MH370: China to go 'all out' in underwater search

BEIJING: China on Saturday said it will go all out in the underwater search for the crashed Malaysian jet even though the hunt for the plane has reached a dead end with no clues emerging so far.

The China Maritime Search and Rescue Centre said it dispatched a navy vessel 872, which has "strong underwater search capacities", to the southern Indian Ocean off the Australian coast where the search operation was on for the past seven weeks, adding that China will go all out in the search for Flight MH370, the centre said.

The ship was expected to arrive there on May 10, Wang Zhenliang, deputy head of the centre said today acknowledging that the search will face more complicated situations in the southern Indian Ocean.

With 154 passengers of the total 239 onboard the plane being Chinese, China has taken a lead role in the search operation.

Defence officials here also regard it as an opportunity to test the limits of the fast developing Chinese navy.

China has sent a total of 18 naval vessels, 13 planes, and has used 21 satellites in the search operation.

The move to send a ship to the area came as most of the search teams are winding up their operations with no breakthrough so far.

Attempts by the American submersible Bluefin-21 to search the seabed have also not yielded any results so far.

Some Chinese analysts say that China should deploy its manned submersible, the Jialong, which in the recent past underwent successful deep dive testing.

Chinese officials say a definite plan about future search operations was expected to be an announced after a ministerial meeting between Malaysia, China and Australia.

Meanwhile, Malaysia Airlines' decision to shut down assistance centres set up for relatives of passengers aboard the lost plane has left the families angry and confused.

The family members were asked to check out of the Lido Hotel in Beijing yesterday.

About 100 policemen and several ambulances were on stand-by in case of trouble.

"Why did they ask us to leave so suddenly? Why couldn't they have given us five or six more days?" asked a woman from Henan province, the South China Morning Post reported.

Chinese relatives have resorted to rare demonstrations in recent weeks to express their frustration over the delay in finding the plane.

They were asked to vacate their hotel rooms yesterday and return to their homes by Malaysia Airlines officials promising continued contact and timely information.

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Pope sex abuse panel highlights accountability

VATICAN CITY: Members of Pope Francis' sexual abuse advisory board say they will develop specific protocols to hold bishops and other church authorities accountable if they fail to report suspected abuse or protect children from pedophile priests.

The eight-member committee met for the first time this week at the pope's Vatican hotel to discuss the scope of their work and future members.

Briefing reporters Saturday, Cardinal Sean O'Malley, the archbishop of Boston, said current church laws could hold bishops accountable if they fail to do their jobs to protect children. But he said those laws hadn't been sufficiently applied and that "clear and effective protocols are now necessary.

Marie Collins, a committee member and survivor of sexual abuse, said she came away from the inaugural meeting of the commission "hopeful."

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MERS death toll in Saudi climbs to 107

RIYADH: Saudi health authorities announced on Saturday two new deaths from the MERS coronavirus, raising to 109 the number of fatalities since the disease appeared in the kingdom in September 2012.

A 25-year-old man has died in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah and a woman of 69, who suffered from tuberculosis and anaemia, died in Mecca, also western Saudi Arabia, the health ministry said.

At the same time, 35 new cases of the severe respiratory disease have been recorded, raising the number of sufferers in the Gulf state over the past two years to 396, the world's highest tally.

Yesterday, US health officials said the first case of MERS has been confirmed in the United States.

The person infected with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is a health care provider who had travelled to Riyadh for work, they said.

And last week, Egypt recorded its first infection after a person who arrived from Saudi Arabia tested positive.

Public concern in Saudi Arabia over the spread of MERS has mounted after the resignation of at least four doctors at Jeddah's King Fahd Hospital who refused to treat patients for fear of infection.

Some research has suggested that camels are a likely source of the virus.

MERS is considered a deadlier but less-transmissible cousin of the Sars virus that erupted in Asia in 2003 and infected 8,273 people, nine percent of whom died.

There are no vaccines or antiviral treatments for MERS, a disease with a mortality rate of more than 40 per cent that experts are still struggling to understand.

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Nasa captures huge fires in NKorea

LONDON: A Nasa satellite has shown dozens of fires burning across North Korea, which the agency says could be caused by the country's aging infrastructure.

