MH370 : JACC confirms flaperon is from MH370

JACC says subsequent examination has indicated that in all probability, the wreckage, a wing part known as a flaperon, was from MH370

KUALA LUMPUR : Finally, the Australian Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) has confirmed that an aircraft wing part known as flaperon found in the French Reunion Island is from the vanished Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

“Subsequent examination has indicated that in all probability, the wreckage, a wing part known as a flaperon, was from MH370,” said JACC in a statement on Wednesday.

On July 29, a piece of the aeroplane wing was discovered on the Reunion Island coast and was sent to France for further analysis.

On August 6, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak confirmed that part of the flaperon found on Reunion Island was part of the aircraft.

 

 Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8, last year after its departure from Kuala Lumpur with 239 passengers on board, among them 154 Chinese nationals.

On the search operation development, JACC said Fugro Discovery, the search and recovery vessel for MH370, had arrived in the Indian Ocean and commenced operations earlier Wednesday.

“Fugro Equator arrived in Fremantle, Australia this morning for routine re-supply and will depart for the search area Thursday,” it said.

Meanwhile, The Maldivian minister attached to the president’s office, Mohamed Shareef was quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying that three Malaysian aviation experts had begun examining debris found in the island on Wednesday to determine if it could be wreckage from MH370.

Mohamed Shareef said the three, led by Malaysian Civil Aviation Department director-general Azharuddin Abdul Rahman had met up with local authorities and inspected the debris after arriving on the island Tuesday night.

Shareef told the news agency in a phone conversation that the experts would return to Malaysia later Wednesday before reporting to Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai.

– BERNAMA

 

MH370: More plane debris has washed up on Reunion

Malaysia's Transport Ministry said Thursday that more plane parts have washed up on the same remote French island as a wing part that is believed -- with varying degrees of certainty -- to be from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

"The team told us they have managed to collect more debris on the island and we have handed it over to the authorities in France," Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai told reporters. "A plane window and some aluminum foil ... there are many items."

French officials on Reunion and in Paris, however, haven't reported any new plane debris. 

And an Australian agency helping coordinate the search for the missing airliner said Wednesday, the day before Malaysia announced the discovery of new items, that there was no indication so far of any more aircraft debris. 

"A great deal of additional material has been handed over to the police" on Reunion, Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre said in a statement. "While this is being examined, so far none of it appears to have come from an aircraft."

The Australians are in charge of the underwater search for Flight 370 in the eastern Indian Ocean, thousands of miles from Reunion. Malaysia has overall responsibility for the investigation into the loss of the plane.

Although Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that the wing part found last week, which is called a flaperon, is certainly from MH370, other officials have expressed more caution and say that more testing is needed.

Families of those on board Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have demanded an end to mixed messages in the investigation after authorities in France, the US and Australia stopped short of confirming Malaysia’s claim that a piece of plane wing found on the island of Réunion last week came from the missing jet.

On Wednesday, Najib Razak, the Malaysian prime minister, said the flaperon that washed up on the French territory in the Indian Ocean, since transported to France for analysis, was from the doomed flight.

But his assertion has not been backed up by the other authorities involved in the investigation, and the dissonant stances have infuriated many relatives of those on board the plane, who have waited more than 500 days for concrete clues into the fates of their loved ones.

French officials on Reunion and in Paris, however, haven't reported any new plane debris.

And an Australian agency helping coordinate the search for the missing airliner said Wednesday, the day before Malaysia announced the discovery of new items, that there was no indication so far of any more aircraft debris. 

"A great deal of additional material has been handed over to the police" on Reunion, Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre said in a statement. "While this is being examined, so far none of it appears to have come from an aircraft."

The Australians are in charge of the underwater search for Flight 370 in the eastern Indian Ocean, thousands of miles from Reunion. Malaysia has overall responsibility for the investigation into the loss of the plane.

Although Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that the wing part found last week, which is called a flaperon, is certainly from MH370, other officials have expressed more caution and say that more testing is needed.

Less than an hour after the Prime Minister's statement, Paris Deputy Prosecutor Serge Mackowiak used slightly less definitive language. He said that there were "very strong presumptions" that the debris from Reunion is from MH370, but that absolute certainty was not yet possible.

Malaysian officials provided more details later Thursday of what makes them sure it was from the missing jet, including a serial number that matches technical records.

