'Irene will want us to carry on'

Protecting Pakistan’s image: Court reserves decision in ‘immoral’ video case

Actress Meera and Captain Naveed. PHOTO: JAVED YOUSAF

LAHORE: An additional district and sessions judge reserved his decision on a petition seeking the registration of a case against actress Meera and her husband Captain Naveed till April 3 (today).

Advocate Amir Saeed Rawn, representing Shabir Muhammad, said that Meera and her husband had damaged the image of Pakistani society by releasing an “immoral” video clip. He said it was a cognisable offence under Sections 294 and 496 of PPC (obscene acts; non-marital sex) and Section 13 of Prevention of Electronic Crimes Ordinance 2009 (cyber stalking). Rawn said that the couple had released the video on YouTube, which was public space. He said that it was unIslamic even if they were married. He said instead of earning a good name for Pakistan, Meera was maligning it and should be punished for it. Meera’s counsel Ahmed Fahim Bhatti said that Islam also did not allow people to watch such videos and yet the petitioner had keenly done so. Moreover, the petitioner claimed to have watched the video on YouTube, which is banned in the country, so this would also be a contravention of law. He said there was no law that established a cognisable offence in this matter. He said that the petition was not maintainable and requested the court to dismiss it.

Shabir Muhammad has said that he watched a video featuring Meera and her husband on January 20. He said the video had damaged the image of Pakistan. He requested the court to direct police to register a case against Meera and her husband and have their names placed on the Exit Control List.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 3rd, 2014.

Bangladesh: Hindu temple set on fire

Seven idols were burnt as criminals set a Hindu temple ablaze at Adhuna village in Gournadi early yesterday.

After worshipping, the priest left the tin-shed Durga-Kali temple at 10:30pm on Monday, said Satindranath Chakraborty, president of Senerhut Durga-Kali Mandir management committee.

In the morning, the worshippers found the burnt idols of Durga, Sarswati, Laxmi, Kartik, Ganesh, Ashur and Kali and informed the police.

A gang set the temple to fire by pouring petrol at midnight, said Satindranath Chakraborty.

A case was filed in connection with the incident, said Abul Kalam, officer in-charge of Gournadi police station.

No need for IPCMC, gov't tells UN

 

The government has once again defended its decision not to establish the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC), this time in a reply to the United Nations.

In a response to the United Nations Human Rights Council, Malaysia said it has already formed the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC) in 2009.

Further, the government said, in the report released last month, that it has also conducted workshops to ensure enforcement agencies are aware of human rights.

"Relevant government agencies and Suhakam have conducted seminars, workshops and training programmes to promote awareness and education in relation to human rights to police officers and other enforcement agencies.

"Malaysia is committed to maintain effective mechanisms to ensure an independent investigation of alleged misconduct by government officials, including law enforcement personnel," it said.

The government added that it also has the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, set up in 2008, to deal with issues of corruption in the police force.

This was part of its response in the United Nations Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review.

Easy to make commitments in Geneva

Asked of this at a press conference yesterday, Human Rights Watch deputy director of Asia Phil Roberston said he is surprised that Malaysia claimed that the EAIC was set up in 2009.

He said that in fact, the law enabling the EAIC was passed in 2009 but it took at least two more years after that for the commission to be set up.

"It is easy to make commitments in Geneva. I believe the Malaysian government would want to put it best foot forward (in the situation)," he said.

However, he said, it is clear that the EAIC has "fell far short of anyone's expectations", having only managed to secure three disciplinary actions against enforcement officers, with two of those only warnings, since it was set up.

"After RM4.2 million spent, then it would be very expensive convictions indeed, and these are not even convictions.

"Our view is that the EAIC, even if it has the individuals with political will and experience to investigate (police abuse) will have a hard time (to deliver) as it oversees 19 agencies," Robertson (left) said at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur.

He added that the severity of abuse in the police force, as detailed in the 102-page HRW report launched yesterday, warrants a separate independent oversight body.

Lumping the police with all the other agencies, he said, "distracts" from the severity of the situation.

In the meantime, HRW recommended the setting up of an ombudsman body within police to deal with police misconduct, and providing enough resources for EAIC's operations.

PI Bala's widow: M'sians have forgotten my hubby

 

The widow of the late P Balasubramaniam is heartbroken that Malaysians have forgotten her husband’s contribution to the country.

