Flight MH370 Found? Not Quite – Now the Real Whitewash Begins.

After nearly one month of turning up absolutely nothing, suddenly the public are being told that the case of missing Malaysian airliner MH370 has been solved, well, sort of…
It was a search and rescue operation on an unprecedented scale, combing through over 30,000 nautical miles, involving 60 ships and 50 aircraft – all in an effort to find one missing Boeing 777 which is said to have set off from Kula Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, only to disappear into thin air, without a trace.

IMAGE: Photo-illustration of a Malaysian Airlines Flight.

The World’s Biggest Fishing Trip Begins
This week Malaysian authorities made the dramatic announcement that they had finally “found” the aircraft, without any “debris sighting” . On cue, global mainstream media outlets ran continuous coverage on Monday March 24th of this week, showing footage of men looking out the window of Royal Australian Air Force P-3, looking rather intensely at a trail of smoke hanging over the water, but failed to tell viewers in many instances – that this was merely a “smoke marker placed there”, no doubt for the cameras.


This,we are told, is meant to draw a line under the story in a communal ‘move on’ moment.
The Malaysian prime minister boldly announced that analysis of satellite data concludes “beyond a doubt” that the plane had in fact gone down in the southern Indian Ocean 2,500 kilometers (1,500) west of Perth, Australia.

A few object were said to be found, but these were not shown on TV or to media. “Objects could be picked up in a few hours”, Malaysia’s transport minister said, while Australian PM Tony Abbott said, “One object was circular and grey or green, and the other rectangular and orange – but it could be flotsham“. In reality, nothing.

What is clear now – is that there is still no evidence of a Being 777 crash-landing there, and that this latest PR campaign is one big fishing trip.
Don’t be surprised if this same plane turns up halfway across the world at a later date – involved in a major ‘global crisis’, or false flag event.
Here where things get dicey: this suddenly incredible “debris sighting” has been based on information from one private British telecoms firm, Inmarsat, who run a fleet of 30 satellites globally overlapping with systems run by US-based Raytheon. Inmarsat claim to have come to their conclusion based on data “relayed between the plane and ground station by satellite”. Inmarsat then sent its computer findings on Friday to the UK Air Accident Investigation Branch based in Aldershot, Hampshire, who spent one day “going over the figures” before sending it to the Malaysian authorities.

Of all the likely destinations for the missing flight, it seems incredible that would fly for 3 or more hours south, only to ditch the plane in the water miles from any land mass. This latest conclusion is based almost solely on computer modeled data – supplied by Inmarsat, and as yet, no physical proof that Flight MH370 has actually crashed at the location they are claiming it did.

By contrast, an actual eyewitness sighting was reported the morning of the crash, but was more or less ignored by all governments and mainstream media outlets. Haveeru local news previously confirmed that, “Residents of the remote Maldives island of Kuda Huvadhoo in Dhaal Atoll have reported seeing a “low flying jumbo jet” on the morning of the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.” That report continues:

“Eyewitnesses from the Kuda Huvadhoo concurred that the aeroplane was travelling North to South-East, towards the Southern tip of the Maldives – Addu. They also noted the incredibly loud noise that the flight made when it flew over the island.

“I’ve never seen a jet flying so low over our island before. We’ve seen seaplanes, but I’m sure that this was not one of those. I could even make out the doors on the plane clearly,” said an eyewitness.

“It’s not just me either, several other residents have reported seeing the exact same thing. Some people got out of their houses to see what was causing the tremendous noise too.”

Coincidentally, The Maldives Islands are more or less along a direct flight path to the US and British island military base at Diego Garcia. Make of that what you will, but you cannot discount this in connection to reports that one of the MH370 pilots has Diego Garcia plotted on his own home flight simulator.

Confusion was stirred up even more after retired United States Air Force Lieutenant General, Thomas G. McInerney, turned up on a FOX News program hosted by Mike Huckaby, proceeding to infer that the US has known all along where the plane had traveled, and that the missing Boeing 777 was already in Central Asia. Watch:


Although McInerney went on to reinforce the White House myth that Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011 at his compound in Pakistan, you can’t help but wonder why he was sent onto FOX at the very time that this latest “discovery” has happened. Bill Stills concluded his commentary by warning the this plane may likely end up being be used for some US-sponsored flase flag, or terrorist act in the future.

Mainstream media is now being flooded with reports of “grieving families” which the public have only now been given access to, and western media talking points are focusing on victims’ families blaming the Malaysian government for its incompetence in conducting the search and that somehow ‘blood is now on the Malaysian governments’ hands’.

21WIRE detailed some suspicions regarding the passenger lists and talk of key Freescale (Austin, TX based) employees being on the plane, as well as the technical parameters regarding the planes transponder systems and radar detection. In the end, for the government anyway, the whole story has relied exclusively on technical and computer satellite specs in order to illustrate a timeline and possible locations for the missing flight.


MEDIA DRAMA: The grieving families and the all important ‘blame game’.

