A Chinese sonar ship is joining the search for missing Malaysia Airlines plane MH370, Australia's deputy prime minister has said.

The Dong Hai Jiu 101, currently in Singapore, will leave for Australia on Sunday before heading out to the search area in the southern Indian Ocean.

Warren Truss said China had offered the vessel to Australia last November.
Flight MH370 disappeared in March 2014, with 239 people on board, during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Most of the passengers were Chinese citizens.



Based on satellite communications data, the plane is thought to have crashed in the Indian Ocean, but only one piece of debris from the aircraft has ever been found, on the French island of Reunion.
Other pieces of debris that have washed up on various coasts have raised hopes but have ultimately been found not to have come from the missing plane.

Three ships are already searching a 120,000 sq km (46,330 sq miles) area of the ocean floor for the missing plane and officials have said if no trace is found, the search will be called off.
Mr Truss said the Chinese ship would be carrying a 6km towed sonar system to scan the seabed.
He said the ship took the total value of China's contribution to the search to about $14m (£9.7m).

*BBC News

MOSCOW — As consensus builds in the U.S. government that pro-Russian rebels are responsible for shooting down a Malaysian airliner in eastern Ukraine, Russians are embracing a smorgasbord of alternate explanations.

Like: Maybe it was actually part of an assassination plot. Maybe those bodies were planted.

Khadija Gamzatova, 50, heard on the news that Vladimir Putin’s plane crossed flight paths with the Malaysian jet at one point — and thus believes that Ukrainian government troops shot down the jet, thinking it was the Russian president’s plane.

“They were flying close to one another,” said Gamzatova, sitting on a park bench in central Moscow and gesturing to show just how close she believed the planes had been. Ukrainian forces “wanted to shoot down our plane, but this is what they got.”

Tattoo artist Sergey S. had a different theory. “A whole lot of witnesses on the Internet shot video and said the corpses weren’t natural, that the people died a long time before [the plane crashed],” said the 45-year-old, declining to give his last name and emphatically expressing reservations that the reporter to whom he was speaking might be an American spy.

No evidence has emerged to support such explanations. But in Russia, each has earned the stamp of approval of either a mainstream media outlet or an influential corner of the Internet.

Since Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crashed last Thursday, killing all 298 people on board, the Russian media has either repeated or originated several theories about what might have brought down the plane — and almost none leaves open the possibility that the plane crash might have been the Russians’ or the pro-Russian rebels’ fault.

Each account of Ukrainian “provocation” seems to have found a ready audience.

Both Interfax and Russia’s state-owned Channel 1 advanced the theory of a Putin assassination attempt. Russian media reported that Putin’s plane and the Malaysian airliner had crossed the same point on their flight paths near Warsaw about a half hour apart — and that the planes had similar contours.

Various television outlets led their broadcasts with another idea: that a Ukrainian flight dispatcher intentionally steered the jet into a war zone to get shot down. Vitaly Trubin, 24, heard one such report on Russia 24.

“Why would the dispatcher do that?" Trubin asked. "Because the [Ukrainian] government told him to. Because the SBU [Ukrainian Security Service] told him to.”

Meanwhile, tattoo artist Sergey’s preferred explanation — that the downed plane was actually filled with planted corpses — sped around the Russian-language Web after a rebel leader in eastern Ukraine, Igor Girkin, a Russian citizen also known by his nom de guerre Strelkov, was quoted spouting the theory on a VKontakte page dedicated to him Friday.

“According to the people who collected the corpses, most of the corpses were ‘not fresh’ — people died several days ago,” Girkin said, according to the page. Many of the corpses, he claimed, showed no sign of blood.

Russian media aren’t simply presenting alternate theories; seemingly wherever U.S. or Ukrainian officials offer what they say is evidence that could implicate pro-Russian rebels in shooting down the plane, the Russian media is ready to contest it.

When the Ukrainian army said it could show militants had surface-to-air missiles that could have shot down the aircraft, Russian media produced experts to rebut that and rebels to argue that even if they did have such missiles, they were all under repair.

As the U.S. government moved to verify the authenticity of recordings of phone calls that indicated rebels had fired at the plane, Russia 24 aired segments featuring sound production experts to demonstrate how those same recordings were a “fabricated fake.”

Russians have picked up on the home-grown explanations not so much because they trust their own media, said one expert, but because it’s simply anathema to believe an American source.

“We sincerely don’t trust the U.S. We absolutely think you are vicious and cowardly and nasty,” explained Ivan Zassoursky, who chairs the new media department at Moscow State University.

“But then, we also really don’t know anything,” he added.

