Pesawat Air France: Tiada kepastian ketua juruterbang sedang berkawal

PARIS: Penyiasat kemalangan Perancis menyatakan tidak ada kepastian sama ada ketua juruterbang pesawat Air France 447 yang sedang melakukan kawalan ketika pesawat itu menjunam ke Lautan Atlantik.

AP melaporkan, ketua agensi penyiasatan kemalangan Perancis, Paul-Louis Arslanian juga berkata, beliau "tidak optimistik" yang pasukan penyelamat akan menemui kotak hitam pesawat itu yang dipercayai berada berbatu-batu dalam air.

Juruterbang bagi penerbangan jarak jauh seringkali bergilir-gilir melakukan kawalan untuk kekal dalam keadaan berjaga-jaga.

Ditanya sama ada ketua juruterbang berada dalam kokpit ketika pesawat tersebut jatuh, tidak ada pengesahan mengenai perkara itu.

Katanya "kami malah tidak tahu masa sebenar kemalangan itu".

BERITA TERDAHULU

Cebisan ditemui disahkan pesawat Air France

FERNANDO DE NORONHA (Brazil): Sebuah tempat duduk pesawat, tompokan bahan api dan cebisan-cebisan putih yang bertaburan dalam lingkungan tiga batu ditemui di tengah-tengah Lautan Atlantik pada Selasa dipercayai lokasi di mana pesawat Air France 447 menjunam jatuh, kata Menteri Pertahanan Brazil, Nelson Jobim.

Pasukan juruterbang tentera Brazil mengesan bangkai pesawat tersebut di kawasan kira-kira 400 batu ke timur laut pulau-pulau pantai Brazil. Pesawat yang membawa 228 orang itu hilang Ahad lalu kira-kira empat jam selepas berlepas dari Rio de Janeiro ke Paris.

"Saya boleh mengesahkan yang cebisan-cebisan dalam lingkungan lima kilometer itu adalah daripada pesawat Air France," kata Jobim dalam satu sidang media di Rio.

Katanya, tidak ada penumpang yang dijumpai dan tidak ada tanda-tanda penumpang yang hidup.

Usaha mengesan cebisan-cebisan pesawat dan menempatkan perakam-perakan kotak hitam yang mengeluarkan signal selama 30 hari dijangka akan semakin sukar.

"Kita sedang melakukan usaha tanpa henti dalam keadaan cuaca yang amat sukar dan di dalam kawasan yang kedalamannya mencecah sehingga 7,000 meter," kata Perdana Menteri Perancis, Francois Fillon di Parlimen pada Selasa.

Gong Badak: The last straw? — David Teoh

JUNE 4 — Good design is often viewed as a costly luxury, but that is simply not true because bad design will cost us more.

Use Gong Badak as a euphemism if you must.

The collapse of the roof of Gong Badak stadium has opened the building industry to public scrutiny. Who should be blamed when a tragedy of this magnitude occurs?

That the roof finally collapsed implies that the structure was under fatigue from the day it was completed. Collapse was imminent. Whether it occurred a day, a month, or a year after practical completion is irrelevant. So instead of June 2, 2009, what if that fateful moment had been the night of May 10, 2008 at the opening of the 12th Malaysia Games (Sukma) officiated by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong himself!

I shudder at the thought.

Public buildings should not be ticking time bombs posing mortal risk to the tax-paying public, let alone their sovereign!

No doubt, this recent debacle has placed pressure on the government to find a scapegoat. The responses have been according to the script with the Works Minister Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor, and Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin calling for a probe into the cause of the roof collapse and calling for stricter rules in appointing building consultants and contractors for public sector projects. The DPM even asked if the building was still under warranty. Soon a legal battle to determine liability will ensue and by the time a verdict is passed the tragedy will be long forgotten. But what about the government? Isn’t it to blame as well for this mess?

Gong Badak is only the most recent tragedy resulting from years of apathy towards good building design. It does not take an expert to assess how poorly designed many of our public buildings are. So many buildings today are badly built, difficult to maintain and often unsuitable to the requirements of its users. In light of all this, should we keep thinking that “lowest cost” always equates to “best value”?

This tragedy is an opportunity for us to reflect on government policy towards the commissioning and awarding of public building contracts. Has it brought us the right outcomes? If not, how should we go about fixing it?

The government owes a duty of care to the public to ensure best practice standards are followed in providing high-quality public buildings. Blaming the consultants and the contractor for the structural failure of the Gong Badak stadium does not absolve the government from its responsibility. The truth remains: it picked the wrong team in the first place!

In the case of the Gong Badak stadium, the role of the Terengganu State Government as the promoter and client was to ensure best practice in the selection of the lead designer, the consultant team and the main contractor. Good teams have a much better chance of delivering thoughtful and well executed public buildings.

So, what should we consider as best practice methodology in selecting a team?

Internationally, the norm for a project of this scale would be to have a two-stage open competition for the project. Due to the very public nature of the building, it would have also been best practice for the government to appoint a panel of independent jurors made up of local and international consultants to convene and assess the competition entries.

