Wednesday, 2 April 2014
Girls raped after Facebook 'grooming', court hears
By BBC
A gang of men from Peterborough sexually exploited vulnerable teenage girls after targeting them on Facebook, a court has been told.
Five men are on trial for trafficking and raping eight girls, aged between 13 and 16, between 2008 and 2013.
Prosecutor Patricia Lynch told Cambridge Crown Court the girls were singled out "because of their vulnerability".
She said they were given alcohol and used as "sex objects".
Opening the case against the defendants, Ms Lynch said the men liaised with the girls via Facebook, Blackberry Messenger and text messages.
After being "chatted up", the victims would be collected from near their homes in towns and villages around Peterborough, Rutland and Lincolnshire before being driven to secluded spots in Peterborough, Ms Lynch said.
She said many of the girls had "extremely troubled backgrounds".
'Sex objects'
"Their very young age, their vulnerability, the grooming process and the use of alcohol negates any consent that they may have given," she told the court.
"They were effectively used as sex objects by these defendants."
Yasir Ali, 28, of Grange Road, denies six counts of rape, two of making indecent photographs of children, one of sexual activity in the presence of a child, seven of trafficking and one of witness intimidation.
Daaim Ashraf, 19, of Almoners Lane, denies three counts of rape, one of sexual assault, one of sexual activity with a child, one of sexual activity in the presence of a child, seven of trafficking and one of witness intimidation.
Akash Yasin, 18, of Gladstone Street, denies one count of sexual assault and two of trafficking.
James Daly, 25, of Grange Road, denies one count of rape.
Mohammed Aslam, 24, of Grange Road, denies one count of rape and one of sexual activity in the presence of a child.
The trial, which is expected to last up to eight weeks, continues.
A gang of men from Peterborough sexually exploited vulnerable teenage girls after targeting them on Facebook, a court has been told.
Five men are on trial for trafficking and raping eight girls, aged between 13 and 16, between 2008 and 2013.
Prosecutor Patricia Lynch told Cambridge Crown Court the girls were singled out "because of their vulnerability".
She said they were given alcohol and used as "sex objects".
Opening the case against the defendants, Ms Lynch said the men liaised with the girls via Facebook, Blackberry Messenger and text messages.
After being "chatted up", the victims would be collected from near their homes in towns and villages around Peterborough, Rutland and Lincolnshire before being driven to secluded spots in Peterborough, Ms Lynch said.
She said many of the girls had "extremely troubled backgrounds".
'Sex objects'
"Their very young age, their vulnerability, the grooming process and the use of alcohol negates any consent that they may have given," she told the court.
"They were effectively used as sex objects by these defendants."
Yasir Ali, 28, of Grange Road, denies six counts of rape, two of making indecent photographs of children, one of sexual activity in the presence of a child, seven of trafficking and one of witness intimidation.
Daaim Ashraf, 19, of Almoners Lane, denies three counts of rape, one of sexual assault, one of sexual activity with a child, one of sexual activity in the presence of a child, seven of trafficking and one of witness intimidation.
Akash Yasin, 18, of Gladstone Street, denies one count of sexual assault and two of trafficking.
James Daly, 25, of Grange Road, denies one count of rape.
Mohammed Aslam, 24, of Grange Road, denies one count of rape and one of sexual activity in the presence of a child.
The trial, which is expected to last up to eight weeks, continues.
Two churches set ablaze in northwestern Nigeria
LAGOS – Two churches were set ablaze by angry Muslim youths in Nigeria's northwestern state of
Katsina on Monday in response to an alleged blasphemous comment on Islam's Prophet."There are contradictory accounts," Ismail Tafida, a resident, told Anadolu Agency.
He said that the churches in the Funtua district were reportedly set ablaze over a "blasphemous" question about the Prophet Muhammad.
"The other narrative is that the crisis began when students at a school named Ideal School, a private secondary school in the community, reported to youth outside the school that a teacher was teaching some lesson that were blasphemous in Islam," he added.
"I am at pains to make sense of the whole scenario that could warrant anyone burning down church," Tafida said.
Another witness, Mustafa Tanimu, said the angry youths had tried to set ablaze the secondary school but were repelled by soldiers who had already arrived at the scene.
"But they had already torched the two churches especially St. Theresa in Funtua," he said. "They vandalized properties and looted shops too."
Tanimu said the teacher believed to have made the purported blasphemous comment is a fresh university graduate on the mandatory National Youths Service Corps (NYSC), a scheme established by the Nigerian government to foster national integration.
Other witnesses spoke of indiscriminate attacks on people and businesses by the rampaging youths, a phenomena feature in some parts of Nigeria's north during crises.
Movement has been restricted and security forces have been deployed in Funtua, accordance to police spokesman Aminu Abubakar.
The spokesman, however, said that calm has been restored to the area.
Copyright © 2014 Anadolu Agency
Putrajaya now lashes at Boeing, Rolls-Royce as MH370 search remains fruitless
In a sign of the huge strain in hunting for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein has expressed frustration at the failure of international agencies, and the makers of the missing Boeing 777 and its engines, to explain what went wrong.
The acting Transport Minister suggested to Chinese television channel CCTV that it was unfair for Malaysia Airlines to be singled out for criticism in the way they communicated to the families of the missing 227 passengers and 12 crew.
"MAS will have to do a better job in engaging those families.
"But just putting MAS on the witness stand [is not enough] - we also need to bear in mind what is the role and the responsibility of Rolls Royce, of Boeing, of all these expert agencies. Where is their voice?," Hishammuddin said in an interview carried by CCTV yesterday.
The video clip (see below) of the interview was uploaded to CCTV's YouTube video sharing account yesterday.
Flight MH370 was carrying 239 people from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing early March 8 when it lost contact with air traffic control within an hour of its six-hour flight. It has not been found yet.
Hishammuddin also questioned why the airline sent out a text message in English last week stating there were no survivors but said other agencies will also have to provide answers to the plane's mysterious disappearance.
"It is easy to target people. I'm not defending MAS. They will have to answer about the SMS and how they translate things and how they engage with the families.
"But at the same time I want to see the international agencies also stand out there, because we paid millions of dollars to buy the aeroplanes, fly the engines, pay for their expertise. And now those technology is being questioned by the world," he said in the interview.
Both Boeing and Rolls-Royce, which supplied the engines for the twin-jet, have not made any public statements about the lost aircraft although it is understood that they are cooperating with US air safety investigators.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that American officials and others said Boeing was upset that it took about three hours – much longer than would be typical – for Malaysian authorities to inform company representatives the jet hadn't been heard from.
Boeing's team remains "quite frustrated and doesn't trust the process", according to one person familiar with the company's views.
Hishammuddin also said in the CCTV interview that Malaysia was still looking at a criminal motive for the plane's disappearance due to either terrorism, hijacking, or a crew member with a personal or psychological problem.
He said in a statement today that both the international investigations team and Malaysia were still in agreement that MH370's movements were consistent with deliberate action by someone aboard.
"Up until the point at which it left military primary radar coverage, MH370's movement were consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane," the minister said. – April 1, 2014.
Growing dissatisfaction with PM, survey shows - Malaysiakini
A growing number of Malaysians are
dissatisfied with Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's leadership,
according to a survey by independent pollster Merdeka Centre.
Its survey showed that 44 percent of the 1,005 respondents, surveyed between March 7 and March 20 are dissatisfied with Najib's leadership, up four percent from December.
Despite this, Najib's approval rating remains unchanged at 52 percent, which is an all-time low.
This is because the number of those who were unsure or had refused to respond to the question had gone down.
At 44 percent, the level of dissatisfaction against Najib is the highest since Merdeka Centre first tracked his performance in May 2009, a month after he took office.