A fractured media
Zassoursky said the possibility of war with neighboring Ukraine had revived both feelings of national pride and latent mistrust of the West, stemming from the days of the Cold War and reinforced by the U.S. military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. The latest crisis is also playing out at a time when Russians have unprecedented access to news that fits a somewhat jingoistic view of their country.

The mainstream media in Russia is dominated by state-funded television and newspapers. But the rise of the Internet has provided Russians with many other sources of information, even at a time when the Russian government is passing laws to limit the diversity of media on television and online.

“What is happening now is complete madness in a sense, because everybody has dropped their intellectual facilities as unneeded and is trying to join some kind of team,” Zassoursky said. “And that is happening as there is a shift in media, from the old media — which was centralized, and about personalities — to a new media, where people can find communities.”

Not all Russians believe what they read on state-funded media, Zassoursky added, or trust theories presented on social media. Younger and more educated people — especially those who speak languages other than Russian — tend to have a more critical view of the world, he said, and of their government.

But even those who filter their news somewhat often don’t come to radically different conclusions about who is to blame for the Malaysian plane crash.

Alexei Smirnov, 45 and his wife, Olga Smirnova, 43, said they regularly tune out the state-funded channels in favor of EuroNews, which is based in France and partially funded by the E.U., or LifeNews, which is pro-Kremlin but not state-owned. But even if they don’t believe any of the reports about Putin’s plane or planted bodies, they still think that fault for the accident lies with Ukraine.

“It’s a terrible situation for these people, but the responsibility must rest with Ukraine, regardless of where the rocket [that hit the plane] was flown from,” Smirnov said.

And even those who are loath to speculate at all on who is at fault still can’t really swallow the U.S. version of what brought down the Malaysian jet.

“It’s possible,” Artyom Kruglov, 19, a university student who studies physics and speaks some English, said when asked whether the American government's version of events — in which Russia bears some fault — could be true. “But — why?"

*The Washington Post

MISTERI MH370 MENGGEMPARKAN DUNIA! Kita semakin hari semakin lemas dengan isu MH 370. Sejak hari pertama kehilangan MH370 sampai sekarang tak putus-putus saya menerima info dan spekulasi tentang misteri MH370 samada melalui media sosial facebook atau twitter atau entri-entri blog yang ambil kesempatan atas ‘keyword panas’ MH370 yang menjadi bualan semua warga malaysia dan seluruh dunia. Banyak isu-isu penting yang lain karam dan tenggelam disebabkan MH370.

PENDIRIAN SAYA JELAS. Saya berpendirian sejak awal lagi tentang isu MH370 ini hanya mengikuti segala berita, tidak pejam mata walau orang cakap ianya spekulasi kerana keadaan sebenar tidak kita ketahui. Cuma saya berhati-hati agar tidak mudah buat keputusan tanpa ada sumber yang jelas. Saya juga pastikan tidak bersubahat menyebar berita dan cerita dari sumber yang belum disahkan benar. Saya takut dosa, saya taknak menyakiti hati ansli-ahli keluarga yang terlibat. InshaaAllah saya yakin akan tiba masanya Allah akan tunjukkan di mana beradanya MH370 dan bagaimana keadaan penumpang-penumpang dan krewnya. Kita hanya boleh berdoa, elakkan dari menyebar info-info yang tidak sah.

PANDANGAN ULAMA AMAT DIPERLUKAN. Sehingga hari ini ada beberapa insan yang saya ikuti secara serius pandangan tentang misteri MH370. Alhamdulillah penjelasan mereka amat detail dan saya dapat banysk ilmu dan pengajaran darinya. Syukur kerana di sebalik kesedihan dan kebimvangan terselit hikmah yang memberi manafaat kepada kita dan bagi mereka yang ingin mengambil manafaat darinya. Tak kurang juga dengan misteri ini menjadikannya lebih banyak doda dan jauh dari Allah. Moga dijauhi…. Astaghfirullahal ’aziim.

TIBA MASANYA ULAMA BERSUARA. Salah seorang tokoh yang sekian lama saya tunggu pandangannya adalah Tuan Guru Dato Dr. Haron Din Al-Hafiz. Alhamdulillah baru-baru ini beliau telah memberikan pandangan tentang misteri MH370 dari sesi kuliah maghribnya di salah sebuah masjid. Beliau sebenarnya tidak berapa sihat sebelum ini dan alhamdulillah makin beransur baik sekarang dan boleh terus berdakwah melalui kuliah-kuliahnya.