The blame game that has ensued following Malaysia’s ‘endorsement’ of the British location data (which is still a guess) and Malaysia is now accusing Inmarsat of ‘sitting on the information for 10 days’, which means that a convenient media side-show has now opened up to distract from actually finding the plane. Telegraph said it today:

“The AAIB, working with Inmarsat, provided the only credible information on the Malaysia Airlines flight’s whereabouts, but a series of delays meant ten crucial days were lost before search teams began looking in the southern Indian Ocean, where it now seems certain the aircraft went down.”

Regardless of what is being said and what theories are being kicked around, one can conclude, once again, that the official story of Malaysian Flight MH370 is a complete whitewash already.

Isn’t it funny how the biggest plane hunt in human history – over in Asia, is swiftly closed down by a single British company and a British government aviation agency?

Who is Inmarsat?

Inmarsat Plc is a major player in government, military, aviation satellite markets, partners with the likes of Honeywell, and refers to itself as “the world’s leading provider of mobile satcoms” with its IsatPhone range, and covers a wide range of global contracts, most notably its satellite communications for “coalition military forces” deployed on missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and other locations, and has also been awarded a FEMA contract to continue providing Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) in the US. Reuters explains, “Under this contract, FEMA will use Inmarsat satellite services to provide reliable, mission-critical communications between supporting personnel in the event of a disaster. In emergency situations, it is essential that first responders are able to communicate immediately not only among themselves, but also with their leadership through respective command and operational centers.”

According to a 2011 interview with London’s City AM: “Inmarsat offers mobile connectivity solutions for anything from a single yacht travelling the Pacific to the thousands of US troops stationed in Afghanistan. It is a FTSE 100 powerhouse, but one which rarely makes headlines… This is despite it providing a huge proportion of the connectivity during the recent clashes in the Middle East, allowing journalists, protesters and aid workers to spread news about the fall of generation-old governments and the brutal clashes in Libya.”

In March 2012, Al-Jazeera Beirut correspondent Ali Hashim along with two others, resigned over objections over Qatar’s pro-US and UK foreign policy slanted reporting on the conflict, and revealed that Al-Jazeera spent $50,000 for smuggling phones and satellite communication tools to Syria’s rebels. Did Inmarsat provide the sat phones al Jazeera gave to Syrian ‘Rebels’, aiding foreign insurgents in Syria in coordinating terrorist attacks inside that country? Good question. Only a few firms would be positioned to deliver that service, and Inmarsat, according to their own admission anyway, would be at the top of the list.

In Sept 2013, Inmarsat announced further inroads into the aviation industry, providing “GSM and Internet services to airlines and their passengers”. Reuters reported, “Thales SA announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that would include the Company as a partner in marketing Inmarsat PLC’s connectivity solutions to the commercial aviation market. Under the MOA, SwiftBroadband and GX Aviation are the primary and preferred satellite services for Thales SA’s TopSeries IFEC system…. Financial terms were not disclosed.”

In June 2013, Inmarsat bid alongside the Carlyle Group LP and the Blackstone Group LP for control over Singapore Telecommunications Ltd’s Australian satellite unit. Reuters reported, “SingTel, Southeast Asia’s telecom operator, values the satellite business of its Australian unit Optus at more than AUD2 billion ($1.9 billion), and has put it on sale as it battles tepid growth in its key markets of Singapore and Australia. Inmarsat PLC, Blackstone Group LP and Carlyle Group LP are among the other suitors to submit bids ahead of the deadline. Blackstone, Carlyle, KKR, Intelsat, SES and SingTel declined comment.”

It also has business agreements with Malaysian shipping conglomerate MISC Berhad (MISC), signing its first big deal covering 46 of its vessels, “comprised of chemical and LNG tankers, for Inmarsat’s XpressLink service”.

Officially, Boeing 777 Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 is still missing…

What’s Behind the Disappearance of Malaysian Airliner MH370? Part One:

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has been said to have disappeared from the sky in the early hours of Saturday, March 8th, 2014, subsequently over Vietnamese airspace at 35,000 feet heading for Beijing. The flight was carrying some 227 passengers and 12 crew members.

This begs the question: How would it be possible in this day and age for a large airliner to just disappear off the radar without a beacon from the jet’s transponder, even if the crew was incapacitated?


IMAGE: Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777.

Many aeronautical experts agree that this event is indeed ‘highly unusual’ if not outright unprecedented – at that altitude.

As air traffic controllers track commercial jets from two different types of radar. The primary radar tracks a plane’s position, while a secondary radar talks back and forth electronically with the locator or transponder on the plane, requesting more specific information from that device.

Sid McGuirk, an associate professor of air traffic management at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida had this to say following the mysterious disappearance of flight MH370:

“The flight crews use combinations of high-frequency radio, satellite-based voice communication and text data networks to report to ATC ( air traffic control) the exact time, position and flight level when the crossing begins.”

