New Straits Times .....
13 April 2014| last updated at 03:58PM
MH370 Tragedy: Black box batteries may have died
PERTH : Following four strong underwater signals in the past week, all has gone quiet in the hunt for the missing Malaysian airline, meaning the batteries on the all-important black boxes may have finally died.
Despite having no new pings to go on, crews are continuing their search Sunday for debris and any sounds that could still be emanating.
They’re desperately trying to pinpoint where the Boeing 777 could be amid an enormous patch of deep ocean.
No new electronic pings have been heard since April 8, and the batteries powering the locator beacons on the jet’s black box recorders may already be dead.
They only last about a month, and that window has passed. Once officials are confident no more sounds will be heard, a robotic submersible will be sent down.--AP
13 April 2014| last updated at 03:37PM
MH370 Tragedy: Quick relief for victims' families
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SYMPATHETIC: The extraordinary circumstances surrounding the disappearance of MH370 have triggered heartfelt concern and sympathy from all quarters, including insurers, banks and employers, who have all stepped up to alleviate the burden faced by relatives of the passengers and crew. With continuing uncertainty over the whereabouts of the plane and fate of those on board, Tan Choe Choe and Suzanna Pillay find out how these parties are helping the families cope
IT has been more than a month since the tragic and mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. The whereabouts of the plane continue to frustrate and confound search teams as they trawl the vast Indian Ocean.
But even as the search goes on, questions have already been raised about the practical, day-to-day issues that the next of kin of passengers and crew may be facing in the absence of their loved ones.
For example, loans have to be paid and wages will be due for those who are employed.
Optimistically, banks, employers and insurers, acknowledging that these are "extraordinary circumstances" have stepped up to make things as smooth as possible for the families concerned.
In offering its sympathy to the family members, loved ones and friends of the passengers and crew on board flight MH370, the Association of Banks in Malaysia (ABM) said its members were prepared to review all matters on a case-by-case basis to see how best to handle and smoothen the paths of due process faced by the next of kin.
"Generally, the banks will suspend all credit cards. Assistance will also be provided to the next of kin on a case-to-case basis as may be deemed fit, which may include offering moratoriums or cessation of interest and late charges.
"For housing loans covered by mortgage reducing term assurance, some banks note that their insurers have agreed to waive the requirement of death certificates for processing the claims as long as the borrower is confirmed to be a passenger or crew on board the flight by the relevant authority," said ABM executive director Chuah Mei Lin.
She added that banks were prepared to "maintain open communication with the next of kin of the passengers and crew, and at least one bank has appointed a liaison for matters related to MH370".
She urged all the relatives to approach the banks to get assistance.
They are also welcome to contact ABM at its ABMConnect hotline 1-300-88-9980 or emailing to eABMConnect by logging onto their website, www.abm.org.my.
ABM's council of 13 banks comprise Malayan Banking Bhd, Affin Bank Bhd, Alliance Bank Malaysia Bhd, AmBank (M) Bhd, CIMB Bank Bhd, Citibank Bhd, Hong Leong Bank Bhd, HSBC Bank Malaysia Bhd, OCBC Bank (Malaysia) Bhd, Public Bank Bhd, RHB Bank Bhd, Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia Bhd and the United Overseas Bank (Malaysia) Bhd.
Chuah said in a usual missing person's case, "each bank would have its own standard operating procedure, predicated on evidence acceptable to the bank that the customer is missing".
"The evidence may include, but is not limited to, a pronouncement or declaration of the court or confirmation by the police. In the case of MH370, banks are sympathetic and will be prepared to be facilitative once the passenger or crew is proven to be a bank customer since the circumstances are extraordinary."
The Life Insurance Association Malaysia (LIAM) said several of its 14 member companies had started to process life insurance claims by the next of kin of passengers and crew on board MH370.
"In view of special circumstances of this tragedy, life insurance companies in Malaysia have agreed to accord special priority in facilitating and expediting claims payment," said Vincent Kwo, president of LIAM.