It is likely driven by concerns over the economic situation, followed by crime, racial issues and political issues.
Most of those surveyed believe that corruption is the top-most issue to be addressed.
Despite Najib's dismal ratings, more people surveyed said they are happy with the government and the BN.
While 42 percent said they are "happy" with the government, up four percent from December, another 38 percent are happy with BN, an increase of three percent.
"In our opinion, the improvements could be attributed to the BR1M cash transfer payments to 5.4 million recipients nationwide which began at the end of February and through March," Merdeka Centre said in a statement today.
BR1M - or Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia - may have raised happiness levels, but pessimism over the nation's direction continues to grow.
Since June 2013 - a month after the 13th general election - fewer and fewer believe that Malaysia is heading in the right direction.
In March, only 38 percent of those surveyed believed Malaysia is going the right way, compared to 54 percent last June, 49 percent last August and 42 percent last December.
Those who feel that the nation is headed the wrong way remained at slightly under half of those surveyed in 12 states and 165 parliamentary constituencies.
'Indians in a state of disillusionment'
Interestingly, compared to other communities, Indian Malaysians appear to be in pronounced headlong disillusionment over Malaysia’s direction.
Only 30 percent of Indians believe Malaysia is moving in the right direction, a deep plunge from 52 percent in December and 63 percent in August.
A huge 63 percent believe Malaysia is going the wrong way.
The dip was not as steep among Malay and Chinese respondents. On the whole, however, more Malays think the nation is heading the right direction. Only 33 percent think the nation is going the wrong way.
Most of those surveyed are employed in the private sector and earn below RM3,000 a month.
However, it is noted that more civil servants or employees of government-linked companies and those who are not formally employed are happy with the government.
Most - or 63 percent - of private sector employees take a dim view of the government, while those who are self-employed are split down the middle on their perception of the state.
Its survey showed that 44 percent of the 1,005 respondents, surveyed between March 7 and March 20 are dissatisfied with Najib's leadership, up four percent from December.
Despite this, Najib's approval rating remains unchanged at 52 percent, which is an all-time low.
This is because the number of those who were unsure or had refused to respond to the question had gone down.
At 44 percent, the level of dissatisfaction against Najib is the highest since Merdeka Centre first tracked his performance in May 2009, a month after he took office.
It is likely driven by concerns over the economic situation, followed by crime, racial issues and political issues.Most of those surveyed believe that corruption is the top-most issue to be addressed.
Despite Najib's dismal ratings, more people surveyed said they are happy with the government and the BN.
While 42 percent said they are "happy" with the government, up four percent from December, another 38 percent are happy with BN, an increase of three percent.
"In our opinion, the improvements could be attributed to the BR1M cash transfer payments to 5.4 million recipients nationwide which began at the end of February and through March," Merdeka Centre said in a statement today.
BR1M - or Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia - may have raised happiness levels, but pessimism over the nation's direction continues to grow.
Since June 2013 - a month after the 13th general election - fewer and fewer believe that Malaysia is heading in the right direction.
In March, only 38 percent of those surveyed believed Malaysia is going the right way, compared to 54 percent last June, 49 percent last August and 42 percent last December.
Those who feel that the nation is headed the wrong way remained at slightly under half of those surveyed in 12 states and 165 parliamentary constituencies.
'Indians in a state of disillusionment'
Interestingly, compared to other communities, Indian Malaysians appear to be in pronounced headlong disillusionment over Malaysia’s direction.
Only 30 percent of Indians believe Malaysia is moving in the right direction, a deep plunge from 52 percent in December and 63 percent in August.
A huge 63 percent believe Malaysia is going the wrong way.
The dip was not as steep among Malay and Chinese respondents. On the whole, however, more Malays think the nation is heading the right direction. Only 33 percent think the nation is going the wrong way.
Most of those surveyed are employed in the private sector and earn below RM3,000 a month.
However, it is noted that more civil servants or employees of government-linked companies and those who are not formally employed are happy with the government.
Most - or 63 percent - of private sector employees take a dim view of the government, while those who are self-employed are split down the middle on their perception of the state.
Australia warns of lengthy, difficult search for MH370
The search for MH370 is not something that's necessarily going to be resolved in the next two weeks.
PERTH: Australia today warned the hunt for missing Flight MH370 could be long and frustrating as a vessel equipped with a specialised “black box” locator raced against the clock to reach the Indian Ocean search area.
Despite an extensive multinational search southwest of Perth, no wreckage has been identified since the Malaysia Airlines plane vanished on March 8, with objects retrieved from the desolate seas turning out to be fishing gear or flotsam.
Retired Australian air chief marshal Angus Houston, who is heading a new coordination centre in Perth, said it was the most challenging search and rescue operation he had ever seen and cautioned against expectations of quick success.
“I say that because the starting point whenever you do a search and rescue is the last known position of the vehicle or aircraft. In this particular case, the last known position was a long, long way from where the aircraft appears to have gone,” he said.
Houston noted it took more than 60 years to find HMAS Sydney, which was sunk in the Indian Ocean in 1941 by a German warship, and the search for MH370 is “not something that’s necessarily going to be resolved in the next two weeks”.
“This could drag on for a long time but I think at this stage that it’s very important to pursue all the leads,” he added, as 10 planes and nine ships, some with helicopters, resumed the search in worsening weather.
Black box
Malaysia believes the flight, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard, was deliberately diverted by someone on board and that satellite data indicates it crashed in the Indian Ocean.
Houston’s appeal for patience contrasts with the angry demands of Chinese passengers’ relatives who are desperate for firm information on what happened to their loved ones.
Australian vessel Ocean Shield, fitted with a US-supplied black box detector, left Perth Monday but is three day’s sail from the search zone.
The battery-powered signal from the black box — which records flight data and cockpit voice communications that could indicate what happened to the plane — usually lasts only about 30 days.
Australian Defence Minister David Johnston admitted there was only a slim chance it would be found since any crash site remains unknown.
“We’ve got about a week (left), but it depends on the temperature of the water and water depth and pressure as to how long the battery power will last,” he told Australian radio.
Authorities are scouring a massive expanse of ocean for floating MH370 debris. If found, they plan to analyse recent weather patterns and ocean currents to track back to where the plane went down.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak is expected in Perth on Wednesday to tour the air base being used as a staging post.
Last words spoken
Malaysia’s civil aviation department said late Monday the last words spoken by one of the pilots on the doomed flight were “Good night Malaysian three seven zero”.
The phrasing was different to the more casual “All right, good night” originally reported.
Aviation experts said the correction to the cockpit wording did not raise any red flags about possible pilot intent.
“There is plenty about Malaysia’s handling (of MH370) over which questions may be raised, but I think in the scheme of things this is inconsequential,” said Scott Hamilton, managing director of US-based aviation consultancy Leeham Co.
Shortly after the final message, communications were cut and the Boeing 777 vanished from civilian radar.
Malaysia insists it has been transparent, rejecting Chinese relatives’ accusations it is guilty of incompetence or even a cover-up.
But there have been notable about-turns, including on the crucial sequence of events in the cockpit before the plane veered off course, and Malaysia’s air force has been criticised for failing to intercept MH370 when it appeared on military radar.
Social media critics said the revised cockpit narrative raised further questions.
“The Malaysian government can’t even get the cockpit sign-off right. Why would we expect they get anything else correct?” said one posting on Twitter.
A survey released Tuesday by Merdeka Center, Malaysia’s leading polling firm, said less than half of Malaysians — 43 percent — were satisfied with the government’s handling of the crisis, while 50 percent were dissatisfied.
The survey was conducted over two weeks to March 20. More recently, many Malaysians have rallied around the government, hitting back against criticism, particularly from China.
MH370 should lead to improvements in how aircraft are tracked in flight, International Air Travel Association head Tony Tyler said Tuesday in a statement released at an aviation conference in Kuala Lumpur.