“Malaysians may have forgotten him for what he has done for the country, but not I,” said A Santamil Selvi.

Selvi (left) said there would be special prayers at her house in Rawang today to commemorate the first anniversary of Balasubramaniam's death.

The mother of three lamented that since her husband, popularly known as PI Bala, passed away, life has been difficult, with her ever having to raise their children, aged between 12 and17, on her own.

“I have been running a small kindergarten on my own, with a few children as they are many other kindergartens around, competition is great,” she told Malaysiakini.

“What to do, he has gone. My kids are also not having an easy time in school as they studied overseas, in India for five years, their Bahasa Malaysia is lacking but because of financial constraints, I have to think twice about sending them for tuition,” she added.

Selvi has received some financial help from the Pakatan Rakyat state government but this is not been sufficient.

However, she is glad that she is no longer being “disturbed” by anyone.

Following his death, Selvi had received a phone call from an unidentified person, asking her to “join the other side”.

Asked what side the caller was referring to, she replied: "My husband sided with Pakatan, so you know which is the other side.”

“I declined. The caller told me that Bala had gone to the other side when he was alive, but I did not believe him. My husband had been steadfast and consistent till the end of his life,” she added.

A damning statutory declaration

Bala, 53, died of a heart attack after several public speaking arrangements on a Pakatan platform, where he urged Malaysians to vote out the BN government so that justice can be found for murdered Mongolian national Altantuya Shariibuu.

Bala (right) was one of the few who had seen Altantuya alive, before her remains were found at a jungle clearing in Shah Alam on Oct 19, 2006.

Bala was famously known for his role as a private investigator, engaged to “protect” political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda from the persistent demands made by Altantuya until the beginning of the murder trial, where he was one of the witnesses.

Abdul Razak was charged with abetting in the murder in October 2006, along with two of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s former bodyguards. However, he was acquitted without his defence being called.

The two former policemen - Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar - have also been acquitted, pending the prosecution’s appeal to the Federal Court on June 23-25.

Bala created a storm when he returned from India on Feb 24 last year after five years in forced exile, vowing to fight for justice for Altantuya and the two policemen convicted of her murder, claiming they were merely following instructions.

Upon his return, he claimed that his first statutory declaration in July 2008 linking Najib to Altantuya’s murder was the truth.

Bala had apologised and even swore on a Hindu holy book that his first SD “was the truth and nothing but the truth”.

His first SD stunned the public as it contained vivid details of his purported interactions with several personalities leading to Altantuya’s death.

Among others, he claimed that Najib had a sexual relationship with Altantuya and had introduced her to Abdul Razak, his close political ally.

Najib has denied that he was ever close to the woman, and even swore on the Holy Quran to proclaim his innocence.

In a highly dramatic event, Malaysians were stunned again when Bala withdrew his first SD the next day, claiming he had made it under duress, and fled the country.

According to Americk Singh Sidhu (left), Bala’s lawyer, who recorded his first SD, Bala surfaced a year later, and declared that he received approximately RM750,000 from carpet merchant Deepak Jaikishan, who is closely linked to Rosmah Mansor, Najib’s wife, and this sustained him and his family in India.

In an interview with Malaysiakini in August 2012, Bala also alleged there was an attempt to bribe him when he was in exile in India, to smear PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim.

In an interesting twist, Deepak (left) later revealed in an interview with PAS media organ Harakah how a senior lawyer and his son had drafted and prepared the second SD to “protect” Najib.

When contacted, Americk said he remembers Bala fondly, expressing hope that his former client’s death would not be in vain.

“We shall continue with his quest to ensure justice is eventually done. This matter is by no means over yet,” he vowed.

Search for MH370 goes underwater

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak says robotic submarine and underwater drones will be used in the next phase of search for the ill fated MH370.

PERTH: A robotic submarine or underwater drone is needed for the next phase of the search and recovery operation for the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 in the south Indian Ocean, Najib Tun Razak said Thursday.
The Malaysian Prime Minister said he had discussed with his Australian counterpart, Tony Abbott, the need to acquire assistance from other countries for such technology.

Najib said such technology was needed once the blackbox pinger battery ran out (in four days) and should the SAR team locate the aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER.

The underwater drone was among the important matters discussed by the two leaders when they met at the Commonwealth Centre, here, Thursday.

The underwater drone relies on sonar pulses to search the ocean floor and it was used to help locate the Air France Flight 447 that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean in 2009.