"The next of kin can file in their insurance claims now without having to wait for the death certificate.
"Once the proper claimant has been identified, payment can be processed within a week."
He also noted that initial checks found that 47 out of 50 Malaysians on board, comprising 38 passengers and 12 crew members, had policies with life insurance companies in Malaysia. The checks also ascertained that some six non-Malaysians were insured with LIAM members.
Malaysian Employers Federation executive director Datuk Shamsuddin Bardan said employers of employees on board the missing plane should exercise caution and could not rely on Section 15(2) of the Employment Act 1955, or the general principle of breach of contract for absenteeism for those not under the Act, to end their employment as their status remains unknown.
Section 15(2) of the Employment Act 1955 states that "an employee shall be deemed to have broken his contract of service with the employer if he has been continuously absent from work for more than two consecutive working days without prior leave from his employer, unless he has reasonable excuse for such absence and has informed or attempted to inform his employer of such excuse prior to or at the earliest opportunity during such absence".
"We don't know where they (passengers) are. However, since the employee or employees had not been present for work and cannot provide services to the company, the company may exercise the option of not paying their wages for the period that they are missing.
"This is based on the principle that wages are paid for work done."
But for the cabin crew and pilots of flight MH370, Shamsuddin said their status was different.
"MAS crew and pilots could still be considered as performing their duties until such time that the fate of flight MH370 is determined.
"Similarly for those passengers on company duty or assignment, they can be considered as performing their duties and are entitled to wages until such time that the fate of flight MH370 is known."
Since this is an exceptional incident, employers of passengers who are not on company duty may wish to use their compassion and discretion to assist the families by paying a sum equivalent to the amount of wages to their families until the fate of flight MH370 is determined.
Malaysia Chronicle ......
Sunday, 13 April 2014 06:40
MH370 searchers may stop listening for black boxes after 2 days without a ping & settle in for LONG seabed search
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Search teams will 'stop listening for pings' from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370's black box unless new signals are picked up, it has been revealed.
Ten planes and 14 ships were scouring around 16,000 square miles of the Indian Ocean today in a bid to locate the device before its emergency beacons fade.
But a U.S. Navy captain has said they could 'give up' on the acoustic search following two days without a ping.
'When the time is right, we’ll say "Yes, the beacons have probably stopped transmitting" and it’s time to shift,' Captain Mark Matthews told ABC News.
He added that the team wanted a 'few more days' to try and narrow down the underwater search area, saying: 'As long as we have a chance to receive another signal from the beacon, we’re going to try.'
Capt Matthews is in charge of the towed pinger locator (TPL-25) - that detects black box signals - and the Bluefin-21 underwater autonomous vehicle. Both are currently on board the Royal Australian Navy Ship Ocean Shield.
Giving up: Search teams will 'stop listening for pings' from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370's black box unless new signals are picked up, it has been revealed. Above, the U.S. Navy's towed pinger locator (TPL-25)
Vessel: The TPL-25 and Bluefin-21 underwater autonomous vehicle are currently on board the Royal Australian Navy Ship Ocean Shield (pictured). Ten planes and 14 ships were scouring the southern Indian Ocean today
He said that after 'giving up' the 'pinger' search, the navy would 'shift' to the Bluefin-21, which uses sonar to map around 12 square miles of ocean floor every day.
It comes just days after a fifth ping was detected around 1,500 miles north west of Perth, in western Australia.
The signal was captured on Thursday by a Royal Australian Air Force Orion P-3 aircraft, which had been dropping sonar buoys into the water at the time.
The buoys each have a hydrophone listening device that dangles about 300 metres (1,000 feet) below the surface and their data are sent via radio back to a plane, Royal Australian Navy Commodore Peter Leavy said.
However, Angus Houston, who is coordinating the search for the plane, later said in a statement that an initial assessment had determined the signal was not related to an aircraft black box.