“We cannot let another aircraft simply vanish,” he said.
-AFP
Despite an extensive multinational search southwest of Perth, no wreckage has been identified since the Malaysia Airlines plane vanished on March 8, with objects retrieved from the desolate seas turning out to be fishing gear or flotsam.
Retired Australian air chief marshal Angus Houston, who is heading a new coordination centre in Perth, said it was the most challenging search and rescue operation he had ever seen and cautioned against expectations of quick success.
“I say that because the starting point whenever you do a search and rescue is the last known position of the vehicle or aircraft. In this particular case, the last known position was a long, long way from where the aircraft appears to have gone,” he said.
Houston noted it took more than 60 years to find HMAS Sydney, which was sunk in the Indian Ocean in 1941 by a German warship, and the search for MH370 is “not something that’s necessarily going to be resolved in the next two weeks”.
“This could drag on for a long time but I think at this stage that it’s very important to pursue all the leads,” he added, as 10 planes and nine ships, some with helicopters, resumed the search in worsening weather.
Black box
Malaysia believes the flight, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard, was deliberately diverted by someone on board and that satellite data indicates it crashed in the Indian Ocean.
Houston’s appeal for patience contrasts with the angry demands of Chinese passengers’ relatives who are desperate for firm information on what happened to their loved ones.
Australian vessel Ocean Shield, fitted with a US-supplied black box detector, left Perth Monday but is three day’s sail from the search zone.
The battery-powered signal from the black box — which records flight data and cockpit voice communications that could indicate what happened to the plane — usually lasts only about 30 days.
Australian Defence Minister David Johnston admitted there was only a slim chance it would be found since any crash site remains unknown.
“We’ve got about a week (left), but it depends on the temperature of the water and water depth and pressure as to how long the battery power will last,” he told Australian radio.
Authorities are scouring a massive expanse of ocean for floating MH370 debris. If found, they plan to analyse recent weather patterns and ocean currents to track back to where the plane went down.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak is expected in Perth on Wednesday to tour the air base being used as a staging post.
Last words spoken
Malaysia’s civil aviation department said late Monday the last words spoken by one of the pilots on the doomed flight were “Good night Malaysian three seven zero”.
The phrasing was different to the more casual “All right, good night” originally reported.
Aviation experts said the correction to the cockpit wording did not raise any red flags about possible pilot intent.
“There is plenty about Malaysia’s handling (of MH370) over which questions may be raised, but I think in the scheme of things this is inconsequential,” said Scott Hamilton, managing director of US-based aviation consultancy Leeham Co.
Shortly after the final message, communications were cut and the Boeing 777 vanished from civilian radar.
Malaysia insists it has been transparent, rejecting Chinese relatives’ accusations it is guilty of incompetence or even a cover-up.
But there have been notable about-turns, including on the crucial sequence of events in the cockpit before the plane veered off course, and Malaysia’s air force has been criticised for failing to intercept MH370 when it appeared on military radar.
Social media critics said the revised cockpit narrative raised further questions.
“The Malaysian government can’t even get the cockpit sign-off right. Why would we expect they get anything else correct?” said one posting on Twitter.
A survey released Tuesday by Merdeka Center, Malaysia’s leading polling firm, said less than half of Malaysians — 43 percent — were satisfied with the government’s handling of the crisis, while 50 percent were dissatisfied.
The survey was conducted over two weeks to March 20. More recently, many Malaysians have rallied around the government, hitting back against criticism, particularly from China.
MH370 should lead to improvements in how aircraft are tracked in flight, International Air Travel Association head Tony Tyler said Tuesday in a statement released at an aviation conference in Kuala Lumpur.
“We cannot let another aircraft simply vanish,” he said.
-AFP
Was someone sleeping on the job?
With the capabilities and systems that Malaysia has in place, our authorities should have been able to track MH370's path after it veered off its course.
PETALING JAYA: Deputy Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Bakri deserves commendation for being honest enough to admit he was wrong when he told Parliament the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) had assumed Flight MH370 was under orders to return to KLIA and therefore did not react to the extraordinary blip on its radar.
But his candour, though admirable, cannot stop concerned Malaysians from harbouring doubts about the integrity of the country’s national defence system.
Retired First Admiral Mohd Imran Abdul Hamid told FMT it was inexcusable for RMAF chief Rodzali Daud to wait nearly two days before revealing that the blip appeared on radar about a half hour after the plane reportedly veered from its course.
“It looks like they noticed the blip only after reviewing their radar monitoring records,” he said.
Imran, now a PKR member and MP for Lumut, said it was normal practice for the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) to furnish RMAF with details of incoming commercial planes a day in advance.
“So there is no way an alien object could be flying in our air space without being noticed by civil and military radars,” he added.
A former RMAF radar expert agreed. Speaking on condition that his name be kept confidential, he said that whenever an unidentified object is detected in Malaysian air space, the first step under normal RMAF procedure would be to find out from DCA whether there had been contact between it and the object.
“In an adverse situation, the military will try to establish communication with the plane provided it can get the plane’s communication frequency,” he said. “If this fails, the next step is to scramble our fighter jets to ascertain whether it’s a friend or foe.
“In usual practice, a fighter jet will command the plane to leave Malaysian airspace rather than shoot it down. Other countries may opt for a more offensive method, which can lead to international criticism.”
In the event of a hijack, he said, the RMAF chief, the Prime Minister, the Defence Minister and the National Security Council would be alerted and some secret protocols would be invoked.
An interesting piece of information about Malaysia’s radar capabilities emerged recently in a CNN interview with Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim.
Best radar system
Anwar said that during his tenure as finance minister, Malaysia procured one of the best radar systems on the market. He said it would certainly have been able to track Flight MH370 as it flew into the Indian Ocean.
According to a news report on April 13, 2000, the Italian firm Alenia-Marconi Systems was awarded a contract in 1994 to supply DCA with primary and secondary radars.
With such a capability, why were Malaysian authorities unable to track MH370′s path after the reported turnaround?
According to an analytical report appearing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, there could have been a lack of coordination between civil and military air traffic controls.
The analysis includes a long and boastful passage of how Israel would have handled a similar situation, but the writer’s speculation about what might have happened in the case of MH370 would certainly sync with a suspicion harboured by some sections of the Malaysian public that someone was sleeping on the job.
“Maybe it was the early hour, a lack of alertness and resources, or the absence of appropriate procedures, but no warning lights went off and no one in both the Malaysian military and civilian air traffic controls was aware of a plane disappearing or an unidentified aircraft flying over the country,” he said.
Malaysia Airlines MH370, carrying 230 passengers and crew, went missing on March 8 just an hour into its journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Malaysia believes MH370 was deliberately diverted by someone on board and that satellite data indicates it crashed in the remote Indian Ocean.
But his candour, though admirable, cannot stop concerned Malaysians from harbouring doubts about the integrity of the country’s national defence system.
Retired First Admiral Mohd Imran Abdul Hamid told FMT it was inexcusable for RMAF chief Rodzali Daud to wait nearly two days before revealing that the blip appeared on radar about a half hour after the plane reportedly veered from its course.
“It looks like they noticed the blip only after reviewing their radar monitoring records,” he said.
Imran, now a PKR member and MP for Lumut, said it was normal practice for the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) to furnish RMAF with details of incoming commercial planes a day in advance.
“So there is no way an alien object could be flying in our air space without being noticed by civil and military radars,” he added.
A former RMAF radar expert agreed. Speaking on condition that his name be kept confidential, he said that whenever an unidentified object is detected in Malaysian air space, the first step under normal RMAF procedure would be to find out from DCA whether there had been contact between it and the object.