France said it would launch new air, land and sea searches from Réunion on Friday in the hope of finding more wreckage from MH370, after Malaysia said a wing part found on the island came from the ill-fated flight.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/aug/07/flight-mh370-animation-shows-possible-drift-of-debris-across-indian-ocean-video

The Boeing 777, carrying 239 people, disappeared on a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing on March 8, 2014. 

Relatives Overview

China is home to more than half of the people who were on the plane, and many relatives called on the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, to help them in their quest for justice.

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“I don’t believe it,” said Bao Lanfang, 63, whose son, daughter-in-law and three-year-old grandchild were on MH370. “It has been 515 [days] – that is enough time for them to have produced fake debris.”

Many of the Chinese relatives continue to cling to the hope that their loved ones might be alive. In a statement, China’s foreign ministry expressed “grief and sorrow for those on board” and sent “profound sympathy and condolences to their families”.

"It's not the end," Jacquita Gonzales, wife of crew member Patrick Gomes, told reporters. "Although they found something, you know, it's not the end. They still need to find the whole plane and our spouses as well. We still want them back.

Some families have long been skeptical and disappointed by how Malaysian officials have handled looking for and delivering news about the missing plane.

The Malaysian government has been wrong several times before. On March 17, for example, Malaysian authorities publicly confirmed the final words from the cockpit as "All right, good night."

The innocuous bit of radio banter became yet another headache for investigators when, after days of prodding from reporters and family members, they released a transcript showing the final words were actually, "Good night Malaysian three seven zero."

What is Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) ?

 

South Korea has reported three new cases of Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), bringing the total number of people infected to 169 in the largest outbreak outside of Saudi Arabia.
The country's health ministry also reported its 25th fatality on Sunday, after the death of a patient who also had a heart condition and diabetes.

Sunday's announcement came a day after the country reported no new cases, raising hopes that Seoul was winning the battle to contain the virus.

Two of the cases newly diagnosed on Sunday involved medical workers, the AFP news agency reported.
They included a doctor who treated a MERS patient at Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, seen as the epicentre of the outbreak, where more than 80 people have been infected. The other medical worker had taken x-rays of a patient in another Seoul hospital.

A total of 43 people have so far recovered and have been released from hospital, including seven between Friday and Saturday, the ministry said.

Fourteen patients are in a critical condition, it said.

The number of new patients had been falling for three straight days from eight on Tuesday to none on Saturday.

The number of people exposed to patients and quarantined at state facilities or at home also fell to 4,035 on Saturday from a peak of more than 6,700 on Wednesday.

The outbreak began on May 20 when a 68-year-old man was diagnosed after returning from a trip to Saudi Arabia.

Since then the virus has spread at a rapid pace, sparking public alarm that prompted the temporary closure of thousands of schools and trip cancellations by more than 120,000 foreign tourists. 
Almost all patients were infected in hospitals and the World Health Organization (WHO) said it had found no evidence of transmission of the virus within communities outside hospitals.

WHO chief Margaret Chan said on Thursday that Seoul was now "on a very good footing" after an initially slow response.

Most schools reopened last week except for about 120 mostly in Seoul, Gyeonggi province surrounding the capital and Busan, the second-largest city.

There is no known vaccine for MERS, which has a mortality rate of 35 percent, according to the WHO.
The outbreak sparked alarm elsewhere in Asia, with Thailand confirming its first MERS patient on Thursday.

An Omani man, 75, who was recovering from the virus in Bangkok was "slightly better" on Saturday, a health ministry spokesman told AFP, while no other cases in Thailand had been confirmed.
 

 What is MERS?


Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) -  is a viral respiratory illness that is new to humans. It was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and has since spread to several other countries, including the United States. Most people infected with MERS-CoV developed severe acute respiratory illness, including fever, cough, and shortness of breath. Many of them have died.

Where is MERS occurring?

The following 25 countries have reported cases of MERS: Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen (Middle East); Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Turkey, and the United Kingdom (UK) (Europe); Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt (Africa); China, Malaysia, Republic of Korea and the Philippines (Asia); and the United States of America (Americas).

What are the symptoms of MERS? How severe is the syndrome?