Last Saturday, two sounds detected by the TPL-25 were found to be consistent with the signals emitted from aircraft black boxes - flight data and cockpit voice recorders. And a further two 'pings' were picked up on Tuesday.
However, no 'credible' signals have been heard since, Capt Matthews said.
It has now been five weeks since the Boeing 777 mysteriously vanished as it flew from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing with 239 people on board on March 8.
As time passes, the signals from its black box's locator beacons continue to fade, while the data it contains could be lost forever if its month-long battery dies.
Finding the black boxes after the batteries fail will be extremely difficult because the water in the area is 4,500 metres (15,000 feet) deep.
New method: Capt Matthews said after 'giving up' the 'pinger' search, the American navy would 'shift' to the Bluefin-21 (pictured being hoisted on board Ocean Shield). The vehicle uses sonar to map the ocean floor
Detected: It comes just days after a fifth ping was detected around 1,500 miles north west of Perth, in western Australia. Above, the position of the first four sounds, which were recorded on Tuesday and last Saturday
The search for the missing jet involves a staggering array of sophisticated ships, aircraft and equipment, with eight countries contributing 17 vessels and 19 aircraft – including British nuclear submarine HMS Tireless.
Today, it emerged that the co-pilot of missing flight MH370 made a call from his mobile phone while the aircraft flew low over the west coast of Malaysia.
Investigators have learned that the call was made from Fariq Abdul Hamid's mobile phone as the Boeing 777 flew low near the island of Penang, on the north of Malaysia's west coast
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Search area: This image released by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority shows the current planned search area along the old ones in the Indian Ocean, West of Australia, for the wreckage of flight MH370
Looking: The search for the missing jet involves a staggering array of sophisticated ships, aircraft and equipment, with eight countries contributing 17 vessels and 19 aircraft - including HMAS Toowoomba (above)
Operation: Today, it emerged that co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid (left) made a call from his mobile as the aircraft flew low over the west coast of Malaysia. Right, HMS Echo, which has arrived in the southern Indian Ocean
Despite the call ending abrupty, it has been learned that contact was definitely established with a telecommunications sub-station in Penang state.
The revelation came as the U.S. denied reports the plane landed at a military base on the remote island of Diego Garcia.
Yesterday, it looked like the black box may had been located deep in the Indian Ocean.
Perth radio station 6PR tweeted the discovery, citing aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas, who revealed the flight recorder had finally been found more than a month after the Boeing 777 went missing.
Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who is in China, said searchers were 'very confident' the signals detected were from the black box were from MH370.
'I really don't want to give any more information than that at this stage...as a sign of respect to the Chinese people and their families,' he said.
Speaking from Shanghai, China, Mr Abbott added that the discovery was a huge step in solving the mystery - and even claimed that officials believe they can now pinpoint the position of the missing black box flight recorder to ‘within some kilometres’.
'This is probably the most difficult search in human history,' he said. 'Among tragedy, however, there is hope. We are confident we know the position of the black box to the nearest kilometre.
However, Mr Abbott has not commented on the discovery since.
At present, investigators believe the Malaysian Airlines jet went down in the southern Indian Ocean based on a flight path calculated from its contacts with a satellite and analysis of its speed and fuel capacity.
Malaysia's government has now begun to investigate civil aviation and military authorities to determine why opportunities to identify and track Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 were missed in the chaotic hours after it vanished, two officials said.
In an interview with Reuters last weekend, Malaysia Airlines Chief Executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said internal enquiries were under way, although he declined to give details.
Malaysia's opposition coalition has demanded a parliamentary inquiry into what happened on the ground in those first few hours.
Government officials have said any formal inquiry should not begin until the flight's black box recorders are found.
TIMELINE OF LOST FLIGHT MH370
March 8: Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 loses contact with air traffic controllers between ne and two hours after takeoff
March 9: Radar indicates flight may have turned back from its scheduled route to Beijing
March 11: Interpol names two Iranian men who got on jet with stolen passports
March 12: Search expands to area from China to India
March 15: Malaysian authorities say they believe 'deliberate action' caused the plane to veer off course and someone shut down its tracking systems.