Some of the fires are in heavily forested areas, which suggests that they could be wildfires, said Nasa. Drooping power lines on old power lines often cause wildfires in the country, reports have claimed.

Lots of the fires are in farming areas, which are likely caused by farmers to clear debris and help fertilise soil for the next season.

The fires have sent plumes of smoke over the Sea of Japan.

Nasa's finds bring further scrutiny to North Korea, which recently found itself in hot water after appearing to steal from the American space agency. The country revealed a new logo for its space agency, Nada, which looked remarkably like its US peer.

The image was taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, on Nasa's Aqua satellite. The satellite has captured similar but less dense fires in the past.

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11 children killed in Syria bombings

DAMASCUS: Eleven children were among 18 people killed in two bombings in central Syria Friday, state media reported, as al-Qaida's chief called on its Syrian affiliate to stop fighting rival jihadists.
The deadly attacks, in which suicide bombers blew themselves up in vehicles, targeted two towns in Hama province that are majority Alawite, the religious community to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs.

The first bombing, in the town of Jibrin, in the southwest of the province, killed 17 civilians, including the 11 children, state media said.

The second attack hit the town of Al-Humairi and killed one person, state news agency SANA reported.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 15 people had been killed in the attacks.

They come after a double car bombing claimed by al-Qaida's Syria affiliate Al-Nusra Front killed at least 100 people on Tuesday in a majority Alawite district of the central city of Homs.

This week also saw 33 civilians killed in the main northern city of Aleppo on Thursday when government aircraft bombed a popular market in a rebel-held district.

Despite the violence, Syria's government plans to hold the country's first multi-candidate presidential elections in just over a month's time on June 3.

Assad is widely expected to sweep to victory in the vote, the first since a constitutional amendment did away with an old system of presidential referendums.

But 23 other hopefuls have also submitted applications to stand, although only Assad and a maximum of two other candidates are expected to secure sufficient backing in parliament to get their names on the ballot.

The Supreme Constitutional Court is expected to announce which candidates have made the cut on May 6.

The government has not explained how it will organise countrywide elections with violence that has killed more than 150,000 people ravaging much of Syria.

Large swathes of the country are beyond government control and the violence has forced nearly half Syria's citizens to flee their homes.

The conflict in Syria began in March 2011, with peaceful anti-government protests that the regime tried to put down with force.

Much of the opposition took up arms and the country has since sunk into a civil war that has proved impervious to international mediation efforts.

Since early January, moderate and Islamist rebels, along with Al-Nusra Front, have also been battling against the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

The group has gained notoriety for abuses against both civilians and rival opposition fighters.

ISIL has its roots in Al-Qaeda's Iraq arm, but has since fallen out with the organisation, whose chief Ayman al-Zawahiri has regularly called on it to leave Syria and focus on Iraq.

In a new audio recording posted online Friday, Zawahiri for the first time ordered Al-Nusra's chief Mohammed al-Jolani to end fighting with ISIL.

Zawahiri ordered that "all soldiers of the Front immediately cease fighting" other jihadist groups.

Instead, he urged Jolani to "devote himself to combat the enemies of Islam, specifically Baathists, Shiites and their allies."

The Baath is Syria's ruling party, which is headed by Assad.

Zawahiri also repeated his call for ISIL to leave Syria, urging the group's chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to "devote himself to wounded Iraq, which needs you to redouble your efforts" there.

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Rebels down Ukraine helicopters, Putin denounces city assault

SLAVIANSK, Ukraine: Pro-Russian rebels shot down two Ukrainian helicopters on Friday, killing two crew, as troops tightened their siege of separatist-held Slaviansk and Moscow accused Kiev of launching a "criminal" assault that wrecked hopes of peace.

Though Ukrainian forces appeared to be carrying out one of their most concerted military operations yet, their advance on the ground was limited. Nevertheless, President Vladimir Putin's spokesman accused Kiev of firing on civilians from the air in a "punitive operation" that destroyed an international peace plan.

Russia was "extremely worried" about the fate of Russians in the city, including an envoy sent to help free German and other foreign hostages, the Kremlin spokesman said.

The dramatic language seems to raise the stakes, as Moscow has tens of thousands of troops massed on the border and claims the right to invade if needed to protect Russian speakers.

