Vietnam spots oil slicks in hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines plane

March 8, 2014

Kuala Lumpur, Mar 8: Vietnamese air force planes on Saturday spotted two large oil slicks in the area where a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 vanished earlier in the day, the first sign that the aircraft carrying 239 people on board had crashed.

The air force planes were part of a multinational search operation launched after Flight MH370 fell off radar screens less than an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing early Saturday morning.malysian

A Vietnamese government statement said the slicks were spotted late Saturday off the southern tip of Vietnam and were each between 10 kilometers (6 miles) and 15 kilometers (9 miles) long. There was no confirmation that the slicks were related to the missing plane, but the statement said they were consistent with the kinds that would be produced by the two fuel tanks of a crashed jetliner.

Two-thirds of the missing plane's passengers were from China, while others were from elsewhere in Asia, North America and Europe.

Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said there was no indication that the pilots had sent a distress signal, suggesting that whatever happened to the plane occurred quickly and possibly catastrophically.

At Beijing's airport, authorities posted a notice asking relatives and friends of passengers to gather at a nearby hotel to wait for further information, and provided a shuttle bus service. A woman wept aboard the bus while saying on a mobile phone, "They want us to go to the hotel. It cannot be good."

Relatives and friends of passengers were escorted into a private area at the Lido Hotel, and reporters were kept away. A man in a gray hooded sweatshirt later stormed out complaining about a lack of information. The man, who said he was a Beijing resident but declined to give his name, said he was anxious because his mother was on board the flight with a group of 10 tourists.

"We have been waiting for hours and there is still no verification," he said.

The plane was last detected on radar at 1:30 a.m. (1730 GMT Friday) around where the South China Sea meets the Gulf of Thailand, authorities in Malaysia and Vietnam said.

Lai Xuan Thanh, director of Vietnam's civil aviation authority, said air traffic officials in the country never made contact with the plane.

The plane "lost all contact and radar signal one minute before it entered Vietnam's air traffic control," Lt. Gen. Vo Van Tuan, deputy chief of staff of the Vietnamese army, said in a statement.

The South China Sea is a tense region with competing territorial claims that have led to several low-level conflicts, particularly between China and the Philippines. That antipathy briefly faded as China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia all sent ships and planes to the region.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said that Malaysia had dispatched 15 planes and nine ships to the area, and that the US navy was sending some planes as well. Singapore, China and Vietnam also were sending aircraft.

It's not uncommon for it to take several days to find the wreckage of aircraft floating on the ocean. Locating and then recovering the flight data recorders, vital to any investigation, can take months or even years.

"In times of emergencies like this, we have to show unity of efforts that transcends boundaries and issues," said Lt. Gen. Roy Deveraturda, commander of the Philippine military's Western Command.

Thanh said Malaysian, Singaporean and Vietnamese search officials were coordinating operations in an 11,200-square-kilometer (4,324-square-mile) area where the plane was last known to be. He said Vietnamese fishermen in the area were asked to report any suspected sign of the missing plane.

The air search was suspended for the night and was to resume Sunday morning, while the sea search was ongoing, the airline said.

The plane was carrying 227 passengers, including two infants, and 12 crew members, the airline said. It said there were 152 passengers from China, 38 from Malaysia, seven from Indonesia, six from Australia, five from India, three from the U.S., and others from Indonesia, France, New Zealand, Canada, Ukraine, Russia, Italy, Taiwan, the Netherlands and Austria.

In Kuala Lumpur, family members gathered at the airport, but were kept away from reporters.

"Our team is currently calling the next of kin of passengers and crew. Focus of the airline is to work with the emergency responders and authorities and mobilize its full support," said Yahya, the airline CEO. "Our thoughts and prayers are with all affected passengers and crew and their family members."

Fuad Sharuji, Malaysia Airlines' vice president of operations control, told CNN that the plane was flying at an altitude of 35,000 feet (10,670 meters) and that the pilots had reported no problem with the aircraft.

Asked whether terrorism was suspected, Malaysian transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein said authorities had "no information, but we are looking at all possibilities."

Malaysia Airlines has a good safety record, as does the 777, which had not had a fatal crash in its 19-year history until an Asiana Airlines plane crashed in San Francisco in July 2013, killing three passengers, all teenagers from China.

Airliner "black boxes" — the flight data and cockpit voice recorders — are equipped with "pingers" that emit ultrasonic signals that can be detected underwater. Under good conditions, the signals can be detected from several hundred miles away, said John Goglia, a former member of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. If the boxes are trapped inside the wreckage, the sound may not travel as far, he said.

Air France Flight 447, with 228 people on board, disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1, 2009. Some wreckage and bodies were recovered over the next two weeks, but it took nearly two years for the main wreckage of the Airbus 330 and its black boxes to be located and recovered.