Based on this information it seems that the public has not been given the full story as to what has happened to the missing flight, making it unlikely that the event was ‘sudden and catastrophic’ as the plane apparently turned around according to initial reports, traveling some 350 miles, making it to Malacca Strait, according to Malaysian officials. It would have taken 15 to 30 minutes for the plane to land according to reports, leaving a ghost pattern on radar as to their location and plenty of time for a distress signal if the plane wasn’t hijacked.

We’ve also been told by other media outlets that the transponder and tracking systems were turned off at some point while the plane was flying low.

When were they switched off and why where authorities searching in a different area if they had this information in the early stages of the investigation?

Air traffic controllers would have known the exact moment that something had changed during the course of this flight.


IMAGE: The new flight path that flight MH370 was said to have taken.

As the search intensifies for the missing flight, many theories are pointing towards foul play but what would be the motive?

Malaysia has seen an economic boom over the past few decades, as a majority of the people have a higher standard of living in recent years. The capital Kuala Lumpur, has a dense urban cityscape that would rival any city in the United States, as well as Europe, with its high-end shopping centers, condos and private schools. According to a census almost two-thirds of the population is Muslim. The average household income has nearly doubled since 1990. Like most places these days, there is a great divide among more affluent Malaysians and those who are poverty-stricken.

Malaysia is also rich with ‘massive deposits of oil’ and is said to be one of the largest non-OPEC oil exporters in the world. This makes it an attractive place for the CIA and other clandestine activity to take place, as the West has been known to pressurize nations when seeking their precious natural resources.

It has been said that Western intelligence agencies allegedly controlled Islamists and pro-democracy activists in Malaysia, particularly during the coup in Egypt. This was evident in a large protest that took place in Kuala Lumpur in 2011.

IMAGE: Dr. Mahathir Mohamad.

In 2003 Malaysia’s former prime minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, named Israel as “the enemy allied with most powerful nations,”  during a 57-nation Islamic summit. The Malaysian leader further explained his beliefs about Israeli control, while also condemning the violence among Muslims:

“They invented socialism, communism, human rights and democracy, so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so that they can enjoy equal rights with others.
“With these they have gained control of the most powerful countries and they this tiny community, have become a world power.”
Mahathir had often blamed Israel and the United States for fueling violence in the Arab world.

In the middle of the 97-98 Asian financial crisis, Mahathir claimed there was a Western capitalist conspiracy to keep Malaysia under control, as the currency attack revealed the involvement of billionaire investor, Bilderberg consolidator and hedge-fund manager George Soros, as the Malaysian ringgit lost 15% over a two month period. Mahathir lashed out against Western meddling in the aftermath of the losses his country accrued:

“We never believe in applying pressure on people. Trying to starve a whole nation in order to force its government to behave, that is not our idea. If you want to act against the government, you act against the government…. You have to show them that the way others do things can bring benefits to the country without in any way undermining their authority.”

IMAGE: Petronas Towers – the Malaysian ‘Twin Towers’ glass facade is said to resemble motifs in Islamic art.

It has been reported that a security firm called Asiasoft has been involved in updating Malaysia’s police systems. Two of the company’s directors are both from Israel, Izhak David Nakar and  Ido Schechter. Nakar is stated to have won an Israeli defense award.

Well-known researcher Tony Cartalucci observed the Western fallout over the recent elections in Malaysia during 2013:

“Despite the US mobilizing the summation of its media power and pouring millions of dollars into the opposition party, including the creation and perpetuation of fake-NGOs such as Bersih and the Merdeka Center, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak sailed to a comfortable victory in this year’s general elections. The cheap veneer has begun peeling away from America’s “democracy promotion” racket, leaving its proxies exposed and frantic, and America’s hegemonic ambitions across Asia in serious question.”
Its clear from this analysis, that things didn’t go as planned for United States and its allies wthin Malaysia, as the unsettling elections could provide the impetus for some sort of unsavory Gladio-tension from Western backed intelligence agencies.
IMAGE: Radar image depicting flight 370 in the early stages of its flight.
The previously unheard of Chinese Martyrs’ Brigade initially claimed responsibility for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. Prompting the Chinese media to say it is ‘likely a hoax made up by opportunists looking to inflame ethnic tensions.’
China has recently seen a series of  vicious attacks in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region and the mass stabbings within the capital of Kunming this past month leaving some 33 people dead.

Interpol secretary general Ronald Noble does not believe the missing plane to be a ‘terrorist incident.’ Shockingly, authorities now claim they are looking for ‘sabotage, hijacking or psychological problems among either the crew or the passengers’ as the possible motive for the missing plane.

This statement seems to prey on the naivety of a certain segment the public who are still unaware of - manufactured clandestine terror under the direction of intelligence agencies, those entities who’ve historically used these kinds of means to destabilize as well as to threaten the security of resource laden countries over the years.


Two mysterious Iranians who supposedly boarded flight MH370 with stolen passports. Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad, 19, Delavar Seyed Mohammadreza, 29 (pictured above).