“In an adverse situation, the military will try to establish communication with the plane provided it can get the plane’s communication frequency,” he said. “If this fails, the next step is to scramble our fighter jets to ascertain whether it’s a friend or foe.
“In usual practice, a fighter jet will command the plane to leave Malaysian airspace rather than shoot it down. Other countries may opt for a more offensive method, which can lead to international criticism.”
In the event of a hijack, he said, the RMAF chief, the Prime Minister, the Defence Minister and the National Security Council would be alerted and some secret protocols would be invoked.
An interesting piece of information about Malaysia’s radar capabilities emerged recently in a CNN interview with Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim.
Best radar system
Anwar said that during his tenure as finance minister, Malaysia procured one of the best radar systems on the market. He said it would certainly have been able to track Flight MH370 as it flew into the Indian Ocean.
According to a news report on April 13, 2000, the Italian firm Alenia-Marconi Systems was awarded a contract in 1994 to supply DCA with primary and secondary radars.
With such a capability, why were Malaysian authorities unable to track MH370′s path after the reported turnaround?
According to an analytical report appearing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, there could have been a lack of coordination between civil and military air traffic controls.
The analysis includes a long and boastful passage of how Israel would have handled a similar situation, but the writer’s speculation about what might have happened in the case of MH370 would certainly sync with a suspicion harboured by some sections of the Malaysian public that someone was sleeping on the job.
“Maybe it was the early hour, a lack of alertness and resources, or the absence of appropriate procedures, but no warning lights went off and no one in both the Malaysian military and civilian air traffic controls was aware of a plane disappearing or an unidentified aircraft flying over the country,” he said.
Malaysia Airlines MH370, carrying 230 passengers and crew, went missing on March 8 just an hour into its journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Malaysia believes MH370 was deliberately diverted by someone on board and that satellite data indicates it crashed in the remote Indian Ocean.
PKR presidency: Azmin denies Anwar blocked him - FMT
He says the decision to defend his PKR deputy presidency post was made after consultation with colleagues.
KUALA LUMPUR: PKR incumbent deputy president Azmin Ali today denied Anwar Ibrahim had prevented him from running for the PKR presidency.
“The allegations are untrue… I decided after consultations with my colleagues. I opted to remain as deputy president, so that was the decision I made,” the Gombak MP told reporters when approached in Parliament.
“It’s not my decision (alone). I had to discuss with friends, companions, and the leadership,” he added.
According to a news portal, Azmin was supposed to contest the presidency position but his plan was foiled after Anwar sent a representativeon Saturday to submit his nomination form for the top post.
Azmin was said to have been sure of challenging incumbent president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail but at the last minute it was decided he would defend his own position. Interesting Wan Azizah also submitted her nomination to defend her post.
Speculation is rife that the husband-and-wife battle for the top PKR post is a ploy to scupper Azmin’s ascent in the party.
The incumbent must now defend his post in a six-way struggle that includes his rival Khalid Ibrahim, outgoing secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, incumbent vice-president Tian Chua, Hulu Selangor branch member K Ramachandram and former Puchong branch chief S Murali.
When asked how confident he was with his chances, Azmin said: “My experience in government administration and reformasi will definitely help me garner support from the party.”
“My track record shows that I have worked for the party for 15 years, and have a track record of working in the government for almost 15 years.
“I was involved in rather senior ministries: the education ministry, the finance ministry and the prime minister’s department.”
He said that ultimately the party members would decide which candidate could bring the party forward, especially in facing the next general election.
Asked if he was ready to debate the other candidates if the situation was called for, Azmin stressed the competition was an internal matter that could be solved “nicely”.
“This is not a competition, but an offer to serve the party, all are qualified to serve.
“Ultimately, it is up to party members to decide, not the media. This is not a general election, but a party election,” reminded Azmin.
The PKR party elections will begin on April 25 and end on May 11.
“The allegations are untrue… I decided after consultations with my colleagues. I opted to remain as deputy president, so that was the decision I made,” the Gombak MP told reporters when approached in Parliament.
“It’s not my decision (alone). I had to discuss with friends, companions, and the leadership,” he added.
According to a news portal, Azmin was supposed to contest the presidency position but his plan was foiled after Anwar sent a representativeon Saturday to submit his nomination form for the top post.
Azmin was said to have been sure of challenging incumbent president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail but at the last minute it was decided he would defend his own position. Interesting Wan Azizah also submitted her nomination to defend her post.
Speculation is rife that the husband-and-wife battle for the top PKR post is a ploy to scupper Azmin’s ascent in the party.
The incumbent must now defend his post in a six-way struggle that includes his rival Khalid Ibrahim, outgoing secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, incumbent vice-president Tian Chua, Hulu Selangor branch member K Ramachandram and former Puchong branch chief S Murali.
When asked how confident he was with his chances, Azmin said: “My experience in government administration and reformasi will definitely help me garner support from the party.”
“My track record shows that I have worked for the party for 15 years, and have a track record of working in the government for almost 15 years.
“I was involved in rather senior ministries: the education ministry, the finance ministry and the prime minister’s department.”
He said that ultimately the party members would decide which candidate could bring the party forward, especially in facing the next general election.
Asked if he was ready to debate the other candidates if the situation was called for, Azmin stressed the competition was an internal matter that could be solved “nicely”.
“This is not a competition, but an offer to serve the party, all are qualified to serve.
“Ultimately, it is up to party members to decide, not the media. This is not a general election, but a party election,” reminded Azmin.
The PKR party elections will begin on April 25 and end on May 11.
Britain’s PM orders review into Muslim Brotherhood’s activities
(Reuters) – The Muslim Brotherhood’s activities in Britain will be reviewed over concerns about possible links to violence, Prime Minister David Cameron said, widening pressure on a veteran Islamist movement facing an intensifying crackdown in the Arab world.
The Brotherhood and affiliated organisations and parties are part of the political landscape in many Arab and Islamic states where they have placed deep roots in society thanks to their involvement in social and charitable works.
It also gained political power in some Arab nations after the 2011 uprisings that toppled long-entrenched autocratic regimes. But the Brotherhood has been crushed in Egypt after the military overthrew an elected Islamist president in July, declared a terrorist organisation in Saudi Arabia and subjected to a wave of prosecutions and jailings in Gulf Arab kingdoms leery of any spread of Islamist influence since the Arab Spring.
Britain, where many Brotherhood-influenced organisations are based, said its review would include looking at allegations made by authoritarian Arab leaders that the group was linked to violence, a charge it has repeatedly denied.
“What is important … is to make sure we fully understand what this organisation is, what it stands for, what its links are, what its beliefs are in terms of both extremism and violent extremism, what its connections are with other groups, what its presence is here in the United Kingdom,” Cameron told reporters.
A spokeswoman for Cameron said the review would examine the philosophies and values of the Muslim Brotherhood and how it operated in different countries around the world, including in the UK, as well as its impact on Britain’s national security.
Both the British domestic and foreign intelligence agencies MI5 and MI6 would be consulted as part of the review, she added, which would focus on the activities of the Brotherhood in the wider region, not Egypt alone.
“There have been some concerns as well that have been raised about potential linkages to violent activity and some extremist groups of some of the organisations that tend to come together under the wider Muslim Brotherhood organization,” another spokesman said. Therefore the review would look at “alleged and reported links to extremist organisations”.
The government hopes the review, being led by John Jenkins, its ambassador to Saudi Arabia, will report findings by July.
In Cairo, Foreign Ministry spokesman Badr Abdelatty said: “Egypt welcomes Britain’s decision in carrying out urgent investigations into the role the Muslim Brotherhood group carries out from British soil and the extent of the relationship between the…Brotherhood and violent activities and extremism.”
The Muslim Brotherhood Press Office in London, which has become the movement’s main communication channel since July, said it would release a statement later on Monday.