The first stage of the competition would seek to assess the capability of the design team and its ability to work together. The second stage would be to assess the design merits of the competing proposals and each team’s ability to deliver the project to time and budget constraints. Once the project is awarded by the decision of the independent jury, the winning design becomes the basis for an open tender to contractors with the capability of carrying out such work.

Open competitions for major projects bring many benefits. Firstly, it encourages an environment of fierce competition where a high-quality scheme would be selected among the best consultants in the field. Secondly, it encourages public discourse on taxpayer-funded buildings. The greater the public engagement, the more the public shares a sense of ownership in the completed outcome — the story of the Sydney Opera House comes to mind. Thirdly, the government would be perceived as being both transparent in its processes and progressive in the promotion of cultural advancement through good design.

Ensuring best practice in integrating design and construction delivers better value for money as well as better buildings, particularly when attention is paid to the full costs of a building over its whole lifetime. e.g. a building with bad solar orientation would cost more to cool by air-conditioning over a period of many years, eventually costing more in energy ringgit than it did to construct it. Badly designed buildings are often torn down or refurbished after a short life-span, thus costing more to the taxpayers.

Best practice and good design outcomes will thrive when the environment from a national policy level is conducive. That is why the government, as the sole promoter and client of major public projects, should champion a culture of excellence in design. The first step would be for the government to hold international standard design competitions and conduct open tenders to ensure that only the best design consultants and the most competent contractor deliver the next major project.

David Teoh is a graduate architect and researcher based in Melbourne, Australia.

Anger in Indonesia over Ambalat, runaway wife

JAKARTA, June 4 — It usually blows hot and cold in Indonesia-Malaysia ties. And it has turned decidedly chilly here over two issues — a longstanding territorial dispute over Ambalat, off Borneo, and the runaway Indonesian teen wife of a Kelantan prince.

The Indonesian media has been swamped with daily front-page stories and television talkshows about the latest “intrusion” into Ambalat by Malaysian warships, and the teenage model Manohara Odelia Pinot who claimed to have been abused by her husband.

In the midst of the Indonesian presidential campaign, Dr Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono himself commented on both issues on Tuesday. The President vowed there would be no compromise on Indonesia's sovereignty over Ambalat, and expressed his concern over the model's troubles.

Said analyst Bantarto Bandoro of the University of Indonesia: “Indonesians tend to view the two issues from purely nationalist eyes. It is only natural that nationalist sentiments are whipped up and anti-Malaysia sentiments are fanned.”

The Ambalat issue flared up again when Indonesia's navy claimed it intercepted a Malaysian naval vessel encroaching 12 nautical miles into Indonesian waters in the Sulawesi Sea last Saturday. The disputed area is an oil-rich region.

Media reports here, quoting a naval spokesman, said Indonesian vessels were on the verge of opening fire on the Malaysian ship, which was chased back into Malaysian waters off Sabah. Kuala Lumpur has not commented on the incident.

Jakarta claimed it was the ninth “encroachment” this year.

Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said talks over the Ambalat issue with Malaysia had been on hold since April last year. “We are preparing a protest note to be sent to Malaysia” over the latest incident, he added.

Indonesian activists yesterday gathered in front of the Malaysian Embassy in Jakarta, protesting against the alleged mistreatment of Indonesian workers by Malaysian employers and referencing it to the Ambalat dispute, French news agency Agence France-Presse reported.

The case of 17-year-old Manohara, who at the weekend claimed to have “escaped” from her husband of nine months, the Kelantan prince, also elicited a stream of bad vibes in the local media and the Internet. Many expressed anger at the Malaysians, repeating past contentious issues between both sides.

These include the controversy over what Indonesia sees as Malaysian claims of ownership of the folk song "Rasa Sayang", claims over batik and Javanese mask dance reog ponorogo, as well as alleged abuse of Indonesian workers in Malaysia.

Comments in the media on Ambalat and Manohara have focused on getting the authorities to take a hardline stance against Malaysia. One blogger, Arman Effendi, said: “It is still fresh in our minds the loss of Sipadan and Ligitan islands (to Malaysia) and the exploitation of Indonesian migrant workers.”

The oil blocks in Ambalat are close to Sipadan and Ligitan islands, whose ownership was disputed for years by Indonesia and Malaysia. The International Court of Justice awarded the islands to Malaysia in 2002.

Shortly before returning to Indonesia from the Asean-South Korea summit, Yudhoyono told Indonesian reporters that Jakarta would not tolerate Malaysia's claim over Ambalat.

“Malaysia's claim is unacceptable because the area is within Indonesia's territory,” he said. “There will be no compromise but we will resolve the matter without risking peace and the relationship between Indonesia and our neighbouring country, Malaysia.”

On the Manohara case, he said he had told Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda and Indonesia's Ambassador to Malaysia Dai Bachtiar to look into it. “I told them to handle this issue fully and to be aware of the line between domestic affairs, spousal — or family — issues and human rights violations,” the Jakarta Globe quoted him as saying on Tuesday.

Both issues have also been taken up by parliamentarians, with deputy parliamentary commission chairman Yusron Ihza Mahendra saying yesterday that they were matters of concern.