To make matters even more incredible, there have been reports of two stolen passports, as two Iranians reportedly made their way through security undetected with stolen passports from Austria and Italy. They were said to have switched their passports from Iran, upon entering Malaysia. The younger of the two was said to have been seeking asylum in Germany and not linked to any terror outfit.

What do authorities really know about these men?

It appears there is some question as to who booked the flights for the two men, as a travel agent from Pattaya, in Thailand, is said to have booked the tickets for an ‘Iranian businessman.’ Its important to note that Thailand is a hotbed for CIA related activity.

Were these two men deliberately chosen by operatives to board the plane, in an effort to frame another part of the world for potential terror, in this case Iran?


IMAGE: The downed PanAm 103 flight – December 21st 1988.

Many people believe that Abu Nidal, the infamous Lockerbie bomber charged in the bombing of PanAm flight 103 was connected to the CIA.

In surreal fashion, the Malaysian flight story keeps changing directions at an unprecedented rate, as Ghost-like phone calls have also been reported as 19 families signed a joint statement saying that ‘their calls connected to their loved ones but that they rang out.’

Could this information provide the authorities with the ability to locate the GPS coordinates as well as disprove the incident as a sudden catastrophic event?

Khazanah National to take Malaysian Airlines private, plans complete overhaul

Malaysia's government will carry out a "complete overhaul" of its troubled national airline in an attempt to revive the loss-making company after it was hit by two devastating jetliner disasters this year.
The move on Friday to de-list Malaysia Airline System and take it private had been expected since ticket sales slumped in the wake of the baffling disappearance of MH370 on March 8 with 239 passengers and crew. The airline's crisis deepened on July 17 when another jet, Flight MH17, was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.
State investment fund Khazanah Nasional's proposed 1.4 billion ringgit ($436 million) buy-out of the shares it does not own paves the way for it to take steps such as cutting back on less-profitable routes, trimming the bloated payroll and installing a new management team.
A full-scale rebranding of the airline, which has reported losses for the past three years, could also be considered as it grapples with shaky customer confidence following the twin tragedies.
Khazanah said it will need cooperation "from all parties" to undertake the restructuring, covering the airline's operations, business model, finances, staff and the regulatory environment.
"Nothing less will be required in order to revive our national airline to be profitable as a commercial entity, and to service its function as a critical national development entity," it said in a statement.
Political considerations will play a important role in the restructuring of the company, which like other state-owned firms, has been used by the government to promote development goals such as affirmative action policies for majority ethnic Malays. Reuters first reported on the possible restructuring in July.
Khazanah has injected more than 5 billion ringgit ($1.6 billion) into MAS over the last 10 years, as it has increasingly struggled in the face of competition from upstart budget airlines such as AirAsia Bhd.
POLITICAL SENSITIVITIES
Attempts to restructure the airline over the years have been politically fraught due to heavy opposition to job losses from its influential labour union.
"There is no point in going to another airline or getting some private equity team involved or anything like that because the government will effectively have to offer some sweeteners to the union to diminish their power and diminish their size," said Timothy Ross, Asia transportation analyst at Credit Suisse. "They probably employ 5,000 people too many."
The carrier has a fleet of 151 planes and a total staff of nearly 20,000.
The head of Malaysia Airline's main labour union said it would support the plan only if the current top management team, led by chief executive Ahmad Jauhari, was replaced.
"Ahmad Jauhari has had three years to turn things around. We've made it very clear, we will support a new team that has the aviation knowledge and integrity for the job," Mohd Jabarullah Abdul Kadir told Reuters.
Khazanah will offer 27 sen for each share in the company it does not own, amounting to 1.38 billion ringgit, a 12.5 percent premium to the closing share price on Thursday, MAS said in a statement after suspending its shares.
'DRAMATIC IMPACT'
Khazanah, which owns 69.37 percent of MAS and is chaired by Prime Minister Najib Razak, said it expected to give more details of the planned restructuring by the end of August after it has secured approval from shareholders.
The airline and its key stakeholders are in talks with banks for a strategic overhaul that could include the partial sale of its engineering unit and an upgrade of its ageing fleet, sources involved in the discussions have told Reuters.
The company turned in its worst quarterly performance in two years in the January-March period and has been burning through its operating cash.
The carrier warned in May of a "dramatic impact" on passenger traffic from the loss of Flight MH370. The July 17 disaster, in which MH17 was believed to have been shot down by Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine, sped up government efforts to restructure the airline, sources said.
Sources had told Reuters in July that planned to take the airline private as the first step in a major restructuring. The state investor is working with CIMB Investment Bank on the restructuring, the sources added.
"This is the sensible way forward given that massive surgery is required," said Christopher Wong, a senior investment manager at Aberdeen Asset Management Asia.
Mohshin Aziz, an analyst from Maybank Investment Bank Research, said the price offered by Khazanah was a fair deal for minority investors."If you do a fair-value analysis, we derive a fair value of 25 sen. Seeing that Khazanah is offering 27 sen, that's a decent premium."
(Reuters)