“I think there’s a definite linkage between Cameron’s announcement of investigation of the Brotherhood in the UK to Saudi and other Gulf state perceptions of the Brotherhood as a threat,” said Theodore Karasik, director of research and consultancy at the Gulf security and military think-tank INEGMA.
“The pressure point is related to the fact that an event (can) occur on the Arabian Peninsula that is tied to the Brotherhood and originates in the UK,” he told Reuters.
EGYPT SHATTERS BROTHERHOOD
Britain’s move came amid increasing Arab repression of the Brotherhood especially in Egypt, where security forces have killed hundreds of Islamists and jailed thousands including almost all leaders of the movement since the army ousted President Mohamed Mursi after mass protests against his rule.
The military-backed authorities have banned the Brotherhood and more than 500 members have been sentenced to death for murder over deaths during clashes with security forces. Mursi faces charges that could lead to the death penalty.
The Brotherhood has reiterated a decades-long policy of non-violence, denying any connection with recent bloodshed.
Analysts say Mursi, a leading Brotherhood figure, alienated all but a hard-core constituency by devoting his energy to asserting Islamist control of Egypt’s governing institutions rather than implementing civic-minded policies to revive its paralysed economy and heal political divisions.
Still, in the wake of Mursi’s removal Britain’s Foreign Office voiced concern over the collective round-up of Brotherhood members, warning that politicised arrests would hinder Egypt’s post-2011 transition towards democracy.
Saudi Arabia, a staunch supporter of the military-buttressed governing authorities in Egypt, formally designated the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation last month.
Riyadh fears that the group, whose Sunni Islamist doctrines challenge the Saudi principle of dynastic rule, has tried to build support in the kingdom since the Arab Spring revolutions.
The US Looks Good as Obama Heads to Malaysia
In the contest for influence with China, Washington has played MH370 the right way
President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit Malaysia in April as part of a trip that will also include Japan, the Philippines and South Korea. In Kuala Lumpur’s case, it is a trip almost certain to be overshadowed, and justifiably so, by the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 somewhere in the Indian Ocean.
That isn’t to say Obama shouldn’t hold his nose when he comes to Kuala Lumpur. This is a country that observes the forms of democracy but in practice ignores them. The ruling coalition, dominated by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), has maintained itself in power since independence in 1957 through gerrymandering and suppression of the opposition, most recently through a trumped-up verdict in a sodomy appeal against opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, ironically just a few hours before MH370 disappeared.
It may be that sensitivity over the airline tragedy and the constant drumbeat of criticism hurled against Kuala Lumpur in recent weeks will cause Obama to avoid denouncing the government of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak over its treatment of Anwar and other undemocratic practices, despite calls to do so. In the long run, that could be a wise decision on Washington’s part regardless of how one feels about UMNO’s heavy-handed ways.
On a regional and international level, the disappearance of the plane, and the widely differing reactions by the American and Chinese governments, are likely to play a wider role in the President’s efforts to “pivot” American diplomacy and military strategy to Asia, strengthening the impression that the US remains the pre-eminent technological and military power in the Pacific.
Angered over Malaysia’s fumbling of the search effort, China appears to have shot itself in the foot through unrelenting bluster and criticism, demonstrating Beijing’s continuing inability to get the tone right in the region. It wants its neighbors to go along with its claim of hegemony over the South China Sea, but it doesn’t even know how to talk to them. The US has been quietly helpful, something the Malaysians likely appreciate and which could serve to nudge Kuala Lumpur away from recent flirtations with China.
Washington has long known and been privately critical of various abuses, such as the unsolved 2006 murder of the Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu and the continuing legal acrobatics concerning Anwar. But it also wants Malaysia in its camp. The 2010 release of the Wikileaks cables were critical but also showed US diplomats describing Malaysia as a moderate Muslim state and a bulwark in Southeast Asia. Given the Obama administration's ambitions in Asia, the president is expected to make a gesture toward Anwar's predicament, but Washington has more to gain by reluctantly going along at this point.
By contrast, China, which has no interest in democratic niceties, is having little soft power success close to home. It has already alienated the Philippines by trying to grab various shoals on the basis of its “nine-dash line” map of the South China Sea. In Hong Kong, the public – beyond certain oligarchs and conservatives – remains stubbornly averse to mainland domination. The same can be said for Taiwan, where suspicion of Beijing remains high.
In Taiwan last weekend, hundreds of thousands of people joined a student protest against a trade bill, turning the affair into a wider protest against a Chinese invasion of its press, politics and business community. In Hong Kong, there has been rising irritation over what is felt to be Chinese intrusion into politics, failure to abide by promises of greater democracy and bulldozing of the press.
In the case of the missing airliner, the US, either by accident or on purpose, has quietly stepped into the gap, much as the US Seventh Fleet did in the wake of the widespread destruction in the central Philippines caused by Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda in November; at the time, the Chinese response to the disaster was late and overshadowed by the efforts of half a dozen other countries.
Washington’s policy, announced in 2012, of a pivot or “rebalancing” of its diplomatic and military policy toward Asia, has largely stumbled. In particular, Obama, tied up with a Congressional budget crisis, skipped important regional meetings last August while Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang scored diplomatic triumphs in five Southeast Asian countries. The disasters, tragic as they may be, have helped the US regain the initiative.
According to a source with close connections to the government, Malaysia was first reluctant to ask the Americans for help in dealing with the missing Boeing 777-200, which vanished with 239 passengers and crew, refusing offers of assistance from the US.
But in succeeding days, superior American air technology, combined with the fact that the airplane had been manufactured in the US, began to assert itself. The Federal Aviation Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other US agencies accustomed to dealing with air disasters offered quiet help behind the scenes.
In the meantime, the Chinese, with 152 of their countrymen aboard the plane, first blustered, demanding stepped up efforts to find it. Then they announced that a Chinese satellite had found what was thought to be the wreckage of the plane – in the wrong ocean. The Chinese have recouped, sending a flotilla into the Indian Ocean to aid in the search – which is now being coordinated by the Australians. Chinese planes are searching the area.
Beijing has alienated the Malaysians by neglecting to constrain angry relatives of those aboard the aircraft. Crowds broke through police lines protecting the Malaysian embassy, demanding that the Malaysian ambassador kneel before them. One group presented the embassy with a statement that the families would regard Malaysia as “murderers” if it was discovered that the government was at fault in any aspect of the search, according to news services.
In the meantime, sources in Malaysia say, the Americans have played a crucial low-key role, advising on the search. An FBI team analyzed the flight simulator found in the home of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, ending speculation that the device might have contained data that could have been a dry run for taking the plane off course. A P-8A Poseidon, the most advanced plane looking for the wreckage, is supplied by the US Navy. P3 Orion search planes in the service of various countries were made in the US. A US Navy “ping finder” is aboard an Australian vessel, the Ocean Shield, working the search zone.
In this instance, the Americans seem to have played their cards right. Staying relatively unseen and allowing superior technology and sophistication to do the talking for them.
The rising tide of judicial impropriety, arrogance of power and transgression
By Anwar Ibrahim, Opposition Leader on MH002 enroute to London
“The bedrock of our democracy is the rule of law and that means we have to have an independent judiciary, judges who can make decisions independent of the political winds that are blowing.” - Caroline Kennedy
Talking about political winds, it appears that lately, the Malaysian judiciary, particularly the judges of the superior courts, are caught in the whirlwind and are frantically racing against each other to please the powers that be of the day.
In the frenzy to curry favours from their political overlords, these minions have stopped at nothing to ensure that they will be the first to reach the finish line. Pots of gold await the backscratchers and lackeys. And where financial gratification may appear a tad blatant, there’s always elevation to the higher rungs of office to whet the appetite. Unlike Parliamentarians, judges will never be content to be Back Benchers. The preferred place is the front and the top where they can tower over ordinary mortals, even if they be law-makers or members of the Bar. They fear no one except their political masters because they know on which side their bread is buttered. And they shall not bite the hand that feeds.