March 20: Search teams spot possible wreckage in Southern Indian Ocean, 1,500 miles off western coast of Australia
March 24: Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak says it is 'beyond any doubt' that the 239 passengers and crew perished in the Indian Ocean.
March 30: Daughter of pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah says her father recently acted strangely
April 7: Australian ship Ocean Shielf detects underwater signals consistent with black boxes
April 9: Ocean Shield detects two more signals
April 11: Australian authorities pinpoint location
April 12: The U.S. Navy announces it may be forced to abandon 'pinger' search
Searching for clues: A Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) AP-3C Orion conducts a low level fly-by before dropping supplies to Australian Navy ship HMAS Toowoomba
At work: Captain Flight Lieutenant Tim McAlevey of the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) looks out to sea
-Dailymail
Sunday, 13 April 2014 06:24
M'sian cops probe company involved in cleaning of MH370 cabin
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SINTOK - Police are investigating the company involved in the cleaning of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 cabin before it departed from Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) to Beijing, China on March 8.
Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said police were looking into all possible angles including loopholes during the cleaning works.
On another matter, Khalid said police could not disclose details of investigation into the Semporna kidnapping case to avoid jeopardising the safety of the hostages.
It was reported that the abductors have demanded RM36.4mil to secure the release of Gao Huayun, 29, a Chinese tourist who was abducted together with a Filipino resort worker Marcy Dayawan,40, by three masked gunmen at gunpoint from Singamata Adventures and Reef Resort on April 4.
On the incident where two policemen were shot during a patrol duty in Ampang, Selangor yesterday, Khalid said doctors had successfully removed the bullet from the stomach of one of the victims.
He said the policeman was reported to be in stable condition at Ampang Hospital while his colleague sustained minor injuries and received outpatient treatment. -NST
Diego Garcia a secret black site ? In the past - or ongoing black site ?
Diego Garcia a secret black site ? In the past - or ongoing black site ?
Pressure mounts on UK over CIA’s ‘black site’ jail in Indian Ocean
A human rights group is urging Britain’s Foreign office to “come clean” over claims that a British-administered island in the Indian Ocean, Diego Garcia, was used as a secret "black site" detention center by the CIA.
“We need to know immediately whether ministers misled parliament over CIA torture on British soil,” Cori Crider, strategic director at Reprieve, a legal action charity group, said in a letter to UK Foreign Secretary William Hague.
“If the CIA operated a black site on Diego Garcia, then a string of official statements, from both this and the last government, were totally false,” Crider said.
The letter followed a report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee that Britain had allowed the US to run a “black site” prison on Diego Garcia to secretly hold suspects without accountability. The Diego Garcia prison held some “high-value” detainees and was operated with the “full cooperation” of the British government, US officials familiar with the Senate report said.
“Were ministers asleep at the wheel? Or, as the report suggests, have we been lied to for years?”Crider wrote.
Reprieve is also representing Abdel-Hakim Belhaj, a rebel military commander and opponent of the late Libyan leader, Mohamed Gaddafi, who was arrested in Malaysia and rendered to Libya, allegedly via Diego Garcia, in a joint US-UK intelligence operation.
“The Foreign Secretary must urgently clarify whether the CIA ran a secret prison on Diego Garcia, and whether our clients Abdel-Hakim Belhaj and his wife Fatima Boudchar were among its victims,” Crider said.
Belhaj became Tripoli's military commander in 2011, after the rebels took over the capital and ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. In 2004 Belhaj – the then-leader of the anti-Gaddafi Libyan Islamic Fighting Group – and his wife were detained by US intelligence officers at Bangkok airport, Thailand, when they were to fly to London to claim asylum.
Belhaj was then returned to Libya, allegedly due to a British tip-off, where he was tortured and jailed for almost six years, until Gaddafi was ousted.