New book, The Landing At Aipotu: A Fantasy Account of Flight MH370, by John F. Brinster

“The Landing At Aipotu: A Fantasy Account of Flight MH370″ (ISBN: 978-1478738060) by John F. Brinster, is based on speculation following its mysterious disappearance with no sign of debris found anywhere. The new story is contained in the fifth book of the popular Professor Cackekry series, a collection of unusual books of subtle literary satire on behavioral function of the mammalian human mind, especially with respect to incessant warfare, increased terrorism, and unending religious conflict.
“Aipotu,” which is Utopia in reverse, is a natural plateau and airstrip located in the heart of the Himalayas described in prior books.
According to the author, “Media accounts of its aborted flight were merged with a fictional story in process at the time of its loss on 8 March 2014. Contrary to indications of the most likely scenario, it suggests alternatives for possible consideration.”
About the Author:
John F. Brinster, scientist and author, is a magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Princeton University where he created technology for World War II weaponry and advanced aircraft testing. He was a member of the National V-2 Panel and worked with Wernher von Braun at White Sands Proving Ground, N.M., in testing early missiles for American military and space flight, preparatory to the first U.S. earth satellite and the moon landing programs.

http://publishersnewswire.com/

The Russian Public Has a Totally Different Understanding of What Happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

Did you know Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was full of corpses when it took off from Amsterdam? Did you know that, for some darkly inexplicable reason, on July 17, MH17 moved off the standard flight path that it had taken every time before, and moved north, toward rebel-held areas outside Donetsk? Or that the dispatchers summoned the plane lower just before the crash? Or that the plane had been recently reinsured? Or that the Ukrainian army has air defense systems in the area? Or that it was the result of the Ukrainian military mistaking MH17 for Putin’s presidential plane, which looks strangely similar?
Did you know that the crash of MH17 was all part of an American conspiracy to provoke a big war with Russia?
Well, it’s all true—at least if you live in Russia, because this is the Malaysia Airlines crash story that you’d be seeing.
READ: I Slept Next to the Wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17As the crisis surrounding the plane crash deepens and as calls for Vladimir Putin to act grow louder, it’s worth noting that they’re not really getting through to Putin’s subjects. The picture of the catastrophe that the Russian people are seeing on their television screens is very different from that on screens in much of the rest of the world, and the discrepancy does not bode well for a sane resolution to this stand-off.
Western media has been vacillating for days between calling Putin a murderer and peppering their coverage with allegedlys, telling the heart-rending tales of the victims, scrounging for anonymous leaks to link the Russians to the downed jet, and punditizing about exit ramps.
But in Russia, television—most of it owned or controlled by the Kremlin—is trying to muddy the water with various experts who insist that there is no way that an SA-11 missile system could possibly have downed a plane flying that high. And, mind you, this is not part of a larger debate of could they, or couldn’t they; this is all of Russian television and state-friendly papers pushing one line: The pro-Russian separatists we’ve been supporting all these months couldn’t have done this. Watching some of these Russian newscasts, one comes away with the impression of a desperate defense attorney scrounging for experts and angles, or a bad kid caught red-handed by the principal, trying to twist his way out of a situation in which he has no chance.
READ: Malaysia Air Corpses Used as Sickening PR Stunt for Rebels' Fake RepublicAnd that’s when they’re not simply peddling conspiracy theories, which have become a kind of symbiotic feedback loop between state TV and the most inventive corners of the Internet. The best of the bunch is, of course, an elaborate one: MH17 is actually MH370, that Malaysia Airlines flight that disappeared into the Indian Ocean. According to this theory, the plane didn’t disappear at all, “it was taken to an American military base, Diego-Garcia.”

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Then it was taken to Holland. On the necessary day and hour, it flew out, bound for Malaysia, but inside were not live people, but corpses. The plane was flown not by real pilots; it was on autopilot. Or take-off (a complicated procedure) was executed by live pilots, who then ejected on parachutes. Then the plane flew automatically. In the necessary spot, it was blown up, without even using a surface-to-air missile. Instead the plane was packed with a bomb, just like the CIA did on 9/11.

The theory also notes that the passports of victims at the crash site all look brand new even though there was an explosion and a fire. “That is, the passports were tossed in [after the crash].” And, most damningly, all the victims’ Facebook pages were created in one day and the media is not showing any of the victims’ families, just the crash site. Though this is not true of Western media, Russian television has not featured any of this. “There’s very little talk about the human cost of this catastrophe,” says independent television analyst Arina Borodina, formerly of the prominent Russian daily Kommersant. “Instead we’re seeing these unbelievable versions. For example, that someone had actually been hunting for the president or that some of the locals saw parachutists coming down from a height of 30,000 feet.”
But though it may look unconvincing to us in the West, that is because we have seen and read other things that contradict it. The Russian media space has become so uniform and independent voices so cowed and marginalized that there is no counterweight and, when there’s no counterweight, if you repeat a thing often enough, it becomes the truth.