A typical case of MERS includes of fever, cough, and/or shortness of breath. Pneumonia is a common finding on examination. Gastrointestinal symptoms, including diarrhoea, have also been reported. Severe illness can cause respiratory failure that requires mechanical ventilation and support in an intensive‐care unit. Some patients have had organ failure, especially of the kidneys, or septic shock. The virus appears to cause more severe disease in people with weakened immune systems, older people, and those with such chronic diseases as diabetes, cancer and chronic lung disease.

Can a person be infected with the MERS virus and not be ill?

Yes. Infected persons with no symptoms have been found because they were tested for MERS‐CoV during follow‐up studies of contacts of people with MERS infection. It is not always possible to identify patients with MERS-CoV early because the early symptoms are non-specific. For this reason, all health care facilities should have standard infection prevention and control practices in place for infectious diseases.

How do people get MERS-CoV?

Transmission from animals to humans

It is not yet fully understood how people become infected with MERS‐CoV, which is a zoonotic virus. It is believed that humans can be infected through direct or indirect contact with infected dromedary camels in the Middle East. Strains of MERS-CoV have been identified in camels in several countries, including Egypt, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Transmission from humans to humans

The virus does not appear to pass easily from person to person unless there is close contact such as providing clinical care to an infected patient while not applying strict hygiene measures. This has been seen among family members, patients, and health‐care workers. The majority of cases have resulted from human-to-human transmission in health care settings.

Is MERS-CoV contagious?

Yes, but apparently only to a limited extent. The virus does not seem to pass easily from person to person unless there is close contact, such as occurs when providing unprotected care to a patient. There have been clusters of cases in health‐care facilities, where human‐to‐human transmission appears to be more efficient, especially when infection prevention and control practices are inadequate. Thus far, no sustained human-to-human transmission has been documented.

What is the source of the MERS virus—bats, camels, domestic animals?

The source of the MERS-CoV is not yet fully clear. A coronavirus very similar to the one found in humans has been isolated from camels in Egypt, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. . It is possible that other reservoirs exist. However, other animals, including goats, cows, sheep, water buffalo, swine, and wild birds, have been tested for MERS‐CoV, but so far none have been found in these animals. These studies combined support the premise that dromedary camels are a likely source of infection in humans.

Should people avoid contact with camels or camel products? Is it safe to visit farms, markets, or camel fairs?

In countries in the Middle East affected by MERS-CoV, as a general precaution, anyone visiting farms, markets, barns, or other places where animals are present should practice general hygiene measures, including regular hand washing before and after touching animals, and avoid contact with sick animals.
The consumption of raw or undercooked animal products, including milk and meat, carries a high risk of infection from a variety of organisms that might cause disease in humans. Animal products processed appropriately through cooking or pasteurization are safe for consumption, but should also be handled with care to avoid cross‐contamination with uncooked foods. Camel meat and camel milk are nutritious products that can continue to be consumed after pasteurization, cooking, or other heat treatments.
Until more is understood about MERS, people with diabetes, renal failure, chronic lung disease, and immunocompromised persons are considered to be at high risk of severe disease from MERS‐CoV infection. Especially in the Middle East people should avoid contact with camels, consuming raw camel milk or camel urine, as well as eating meat that has not been properly cooked.
Camel farm and slaughterhouse workers in the affected areas should practice good personal hygiene, including frequent hand washing after touching animals, facial protection where feasible, and the wearing of protective clothing, which should be removed after work and washed daily. Workers should also avoid exposing family members to soiled work clothing, shoes, or other items that may have come into contact with camels or camel excretions. Sick animals should never be slaughtered for consumption. People should avoid direct contact with any animal that has been confirmed positive for MERS‐CoV.

Is there a vaccine against MERS‐CoV? What is the treatment?

No vaccine or specific treatment is currently available. Treatment is supportive and based on the patient’s clinical condition.

Are health‐care workers at risk from MERS‐CoV?

Yes. Transmission of MERS-CoV has occurred in health‐care facilities in several countries, including from patients to health‐care providers. It is not always possible to identify patients with MERS‐CoV early or without testing because symptoms and other clinical features may be non‐specific.
For this reason, it is important that health‐care workers apply standard precautions consistently with all patients.
Droplet precautions should be added to standard precautions when providing care to all patients with symptoms of acute respiratory infection. Contact precautions and eye protection should be added when caring for suspected or confirmed cases of MERS‐CoV infection. Airborne precautions should be applied when performing aerosol‐generating procedures.

