Malaysian Students In Aussie Could Play As Ambassador Role Explaining Country's Tragedy

From Mohd Razman Abdullah PERTH (Australia), Oct 24 (Bernama) -- Malaysian students studying in Australia have a role as ambassadors in explaining to the people on the two unprecedented tragedies of the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370 and downing of MAS Flight MH17. Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said they would be the voice of Malaysia abroad in explaining how the country navigated through the tragedies and managed to gain cooperation from 26 nations including superpowers like China and the United States in the search for MH370. He said they should also understand how the country overcame geopolitical differences in getting the MH17 blackboxes and retrieving the bodies of those who perished in the tragedy. They also have to explain the country's stand against the Islamic State (IS) which did not represent Islam and the country's efforts to combat its influence. "We have gone through hard times. We dont have to be apologetic about where we are but we have to be concerned as to where we are heading," he said at a dinner with 83 Malaysian students studying in Perth, here Thursday. Hishammuddin was accompanied with his wife, Tengku Marsilla Tengku Abdullah. Hishammuddin, who is on a three-day working visit to Australia, had launched the Malaysian contracted vessel, Go Phoenix and sophisticated underwater search equipment called ProSAS which is a towed side scan sonar, at Freemantle Port near here Wednesday. The vessel is part of Malaysia's continuos efforts in search for MH370 which is believed to have ended its journer in a remote location in the Indian ocean, approximately 3,000km west of Perth, after it disappeared from radar on March 8. The vessel will join the search operations of Malaysia-Australia contracted ships, Fugro Discovery and Fugro Equator. Flight MH370, which was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members left the KL International Airport at 12.41am on March 8, and disappeared from radar about an hour later while over the South China Sea. It was to have arrived in Beijing at 6.30am on the same day. The search for the aircraft is ongoing, with no concrete evidence of its whereabouts found yet. MAS flight MH17, was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it went down in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine near the Russian border on July 17. The Boeing 777-200 aircraft which was carrying 298 people - 283 passengers and 15 crew - is believed to have been shot down in the troubled area. --BERNAMA