This isn’t an innocent you-say-tomato moment; this is a very problematic development. The result of all this Russian coverage is that Russians’ understanding of what happened is as follows. At best, the crash is an unfortunate accident on the part of the Ukrainian military that the West is trying to pin on Russia, which had nothing to do with it; at worst, it is all part of a nefarious conspiracy to drag Russia into an apocalyptic war with the West. So whereas the West sees the crash as a game-changer, the Russians do not see why a black swan event has to change anything or they want to resist what they see is a provocation. To them, after a few days of watching Russian television, it’s not at all clear what happened nor that their government is somehow responsible for this tragedy. And the more we insist on it, the less likely the Russians are to agree.
Floriana Fossato, a longtime scholar of Russian media, says that this, coupled with the media’s conscious use of the Soviet language of crisis—“traitors,” “fascists,” “fifth columns”—quickly brings to the surface the psychological demons of a society massively traumatized by the twentieth century, traumas that society has never adequately addressed. The result, she says, is a kind of collective PTSD-meets-Stockholm Syndrome.
In Russians' view, “Americans have recreated the situation where they have excuse for intervention,” Fossato says. “No one admits that they are afraid, but they are. They are panicked. And they are right in being afraid because they know what happened, and they know there must be an answer to what is going on. And so they lock onto Putin for protection. This is why they don’t turn to Putin and ask him to do something.”
But in addition to the Russian public not clamoring for decisive action from Putin, there is a far more serious problem. As The New Yorker's David Remnick noted in his column on the crash of MH17, Putin has become prisoner to his own propaganda machine, much as he’s become prisoner of the rebels he thought were doing his geopolitical dirty work in Ukraine.
After Putin’s ascent, media became the flexible element that could be readjusted for any twist or turn of the political rudder. “Today, it’s the opposite,” says Gleb Pavlovsky, a political consultant who helped Putin win his first election and was a Kremlin advisor for years afterwards. “It’s almost impossible to turn the rudder of the picture that’s formed on television because it would mean losing the audience they formed in this year” of sword-brandishing and imperialistic conquest.
This audience is now fired up and brandishing its own swords, and the propaganda apparatus, much like the rebels in eastern Ukraine, has rolled on and on, fed by inertia and paranoia, reproducing and magnifying itself with each newscast. The sensationalized newscasts are now neck-and-neck, ratings-wise, with the sitcoms. “It keeps people in a traumatized state,” Pavlovsky says. “It’s notable in media metrics, and in conversations with people. They lose their sanity, they become paranoid and aggressive.”
This has had a noticeable impact on the ruling class, Pavlovsky says, which has to watch this stuff in order to stay au courant. And they become less sane as a result, too, which limits their ability to adequately assess a situation such as this and devise a good way out of it.
“It’s noticeable that the Kremlin is much more tempered than Russian TV but can’t change it,” Pavlovsky says. “It’s fallen into a trap, so it's now trying to function within the strictures of this picture.” He cites the example of the PR contortions the Kremlin had to use just to announce that it would not send troops into eastern Ukraine. “In this seemingly controlled media, any rational political arguments of the state have to be hidden and packaged in idiotic, jingoistic rhetoric,” Pavlovsky says.
None of this looks very good for the West, which is clearly hoping that MH17 is the thing that will bring Putin to his senses and get him to agree to some kind of off-ramp, or, at least, a deescalation. But that’s hard to do if neither your public nor your political class see it as a game-changer or as anything that should force Russia to end this game.
“Of course it gets in Putin’s way. He has to be the hero of this TV material, he’s not free from it anymore,” says Pavlovsky. “I have a feeling he's not very comfortable right now.”
 http://www.newrepublic.com/

Conspiracy Theory: MH17 Actually the Lost MH370, Ukraine Wreckage 'Not MH17'

The recent and tragic crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 that killed 298 people may have filled the news along with the other aircraft fatalities of TransAsia and Air Algerie but no one has forgotten about the mysterious disappearance of MH370.

 

A member of the Ukrainian Emergencies Ministry walks near parts of the wreckage at a crash site of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 near the village of Hrabove (Grabovo), Donetsk region July 21, 2014. REUTERS/Maxim Zmeyev (UKRAINE - Tags: DISASTER POLITICS TRANSPORT)

Several conspiracy theories have already surfaced in social media. Although some were impossible and outrageous, others have become so believable that they have been shared countless times on social media feeds.
Since the crash of Malaysia Airlines MH17, one conspiracy theory began circulating with the eye-catching headline - "MH17 was in fact the 'lost' flight MH370." The individual/s behind the theory believes that the missing MH370 was actually the MH17.
The aircraft was shot down when it was flying over Ukraine on July 17 and crashed with no survivors. According to the viral MH17 conspiracy account, MH370 was "hijacked" before it disappeared from radar. The hijackers may have safely landed the plane somewhere.