Belhaj claims the UK helped the US to arrange his rendition. He launched legal action against the UK government, the former head of counter-terrorism at intelligence agency MI6, Mark Allen, and then-Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
"The first time I heard that I had gone through a place called Diego Garcia was when I was told by the head of the Libyan intelligence, Moussa Koussa, during my first interrogation session in a prison outside Tripoli," Belhaj said. “[Moussa Koussa] told me that he knew, and that the plane had landed on an island in the Indian Ocean called Diego Garcia.”
However, the UK court ruled that Belhaj could not sue MI6 as it would harm “national interests,”though the High Court judge concluded that Belhaj had a "well-founded claim" against intelligence officers.
The case could "jeopardize this country’s international relations and national security interests,"said Peregrine Simon, a British High Court judge.
"The government must come clean about the UK's role in this dirty affair," Polly Rossdale, deputy director at Reprieve, told The Observer on Sunday.
For years, the British government consistently denied that any detainees were held at Diego Garcia or that a secret CIA prison ever existed there. They only admitted in 2008 that two rendition flights carrying detainees stopped for refueling on Diego Garcia in 2002. “The US government confirmed that there have been no other instances in which US intelligence flights landed in the UK, our Overseas Territories, or the Crown Dependencies, with a detainee, on board since 11 September 2001,” UK Foreign Office minister David Liddington told the UK parliament in 2011.
The recent revelations about “the secret prison” are hugely troubling for the UK government as they spark questions about the UK's relationship with the US.
Apart from the news about the CIA secret black site, the US Senate also found that the CIA purposely deceived the US Justice Department to attain legal justification for use of torture techniques. It also found that the CIA distorted how many detainees it held in “black site” prisons throughout the world and how many were subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques” many amount to torture.
The Committee and the CIA have in recent weeks gone back and forth with accusations of spying, meddling, and misrepresentation, highlighting an on-going feud between the agency and the Committee since the Senate probe began in 2009.
In the absence of any proof to support the mainstream point of view , alternative views will continue to be offered for consideration........
It is impossible for MH370 to have ”disappeared and crashed,” Press TV reported in an exclusive interview this weekend about Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
“In fact this aircraft cannot be just lost. It cannot have just disappeared. This makes no sense,” Dr. Kevin Barrett reported. “There is military radar and satellite coverage of that area. The CIA base in Alice Springs Australia knows precisely what happened to that plane. And it is interesting the Malaysian government has asked them and they are not getting any response.
Dr. Barrett, Veterans Today editor, author and radio host said that “what we do know is that this story that it just disappeared and presumably crashed is impossible.
“It takes only a second or two to squawk an emergency code. If it is a hijacking, there is a hijack code – it is I think three digits – it is just tap, tap, tap and it is done. So there is no way that a plane is going to start having problems that are going to lead to a crash and it is not going to squawk that code.
The plane turned and flew in a westerly direction and must have been under some kind of control, and yet there was no emergency code, there was no hijack code, nothing like that. This is very, very strange,” Barrett said.
The Malaysian government was searching for plane wreckage where it already knew it could not be and did not say that for a couple of days.
“This makes no sense,” Barrett said. “There are so many of these anomalies. Passengers’ cellphones were ringing out days after the plane disappeared, meaning that they were not under water and they were powered on.”
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Again, something very odd happened to that plane, Barrett said, adding that the single most important clue in his opinion is the fact that two alleged Iranian passengers supposedly travelling with stolen passports were photoshopped. The security pictures we see of these Iranians supposedly boarding this plane were photoshopped. Their legs are exactly identical. There is no question about that.
Why are they giving us photoshopped pictures of Iranian passengers? Obviously there was some kind of a setup to try to blame this on Iran. Precisely what that is we do not know but the Israelis have been using their assets including the head of … security who is a 9/11 suspect lives in New Jersey. I forget the gentleman’s name. He and other Israelis have been putting out as much media propaganda as they can trying to blame this on Iran saying that it is a waste of time to look anywhere other than for this is being an Iranian hijacking.