“The disscussion is about using sonar technology, robotic drone and cameras,” he told Malaysian journalists shortly after a joint press conference with Abbott, here.

Najib said the search operation using aircraft and naval ships would continue at the moment although it was a race against time as the battery had only several days left to operate the pinger signal.

He also said Malaysia would send more of its assets to participate in the search in the area but did not provide the details.

The MAS Flight MH370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, left the KL International Airport at 12.41am on March 8 and disappeared from radar screens about an hour later while over the South China Sea. It was to have landed in Beijing at 6.30am on the same day.

A multinational search was mounted for the aircraft, first in the South China Sea and then, after it was learned that the plane had veered off course, along two corridors – the northern corridor stretching from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand and the southern corridor, from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.

Following an unprecedented type of analysis of satellite data, United Kingdom satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat and the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) concluded that Flight MH370 flew along the southern corridor and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth, Australia.

Najib then announced on March 24, seventeen days after the disappearance of the Boeing 777-200 aircraft, that Flight MH370 “ended in the southern Indian Ocean”.

When asked on the news report that claimed foreign aviation investigators would take over on the missing jetliner probe, he said: “Under the international law, Malaysia has the ultimate responsibility on the case.”

Najib was also touched by the commitment given by the search team personnel as their morale was still high despite the search having gone more than three weeks.

He explained that his two-day visit to Australia was to thank personally the search team personnel and the Australian government as well as 25 other countries on their efforts to find the jetliner.

Accompanying him during the two-day visit starting yesterday are his wife, Rosmah Mansor, Foreign Minister Anifah Aman, Department of Civil Aviation Director-General Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, Chief of Air Force Rodzali Daud, Advisor in the Prime Minister’s Department Jamaluddin Jarjis, and Malaysian High Commissioner to Australia Zainal Abidin Ahmad.

Najib and his delegation are scheduled to leave here Thursday evening for a three-day official visit to Vietnam.

MH370 lost in a ‘broken ocean’, says daily

As the search continues in the Indian Ocean for signs of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the staggering amount of rubbish in the sea is hampering efforts to find possible debris from the missing aircraft.

Among those who had highlighted this problem is Fairfax writer Greg Ray whose article “The Ocean is Broken“, written last year went viral on social media, reported The Maitland Mercury.

In the article, Ray had quoted Newcastle yachtsman Ivan Macfadyen who had sailed from Melbourne to Osaka and from there to San Francisco who expressed his sadness and horror at the astounding volume of garbage he encountered in the ocean during his journey.

Ivan told Ray that one of the things he noticed was the absence of the cries of the seabirds which, on all previous similar voyages, had surrounded the boat.

The birds were missing because the fish were missing.

Instead, in its place was a huge amount of garbage floating in the ocean.

“We saw a factory chimney sticking out of the water, with some kind of boiler thing still attached below the surface. We saw a big container-type thing, just rolling over and over on the waves,” Ivan’s brother, Glenn, who boarded at Hawaii for the run into the United States told Ray.

“We were weaving around these pieces of debris. It was like sailing through a garbage tip.

“Below decks you were constantly hearing things hitting against the hull, and you were constantly afraid of hitting something really big. As it was, the hull was scratched and dented all over the place from bits and pieces we never saw,” Ray quoted Macfadyen as saying.

Ray wrote that plastic was everywhere, including bottles, bags and every kind of throwaway domestic item you can imagine, from broken chairs to dustpans, toys and utensils.

Even the boat’s paint job was not spared, he said, adding that the boat’s vivid yellow paint job, never faded by sun or sea in years gone past, reacted with something in the water off Japan, losing its sheen in a strange and unprecedented way.

Glenn also told Ray that there were “thousands of thousands” of yellow plastic buoys.

There were also huge tangles of synthetic rope, fishing lines and nets. Pieces of polystyrene foam by the million. And slicks of oil and petrol, everywhere.

Countless hundreds of wooden power poles are out there, snapped off by the killer wave and still trailing their wires in the middle of the sea, Ray wrote.

"In years gone by, when you were becalmed by lack of wind, you'd just start your engine and motor on," Glenn told Ray.

"In a lot of places we couldn't start our motor for fear of entangling the propeller in the mass of pieces of rope and cable. That's an unheard of situation, out in the ocean.

"If we did decide to motor we couldn't do it at night, only in the daytime with a lookout on the bow, watching for rubbish.

