Australia yesterday said it was holding out hope that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 would one day be found, as the last search of the seabed in the remote Indian Ocean where the plane was believed to have been lost was scheduled to end.
The search by Texas-based company Ocean Infinity ended yesterday after two extensions of the original 90-day time limit, the Malaysian government said last week.
Australian Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack said the four-year search had been the largest in aviation history and tested the limits of technology, and the capacity of experts and people at sea.
“Our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the 239 people on board MH370,” McCormack’s office said in a statement. “We will always remain hopeful that one day the aircraft will be located.”
Malaysia signed a “no cure, no fee” deal with Ocean Infinity in January to resume the hunt for the plane, a year after the official search in the southern Indian Ocean by Australia, Malaysia and China was called off. No other search is scheduled.
Australia, Malaysia and China agreed in 2016 that an official search would only resume if the three countries had credible evidence that identified a specific location for the wreckage.
Malaysia said last week that an Ocean Infinity ship Seabed Contractor operating underwater sonar drones had searched more than 96,000km2 of sea. The search area deemed by experts to be the most likely crash site was only 25,000km2, about the size of the state of Vermont in the US.
Ocean Infinity did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The Boeing 777 vanished on March 8, 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The original search focused on the South China Sea before analysis revealed that the plane had made an unexpected turn west and then south.
Australia coordinated an official search on Malaysia’s behalf that scoured 120,000km2 and cost A$200 million (US$150 million) before it ended last year.
Danica Weeks, an Australian resident who lost her husband on Flight 370, urged Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop to call on Malaysia’s new government to be more transparent about what it knows about the mysterious disappearance.
“There’ve been so many theories and rumors and ... we don’t know what is true and what isn’t,” Weeks told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“I want Julie Bishop to say to the Malaysian counterparts now: ‘What do you have? Where is the investigation at?’” she added.
The director of the official seabed hunt that ended last year, Peter Foley, told an Australian Senate committee hearing last week that he still hoped that Ocean Infinity would be successful.
“If they’re not, of course, that would be a great sadness for all of us,” Foley said.
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
RSS