U.S. military base Diego Garcia is allegedly within reach from the spot where MH370 lost contact with ground control. Phillip Wood, one of the passengers of MH370, had reportedly sent a photo taken by his iPhone which he hid from hijackers. The metadata on the image revealed Diego Garcia as his location.   
The "MH17 was actually the lost MH370" theory also blamed the U.S. Secret Service since they have the ability to take control of the MH370 plane and set up a "false flag operation."
After news of the MH17 aircraft broke, Russia had lost support and credibility because of the U.S. propaganda.
Conspiracy theorists claimed that the crashed plane wreckage in Ukraine had a different configuration of windows than the actual MH17. The MH17 plane had an extra window found next to the second right-side door. Both the wreckage in Ukraine and MH370 did not have the extra window as supposedly found on the MH17 plane.
Another "proof" claimed by conspiracy theorists is the window matching the flag on MH370. Conspiracy theorists believe the same feature is found on the wreckage in Ukraine and not in the actual MH17 plane.
According to independent journalist Jim Stone, the MH370 plane was new and never repainted. He said the plane that was shot down on Ukraine was MH370 and not MH17 based on the way how the flag is positioned on both planes.
According to reports, a rebel leader had described the bodies found in the Ukraine wreckage as "rotten corpses" and "drained of blood." The pro-Russia rebel commander has suggested that many of the people inside the plane have "died days before the plane took off." People who were allegedly at the crash site reported seeing bodies that were already "decomposing".
As the wreckage of MH370 remains undiscovered, more and more conspiracy theories have gone viral in social media. Only time can tell which one of them is the closest thing to the truth. 

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13 new MERS deaths in Saudi Arabia

RIYADH, May 11: Saudi Arabia has announced 13 more deaths from the MERS coronavirus, as the World Health Organisation prepared for an emergency meeting over worries about the spread of the disease.

The Middle East Respiratory System coronavirus has now killed 139 people and infected 480 in the kingdom since it first appeared in 2012, accounting for the bulk of cases registered across the globe.

In its most recent tally, issued at midday on Saturday, the Saudi health ministry said six people had died from the disease over the past 24 hours.

They were three women aged 22, 26 and 35 who died in Riyadh, a 68-year-old woman and a 78-year-old man in the western city of Medina, and a man in his 70s in the commercial capital Jeddah.

On Friday the ministry said three men aged 94, 51 and 42 had died from MERS in the Jeddah region.

It added that a 74-year-old man had died in the city of Taef, while a woman, 71, and two men aged 81 and 25 respectively, had died in the capital Riyadh.

MERS is considered a deadlier but less-transmissible cousin of the SARS virus that broke out in Asia in 2003, infecting 8,273 people and killing nearly 800.

Like SARS, it appears to cause a lung infection, with patients suffering coughing, breathing difficulties and a temperature, but MERS differs in that it also causes rapid kidney failure.

Experts are struggling to understand the disease for which there are currently no vaccines or antiviral treatments.

The announcement of the latest fatalities in Saudi Arabia came the day after the WHO said it would hold an emergency meeting on Tuesday to discuss the spread of the virus.

The UN health agency’s emergency committee has already met four times to discuss the mysterious coronavirus since it surfaced in 2012.

“The increase in the number of cases in different countries raises a number of questions,” spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told reporters in Geneva on Friday, without giving further details of the aim of the new talks.

MERS cases have also been reported in the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and even the United States, with most involving people who had travelled to Saudi Arabia or worked there, often as medical staff.

- AFP

Tripartite meeting report on MH 370 to be tabled to Cabinet on Wednesday

KUALA LUMPUR, May 12 :  The transport ministry is preparing a joint cabinet paper with the defence and foreign ministries on the outcome of a tripartite ministerial meeting between Malaysia, Australia and China in Australia, to be tabled this Wednesday.

Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Tun Hussein said the cabinet paper, among others, would put forward suggestions by the tripartite meeting on the new search phase for the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370 that has gone missing on March 8.

The new phase of search included an analysis and refinement of the Inmarsat satellite data and the mapping of the seabed in the southern Indian Ocean, where the flight was believed to have ended, he told reporters after receiving a courtesy call from Australian Navy Chief Vice Admiral Ray Griggs at Wisma Pertahanan here today.

“The report will also, among others, include the deployment of assets, which have specific capabilities for the search mission,” he added.

The Tripartite Ministerial Meeting was held at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra on May 5 between Hishammuddin, Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss and Chinese Transport Minister Yang Chuangtang, which among others were to discuss on the new phase of search for MH370.

Flight MH370 with 227 passengers and 12 crew left the KL International Airport at 12.41 am for Beijing, China on March 8 before going off the radar an hour later.

On March 24, 17 days after the Boeing 777-200ER aircraft has gone missing, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced that flight MH370 had ended in the southern Indian Ocean.

Hishammuddin described the recent meeting in Australia as comprehensive, complete and most constructive and reflected a high level of cooperation, collaboration and trust between the three nations.