Reuters journalists in Slaviansk, the most heavily fortified bastion of pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, heard shooting break out and saw one helicopter opening fire before dawn. Ten hours later, the city was largely quiet, with shops shut and armed separatists in control of the streets.

Advancing Ukrainian forces in armoured vehicles took up positions closer in to the suburbs, but rebels still controlled most of the city of 130,000.

The separatist pro-Russian militants also made more moves on Thursday, seizing a rail control centre for the Donetsk region, a railway official said. By cutting off power, they had all but paralysed train traffic.

Kiev said the firing of missiles that brought down its helicopters was evidence that Russian forces were present in the town. Moscow denies that its troops are on the ground.

Nonetheless, Kremlin accounts of grave threats to civilians highlight the risk of a Russian move to seize territory ahead of a vote the rebels aim to hold on May 11 seeking a mandate to break with Kiev, like one held in the Crimea region before Moscow annexed it in March.

For Russians, the Kremlin's rhetoric of "fascists" in Kiev launching a "punitive operation" evokes the depredations of Nazi German invaders in World War Two, being given extensive state media coverage as next week's anniversary of the Soviet victory is used to foster national pride and nostalgia.

Sound of canon

On the square outside city hall in Slaviansk, about 100 people gathered on Friday and said they were appealing to Putin to send troops to help them.

Businesswoman Tamara Voshchanaya said: "What can you think when the sound of cannon makes you jump out of bed, when helicopters are flying over and shooting at our guys?

"We are ready to stand firm, we will not abandon the guys. Give us weapons, and we too will go against the Right Sector," she said, referring to a Ukrainian nationalist group, which Moscow says is menacing Russian speakers across Ukraine.

On the town's southern outskirts, eight Ukrainian armoured personnel carriers cut off the road but faced a cordon two deep of local residents shouting at them to go home.

Some rebels threw up new barricades of felled trees.

Putin's popularity has soared with the seizure of Crimea and talk of restoring Moscow's former empire. This week he restored the Soviet-era tradition of holding a May Day parade on Red Square, where marchers carried banners hailing the acquisition of Ukrainian territory.

The European Union said it was watching events in eastern Ukraine with growing concern. But Kiev is not a member of NATO and Western leaders have made clear they will not fight to defend Ukraine.

Helicopters down

The Ukrainian defence ministry said in a statement that two Mi-24 attack helicopters had been shot down by shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles while on patrol overnight around Slaviansk. Two airmen were killed and others wounded.

The aircraft normally has two crew but can carry more.

Other Ukrainian officials and the separatist leader in Slaviansk said earlier that one airman was taken prisoner.

A third helicopter, an Mi-8 transport aircraft, was also hit and a serviceman wounded, the defence ministry said. The SBU security service said this helicopter was carrying medics.

Ukrainian officials said their troops overran rebel checkpoints and Slaviansk was now "tightly encircled".

Putin's spokesman heaped blame on the Ukrainian government, which took power two months ago after pro-Western protests forced the Kremlin-backed elected president to flee to Russia.

Noting that Putin had warned before that any "punitive operation" would be a "criminal act", Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies that this was what had now happened at Slaviansk.

Peskov said Putin had sent an envoy, Vladimir Lukin, to southeast Ukraine to negotiate the release of European military observers held by the rebels, and that Lukin had not been heard from since the Ukrainian operation began.

"While Russia is making efforts to de-escalate and settle the conflict, the Kiev regime has turned to firing on civilian towns with military aircraft and has begun a punitive operation, effectively destroying the last hope of survival for the Geneva accord," he said, referring to a deal on April 17 signed by Russia, Ukraine, the United States and the European Union.

Under that agreement, separatists were supposed to lay down their arms and vacate the public buildings they have seized in about a dozen towns they have seized across the Russian-speaking east. Since then, however, they have tightened their grip.

Ukraine's interior ministry said it persuaded separatists to leave two buildings in the city of Luhansk on Friday.

The SBU said the deadly use by the separatists of shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles was evidence that "trained, highly qualified foreign military specialists" were operating in the area "and not local civilians, as the Russian government says, armed only with guns taken from hunting stores".

On his Facebook page, interior minister Arsen Avakov posted: "The goal of our anti-terrorist operation and, at the same time, our demands to the terrorists are simple:

"Free the hostages, lay down weapons, vacate administrative buildings and get municipal infrastructure back to normal."

