Kapal China dan Australia tidak menemui apa-apa yang bermakna dan boleh dikaitkan dengan pesawat MH370 dari kawasan pencarian baharu selepas objek pelbagai warna yang dikesan semalam hanya sampah laut sahaja.
Wartawan BBC yang berada di atas salah sebuah kapal itu menunjukkan ia hanya jaring biasa yang sukar untuk dikaitkan dengan MH370.
Semalam, kapal terbang tentera China melihat tiga objek yang disyaki dari pesawat MH370 berwarna putih, merah dan oren di kawasan baharu pencarian semalam yang meliputi kawasan seluas 1,850 km di barat Perth, Australia, lapor agensi berita rasmi China, Xinhua.
Susulan penemuan itu, kapal China membuat pencarian di kawasan itu bagi mengesan pesawat malang yang hilang sejak 8 Mac lalu.
Ia adalah pencarian yang memasuki minggu keempat selepas penemuan tanda palsu yang disangka serpihan pesawat itu sebelum ini.
Pihak berkuasa Australia menyusun semula pencarian ke 1,100 km ke utara Jumaat lalu selepas analisis radar dan data satelit menunjukkan pesawat itu terbang lebih laju daripada andaian sebelum ini.
Penemuan objek pelbagai warna oleh kapal terbang China itu berikutan laporan kapal antarabangsa pada Jumaat yang melihat objek pelbagai warna, kata Pihak Berkuasa Keselamatan Maritim Australia (Amsa).
Amsa berkata, sesetengahnya dilihat seperti daripada kapal nelayan dan ia tidak boleh disahkan sehingga diambil oleh kapal laut yang mencari.
"Kami berharap dapat mengenal pasti objek yang kami lihat semalam," kata Ketua Skuad Tentera Udara Diraja New Zealand, Leftenan Leon Fox kepada Reuters sebelum terbang ke kawasan pencarian dengan Orion P-3.
"Kami berharap kapal di kawasan itu dapat mengambilnya dan memberikan kepada kita petunjuk terhadap apa yang kami lihat,” katanya.
Kapal China Jinggangshan yang membawa dua helikopter di atasnya sampai ke kawasan pencarian itu semalam dan dijangka memberikan fokus kepada serpihan kapal yang timbul termasuk tumpahan minyak dan jaket keselamatan di laut yang luasnya 6,900 km persegi, kata Xinhua.
Empat lagi kapal China dan satu dari Australia dalam perjalanan ke sana tetapi hanya sampai lewat semalam.
Sebaik sahaja pesawat MH370 dikesan hilang pada 8 Mac lalu, pencarian tertumpu di Laut China Selatan.
Operasi mencari kemudian dipindahkan ke Lautan Hindi selepas pengumuman Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Najib Razak pesawat itu berpatah balik dalam perjalanannya dari KLIA ke Beijing.
Pencarian kemudian tertumpu selama seminggu di kawasan 2,500 km persegi di tenggara Perth selepas imej satelit menunjukkan kemungkinan ada serpihan pesawat itu. Kawasan itu juga kemudian ditinggalkan.
Kini pencarian memasuki kawasan baharu selepas analisis radar dan setelit mendapati kemungkinan ia terbang lebih laju daripada jangkaan awal.-f/bk
Flight MH370 search draws blank as Australia appoints ex-military chief to co-ordinate operations...
A new search area failed to yield an immediate breakthrough in the hunt for ill-fated Flight MH370 on Sunday, as Australia appointed its former military chief to help co-ordinate the operation in the Indian Ocean.
Debris spotted by aircraft and then picked up by ships combing the new search zone proved not to be from the Malaysian Airlines’ Boeing 777, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said.
“It appeared to be fishing equipment and just rubbish on the [ocean’s] surface,” an AMSA spokesman told reporters.
As the hunt resumed 1,850 kilometres west of Perth, Australia said former defence force chief Angus Houston would head a new unit to help in the search, which involves the militaries of seven nations – Australia, China, Malaysia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and the United States.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott said that Houston(above) would lead the new Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre (JACC) based in Perth, “to co-ordinate the Australian government’s support for the search into MH370”.
Houston, who was chief of the Australian Defence Force from 2005 until 2011, has been given a brief to co-ordinate the often delicate diplomatic contacts between participants in the international effort.
He will also make sure that families receive up-to-date information and travel assistance, including visa services, accommodation advice, interpreter services and counselling.