Throwing judicial decorum to the wind, they bare their fangs and sharpen their claws in order to cow supplicants in their courts into submission, and in the process, their demeanour and conduct leaves no one in doubt about their bias. And though they know that an adversarial system dictates that judges must not just act impartially but must be seen to be so, they bend backwards to don the hats of prosecutor and executioner as well. When this happens, as indeed it is happening now with unprecedented frequency, we know justice has gone to the dogs.
It is happening because Prime Minister Najib Razak, in flagrant abuse of power, has launched a new campaign of political persecution. “Even if we can’t defeat them at the polls, all is not lost (remember Altantuya?). We still have our judges to do our bidding. See how they fall over each other at the snap of our fingers!”
This is the alarming trend in our judiciary where judges work hand in glove with the Attorney-General’s Chambers to deny leaders of the Federal Opposition, duly elected representatives of the people in Parliament, their right to justice. In taking this unconstitutional and nefarious line, they have turned the doctrine of the separation of powers on its head.
Hence, apart from me, MPs Karpal Singh, Azmin Ali, Antony Loke, Rafizi Ramli, Tian Chua, Syed Azman and Shamsul Iskandar just to name a few, are marked for the judicial abattoir by the executioners. It may be sodomy, it may be sedition, or it may be illegal assembly, or whatever. These bootlickers know less of law and the principles of justice than lording over the courts parading proudly as peacocks (and peahens) their colourful judicial plumage overflowing with the arrogance of power.
As for those judges who used to sit on the throne, there is still life after retirement. The involvement of former Chief Justice Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad in the National Unity Front, closely linked to Perkasa, Malaysia’s icon of racism, while not shocking remains scandalous. It makes a mockery of the institution of the judiciary which he once headed and contradicts the principles of equality, equity and justice that the judiciary is supposed to stand for. Is it conceivable for a former chief judge to head an organisation that is adamantly opposed to the National Unity Consultative Council, and to be notoriously engaged in race-baiting and the trumpeting of the superiority of one race over other races in our multi-racial and multi-religious country?
It would appear that it is not only conceivable but that it is lauded with much fanfare by UMNO going by the prominent coverage given to it by the UMNO controlled media.
Incidentally, this is the same judge who, in his Federal court judgement, had written that “the court’s decision must only be based on the evidence adduced and nothing else and (hence) it had to acquit because of lack of evidence,” but qualified it with the illogical and manifestly asinine statement that “we find evidence to confirm that the appellants were involved in homosexual activities”. In other words, “we find him NOT guilty but at the same time guilty”. Anything more stupid, perverse and farcical than that cannot be found in our judicial annals (no pun intended) except for the judgements and pronouncements of Augustine Paul and Ariffin Jaka in respect of Sodomy 1 and the current decisions in respect of the application for expunging and the Sodomy 2 appeal. As they say, it has to take one stupid, perverse and farcical court to agree with another stupid, perverse and farcical court.
UMNO must fight its own political battles and not be such a coward to use the judiciary to help them fight the Opposition. How long more are our judges going to dance to tune of UMNO? When will they stop becoming stooges and lap dogs of UMNO leaders? How long more must the rakyat endure this sham? Who are the puppeteers in this shadow play? Are these judges not aware that UMNO will not be there forever to cover their tracks, or their backs, or that not only will history judge them, but that the rakyat are not going to sit idly by – forever – while they continue to pervert the course of justice?
Parliament, as the vox populi, must make its voice heard before we reach the tipping point and the situation gets out of our hands. There is a tide in our affairs which, unless we seize it, will see our voyage for democracy and rule of law in shallows and in miseries. This is the rising tide of judicial impropriety, arrogance of power and transgression. As one of the three branches of government, Parliament must reassert the sanctity of the separation of powers principle. It is therefore morally incumbent and constitutionally expedient that Parliament acts accordingly to break up the illegal and unconstitutional collusion between the Executive and the Judiciary.
Anwar Ibrahim
“The bedrock of our democracy is the rule of law and that means we have to have an independent judiciary, judges who can make decisions independent of the political winds that are blowing.” - Caroline Kennedy
Talking about political winds, it appears that lately, the Malaysian judiciary, particularly the judges of the superior courts, are caught in the whirlwind and are frantically racing against each other to please the powers that be of the day.
In the frenzy to curry favours from their political overlords, these minions have stopped at nothing to ensure that they will be the first to reach the finish line. Pots of gold await the backscratchers and lackeys. And where financial gratification may appear a tad blatant, there’s always elevation to the higher rungs of office to whet the appetite. Unlike Parliamentarians, judges will never be content to be Back Benchers. The preferred place is the front and the top where they can tower over ordinary mortals, even if they be law-makers or members of the Bar. They fear no one except their political masters because they know on which side their bread is buttered. And they shall not bite the hand that feeds.
Throwing judicial decorum to the wind, they bare their fangs and sharpen their claws in order to cow supplicants in their courts into submission, and in the process, their demeanour and conduct leaves no one in doubt about their bias. And though they know that an adversarial system dictates that judges must not just act impartially but must be seen to be so, they bend backwards to don the hats of prosecutor and executioner as well. When this happens, as indeed it is happening now with unprecedented frequency, we know justice has gone to the dogs.
It is happening because Prime Minister Najib Razak, in flagrant abuse of power, has launched a new campaign of political persecution. “Even if we can’t defeat them at the polls, all is not lost (remember Altantuya?). We still have our judges to do our bidding. See how they fall over each other at the snap of our fingers!”
This is the alarming trend in our judiciary where judges work hand in glove with the Attorney-General’s Chambers to deny leaders of the Federal Opposition, duly elected representatives of the people in Parliament, their right to justice. In taking this unconstitutional and nefarious line, they have turned the doctrine of the separation of powers on its head.
Hence, apart from me, MPs Karpal Singh, Azmin Ali, Antony Loke, Rafizi Ramli, Tian Chua, Syed Azman and Shamsul Iskandar just to name a few, are marked for the judicial abattoir by the executioners. It may be sodomy, it may be sedition, or it may be illegal assembly, or whatever. These bootlickers know less of law and the principles of justice than lording over the courts parading proudly as peacocks (and peahens) their colourful judicial plumage overflowing with the arrogance of power.
As for those judges who used to sit on the throne, there is still life after retirement. The involvement of former Chief Justice Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad in the National Unity Front, closely linked to Perkasa, Malaysia’s icon of racism, while not shocking remains scandalous. It makes a mockery of the institution of the judiciary which he once headed and contradicts the principles of equality, equity and justice that the judiciary is supposed to stand for. Is it conceivable for a former chief judge to head an organisation that is adamantly opposed to the National Unity Consultative Council, and to be notoriously engaged in race-baiting and the trumpeting of the superiority of one race over other races in our multi-racial and multi-religious country?
It would appear that it is not only conceivable but that it is lauded with much fanfare by UMNO going by the prominent coverage given to it by the UMNO controlled media.
Incidentally, this is the same judge who, in his Federal court judgement, had written that “the court’s decision must only be based on the evidence adduced and nothing else and (hence) it had to acquit because of lack of evidence,” but qualified it with the illogical and manifestly asinine statement that “we find evidence to confirm that the appellants were involved in homosexual activities”. In other words, “we find him NOT guilty but at the same time guilty”. Anything more stupid, perverse and farcical than that cannot be found in our judicial annals (no pun intended) except for the judgements and pronouncements of Augustine Paul and Ariffin Jaka in respect of Sodomy 1 and the current decisions in respect of the application for expunging and the Sodomy 2 appeal. As they say, it has to take one stupid, perverse and farcical court to agree with another stupid, perverse and farcical court.
