JUST READ!

---

Aladdin... Posted: 12 Mar 2014 08:23 PM PDT The whole world watched how a 'bomoh' (shaman) performed his 'mantra' at the KLIA on Tuesday to help locate the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. US President Barack Obama who will visit Malaysia soon also watched it together with his White House officials. I wonder if he will ask Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak about it when they meet in Kuala Lumpur, probably about the possibility of hiring one (laugh!) The 'bomoh', I believe gets more popular than MH370 when the video goes viral. While Jakim (Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia) says it was 'unIslamic', some quarters said at least he gave it a try. However, many felt ashamed about it - Malaysian 'vodoo', black magic, sorcery and supernatural are very much alive. No wonder there are still perceptions that cannibalism still exist in our jungles. More and more foreign media published the story, putting us in the same class of the semi-primitive tribes in Africa and deeper Amazon. Their social media are making fun of us amid continuous and round the clock search and rescue (SAR) operations for the missing plane. With all the confusion, mystery and desperation surrounding the missing Malaysian flight MH370, all means were being explored. In Malaysia, a local bomoh (shaman or a witch doctor), Ibrahim Mat Zin, conducted a ritual in Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA). The bomoh who was more popularly known as Raja Bomoh Sedunia Nujum VIP and with his title of Datuk Mahaguru, used water, two coconuts, a magical walking stick and carpet. He performed the ritual with two of his assistants riding the magic carpet - one rowing and the other removing the water. However, we got some pats on the back. Amid accusation by some foreign media over contradicting statements issued by several senior government agencies on the SAR progress, what Malaysia has been doing is getting recognition worldwide. A UNITED States Navy commander  praised the Malaysian government's search-and-rescue (SAR) efforts for the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 jetliner. Commander William Marks, who is spokesman for the United States Navy Seventh Fleet, credited the government for its well-organised action plan in coordinating the SAR efforts involving more than 10 countries. "I give them a lot of credit. They have done what I would call an exceptional job. It's like a big chessboard out there. It's really like moving chess pieces around, and that's 3-D. You have three dimensions, you have the water, space and the airspace. "If you don't do a good job of it, there is a very real possibility of an accident. They have a very well organised plan. "They track all these assets coming in from all these countries, they make assignments and they're very efficient, very professional," he told Sinosphere, the China-based blog of the New York Times during a recent interview. Marks said the SAR teams were confronted with a "very difficult, very challenging puzzle" as the search area for the missing aircraft got bigger as time passed. Immediately after the Press conference at KLIA yesterday evening, acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Tun Hussein was also praised by members of the media for 'saving the situation' - a preference to the previous few briefings by senior officials that led to the contradicting information. They agreed that Hisham should take charge and lead the briefing until the case is closed.

MH370: Poor crisis management! Posted: 12 Mar 2014 01:55 AM PDT International media are hitting at us over the search and rescue (SAR) for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, slamming the government and its various agencies for producing contradictory statements about its progress. So many parties are issuing statements and calling for press conference as if there was a competition to outdo each other on who has the better and precise findings about the SAR. And in a few press conferences, I noticed those few who gave statements and answered members of the media - about 200 of them, mostly foreign journalists who camped at KLIA - did not match each others. I believe we better let Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak or acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Tun Hussein be the man in-charge here. Other agencies, namely DCA, MAS, the Armed Forces and others should just channel whatever info they got to him, and whenever there is new development, Hisham will address the media. The Malaysian authorities have come under fire following conflicting accounts on the last known position of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 before it went missing. The New York Times said the authorities had repeatedly said they were doing their best but Putrajaya and the airline had issued imprecise, incomplete and sometimes inaccurate information, with civilian officials contradicting military leaders. Yesterday, on the fourth day of the search, the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) chief General Tan Sri Rodzali Daud confirmed that its Butterworth base had received a signal which showed that the missing Malaysia Airlines flight had turned back in South China Sea airspace on Saturday. Malay-language daily Berita Harian had quoted Rodzali as saying that the signal received indicated that the plane followed its original route before it entered the airspace above the northern east coast of the peninsula. "The last time the plane could be traced by an air control tower was near Pulau Perak, which is on the Strait of Malacca at 2.40am. "After that, the signal from the plane was lost," Rodzali had said. However, Rodzali today said he did not make that statement but had instead said: "the RMAF has not ruled out the possibility of an air turn back on a reciprocal heading before the aircraft vanished from the radar and this resulted in the search and rescue operations being widen to the vicinity of the waters off Penang." It was also reported that a Singaporean air traffic surveillance and control unit also picked up the signal that MH370 "made a turn back before it was reported to have climbed 1,000m from its original altitude at 10,000m". The plane, carrying 239 passengers of 14 nationalities and an all-Malaysian cabin crew, left the Kuala Lumpur International Airport for Beijing at 12.40am on Saturday. It was earlier reported that the plane, a Boeing 777-200ER aircraft (registration number 9M-MRO), went missing about 1.30am while flying above the South China Sea between the Malaysian east coast and the southern coast of Vietnam. The plane reportedly went off radar and its last known location was 065515 North (longitude) and 1033443 East (latitude). The New York Times report said Rodzali's statement stunned aviation experts as well as officials in China, who had been told again and again that the authorities had lost contact with the plane more than an hour earlier, when it was on course over the Gulf of Thailand, east of the peninsula. Someone has to be in control, and in this case, PM or Hisham is the right person. When too many people speak and give different versions of the story, it will become a 'night market' or 'pasar malam'. What happened to MH370 needs a good crisis management team (CMT), which I am yet to see and feel because of some people who 'wanted to be heroes' in this drama. We don't need heroes here; we need a strong, cool and reliable source. And that source must come from one person who is in charge; not from so many individuals who want the stage! "Too many cooks spoil the soup!"

You are subscribed to email updates from JUST READ! To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jom berjuang bersama rakan bloggers di Facebook!

Tunjukkan sokongan anda! Sila Like.