Malaysia Airlines said the 53-year-old pilot of Flight MH370, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, has more than 18,000 flying hours and has been flying for the airline since 1981. The first officer, 27-year-old Fariq Hamid, has about 2,800 hours of experience and has flown for the airline since 2007.

The tip of the wing of the same Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777-200 broke off Aug. 9, 2012, as it was taxiing at Pudong International Airport outside Shanghai. The wingtip collided with the tail of a China Eastern Airlines A340 plane. No one was injured.

Malaysia Airlines' last fatal incident was in 1995, when one its planes crashed near the Malaysian city of Tawau, killing 34 people. The deadliest crash in its history occurred in 1977, when a domestic Malaysian flight crashed after being hijacked, killing 100 people.

In August 2005, a Malaysian Airlines 777 flying from Perth, Australia, to Kuala Lumpur suddenly shot up 900 meters (3,000 feet) before the pilot disengaged the autopilot and landed safely. The plane's software had incorrectly measured speed and acceleration, and the software was quickly updated on planes around the world.

Malaysia Airlines has 15 Boeing 777-200s in its fleet of about 100 planes. The state-owned carrier last month reported its fourth straight quarterly loss and warned of tougher times.

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Agencies
February 10,2020

Hubei, Feb 10: The death toll in the deadly coronavirus outbreak in China and other parts of the world has reached 904, CNN reported citing Chinese authorities on Monday.

The number of infected people globally has now hit the 40,000 mark.

According to the country's health officials, the number of people, who died from coronavirus in the Hubei Province, has risen to 871.

"As of 24:00 on February 9, Hubei Province reported a total of 29,631 cases of new coronavirus pneumonia, including 16,902 cases in Wuhan. 22,160 patients are still being treated in hospitals. 73,127 people remain under medical observation," read the statement from the Chinese Regional Health Committee.

The novel coronavirus was first detected in China's Wuhan city in late December and has since spread to more than 25 countries.

On Sunday, the new coronavirus even surpassed the fatalities caused by the SARS epidemic in 2003.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared a global health emergency in the wake of the outbreak.

Meanwhile, WHO's international expert mission led by Dr Bruce Aylward embarked for China.

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News Network
June 25,2020

London, Jun 25: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has called on India and China to engage in dialogue to sort out their border issues as he described the escalation in eastern Ladakh as "a very serious and worrying situation" which the UK is closely monitoring.

The first official statement of Mr Johnson came during his weekly Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

Responding to Conservative Party MP Flick Drummond on the implications for British interests of a dispute between a "Commonwealth member and the world's largest democracy on the one side, and a state that challenges our notion of democracy on the other," he described the escalation in eastern Ladakh as "a very serious and worrying situation", which the UK is "monitoring closely".

"Perhaps the best thing I can say... is that we are encouraging both parties to engage in dialogue on the issues on the border and sort it out between them," the Prime Minister said.

In a statement in New Delhi on Wednesday, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said India and China have agreed that expeditious implementation of the previously agreed understanding on disengagement of troops from standoff points in eastern Ladakh would help ensure peace and tranquillity in the border areas.

During the diplomatic talks between India and China, the situation in the region was discussed in detail and the Indian side conveyed its concerns over the violent face-off in Galwan Valley on June 15. Twenty Indian Army personnel were killed in the clash. There were reports of several casualties for the Chinese army too, but China hasn't declared any official number yet.

The talks were held in the midst of escalating tension between the two countries following the violent clashes in Galwan Valley on June 15.

The Indian and Chinese armies are engaged in the standoff in Pangong Tso, Galwan Valley, Demchok and Daulat Beg Oldie in eastern Ladakh. A sizable number of Chinese Army personnel even transgressed into the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control in several areas including Pangong Tso.

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News Network
May 2,2020

Balochistan, May 1: Sajid Hussain, Editor-in-Chief of Balochistan Times, has been found dead in a Swedish town, the police have confirmed.

The Swedish police informed his family on Thursday night that they discovered his body from a river in Uppsala, The Times reported.
The Baloch journalist had been missing from the Swedish city since March 2 this year.

Sajid, 39, left Pakistan in 2012 and had been living as a refugee in Sweden since 2017. He wrote extensively on the suffering of the Balochis at the hands of the Pakistani military establishment.

His work often got him into trouble as the authorities did not like his reporting of Balochistan's forbidden stories, the reason he had to leave and live in exile.

The Baloch journalist was found dead two months after he went missing in Sweden.
Sajid left Pakistan because of security threats from Pakistan Army and its intelligence service ISI.

The spokesperson of the Baloch National Movement, Hammal Haider told news agency: "We are deeply saddened by the demise of prominent Baloch intellectual and writer Sajid Hussain."
"His death is indeed a loss of a great mind for the people of Balochistan. Due to his straightforwardness, he was loved among all journalistic, literary and political circles," added Haider.

"After this incident, we have serious concerns about our members and other Baloch refugees living in the West," he said.

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