According to the MH370 safety investigation report that was released yesterday, the blunder happened when the Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines plane was about to enter Vietnamese airspace.

It was about the time when MH370 made the turn back.

The Kuala Lumpur air traffic control centre had transferred control of MH370 to its Vietnamese counterparts at 1.19am as the aircraft approached the Igari waypoint, three minutes earlier then when it should have.

“Also, by transferring at 1.19am, the KL air traffic centre controller did not comply with established procedures,” said Datuk Kok Soo Chon, the head of the safety investigation team at a media briefing here.

The report also stated that based on procedure, Ho Chi Minh City’s air traffic controllers should have notified Kuala Lumpur it could not establish a two-way communication with MH370 within five minutes.

It, however, only did so at 1.39am, which meant that MH370 had gone off radar for a good 20 minutes before air traffic controllers were alerted.

“The air traffic controllers did not initiate the various emergency phases as required, thereby delaying the activation of the search and rescue operations,” said Kok.

Kok added that there is no record to suggest that the air traffic controllers in Kuala Lumpur did not take any action to alert the Royal Military Air Force Joint Air Traffic Control Centre.

“There is also no evidence that the air traffic controllers in Kuala Lumpur had kept continuous watch on the radar display,” he said.

Kok, however, stressed that the report was not assigning blame on any party for the disappearance of MH370.

It was a landslide victory. Early estimates indicate that Hun Sen’s party, the Cambodian People’s Party, may in fact have won every single seat in the National Assembly which would mean the country is now, effectively, a single-party state.

The results of the election should come as no surprise to anyone who has been following Cambodian politics for the past year. The only viable opposition party was dissolved by court order in November of 2017, and dissenting voices have been systematically silenced as part of an ongoing crackdown on critical media and civil society.

Former leaders of that opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party, had called for a boycott of the election, asking that voters keep a clean finger, a reference to the indelible ink applied to the index finger of those that cast a ballot. What Hun Sen craved most from this election was legitimacy, and a low turnout would have robbed him of that.

Hun Sen, and those that support him, will point to the numbers from election day and claim they equal a mandate. The National Election Commission has reported that around 80 percent of registered voters cast ballots. But that figure belies several key details.

Leading up to the election there were widespread reports of voter intimidation—with bosses telling workers they would be punished if they did not come back to work with an inked finger, and some local authorities reportedly threatening to deny essential government services to election boycotters.

Some reports indicated that Cambodians who felt they had no option but to get their finger inked, would show up to polls only to spoil their ballot. Indeed early statistics indicate that up to 9 percent of the ballots have been counted as spoiled—the ballot crossed out entirely, every box checked, the ballot left empty, etc. In former CNRP strongholds like Phnom Penh that number was even higher. There, 14.4 percent of votes cast were invalid, a huge spike compared to just 0.99 percent in 2013.

In fact, the entity that got the second-most votes after the CPP—and ahead of the 19 other minor parties that were on the ballot—was the “spoiled vote party”.

And since credible third-party observers refused to take part in the process, all this took place under the questionable eyes of what some experts have labeled “zombie election monitors“.

For the people of Cambodia, five more years under Hun will likely bring about an intensification of the status quo. Further limitation on free speech and the free press, economic development that largely benefits the country’s wealthy elite and fails to trickle down to the average Cambodian, and a government that is even less accountable to its citizens.

And for the wider region, it is expected that the next half-decade will see an even closer relationship between Cambodia and China. This election, with all its controversy, has driven the wedge between Cambodia and the United States and Europe even deeper. And Cambodia is expected to be pulled even further into China’s orbit if the country is cut off from the tariff-free access to American and European markets it currently enjoys.

China has not been subtle in its assessment that a Hun Sen victory is in its best interest—the Chinese ambassador was given a prominent position on the stage for at least one CPP campaign rally. He did not attend the rallies of any of the other minor parties on the ballot. Cambodia gets financial support out of this arrangement in the form of loans and investment for large-scale infrastructure projects and China gets a vocal champion for its strategy in the region.

Hun Sen has indicated that these next five years won’t be the end of his rule. In speeches, he says that he intends to stay on as Prime Minister for at least a decade longer. And beyond that, it is expected that he will do everything within his ever-expanding powers to see that the next leader of Cambodia comes from his own family.

The most likely outcome is that he will try to pass the torch to one of his sons, either Hun Many, 35, who currently runs the CPP’s youth wing, or his eldest, Hun Manet, 40, who has risen through the ranks of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces and is now a four-star general.

The shallow 6.4-magnitude quake, which struck early Sunday on Lombok island and was followed by scores of aftershocks, triggered major landslides on Mount Rinjani, blocking the hiking routes that criss-cross it.

Some 800 trekkers and their guides were on the mountain when the quake struck including citizens from the United States, France, the Netherlands, Thailand, Germany and many other countries, according to search and rescue officials.

Hundreds managed to find a way down on Sunday and over 500 more reached safety Monday night.