“What is important is that the meeting in Australia (Canberra) (with the Australian deputy prime minister and Chinese transport minister) was quite historical because it had put aside a lot of conspiracy theories with regards to geopolitical arguments,” he said.

“The point that we are looking at now is on the deep sea search, on the asset that is very specialised and sharing of (search) cost because in the past there was no talk of dollars and cents…to be fair to our partners it is time for us to actually look at it (cost sharing) more seriously, because it might be for a long haul,” he said.

Commenting on the request from the families of those on board MH370 for the government to release raw satellite data, Hishammuddin said it was better for the International Panel of Experts to decide which information should be made public.

Earlier Griggs and his delegation paid a courtesy call on Malaysian Armed Forces Chief General Tan Sri Zulkifeli Mohd Zin and Royal Malaysian Navy Chief Admiral Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Jaafar.- BERNAMA

Resort operators comply with ESScom order on illegal worker ban – DG

SEMPORNA, Apr 26: All resort operators in the district have complied with a directive issued by the Eastern Sabah Security Command (ESScom) to cease employing illegal foreign workers.

ESScom director-general Datuk Mohammad Mentek said this showed the commitment of resort operators in assisting ESScom to rid resorts in Semporna of illegal immigrants.

“I am very satisfied with the cooperation shown by resort operators in the five islands, including Pom Pom, Mataking and Pulau Mabul,” he told reporters after a visit to check the level of security at the island resorts here Friday.
Also present at the visit were ESScom defence director Datuk Masrani Paiman, ESScom defence intelligence division director Mejar-General Datuk Mohd Noor Osman and ESScom security intelligence director Datuk Ahmad Nadzer Nordin.
Mohammad had earlier issued a warning to resort operators to rid their premises of illegal workers and banned nocturnal sea activities.
“Based on our observation in the last two days, I found resort operators have enhanced their level of preparedness in terms of security control. Most of the resorts have installed closed-circuit television cameras and employed more security guards at their premises,” he said.
On the reluctance of some resort operators to engage local workers as they could not speak English and work for long, he said such excuses were not valid as resorts in other parts of the country could operate with local workers.
The security initiatives were taken following a kidnapping at the Singamata Resort on April 2.
- BERNAMA

Mara under fire for asking non-Muslims to name prophets of Islam

KUALA LUMPUR, Apr 30: Sarawak’s outspoken Land Development Minister, Tan Sri Dr James Masing condemned Majlis Amanah Rakyat (Mara) officers for asking non-Muslim candidates to answer Islamic-based questions as part of their scholarship interview.

“They should not have asked Muslim-based questions. The asking of questions on Islamic matters to non-Muslims is plain wrong. What relevance are these questions when applying for a higher learning scholarship? They cannot assume that the candidates know the answer.

“The Mara officers must understand that there are many natives in Sarawak and that Muslims are a minority here. What if the candidate can’t answer the questions? Will he be disqualified,” Masing told The Borneo Post yesterday.

The minister was commenting on an incident that happened last Saturday, where Straight As student, Nigel Unchat Jeremaiah, claimed that he had participated in an ‘open question-and-answer session’ which touched on Islamic religious subjects.

According to Nigel, candidates were asked on Islamic matters such as their understanding and opinion on the Hudud law, ‘rukun Solat’ and ‘adat menziarah jenazah’ among others, reported The Borneo Post.

Candidates were also asked to name some of the Muslim prophets.

The interview, where candidates were divided in groups of 10, was conducted at Maktab Rendah Sains Mara in Semariang near here. It was conducted in three sessions involving group discussion, question-and-answer, and group activity.

The former SMK Batu Lintang student was applying for the Indigenous People’s Trust Council (Mara) scholarship to pursue a Mechanical Engineering programme at Kolej Mara Seremban, Negeri Sembilan.

Masing suggested that the interviewing officer could have asked about the candidates’ opinion or general idea of the government, the concept of 1Malaysia and other subjects which are more appropriate.

He added that the said officers should be qualified enough to ask relevant and appropriate questions.

He said such questions somehow suggested that it could have been raised to disqualify non-Muslim candidates.

“The questions were irrelevant to begin with as if the officers were religious bigots. Just because Malaysia is a Muslim country, doesn’t mean the whole nation knows about Islamic teachings. I do not want this incident to happen again, especially in Sarawak,” Masing said.

Nigel meanwhile alleged that one of the interviewers approached him after realising he did not answer any of the questions posed. After being told that he was a Christian, the officer then asked him on his opinion of the Hudud law.

“In our group, there was another non-Muslim female candidate. We were both facing the same predicament. She was then asked on her opinion about collapsed marriage and family institution.

“It’s not that we do not want to participate in the question-and-answer session but we do not know what to answer. I am worried that our silence during the session could cost us our application.”

He added that in the group discussion and activity sessions, candidates were tested on their problem solving skills and IQ. Based on the Mara website, successful candidates will be notified from May 8.

Nigel is third of five siblings. His elder siblings are currently studying at Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) and Unimas. He achieved 9As in his Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination last year.