He urged local people to stay indoors and said Ukrainian forces, from the interior ministry, National Guard and the armed forces, had orders not to fire on residential buildings.

The rebels said they had the upper hand.

"They wanted to carry out some small-scale tactical operations just to scare the people," said a militant manning a checkpoint leading to the army-held airfield.

"But so far things have not worked out the way they wanted."

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Clashes near Damascus kill 14 rebels: Activists

BEIRUT: Clashes between Syrian government forces and opposition fighters killed 14 rebels in a flare-up overnight along a strategic corridor between Damascus and the Lebanese border, activists said on Thursday.

The fighting in Zabadani, a town near Damascus and the last rebel stronghold in the area - is part of the larger battle for control of the mountainous Qalamoun region, stretching from the Syrian capital to the border with Lebanon.

President Bashar Assad's forces, backed by Lebanese militant Hezbollah fighters, launched an offensive in Qalamoun in mid-November, ousting rebels from the area and cutting their supply routes from Lebanon.

According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which gathers reports from opposition activists on the ground, the latest bout of clashes killed 14 rebels and an unknown number of soldiers. Syrian government does not publicize its casualty figures in the 3-year-old conflict.

Another activist group, The Syria-based Local Coordination Committees, said government aircraft dropped four crude bombs on Zabadani overnight.

The Qalamoun region was a key supply corridor from Lebanon to opposition-held rural areas around Damascus. From there, rebels have been firing mortars into the capital, the seat of Assad's government.

While mortar attacks have subsided since the fall of two opposition strongholds in Qalamoun, rebels are still able to strike with lethal force in the heart of the capital and other cities.

Syrian state news agency SANA said two teachers were wounded when mortar shells exploded near a school in the central Damascus district of Qanawat on Thursday. Earlier this week, a massive double car bombing in the central city of Homs and a mortar strike in Damascus killed at least 54 people.

Also Thursday, activists said that the death toll from a government airstrike that hit a school in the northern city of Aleppo the previous day rose to 20, including 17 children.

Initially, 10 children were reported killed when a Syrian fighter jet struck the school in the city's rebel-held eastern section. But the Observatory, which relies on reports by activists on the ground, said seven more bodies were later pulled from the rubble.

The attack took place as teachers and students were preparing an exhibit of children's drawings depicting Syria at war, activists said. The local Aleppo Media Center put the toll at 25 killed, most of them children.

Aleppo, Syria's largest city, has been divided between government forces and rebels for nearly two years, with constant fighting doing little to change the balance on the ground. Assad's forces have been carrying out airstrikes and dropping crude barrel bombs in rebel-held districts in the eastern part of the city, at times hitting schools, mosques and markets.

Thousands of Syrian children have been killed in the country's bloody conflict, which began as protests against Assad's rule in March 2011. The revolt became an armed uprising after some opposition supporters took up arms to fight a brutal government crackdown. It turned into a civil war, which has killed more than 150,000 people and displaced millions.

In Damascus, four more Syrians - none of whom are publicly known - submitted bids to run in the June 3 presidential elections, bringing the number of contenders so far to 21, Parliament Speaker Jihad Laham said Thursday.

Under the law, each candidate has to be endorsed by 35 lawmakers for a bid to become official and each lawmaker in the 245-seat parliament can only endorse one candidate. This would limit the number of final candidates in the race.

Opposition activists and Western countries have condemned the elections as a sham. Assad is widely expected to win his third seven-year term since he succeeded his father, Hafez, in 2000, and the vote next month is seen as an attempt to give him a veneer of electoral legitimacy amid the war that has devastated the country and dived it along sectarian lines.

The rebels, fighting to oust Assad are predominantly Sunni Muslims and his government is dominated by Alawites, a sect in Shiite Islam.

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Malaysia Airlines asks kin of MH370 passengers to go home

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airlines today asked distraught relatives of the 227 passengers on board the ill-fated Flight MH370 to go back to the "comfort of their own homes" as the search for the plane could be a prolonged one.

"Instead of staying in hotels, the families of MH370 are advised to receive information updates on the progress of the search and investigation and other support by Malaysia Airlines within the comfort of their own homes, with the support and care of their families and friends," the airlines said in a statement.