While most were able to pick their way down the mountain on foot, at least three arrived at Sembalun village on the lower slopes by helicopter, according to officials.

Some returned with harrowing tales of being caught out by the quake, which killed 16 people across the holiday island including one on the mountain.

One Thai tourist, who reached the foot of the mountain Tuesday morning, felt the ground shake beneath her sleeping bag.

“I felt the earth move …and thought ‘Huh? What’s happening?'” she said.

“I got out of my bed and then I saw a landslide (with) rocks falling down.”

A male friend said he watched parts of Rinjani’s slopes collapse.

“The whole mountain, rocks, fell down —  I was a bit afraid,” he said.

– ‘Healthy and safe’ –

The remaining 500 or so hikers were able to start climbing down on Monday after guides discovered an alternate route that was unaffected by the landslides.

“543 hikers have been evacuated — they arrived last night,” national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told AFP.

“There are now six people left… They are all healthy and safe.”

Most of the trekkers reached the base of the mountain by late Monday evening, according to I Gusti Lanang Wiswananda, a spokesman for the search and rescue agency on the island’s main city of Mataram.

“They were all tired but in good condition and were checked by our medical teams on the ground upon arrival,” he told AFP.

Wiswananda said one Indonesian hiker died on the mountain and a 30-strong rescue team was escorting the six remaining trekkers down from Lake Segara Anak near the summit.

Helicopters and search teams had been deployed to scour the mountain’s slopes and drop food supplies for those stranded on it.

Hundreds of  buildings were destroyed across Lombok, including a health clinic, and Sutopo said more than 220 people suffered serious injuries.

A Malaysian tourist was among the dead, with another six citizens injured, the foreign ministry in Kuala Lumpur has said.

A total of 5,141 people are staying in temporary shelters and in need of clean water, according to officials.

The 3,726 metre-tall (12,224 feet) Rinjani is the second-highest volcano in Indonesia and a favourite among sightseers.

Its hiking trails were closed following the quake due to fear of further landslides.

The epicentre of the earthquake was 50 km (30 miles) northeast of  Mataram, far from the main tourist spots on the south and west of the island.

The initial tremor was followed by two strong secondary quakes and more than 100 aftershocks.

Indonesia straddles the so-called Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’, where tectonic plates collide and many of the world’s volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur.//AFP

    “543 hikers have been evacuated — they arrived last night,” national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told AFP.

“There are now six people left… They are all healthy and safe.”//AFP

This would enable it to wrest total control of the 125-seat National Assembly.

However, according to an NEC statement issued the same evening, the CPP won 4,875,189 of the popular vote, or 76.78 per cent, while the royalist Funcinpec party emerged second with 373,526, or 5.88 per cent of the total votes cast.

The election body said that preliminary figures indicated that voter turnout for the elections was 6,885,729 or more than 82 per cent of the total 8,380,217 registered voters in the Kingdom.

The NEC is expected to announce the preliminary results on August 11, followed by the final tally on August 15.

As the results are being processed, leaders from the opposite ends of the political spectrum appeared to agree with CPP figures, despite having some reservations on how the polls were conducted.

CPP spokesperson Sok Eysan told The Post on Monday that the party had won 77.77 percent or “nearly 100 percent” and would dominate the National Assembly. This would be the party’s largest victory since the Kingdom’s maiden elections in 1993.

“The results will give the CPP a landslide victory in the National Assembly. We can get nearly all of the 125 seats,” he said.

Eysan said political parties had no authority to announce the number of seats they believed they had won, but according to the NEC’s unofficial calculations, the ruling party had won comfortably and no other party could win a single seat.

“According to the figures obtained by other parties, I know that the CPP will overwhelmingly win the National Assembly.”

“As for the others, the maximum support was only 5.6 per cent [of the votes], and that is not enough for even a single seat,” he said.

The victory, Eysan said, was “beyond expectations” for the CPP, one that merely reflected the fact that the people continued to support caretaker Prime Minister Hun Sen to lead the country and backed his nationaldevelopment agenda.

As CPP president, Hun Sen, 65, led his party to its first victory in 1998.

Grassroots Democratic Party (GDP) secretary-general Sam Inn said his party was not satisfied with the election results but would respect the voters’ decision.

“We separate the election process into two phases. The first phase started at the end of last year, where there were many challenges.

“This includes the dissolution of the Cambodian National Rescue Party [CNRP], threats made against civil society organisations and restrictions imposed on journalists’ freedom. However, we acknowledged all these and still decided to be part of the election process. We did our best,” he said.

Hun Sen shows his inked-marked finger after casting his vote during the general election as his wife Bun Rany (left) looks on in Phnom Penh on Sunday. Heng Chivoan

As for the election campaign, election day and counting of the ballots, Inn said it generally went smoothly despite the GDP facing some challenges.

“We accept the election results, even though we are not content with it … we will respect the people’s decision.”

“The Grassroots Democratic Party will continue its work to inculcate a new political culture, and we will start with nearly all communes that we won through the ballot. We will continue our mission,” he said.

