is located. Even when all accident debris is recoverable, critical evidence may have been destroyed. Moreover, the flight data recorder, if it survived, may not provide complete data. Extended periods in the ocean, impact damage and other factors can render the data from the device unrecoverable.

Once evidence is located, hundreds of government, military, industry and aviation professionals will be working around the clock to provide answers. While this process occurs, the information they find is privileged, out of respect for those who lost their lives. Until they have a confident picture about what happened, they will not feign an answer and risk tarnishing the reputation of the victims, families or the aviation community.

Perhaps most important: Know that the investigation process is vital to the industry and the future of flight safety. While the solemn motivation of the specialists involved is of course to provide answers to the families as soon as possible, their ultimate responsibility is to understand how such a tragedy can occur, in order to prevent it from ever happening again.

Kyle Sanders is a combat pilot with a background in space systems engineering. He is a graduate of the Air Force Academy and veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, where he piloted the C-130E/H Hercules. Brad “RenderMan” Haines is a hacker and security researcher. A frequent speaker and trainer, he follows whatever security risks he can find to make the world a better place. Both Kyle and Brad are subject-matter expert advisers to Signal Media Project, a nonprofit organization that promotes and facilitates the accurate portrayal of science, technology and history in popular media.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 12 April 2014, 6:29 pm and is filed under
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