UMNO must fight its own political battles and not be such a coward to use the judiciary to help them fight the Opposition. How long more are our judges going to dance to tune of UMNO? When will they stop becoming stooges and lap dogs of UMNO leaders? How long more must the rakyat endure this sham? Who are the puppeteers in this shadow play? Are these judges not aware that UMNO will not be there forever to cover their tracks, or their backs, or that not only will history judge them, but that the rakyat are not going to sit idly by – forever – while they continue to pervert the course of justice?
Parliament, as the vox populi, must make its voice heard before we reach the tipping point and the situation gets out of our hands. There is a tide in our affairs which, unless we seize it, will see our voyage for democracy and rule of law in shallows and in miseries. This is the rising tide of judicial impropriety, arrogance of power and transgression. As one of the three branches of government, Parliament must reassert the sanctity of the separation of powers principle. It is therefore morally incumbent and constitutionally expedient that Parliament acts accordingly to break up the illegal and unconstitutional collusion between the Executive and the Judiciary.
Anwar Ibrahim
Flight MH370 Malaysian officials struggle with credibility after changing last words heard from lost aircraft
Chris Brummitt and Gillian Wong, Associated Press
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — It may mean little to investigators that the last words air traffic controllers heard from the lost jetliner were “Good night, Malaysian three-seven-zero,” rather than “All right, good night.” But to Malaysian officials whose credibility has been questioned almost from the beginning, it means a great deal.
Malaysian officials said more than two weeks ago that “All right, good night,” were the last words, and that the co-pilot uttered them. They changed the account late Monday and said they are still investigating who it was that spoke. The discrepancy added to the confusion and frustration families of the missing already felt more than three weeks after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared.
“This sort of mistake hits at the heart of trust in their communications. If Malaysia is changing what the pilot said, people start thinking, ‘What are they going to change next?” said Hamish McLean, an expert in risk and crisis communication at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia.
“Information is in a crisis is absolutely critical. When we are dealing with such a small amount of information its needs to be handled very carefully,” he said.
Authorities have been forced on the defensive by the criticism, the most forceful of which has come from a group of Chinese relatives who accuse them of lying about — or even involvement in — the plane’s disappearance. In part responding to domestic political criticism, defence minister Hishammuddin Hussein has taken to retweeting supportive comments on Twitter. He has twice in recent days proclaimed that “history would judge us well” over the handling of the crisis.
The government’s opponents disagree. Opposition leader Lim Kit Siang said the correction set off a “medley of shame, sadness and anger” and strengthened the case for creating an opposition-led parliamentary committee to investigate the government’s performance in the search.
The communications skills of any government or airline would have been severely tested by the search for the Boeing 777-200 and its 239 passengers and crew. So far not a scrap of debris has been found.
“There has been very little to tell and a lot of unanswered questions,” said Andrew Herdman, director-general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines. “There is frustration on the lack of new information, frustration over progress with investigations and the search. That frustration is being channeled to the Malaysian authorities but I think it’s a bit premature to use that to reflect adversely on how they are doing.”
Still, the government’s handling of information has at times fed perceptions that it was holding back. From the first day of the search, crews were looking far to the west of the plane’s last point of contact with air-traffic controllers, but it took about a week for officials to explain that radar had detected the plane in the area.
That was a terrible, terrible response. It says to the families that ‘we know things that we are not going to share’ and that ‘something else is more important than you’
“There are some things that I can tell you and some things that I can’t,” Malaysia’s civil aviation chief said cryptically in the early days of the search.
“That was a terrible, terrible response,” said Lyall Mercer, the principal of Australian-based Mercer PR, a public relations company. “It says to the families that ’we know things that we are not going to share’ and that ‘something else is more important than you’.”
The piece of information that families most want to hear — whether their relatives are alive or dead — has remained impossible to say with finality, creating a dilemma for the government.
On March 24, it tried to address that. Malaysian Airlines officials met families in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing and sent a text message to others saying “we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived.”
At a news conference half an hour later, Prime Minister Najib Razak was less direct. He said with “deep sadness and regret” that the plane’s last known position was “a remote location, far from any possible landing sites,” and that the flight “ended” in the southern Indian Ocean.
Sarah Bacj, a 48-year-old American expatriate teacher whose boyfriend, Philip Wood, was on the flight, said the decision by Malaysian Airlines to inject some certainty into the fate of the passengers was a mistake. Until then, she said she thought the Malaysian government had acted responsibly, but the text message “totally violated my trust.”
“I fell off the cliff,” Bacj said. “The way the text message came, I expected proof. That they had found the bodies, or that they had found confirmed wreckage, or something … but they didn’t actually tell us anything at all. The only thing they did was make a judgment statement about evidence — unconfirmed evidence, mind you.”
The final words from the cockpit, and who said them, are of interest not only because there are few other clues to the disappearance, but because the communication occurred just a minute before the plane’s transponders were shut off.
On March 16, government and airline officials said the final words were “All right, good night” and initial investigations showed they were spoken by the co-pilot. As of Tuesday they had not explained how they got it wrong.
PR experts and professionals said the important thing now was to try and give the families as much information as possible, before the media gets hold of it, and to keep paying attention to them even when the media gaze had drifted.
On Tuesday, the Malaysian government announced that technical experts from Malaysia, China and Australia would brief the families in a closed-door session in Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysian officials said more than two weeks ago that “All right, good night,” were the last words, and that the co-pilot uttered them. They changed the account late Monday and said they are still investigating who it was that spoke. The discrepancy added to the confusion and frustration families of the missing already felt more than three weeks after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared.
“This sort of mistake hits at the heart of trust in their communications. If Malaysia is changing what the pilot said, people start thinking, ‘What are they going to change next?” said Hamish McLean, an expert in risk and crisis communication at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia.
“Information is in a crisis is absolutely critical. When we are dealing with such a small amount of information its needs to be handled very carefully,” he said.
Authorities have been forced on the defensive by the criticism, the most forceful of which has come from a group of Chinese relatives who accuse them of lying about — or even involvement in — the plane’s disappearance. In part responding to domestic political criticism, defence minister Hishammuddin Hussein has taken to retweeting supportive comments on Twitter. He has twice in recent days proclaimed that “history would judge us well” over the handling of the crisis.
The government’s opponents disagree. Opposition leader Lim Kit Siang said the correction set off a “medley of shame, sadness and anger” and strengthened the case for creating an opposition-led parliamentary committee to investigate the government’s performance in the search.
The communications skills of any government or airline would have been severely tested by the search for the Boeing 777-200 and its 239 passengers and crew. So far not a scrap of debris has been found.
“There has been very little to tell and a lot of unanswered questions,” said Andrew Herdman, director-general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines. “There is frustration on the lack of new information, frustration over progress with investigations and the search. That frustration is being channeled to the Malaysian authorities but I think it’s a bit premature to use that to reflect adversely on how they are doing.”
Still, the government’s handling of information has at times fed perceptions that it was holding back. From the first day of the search, crews were looking far to the west of the plane’s last point of contact with air-traffic controllers, but it took about a week for officials to explain that radar had detected the plane in the area.
That was a terrible, terrible response. It says to the families that ‘we know things that we are not going to share’ and that ‘something else is more important than you’
“There are some things that I can tell you and some things that I can’t,” Malaysia’s civil aviation chief said cryptically in the early days of the search.
“That was a terrible, terrible response,” said Lyall Mercer, the principal of Australian-based Mercer PR, a public relations company. “It says to the families that ’we know things that we are not going to share’ and that ‘something else is more important than you’.”