International protocols mean Malaysia is officially in charge of the search operation, but Abbott made clear that Houston was available “to oversee the overall search and investigation effort” if asked.
The search moved on Friday to a new sea zone after fresh data indicated the plane was flying faster than first thought before it is presumed to have run out of fuel and plunged into the sea.
But debris sightings by Chinese, Australian and New Zealand planes on Saturday did not yield any solid clues in one of aviation’s greatest mysteries, compounding the frustration of families who have been waiting more than three weeks to discover the fate of their loved ones.- scmp
"Melayu mudah lupa" kena batang hidung sendiri Tun Mahathir buat-buat LUPA...
tapi Mahathir ini Melayu pure ke... Baca sini
Kenapa Musa Ingat Tapi Mahathir Mudah Lupa...
Bekas Perdana Menteri, Mahathir Mohamad tidak mengambil masa yang lama untuk menjawab dakwaan bekas timbalannya, Musa Hitam bahawa beliau berada di dalam negara dan bukannya di China ketika peristiwa Memali yang mengorbankan 14 nyawa dan mencederakan puluhan yang lain pada tahun 1985 itu berlaku.
Bagaimanapun jawapan Mahathir ialah, "pasal perkara ini sudah berlaku begitu lama, saya kena semak baliklah apa yang dia kata betul atau tidak".
Memandangkan perkara itu sudah berlaku hampir 30 tahun lalu, maka Mahathir sudah tidak ingat lagi di mana beliau berada ketika itu dan memerlukan sedikit masa, barangkali untuk menyemak kembali diari lamanya.
Jawapan Mahathir ini bermakna kebenaran masih tergantung sehingga beliau menyemak dan memastikan di mana beliau berada ketika peristiwa Memali itu terjadi.
Bagaimanapun haruslah diakui bahawa peristiwa Memali adalah peristiwa besar yang sukar dilupakan oleh rakyat negara ini dan tentunya juga menjadi topik perbincangan di dalam mesyuarat kabinet atau di kalangan jemaah menteri ketika itu. Sekaligus jawapan Mahathir yang tidak dapat mengingati di mana beliau berada agak sedikit mengecewakan bagi sesetengah orang.
Bagaimanakah Musa Hitam masih mengingati bahawa ketika itu Mahathir berada di dalam negara dan bukannya di China sebagaimana yang dilaporkan sebelum ini?
Malah Musa Hitam juga mengingati bahawa dua tiga hari selepas kejadian Memali pun Mahathir masih berada di dalam negara?
Ada pula yang berkata, Musa Hitam tidak mungkin berkata sesuatu yang beliau tidak pasti kerana dakwaannya bahawa Mahathir berada di dalam negara jika didapati tidak benar, akan membunuh reputasinya sendiri?
Betulkah Mahathir tidak ingat dan di mana beliau berada ketika itu?
"Masa tu saya duk tebaq roti"
Jika benar beliau berada di China ketika peritiwa Memali yang menggemparkan negara itu, logikkah beliau sudah lupa mengenainya?
Jika benar Mahathir berada di dalam negara pula, benarkah juga beliau sudah lupa tentangnya?
Sementara kebenaran yang sebenarnya diharap akan diketahui tidak lama lagi, rakyat mula berteka-teki - siapakah yang sebenarnya berbohong antara dua Tun ini?- SH
Memali? I can’t remember, says Mahathir...
Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said he cannot remember if he was in the country during the Memali incident where 18 people were killed 29 years ago.
"I can't remember..." he told journalists in Kuala Lumpur when quizzed if he was in the country during the bloody event.
Mahathir was responding to his then deputy prime minister Musa Hitam who claimed on Thursday that his former boss was in Kuala Lumpur when the incident happened.
Mahathir said he needed to look into his records and check if Musa's claim was true.
"I am studying the truth of what he (Musa) said,” added Mahathir.
"Since this happened a long time ago, I need to check back to see what he said is true.”
Largely absolved
Musa told a forum in Kota Bharu two days ago: "Dr Mahathir was in Kuala Lumpur, even on the second, third and fourth day after that, he was still in Kuala Lumpur.”
Mahathir was largely absolved over the deaths of 18 people in a deadly police assault on Memali in 1985 as he was claimed to be on an official visit to China.
Armoured
vehicles rolled into the remote village in Baling, Kedah to crack down
on a religious sect led by Ibrahim Mahmud, better known as Ibrahim
Libya.Some 400 police officers stormed the village on Nov 19 that year after a stand-off where villagers refused to surrender Ibrahim to the authorities, who accused him of being a deviant, and they fought back.