Saying that Parliament would also summon Wirajuda for an explanation, Yusron said: “We don't consider the Manohara case as a domestic issue. She is an Indonesian citizen who deserves to be protected. The Ambalat case is also getting hotter now. The manoeuvres by Malaysian naval vessels in Ambalat are acts of belittling Indonesia.”

Deputy Speaker Muhaimin Iskandar took a more hardline approach, warning that if Malaysia “continues to be difficult”, the Indonesian Parliament would approve confronting foreign intruders. — Straits Times

Polis kenalpasti beberapa dalang Ah Long aktif di Johor

JOHOR BAHARU: Polis akan mengambil tindakan terhadap beberapa individu yang dikenalpasti bergiat sebagai dalang ceti haram atau Ah Long yang aktif menjalankan kegiatan itu di negeri ini.

Ketua Polis Johor Datuk Mohd Mokhtar Mohd Shariff berkata pihaknya kini sedang giat mengumpul maklumat mengenai individu terbabit dan akan menggunakan undang-undang sedia ada ke atas mereka.

"Siasatan sedang dibuat atas pelbagai sudut kerana dipercayai kebanyakan mereka terlibat dengan kegiatan jenayah lain termasuk pengedaran dadah, pelacuran dan perjudian," katanya kepada pemberita di Ibu Pejabat Polis Kontinjen Johor, di sini, hari ini. Hadir sama, Datuk Bandar Johor Baharu, Datuk Mohd Naim Nasir.

Sebelum itu, Mohd Mokhtar mengetuai operasi pembersihan iklan pinjaman Ah Long bersama polis dan Majlis Bandaraya Johor Baharu, di Taman Daya, di sini.

Beliau berkata operasi pembersihan yang turut dilakukan serentak di seluruh Ibu Pejabat Polis Daerah memberi isyarat kepada kumpulan Ah Long supaya menghentikan kegiatan mereka selain mendidik masyarakat supaya tidak membuat pinjaman dengan pihak terbabit.

"Kajian polis mendapati ramai yang membuat pinjaman dengan Ah Long untuk berjudi.

Jadi, kita tidak mahu mereka meneruskan pinjaman seperti ini dan dalam masa yang sama kita juga mahu memberi amaran kepada Ah Long supaya tidak menggunakan kekerasan terhadap peminjam," katanya.

Sementara itu, Mohd Naim berkata pihak berkuasa tempatan memerlukan sokongan polis dan orang ramai dalam membanteras kegiatan Ah Long.

Katanya, tindakan Ah Long yang menampal poster dan pelekat iklan pinjaman di papan tanda jalan, tiang lampu dan bangunan turut mengganggu pengguna jalan raya selain memburukkan imej bandaraya ini. BERNAMA

SMS ugutan: Ahmad Ramzi didakwa Mahkamah Sesyen

KUALA TERENGGANU: Setiausaha Politik bekas Menteri Besar Terengganu, Datuk Dr Ahmad Ramzi Mohamad Zubir, 42, didakwa di Mahkamah Sesyen Kuala Terengganu hari ini kerana menghantar khidmat pesanan ringkas (SMS) berunsur ugutan kepada tiga Ahli Dewan Undangan Negeri (ADUN) Barisan Nasional (BN) bulan lalu.

Bagaimanapun beliau dibebaskan dengan jaminan RM8,000 dan dua orang penjamin.

Pasport antarabangsanya juga telah ditahan dan mahkamah menetapkan 19 Julai depan untuk sebutan kes.

Nizar Fail Rayuan Ke Mahkamah Persekutuan 8 Jun

Walaupun masih belum menerima penghujahan bertulis keputusan Mahkamah Rayuan 22 Mei yang mengesahkan Dr Zambry Abd Kadir sebagai Menteri Besar, namun ini tidak menghalang langkah Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin untuk memfailkan rayuan kepada Mahkamah Persekutuan.

"Kita masih belum menerima penghujahan bertulis daripada Mahkamah Rayuan. Walau bagaimanapun setelah berbincang dengan peguam pihak kami akan memfailkan rayuan kepada Mahkamah Persekutuan pada hari Isnin 8 Jun depan," kata Nizar.

 

Tambahnya pasukan peguam beliau akan memohon agar rayuan beliau akan didengar oleh panel penuh sembilan hakim.

Hakim Mahkamah Rayuan Md Raus Sharif sebelum ini berkata penghakiman bertulis akan dikeluarkan pada 29 Mei.

Bagaimanapun faks daripada  pejabat Mahkamah Rayuan memberitahu bahawa mahkamah tersebut masih dalam proses menyediakan penghakiman bertulis tersebut menurut peguam Nizar, Leong Cheok Leng.

"Kita berharap akan menerima dokumen tersebut pada minggu ini supaya kami dapat bersedia untuk proses rayuan kepada Mahkamah Persekutuan," katanya. 

Nizar mempunyai tempoh masa sebulan daripada tarikh keputusan secara lisan untuk memfailkan rauian beliau.

Beliau akan mengangkat sumpah sebagai Ahli Parlimen Bukit Gantang apabila Parlimen menyambung sidang 15 Jun depan.