MH370: O descrédito do Estado malaio

Kuala Lumpur: After three weeks of fruitless searching for any evidence of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the Malaysian government said on Saturday it had not fully given up hope of finding survivors. Although aviation experts have said there is no chance of survival, acting transport minister and defence minister Hishammuddin Hussein told the distraught relatives in the Malaysian capital that there was still a remote chance. Relatives of passengers and crew have already begun filing insurance claims against the airline and aircraft manufacturer Boeing, while the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has said the 777's flight "ended" in the remote southern Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia. Mr Hishammuddin said he still hoped for a miracle in the Australian-led search. "I cannot give them (relatives) false hope," he said. "The best we can do is pray and be sensitive to them, that as long as there is even a remote chance of a survivor, we will pray and do whatever it takes." “Miracles do happen, remote or otherwise, and that is the hope that the families want me to convey not only to the Malaysian government, MAS (Malaysia Airlines), but also to the world at large. “For me, as the minister responsible, this is the hardest part of my life,” said Mr Hishammuddin. The Malaysian government has been criticised by angry relatives for what they say has been a bungled search and hiding details. Chinese relatives have staged protests in Malaysia and walk-outs from Malaysian briefings in Beijing. “The contradictory and piecemeal information Malaysia Airlines and its government have provided has made search efforts difficult and the entire incident even more mysterious,” the China Daily wrote in an editorial. “What else is known that has not been shared with the world?” Leading Chinese artists have called for a boycott of Malaysian goods and the Chinese government has formally raised concerns with Mr Najib over his country’s handling of the disaster. Mr Hishammuddin – touted as a possible successor to Mr Najib before this crisis – said Malaysia would be judged as doing everything it could and acting responsibly. But he also admitted on Friday that the focus of the search, which had been moved by 1100 km because of revised data analysis, was likely to shift again in the next few days. As defence minister, Mr Hishammuddin is also overseeing an air force investigation into why at least three military radar stations failed to detect MH370 immediately after it made a U-turn over the Malaysian peninsula and why they failed scramble fighter jets to intercept it. The Sydney Morning Herald