The siege resulted in the deaths of 14 villagers and four police officers - considered one of the bloodiest episodes in recent history.- mk
Dr M’s unbearably convenient memory...
Predictably, Dr Mahathir Mohamed cannot quite remember whether he was in the country when the Memali incident occurred in November 1985, four years and four months into his 22-year premiership.
His deputy then, Musa Hitam, said in Kota Baru last Thursday that Mahathir was in the country, not just when the incident occurred on November 19, but also up to four days after the episode in which 14 police personnel and four villagers were killed in Mukim Siong, Baling.
At that time, the Malaysian public was given to understand that their Prime Minister was abroad - in China, to be sure.
Mahathir held the customary press conference at the airport upon his return from abroad.
He took questions on the Memali incident in which police opened fire on a house where religious cult leader Ibrahim Libya was holed up with several villagers.
The ensuing shootout became a cause celebre.
Pressed for a response to what Musa had said about him being in the country during that incident and then affecting to show he was not, Mahathir parried his former deputy’s implied attack on his probity with, “I can’t remember.”
Mahathir pleaded his advanced years (he will be 89 in July): “Since this happened a long time ago, I need to check back to see what he [Musa] said is true.”
Mahathir has a convenient sense of recall: he remembers what it is expedient for him to remember and trots out pleas of amnesia when it suits his purpose.
At the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Lingam videotape in January 2008, Mahathir not infrequently responded with “I don’t remember” to critical questions on his role in the matter in which a senior lawyer was captured on video attempting to fix the appointment of judges during the period of Mahathir’s tenure as prime minister (1981-2003).
At that time Mahathir’s infamous chiding of Malays - “Melayu mudah lupa” (The Malays easily forget) - for their supposed ingratitude came back to haunt him.
“Dr M mudah lupa,” (Dr M easily forgets) became his critics’ catch-phrase of raillery against him when it was seen that the former PM’s powers of recall were conveniently self-serving.
Musa's motive
Political observers are wondering about the motive of Musa, a one-time ally-turned-opponent of Mahathir’s in raising a matter that took place almost 29 years ago.
They ought to wonder no more: Musa (left) is attempting a block. He knows Mahathir wants Prime Minister Najib Razak out as PM.The incumbent PM is beleaguered by the disappearance of flight MH370, now three weeks into the greatest mystery in civil aviation’s history.
The circumstances of the plane’s mysterious disappearance with 239 people on board places Najib, Home Minister Zahid Hamidi and Defense Minister Hishamuddin Hussein on notice of grave lack of fitness to hold office.
Incidentally, all three of the abovementioned individuals are stalling points in the career path of Mukhriz, the Menteri Besar of Kedah, regarded as inheritor of the Mahathir mantle of national leadership.
In most countries in the world, North Korea excepting, an incident like MH370’s disappearance would have had the trio of Najib, Zahid and Hishamuddin with their necks on the chopping block.
Not Malaysia where the 47 percent of the voters who endorsed the ruling BN coalition in the general election last May are embodiments of the validity of the philosopher George Santayana’s dictum: “Those who forget history are condemned to repeat.”
Command and control
Twice in the recent days Mahathir has talked about matters that bespeak a desire to return to a command and control role in Malaysian politics.
First, he advised that the government should get ready to tackle a financial crisis and trotted out his expertise at prescribing for just such a malady.
Days after this advice, analysts toted up expected losses to the economy from the suspension of the Visit Malaysia Year 2014 because of flight MH370’s disappearance, and from the anticipated further bleeding of our already loss-hobbled national carrier, MAS. They said it would be RM4 billion at the very least.
The second alarum Mahathir sounded was even more unsettling.
He said that if he were to return as PM, he would censor the internet which would be a clear violation of the bill of rights he vouchsafed cyber practitioners when inaugurating the Malaysian Multimedia Corridor in 1996.
Well, no prizes for guessing what the former PM would say if reminded of his promise of no restrictions on freedom to publish on the internet: “I can’t remember.”
It has become a mantra of the man who had ruled the country for 22 years (1981-2003) during which he built it up physically and emasculated it morally.
The country’s problem is that it has enough masochists who may want more of the same. Not Musa Hitam, though.- Terence Netto,MK
'Dr M present during Memali' claim reverberates...
cheers.
1 comment:
Agak berapa kos utk lancar Bomohsat? dan kroni mana pula yang akan jadi jutawan!!!
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