"On the bow, in the waters above Hawaii, you could see right down into the depths. I could see that the debris isn't just on the surface, it's all the way down. And it's all sizes, from a soft-drink bottle to pieces the size of a big car or truck."

Ivan believed that part of the floating garbage was a result of the tsunami which hit Japan a couple of years ago.

"The wave came in over the land, picked up an unbelievable load of stuff and carried it out to sea. And it's still out there, everywhere you look.

"The ocean is broken," he said, shaking his head in stunned disbelief.

Ivan planned to lobby government ministers to help solve the problem.

He was also going to approach the organisers of Australia's major ocean races, trying to enlist yachties into an international scheme that uses volunteer yachtsmen to monitor debris and marine life, Ray wrote in his article.

Ivan had signed up to this scheme while he was in the US, responding to an approach by US academics who asked yachties to fill in daily survey forms and collect samples for radiation testing – a significant concern in the wake of the tsunami and consequent nuclear power station failure in Japan.

"I asked them why don't we push for a fleet to go and clean up the mess," he told Ray.

"But they said they'd calculated that the environmental damage from burning the fuel to do that job would be worse than just leaving the debris there."

The huge amount of garbage in the ocean has hampered search efforts for MH370.

Satellites keep picking up images of objects in the water but some of those objects have proven to be nothing but junk. – April 3, 2014.

Hudud is certainly not a law for the present age and time

MEDIA STATEMENT

Karpal Singh

The statement by Kelantan Menteri Besar Datuk Ahmad Yakob [at page 11 of NST dated 3rd April, 2014] that Kelantan will table ‘a private members bill in Parliament later this year to seek a declaration that the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Court Enactment II, or hudud, can be implemented in the state’, is ill-advised. He added the tabling of the bill was to get Parliament to pass a law for the enforcement of hudud only in Kelantan. He says, ‘If everything proceeds well and Parliament approves the bill, we can implement hudud in Kelantan by early next year’.

The passing of the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Court Enactment II in the state assembly in 1993 is in the first place unconstitutional. The state assembly had no jurisdiction to pass the enactment.

Parliament cannot enforce an unconstitutional enactment passed by a state assembly.

Hudud is certainly not a law for the present age and time.

It is Parliament which has the jurisdiction to pass criminal laws. Hudud has very serious implications and consequences. Parliament will not, and cannot, pass laws of this category.

The DAP’s position on hudud has been made clear time and again and that stand cannot be subjected to any compromise. It is fundamental to the party’s existence. The passing of such a law will not be in the national interest.

Perlis mufti advises Muslims to avoid ceremonies of other religions

(Bernama) - Perlis Mufti, Datuk Dr Juanda Jaya (pic) has advised Muslims not to be directly involved in the ceremonies of other religions, including the Songkran festival.

He said giving a present or extending good wishes to a non-Muslim in conjunction with that person’s religious celebration was not an issue, but they should not be attending the religious ceremonies.

“The Songkran festival is clearly a religious occasion as during the ceremony, the statue of Buddha will be given a bath and the bath water will then be distributed to the attendees for them to receive blessings,” he explained.

Because of that, he said, Muslims should not be attending such ceremonies.

It is understood that Perlis will be holding a Songkran festival in Kuala Perlis this Saturday and the festival is included in the state’s tourism calendar.

Juanda also reminded Muslim traders who display the photograph of the 25th Sultan of Kedah, the late Sultan Abdul Hamid, at their premises with the aim of bringing luck to their business, to remove the photo immediately as this is contrary to Islamic teachings.

He said the traders’ belief that the long tail feathers of the burung cenderawasih (bird of paradise) on the sultan’s ‘tengkolok’ (headdress) as seen in the photograph could give them good luck in business, smacked of polytheism and such a belief must cease.

“The Perlis Fatwa Council had decided five years ago that the practice was wrong in religion and the notice on the fatwa (edict) was distributed through the local authorities two years ago. However, there are still traders who hold on to the belief,” he said.

On the fatwa that deemed the drinking of ketum water as haram (forbidden), Juanda said the Perlis Fatwa Council was waiting for the Home Ministry’s response to its suggestion of placing the offence of drinking ketum water under the Dangerous Drugs Act and not under the Poisons Act as practised now.