Does WHO recommend any travel or trade restrictions related to this new virus?

WHO does not recommend the application of any travel or trade restrictions at this point. Based on countries’ risk assessment, precautions aimed at raising awareness of MERS-CoV and its symptoms among travellers to and from affected areas, can be taken.

How is WHO responding to the MERS-CoV outbreak?

WHO is working with clinicians and scientists to gather and share scientific evidence to better understand the virus and the disease it causes, and to determine outbreak response priorities, treatment strategies, and clinical management approaches. WHO is working with affected countries and international technical partners and networks to coordinate the global health response, including providing updated information on the situation, conducting risk assessments and joint investigations with national authorities, convening scientific meetings, and developing guidance and training for health authorities and technical health agencies on interim surveillance recommendations, laboratory testing of cases, infection prevention and control, and clinical management.





Info:-
1. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/06/south-korea-reports-mers-cases-150621044938952.html
2. http://www.who.int/csr/disease/coronavirus_infections/faq/en/

Muslim People in UK - Analysis & Projection

Statistics from 2011 Census show more Muslim children than Christian growing up in Birmingham. Of 278,623 youngsters, 97,099 were registered as Muslim compared with 93,828 as Christian. A similar trend has emerged in the cities of Bradford and Leicester. Experts said more must be done to ensure that society does not become polarised along religious lines.

In England’s second city of Birmingham, of 278,623 youngsters, 97,099 were registered as Muslim compared with 93,828 as Christian. The rest were of other faiths such as Hindu or Jewish, or none.

A similar trend has emerged in the cities of Bradford and Leicester, the towns of Luton, in Bedfordshire, and Slough in Berkshire, as well as the London boroughs Newham, Redbridge and Tower Hamlets, where nearly two-thirds of children are Islamic.

The figures show that Christianity is still the dominant religion in every local authority area in England and Wales, even in the most culturally diverse towns and cities.

Of the 45.5million participants, 27.9million subscribed to Christianity, compared with 1.8million Muslims, the second largest grouping.

However, among dependent children – defined as those aged up to 15, or between 16 and 18 and in education and still living at home – the gap is narrower.

Of 12.1million youngsters, 6.1million were Christian and 1million were Muslim. And in some places, the balance has now tipped towards Islam.

In Bradford, 52,135 children are Muslims (45 per cent) next to 47,144 Christians; in Leicester the figures are 22,693 and 18,190 respectively.

The widest gap is in Tower Hamlets where 62 per cent of children are Islamic, outnumbering Christians by 34,597 to 8,995.

Sughra Ahmed, president of the Islamic Society of Britain, said: ‘Britain’s Muslims make up just 5 per cent of the population but have a younger demographic profile than other faiths, as these figures show. It matters to us all that this next generation of young British Muslims develops a clear and confident sense of their British identity alongside their Muslim faith. It’s important that schools teach all of our children the values of respect and tolerance.

Currently Europe’s (excluding Turkey) 50 million Muslims only make up about 7% of the total population. However, as Muslim communities tend to be found in the main cities, here the percentage of the population that are Muslim is much higher than in the general population.

About 30% of Marseille’s population are Muslim, around 25% of Rotterdam’s and 24% of Amsterdam’s (see table)

‘Britain is doing better at this than many of our neighbours. A major new study this week showed that most people think the children of immigrants are integrating well.

‘This is one of the most tolerant countries in the world. It will continue to be so, provided we all understand how that depends on respect for the beliefs of others too.’

According to the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey, in 2003, 48 per cent of Britons worried that an increase in the Muslim population would weaken Britain’s national identity. By 2013, that had risen to 62 per cent.

Muslim underperformance at higher education is at least partly down to gender. In the population as a whole, young women are more likely to go to university than young men. But among British Muslims, the pattern is reversed, with three Muslim boys going on to higher education for every two women. Equalising those numbers would send another 50,000 Muslim women university.

Resouce:
1.  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11409181/British-Muslims-integration-and-segregation-are-about-economics-not-values.html
2. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2755654/The-changing-face-Britain-A-child-Birmingham-likely-Muslim-Christian.html
3. http://www.snouts-in-the-trough.com/archives/7972