Christopher Bollyn found an identical clone to this plane in a hanger in Tel Aviv, Israel for the past couple of months. Barrett cals that “a show game play with his aircraft.”
“It was in Southern France. They moved it down to Israel and speculation is that there was some sort of false flag plan at foot, perhaps another [plane] into buildings deception like 9/11.
We have so many parallels between this event and 9/11 with planes just disappearing, transponders going off for no reason, no hijack codes, no emergency codes being squawked, and cell phones anomalies. So a lot of people are speculating that there was a 9/11-style plan and it may not have gone right.
Press TV said that there at the network, they take very seriously trying to deal with sensitivity of this subject, especially for the families of those on the plane.
“It’s a very difficult time for them, we understand that. However looking at this situation, how likely is this some type of setup and if so what could it be? What could be the goal of this situation?” Press TV asked.
“Well you are right,” replied Barrett. “It has been very hard on the families and they have been protesting because they know they are being lied to, just like the 9/11 families. We would not have a 9/11 commission unless the family members hadn’t been protesting and basically camping out on the White House lawn for months and months and over a year until finally they were able to get that commission which turned out to be whitewash and likewise the Malaysian family members are putting pressure on the Malaysian government and they are not getting anywhere.
“They know that there is some huge deception going on here.
Planes cannot just disappear like that. There are all sorts of reasons to believe that something strange has happened with this plane. I suggested one scenario earlier which is the possibility that this plane was going to be, well, either blown up and this would be blamed on Iranian guys who were photoshopped into being patsies boarding the plane or maybe it was going to be taken somewhere and then flown into a building somewhere in a 9/11-style false flag event and it is possible that all the publicity in which the mainstream media at this time has actually been asking questions about what happened to this plane unlike 9/11 when nobody was asking any questions because they were still in shock.
The most advanced computer chip in the world with many, many military applications
Barrett spoke about the other angle: 20 employees of a Semiconductor firm on board, Free-scale Semiconductors, that had just patented the most advanced computer chip available, with many, many military applications. Barrett called it a “very, very important piece of an electro property they were heading for Beijing and it is possible that somebody did not want them to get there.
“These were Chinese nationals working for a Houston, Texas-based firm and there have been some unconfirmed reports – at least I can tell if there are confirmed – that say four of these passengers were Patent holders for this chip and the fifth Patent holder is the company owned by Jacob Rothschild to shell entities.
“So they are pointing out that possibly this Patent may now belong to Jacob Rothschild and that this would be a motivation for taking over this plane and there are indications the plane may have flown towards Diego Garcia which is a rendition site.
“The fishermen spotted this plane and accurately described its colors without even knowing what color the Airline was. So we have eyewitness reports that the plane was heading for Diego Garcia which is a black military rendition site run by the British and the Americans.
Press TV pointed to internet sites the public can follow planes and the flights that planes are taking real time for any novice who can just get on a site. Why do you think we are not hearing all of a sudden the Malaysian government say they changed the path of the aircraft two weeks into this? Why now? What exactly do you think is going on? Is there a cover-up that the Malaysian government and others may be involved in?
“Well there is obviously a cover-up,” Barrett responded. “It is simply unthinkable that this plane would simply turn, fly off in the wrong direction, be spotted over the Maldives Islands heading for Diego Garcia and just disappear. And all of these other indications, these cell phones ringing out and so on, suggest the same thing.
“It is something very strange that happened to this plane. That is really the only explanation for the fact that the government of Malaysia lied to the world and to the families of these victims for so long. They essentially gave the wrong story and searched in the wrong place when they knew that this plane was not in the place where they were looking. Why was that?
Barrett cautioned about leaping to conclusions and saying we know for sure what we think happened based on preconceptions and past experience.
“I do think that you do have to apply context though,” he said, “and we do know that false flag events are extremely common. Turkey just got caught planning to attack its own country. It fired missiles from Syria into Turkey. It happens all the time. Israel has a long history of false flags.”
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