Malaysia Airlines MH370: Unmanned Robot Subs Needed for Search

Remus 6000 - one of only unmanned robot submarines in the world that can perform deep water searchesWoods Hole Oceanographic Institution

 

Unmanned robot submarines will need to be brought in to locate wreckage of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane in the Indian Ocean once the search zone has been narrowed down.

Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur Ifor Beijing with 239 people onboard  on 8 March but lost contact with air traffic control 50 minutes later.

After 26 days of searching there continues to be no sign of the wreckage. It is now assumed that the plane crashed into the Indian Ocean without survivors and the search for the plane has now been classified as a criminal investigation.

Unmanned submarines, which are known as Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV), were crucial in finding the black box recorders from Air France Flight 447 after it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009, killing all 228 people onboard.

Although some major wreckage was removed from the sea within five days of the crash, it took another two years and €32m spent on four deep water search missions before the black boxes were located at roughly 12,800 feet below sea level.

Narrowing down the search area

Investigators knew the general location of the Air France aircraft, but in order to have a chance of finding MH370's wreckage, the search zone, which currently measures 221,000 square kilometres, must be narrowed down considerably.

"Air France 447 is a bit different from Malaysian Air 370 in that we had a few more clues to work with," Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Dave Gallo told AP.

Gallo led the search team from Woods Hole, an independent research institution which has offered its services to MH370 investigators but has not been asked to join the present search effort.

Australian Defence Vessel (ADV) Ocean Shield, a ship used for humanitarian and disaster reliefAustralian Royal Navy

Woods Hole developed unmanned submarines primarily for research and to monitor shallow waters, such as measuring temperature and salinity of the waters over a wide area for many hours, but the AUV technology is increasingly being used for deeper underwater missions.

The US Navy uses robot submarines to hunt for underwater mines, while energy companies make use of the technology to survey the ocean floor at underwater drill sites.

Unmanned submarines are now the preferred choice for deep water search missions when compared to manned submarines, which are limited by needing to have enough power, air and light, as well as having to follow safety guidelines.

Investigators are currently using an underwater drone and a black box locator attached to the Australian Defence Vessel (ADV) Ocean Shield, a large Australian Royal Navy ship that is being used in the search.

Attaching these devices to the ship enables real-time data transmission to the surface and a continuous power supply from the ship to the devices, however this is a very slow way to search for wreckage.

19,000 feet below sea level

Another advantage of using AUV unmanned robot submarines is that they can travel much deeper underwater than regular submarines and can stay underwater for between 20 to 24 hours.

Air France Flight 447's flight data recorder, found on May 1, 2011, was unmoored from its chassis but otherwise undamagedReuters

 

Wood Hole's REMUS submarine is almost 13 feet long, weighs 1,900 pounds and comes equipped with sonar, which can be programmed to capture and record images of the ocean floor.

Scientists can view bits of data gathered by the submarines underwater and send instructions to the submarine using an acoustic link, but they can't tell exactly what the submarine has found until it returns to the surface and the data is downloaded to a computer.

The current search area ranges from between 2,600 feet to 9,800 feet deep. However, part of the search zone includes the Diamantina trench, a narrow area which has a depth of 19,000 feet.
The largest REMUS submarine can reach sea depths of 19,700 feet. In comparison, the Bluefun-21 autonomous submarine that the US Navy sent to Australia to join the search can only reach depths of 14,800 feet.

"Let's hope the wreck debris has not landed over this escarpment. It's a long way to the bottom," said Robin Beaman, a marine geologist at Australia's James Cook University.

Malaysian prisons are among region’s best, deputy minister claims

Malay Mail
by ZURAIRI AR

KUALA LUMPUR, April 2 — Malaysia’s prison system is among the best in the region due to its exemplary moral and religious service, Deputy Home Minister Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar claimed in Parliament today.

 

In a reply to Bukit Katil MP Shamsul Iskandar Mohd Akin, Wan Junaidi also claimed that the prisons abide by international human rights standards, including the United Nation’s Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.

“The Prison Department is sensitive to the basic rights and welfare of the residents,” Wan Junaidi said during Question Time here.

“All residents are treated fairly based on the standard operating procedures, no matter their race, skin colour, gender, religion, political beliefs and others.”

The Santubong MP also revealed that taxpayers have to fork out over RM1,000 to support a prisoner monthly, to cover the facilities, food, medical supplies, security, escort, recovery and emolument.

“The welfare and living cost borne by the government for every prisoner detained in the Malaysia’s prisons is RM35 per day,” added Wan Junaidi.