It said the search and investigation into the disappearance of the Boeing 777-200 could be a prolonged process.

Malaysia Airlines will be closing all of its Family Assistance Centres around the world by May 7.

However, with the support of the Malaysian government, the airlines will establish Family Support Centres in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing.

The airlines said it will keep in close touch with the families on news updates through telephone calls, messages, the Internet and face-to-face meetings.

The detailed plan of follow-up support and services will be informed in person to the families, the statement said.

Malaysia Airlines said it will make advanced compensation payments soon to the nominated next-of-kin who are entitled to claim compensation in order to meet their immediate economic needs.

Such advanced payments will not affect the rights of the next-of-kin to claim compensation according to the law at a later stage and will be calculated as part of the final compensation, the statement said.

"Immediately after the next-of-kin have returned home, our representatives will be in touch with them at the earliest opportunity to initiate the advanced compensation payment process," it said.

The Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines flight MH370- carrying 239 people, including five Indians, an Indo-Canadian and 154 Chinese nationals - had mysteriously vanished on March 8 after taking off from Kuala Lumpur.

The mystery of the missing plane continued to baffle aviation and security authorities who have so far not succeeded in tracking the aircraft despite deploying hi-tech radar and other gadgets.

Malaysia believes the flight was deliberately diverted by someone on board and that satellite data indicates it crashed in the Indian Ocean, west of the Australian city of Perth.

The Malaysian government has so far been tight-lipped about its investigation into the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines jet, adding to the anger and frustration among relatives of the passengers.

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Yemen army kills 7 'Qaida' militants in south offensive

ADEN: Yemeni troops backed by aircraft killed seven suspected al-Qaida militants, including a local leader, as they pressed a ground offensive in the south, the defence ministry and army said on Thursday.

Three soldiers were also killed on Thursday when al-Qaida suspects ambushed their convoy in the central province of Baida, a government official there said.

The machinegun attack targeted Baida governor Aldhaher al-Shadadi and commander of the 7th military region General Ali Mohsen Muthanna, both of whom escaped unscathed, the source said.

The ambush came as an army assault that began overnight focused on the Shabwa province towns of Maifaa and Azzan.

Three vehicles were destroyed and six suspected militants travelling in them killed, the defence ministry's news website 26sep.net said.

Residents of the two towns said fierce fighting was still under way. In neighbouring Abyan province, troops killed a local leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), state news agency Saba reported, identifying him as Abu Muslim al-Uzbeki.

The jihadist "was probably killed in clashes that erupted when army forces advanced into Al-Mahfad", an army officer told AFP, referring to an al-Qaida stronghold in Abyan.

A security official said Uzbeki travelled in 2011 from Uzbekistan to Yemen, where he was named an AQAP leader in Abyan.

The army launched a major offensive on Tuesday aimed at clearing the jihadists from their remaining strongholds in villages and smaller towns in Shabwa and Abyan.

The operation began with a setback for the army when al-Qaida ambushed a convoy, killing 15 soldiers and taking 15 more prisoner, three of whom were later executed.

A total of 24 soldiers and 22 suspected militants have been reported killed in the ground offensive, which followed intense US and Yemeni air strikes last week.

AQAP - a merger of the network's Yemeni and Saudi branches - is regarded by Washington as its most dangerous franchise and has been subjected to an intensifying drone war this year.

The jihadists took advantage of a 2011 uprising that forced veteran strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh from power to seize large swathes of southern and eastern Yemen.

The army recaptured several major towns in 2012 but has struggled to reassert control in rural areas, despite backing from militia recruited among the local tribes.

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Middle East peace deadline expires

LONDON, A US deadline for peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians has come to an end without the two side reaching any agreement, BBC reported on Monday.

Direct talks had resumed in July after a three-year hiatus but quickly became strained.

The latest round was halted last week following the main Palestinian factions announcement of a political pact.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, who brokered the talks, has meanwhile issued a statement denying he called Israel "an apartheid state".

On Monday, in comments captured in a recording of a closed-door meeting, he warned that Israel risked becoming "an apartheid state" if a two-state solution was not reached soon.

But in his statement released early on Tuesday, he said: "I do not believe, nor have I ever stated, publicly or privately, that Israel is an apartheid state or that it intends to become one."

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