The piece of information that families most want to hear — whether their relatives are alive or dead — has remained impossible to say with finality, creating a dilemma for the government.
On March 24, it tried to address that. Malaysian Airlines officials met families in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing and sent a text message to others saying “we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived.”
At a news conference half an hour later, Prime Minister Najib Razak was less direct. He said with “deep sadness and regret” that the plane’s last known position was “a remote location, far from any possible landing sites,” and that the flight “ended” in the southern Indian Ocean.
Sarah Bacj, a 48-year-old American expatriate teacher whose boyfriend, Philip Wood, was on the flight, said the decision by Malaysian Airlines to inject some certainty into the fate of the passengers was a mistake. Until then, she said she thought the Malaysian government had acted responsibly, but the text message “totally violated my trust.”
“I fell off the cliff,” Bacj said. “The way the text message came, I expected proof. That they had found the bodies, or that they had found confirmed wreckage, or something … but they didn’t actually tell us anything at all. The only thing they did was make a judgment statement about evidence — unconfirmed evidence, mind you.”
The final words from the cockpit, and who said them, are of interest not only because there are few other clues to the disappearance, but because the communication occurred just a minute before the plane’s transponders were shut off.
On March 16, government and airline officials said the final words were “All right, good night” and initial investigations showed they were spoken by the co-pilot. As of Tuesday they had not explained how they got it wrong.
PR experts and professionals said the important thing now was to try and give the families as much information as possible, before the media gets hold of it, and to keep paying attention to them even when the media gaze had drifted.
On Tuesday, the Malaysian government announced that technical experts from Malaysia, China and Australia would brief the families in a closed-door session in Kuala Lumpur.
Lawyers: PKR risks being deregistered if Anwar runs for party president
The Star
by TAN YI LIANG
by TAN YI LIANG
PETALING
JAYA: PKR risks being de-registered by the Registrar of Societies (ROS)
if party supremo Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim continues to contest for the
party presidency, said constitutional lawyer Edmund Bon on Monday.
According to Bon, a person could not contest to be an office bearer in a society if the person is convicted of an offence.
"Anwar
shouldn't contest. So when they (PKR) submit his name as party
president to the ROS, it may lead to a dispute that may cause the
deregistration of the party," said Bon, adding that such a move by Anwar
was "illegal" under the Societies Act 1966.
Similar
views were shared by another constitutional lawyer, New Sin Yew, who
pointed out that Section 9A(1)(b) of the Societies Act made it illegal
for someone with a conviction to contest or hold office in a society.
"Section
9A(1)(b) of the Societies Act says a person shall be disqualified from
being, and shall not become or remain an office-bearer of a registered
society if he has been convicted of any offence under any other law and
sentenced to a fine of RM2,000 or imprisonment of not less than one
year," said New.
He
added that the provision in Section 9(A)(1)(b) was exactly the same as
the disqualification clause for a Member of Parliament under Article 48
of the Federal Constitution - with one key difference.
"Under
Article 48, you're only disqualified if your sentence still remains
after you've disposed of all your appeals. Until then, your status as a
Member of Parliament is still intact," said New.
He pointed out that such a clause was not present in the Societies Act.
"The
Societies Act allows for the Registrar to grant exempt someone from
disqualification but this is not automatic, and as of right. By
contesting, there is a risk that the Registrar may cancel the
registration of PKR under Section 13(1)(iv) of the Societies Act for
willfully contravening the provision of the Societies Act," said New.
He said that Anwar might also face a fine and a jail sentence if he continued to run for the PKR top office.
"To
prevent this, he should withdraw now. Also, he further risks himself to
be prosecuted of an offence under Section 9A(6) which if convicted, can
be sentenced to imprisonment not exceeding three years, or a fine not
exceeding 10,000 or both," said New.
However,
PKR lawyer Radzlan Jalaludin said that Anwar could still contest based
on provisions under Section 9(4) of the Societies Act.
Under
Section 9(4), the Registrar of Societies may grant a disqualified
person exemption from their disqualification, provided an application is
submitted to the Registrar.
"There
is still room for Anwar to be nominated and elected, provided the
exemption is given by the Registrar," said Radzlan. When asked if Anwar
had filed such an application, Radzlan said he had no knowledge on
this.
Najib Visits Perth To Observe Search Operations For MH370
KUALA LUMPUR, April 2 (Bernama) -- Datuk Seri Najib Tun Abdul Razak will leave for Perth, Australia for a two-day working visit from today (Wednesday) to observe the multi-national operations into the search for missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370 from the western Australian city.
The Prime Minister will observe the operations from the Joint Agency Coordination Centre at the Pearce air base of the Royal Australian Air Force in Perth.
"The visit is appropriate to record the appreciation to the Australian government, teams and members who were involved in the search, including from Malaysia," the Foreign Ministry (Wisma Putra) said in a statement here Wednesday.
While in Perth, Najib is also scheduled to meet with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to discuss various issues, specifically the latest developments in the search operation and the direction it will take.
After Perth, Najib will leave for a three-day official visit to Vietnam, beginning April 3 to foster closer cooperation between the two countries.
Najib will be accompanied by Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman, Minister of International Trade and Industry Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed, Minister of Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob and senior officials of the ministries.
While in Vietnam, the Prime Minister will witness the signing of a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in agriculture.
He is also scheduled to pay courtesy calls on Vietnam Communist Party Head, Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang and the Prime Minister of Vietnam, Nguyen Tan Dung.
"The visit provides the best opportunity for the Prime Minister to renew friendship ties with Vietnamese leaders and exchange views on bilateral issues which are of common interest such as trade and investment, cooperation in agriculture and fisheries, education, defence, tourism and regional and international issues," Wisma Putra said.
Data shows that from January till December 2013, trade between Malaysia and Vietnam increased by 13.51 percent to RM10.25 billion compared to RM9.03 billion during the same period in 2012.
In Vietnam, the Prime Minister is also scheduled to host a joint session with notable business people from Malaysia and Vietnam. The session is aimed at creating a new business network to improve and strengthen business and investment ties.
It also provides the opportunity for business representatives from both countries to share views and ideas towards improving the economic ties between Malaysia and Vietnam.
The Prime Minister will observe the operations from the Joint Agency Coordination Centre at the Pearce air base of the Royal Australian Air Force in Perth.
"The visit is appropriate to record the appreciation to the Australian government, teams and members who were involved in the search, including from Malaysia," the Foreign Ministry (Wisma Putra) said in a statement here Wednesday.
While in Perth, Najib is also scheduled to meet with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to discuss various issues, specifically the latest developments in the search operation and the direction it will take.
After Perth, Najib will leave for a three-day official visit to Vietnam, beginning April 3 to foster closer cooperation between the two countries.
Najib will be accompanied by Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman, Minister of International Trade and Industry Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed, Minister of Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob and senior officials of the ministries.
While in Vietnam, the Prime Minister will witness the signing of a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in agriculture.
He is also scheduled to pay courtesy calls on Vietnam Communist Party Head, Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang and the Prime Minister of Vietnam, Nguyen Tan Dung.
"The visit provides the best opportunity for the Prime Minister to renew friendship ties with Vietnamese leaders and exchange views on bilateral issues which are of common interest such as trade and investment, cooperation in agriculture and fisheries, education, defence, tourism and regional and international issues," Wisma Putra said.
Data shows that from January till December 2013, trade between Malaysia and Vietnam increased by 13.51 percent to RM10.25 billion compared to RM9.03 billion during the same period in 2012.
In Vietnam, the Prime Minister is also scheduled to host a joint session with notable business people from Malaysia and Vietnam. The session is aimed at creating a new business network to improve and strengthen business and investment ties.
It also provides the opportunity for business representatives from both countries to share views and ideas towards improving the economic ties between Malaysia and Vietnam.
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