 

The deputy minister also claimed that the Home Ministry is considering to allow prisoners to vote in elections, especially if they have registered before their incarceration.

According to Elections Act 1958, a registered voter loses his rights to vote if he is sentenced to imprisonment or death.

According to the Prison Department website, there are 35 correctional facilities in Malaysia, including two women-only prisons in Kajang and Kota Kinabalu.

One of the earliest prisons in Malaysia, the Taiping Gaol, was built in 1879 and remains operational.

The UK-based International Centre for Prison Studies reported that there are 39,740 prisoners in Malaysia as of October 2013, with foreigners accounting for nearly 30 per cent of inmates.

However, data from June 2009 showed that Malaysian prisons can only accommodate a maximum of 32,000 prisoners at a time.

Lawyers chasing compensation for MH370 families despite no trace of plane

The Malaysian Insider

With the help of a Boeing 777 model, Monica R. Kelly patiently explains to the grieving families in a hotel suite in Beijing how Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 may have malfunctioned.

Although investigators have yet to find any concrete proof of what happened to flight MH370, it has not stopped the lawyer and her colleagues from the American law firm, Ribbeck Law Chartered, from making their pitch to the families.

They tell the families that a court in the United States could potentially award millions of dollars per passenger in a lawsuit against the Boeing Company, which built the missing jet, a Boeing 777-200, The New York Times reported today.

“It’s not an issue of whether families will be compensated,” Kelly told the daily recently while munching on French fries with her 12-year-old son at a restaurant across the street from the Lido Hotel where the families in Beijing have been holed up since the plane's disappearance on March 8.

“It’s a question of how much and when.”

Kelly, however, admitted that flight MH370 was a uniquely difficult case.

“We’ve done more than 43 plane crashes,” she said, “and there’s never been a situation like this one, ever.”

Complicating Kelly's potential case against Malaysia Airlines, Boeing or other parties is the fact that no debris has been found to confirm that the aircraft had indeed crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

However, several families have approached the Chicago-based law firm, whose lawyers are aviation law experts, to help them file a lawsuit against aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co and Malaysia Airlines, as they believe the plane had crashed due to mechanical failure.

Ribbeck Law has made two filings in a court in Chicago, where it is based, to try to force Boeing to divulge more information, but both were dismissed.

The judge had threatened to impose sanctions against the firm for making inappropriate filings.

Still, the rush is on to secure compensation for families of the flight’s 227 passengers, about two-thirds of whom are Chinese, said the NYT report.

Ribbeck Law has sent six employees to Beijing and six to Kuala Lumpur, where families of passengers have been put up in hotels. Rival firms have also been contacting the families.

“The next step is getting insurance payments, not lawsuits,” said James Healy-Pratt, a partner and head of the aviation department at Stewarts Law, based in London.

Some Chinese families are reluctant to immediately pursue lawsuits or take the payment that airlines generally award in the event of a plane crash, as mandated by international law in the Montreal Convention.

This is because they refuse to accept the fact that the passengers are dead and insist that the Malaysian government is orchestrating an elaborate cover-up.

Wang Le, whose mother was on flight MH370, said that he was starting to cope with her death, but that “it’s not the time for compensation yet”, reported the NYT.

“Talking about lawsuits or whatever — we still don’t know where the plane is,” he said.

Some of the flight MH370 families are accepting insurance payments as a first step.

The China Life Insurance Company, the biggest such company in China, said on its website that it had 32 clients on the flight and that it had paid out US$670,400 (about RM2.2 million) to cover seven of them as of March 25.

It said the total payment for all the clients would be nearly US$1.5 million. At least five other Chinese insurance companies have also made payments.

Since Malaysia is bound by the Montreal Convention, the families are also entitled to a minimum compensation from Malaysia Airlines, of up to US$174,000 per passenger.

The amounts awarded in lawsuits related to flight MH370 could vary by the jurisdiction of filing, the NYT report said.

American courts offer plaintiffs a better chance of winning multimillion-dollar settlements, several aviation lawyers were quoted as saying.

Those courts assign greater economic value to individual lives than do courts in other countries, and they regularly impose punitive damages on companies.

The most a Chinese court has awarded plaintiffs in a fatal plane crash case is about US$140,000 per passenger, for an accident involving Henan Airlines in 2010.