PANDANGAN DAN NASIHAT TUAN GURU DATO’ DR. HARON DIN. Di bawah ini saya share sedikit ulusan untuk dikongsikan dengan sahabat pembaca semua. Antara ringkasan kuliah maghrib Dato Dr Haron Din yang menyentuh tentang isu MH370 dan mengambil kesempatan memberi beberapa nasihat dan teguran untuk kebaikan kita semua disebalik misteri MH370 yang harus kita semua difahami dan lakukan muhasabah diri.

ISLAM ITU SISTEM HIDUP YANG SEBENAR. Kembali kepada cara hidup islam, sistem Islam… Ayuh kita semua kembali kepada Allah Taala yang Maha berkuasa. Insaflah bahawa kita sedang diuji Allah. Hadapilah ia dengan penuh keinsafan dan bertaubatlah segera atas segala dosa dan kesilapan.

KUASA ALLAH MENGATASI SEGALANYA. Air di empangan makin kurang.. 3/4 Malaysia berjerebu dan terbaru insiden MH370. Berpuluh-puluh kapal laut dan kapal terbang dengan teknologi terkini cari pun tidak jumpa. Allah nak ajar manusia bahawa ilmu kita ni sangat sedikit berbanding ilmu Allah.

ILMU KITA MANUSIA HANYA CEBISAN KECIL ILMU ALLAH. Jika kita ambil seluruh air di lautan dan digunakan seluruh pokok dan tumbuhan-tumbuhan untuk dijadikan tinta menulisnya, pasti masih tidak mampu untuk menulis kalimah-kalimah Allah, apatah lagi ilmuNya.

JAUHI PERKARA-PERKARA YANG DIHARAMKAN. Dr Haron Din kemudiannya membacakan ayat Quran yang membicarakan tentang larangan makan dan minum yang haram, dan bila kita langgar perintah Allah itu pasti mengundang kemurkaan Allah lalu Allah. Akibatnya akan turun bala kepada mereka yang engkar dan kekal degil.

ALLAH MALUKAN KITA… Misteri MH370 menjadikan negara kita Malaysia sebagai sebuah negara tumpuan dunia. Kehilangan MH370 juga mengundang perkara-perkara yang dilarang Allah seperti perbuatan khurafat oleh bomoh. Allah malukan kita dengan perbuatan tersebut yang tersebar seluruh dunia mengambarkan Malaysia masih bergelumang dengan amalan khurafat yang dilarang keras dalam Islam.



LIHATLAH DENGAN MATA HATI. Majoriti manusia hanya melihat insiden MH370 dengan mata kasar semata, tidak melihat peristiwa tersebut dengan mata hati. Mata hati kita buta kerana banyak maksiat dan amalan khurafat. Allah ingatkan kita agar kembali padaNya, insaf dan segera bertaubat.

SOLAT HAJAT. Apabila sudah 3 atau 4 hari tidak jumpa baru nak ingat Allah, baru nak buat solat hajat. Bagi yang terang mata hatinya, sejak awal lagi berlakunya trajedi tersebut terus ucapkan innalillahi wainna ilaihirojiuun, dari Dia kita datang dan kepada Dia kita semua kembali.

INSAFLAH… JADIKAN DOA SATU AMALAN. Kemudian Dr. Haron Din kongsikan pengalaman beliau dan mengatakan hanya Saudi Airline dan Penerbangan Brunei yang baca doa perjalanan sebelum penerbangan. Kenapa kita tidak berserah pada Allah dalam setiap permulaan perjalanan?

JAUHI & BENCILAH PADA AMALAN KHURAFAT. Di Malaysia ni, banyak sangat orang Islam yang percayakan perkara khurafat. Bomoh sudah jadi kelaziman hinggakan orang buat tikar terbang di KLIA pun tiada orang Islam yang menghalang. Astaghfirullahal ’aziim. Seluruh dunia menyaksikan gejala khurafat dan kesyirikan yang berlaku di negara kita! Lihatlah dengan mata hati… itu penghinaan Allah pada kita. Wallahua’lam.

Jom kita share info dan ilmu ringkas ini ke facebook/ twitter/ g+ (klik di bawah). Semoga melalui usaha yang sedikit ini kita diberikan pahala yang berpanjangan dan kehidupan yang lebih tenang, inshaaAllah…

To cherish something is to care for it deeply and often. It is the small sacrifices made that taste the sweetest, as Nyin shows us. Celebrate this Chinese New Year with a warm reunion dinner beside loved ones, no matter how far you've travelled. After all, it is the sweetness in life that makes it worth living. 

With more than 150 flights within Malaysia, we believe in making connections, because there is #nodistancetoofar. #dekatje #flyinghigh

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