Zhang Qihuan, a lawyer who has been talking to relatives of those on MH370, told the NYT that a court probably would not award more than that in any accident, to avoid setting a precedent. But he said families could settle for a much higher amount out of court if they agreed to keep quiet.

Some lawyers, meanwhile, said it was too early to talk about lawsuits as there is insufficient evidence to establish why the plane disappeared.

Robert A. Clifford, an aviation accident lawyer based in Chicago, told NYT that he had been contacted by a lawyer in Texas claiming to speak for a flight MH370 family.

But he said no one should rush into litigation. “You don’t have to knee-jerk it, go out, file something,” he told NYT. “This is a process, not an event, and this race is not always won by the swift.”

Malaysian authorities seemed to be preparing themselves for the legal and financial fallout from the plane’s disappearance.

Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein had said that the Cabinet had decided that the Attorney-General's Chambers will examine the legal implications in all decisions regarding flight MH370.

The chief executive officer of Malaysia Airlines, Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, told reporters last week that the company had already begun discussing compensation with the family members and with “various legal parties”.

Malaysia Airlines has already offered US$5,000 to each family to help deal with immediate financial strains, including travel costs. The airline had said it had adequate insurance coverage to meet “all the reasonable costs” that might arise from the plane’s loss. – April 2, 2014.

Najib Thanks Aussie PM For Helping To Search For Missing Malaysian Airliner

From Mohd Razman Abdullah

PERTH, April 3 (Bernama) -- Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak visited the Pearce base of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) here Thursday to personally thank his Australian counterpart Tony Abbott and others involved in the search for a Malaysian airliner believed to have gone down in the southern Indian Ocean.

Najib expressed his gratitude to Abbott for having agreed to lead the search operation in the southern Indian Ocean and for accepting Malaysia's invitation for Australia to participate as an accredited representative in the investigation.

"At this difficult time, Australia has proven an invaluable friend. The Australian authorities, like so many others, have offered their assistance without hesitation or delay. I would like to sincerely thank Australia for all they have done, and are doing, to find the plane.

"We are also grateful to all those who have brought their expertise to bear on what Prime Minister Abbott rightly called 'one of the great mysteries of our time'," he told a joint press conference with Abbott at the base.

In thanking all those involved in the search operation, Najib said they were giving their all to find the Malaysian Airlines (MAS) flight, MH370.

"Over the past three weeks, hundreds of people have journeyed thousands of kilometres to help. They have searched through stormy seas and freezing fog.

They have sailed through storms to find the plane. We owe them each a debt of gratitude.

"This has been a remarkable effort, bringing together nations from around the world. When MH370 went missing, dozens of countries answered the call for help.

Their commitment will not be forgotten," he said.

Najib said differences had been set aside as 26 nations had united behind a common cause.

"In a time of great tragedy - for the countries with citizens on board and the families whose loved ones are missing - this co-operation has given us all heart. The disappearance of MH370 is without precedent; so too is the search," he said.

Najib met sailors and aircrew at the base and spoke to the commanders of seven nations involved in the search in the southern Indian Ocean.

"They told me of the difficulties of a search like this; of distance, and weather, and of maintaining morale over a long period," he said.

Flight MH370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, left the KL International Airport at 12.41 am on March 8 and disappeared from radar screens about an hour later while over the South China Sea. It was to have landed in Beijing at 6.30 am on the same day.

A multinational search was mounted for the aircraft, first in the South China Sea and then, after it was learned that the plane had veered off course, along two corridors - the northern corridor stretching from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand and the southern corridor, from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.

Following an unprecedented type of analysis of satellite data, United Kingdom satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat and the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) concluded that Flight MH370 flew along the southern corridor and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth.

Najib then announced on March 24, seventeen days after the disappearance of Boeing 777-200 aircraft, that Flight MH370 "ended in the southern Indian Ocean"

Abbott expressed Australia's commitment to continue the search "even if it takes a long time".

"It is the most difficult search ever undertaken," Abbott told the joint press conference, adding that the search operation was based on small pieces of information gathered from experts based on satellite data.

Najib also mentioned that Malaysia would not give up the search for the missing plane.

Faced with so little evidence, and such a Herculean task, Najib said, investigators from Malaysia, US, UK, China, Australia and France had worked without pause to reveal the aircraft's movement which led the zero-in to the current search area.

"I know that until we find the plane, many families cannot start to grieve.

I cannot imagine what they must be going through. But I can promise them that we will not give up," he said.