Echoing a similar view, Khmer Will Party (KWP) president Kong Monika said he too believed the figures disclosed by the CPP and the party has no plans to stage any protest to rebut the election results.

“KWP believes that the election process was acceptable but we do not believe it entirely, because we did not have party agents (at polling stations) and are waiting for the final results from the NEC.

“Regardless, the KWP will not protest against the election results. I would like to thank the people, our candidates and party activists who worked hard, and I would like to thank the people who voted for us.

“I believe the votes KWP received are from genuine supporters who voted without threats from any politician,” he said.

But FUNCINPEC took a different stance. Its spokesman Nheb Bun Chin yesterday denied commenting on whether his party would accept or deny the election results. “I am doing my work. I will not comment and speak to journalists at all,” he said.

On the other hand, CNRP issued a press statement yesterday claiming that the election was the “death of democracy” in Cambodia and the start of “a new dark day in history”.

“Without the party of their choice, millions of Cambodian voters were left with no choice other than to boycott the elections. They live in fear with constant threats and intimidation by the ruling party to coerce them to vote,” said the statement.

Nineteen other parties also contested in the election.

On the muddy yard of Sanamxay District Hospital in southern Lao province of Attapeu, Chinese doctors in military uniform have set up tents as reception for Lao villagers seeking medical service.

The banner hung on a canopy read “Bring best medical service to Lao people” in both Chinese and Lao letters.

These Chinese are members of a medical contingent from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, who were dispatched here for relief operation after a dam collapse triggered flash flood a week ago.

On July 23, a saddle dam of the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy hydroelectric power project burst, unleashing 5 billion cubic meters of water from the mountain to 13 villages of Sanamxay district downstream the Xe Pian River.

Six villages were entirely submerged by the muddy flood with 13,000 villagers being affected.

The contingent, which was on the “Peace Train-2018″Humanitarian Medical Rescue Joint Training Mission in the Lao capital of Vientiane, arrived in the flood-hit area on July 25.

It is the first foreign medical rescue team arriving in Sanamxay district after the disaster.

On Sunday, many villagers came to the reception to seek medical service from these Chinese medics, who also checked their heath by using ultrasound and electrocardiography.

“Our contingent has 32 members and some of us work here in the district hospital to treat hospitalized patients and patients sent here from disaster-hit areas,” said Chen Zhang, a member of the contingent and also chief of the Department of Respiration of Chengdu Military General Hospital.

“We receive some 100 patients daily. The main problems of villagers from the area are abdominal pain, gastrointestinal diseases, and diseases cause by insect bites and bruises,” he said, adding that they also treated villagers rescued from the flood-hit area who had not have any food for one or two days.

Liu Zhenxiong, a doctor from gastroenterology division, Second Hospital of Fourth Military Medical University, was one of the members that went to flooded villages with Lao authorities on Saturday.

“We went to a village called Ban Boc, and there were a lot of villagers there and we treated some 100 villagers in a single day,” Liu said.

‘Thumbs-up’

Ban Boc, formally called Don-Boc (Donbok) village, now is also a temporary shelter for displaced villagers as it lies on relatively high land.

Khamlieng Outhakaisone, deputy director general of the General Staff Department of the Lao People’s Army and commander of the rescue operation, told a news conference on Saturday night that the Donbok village sheltered some 1,086 affected villagers.

Liu said they found two children with high fever there so they transferred them to the district hospital where they were in better conditions.

“Villagers told us we are the first foreign medical team there in Ban Boc and they gave us a thumbs-up,” he said.

After a disaster like this, there would be cases of enteric infections, insect-borne diseases and food poisoning. The work to prevent any outbreak of diseases among victims should begin as soon as possible, or no later than 72 hours after the disaster, said Guo Jinpeng, head of the emergency response team of the disease control and prevention contingent.

They also guided villagers and locals on how to dispose of domestic waste and make sure they drink clean water and wash their hands before having food.

The latest report said 9 people had been confirmed dead while 122 were still missing after the disaster.

The last time scientists set foot on France’s remote Ile aux Cochons — roughly half way between the tip of Africa and Antarctica — the island was blanketed by two million of the flightless birds, which stand about a metre (three feet) tall.

But recent satellite images and photos taken from helicopters show the population has collapsed, with barely 200,000 remaining, according to a study published in Antarctic Science.

King penguins are home bodies. While adults will set to sea for days at a time foraging for food, the species does not migrate.

Why the colony on Ile aux Cochon has been so decimated remains a mystery.

“It is completely unexpected, and particularly significant since this colony represented nearly one third of the king penguins in the world,” said lead author Henri Weimerskirch, an ecologist at the Centre for Biological Studies in Chize, France, who first set eyes on the colony in 1982.

Climate change may play a role.

In 1997, a particularly strong El Nino weather event warmed the southern Indian Ocean, temporarily pushing the fish and squid on which king penguins depend south, beyond their foraging range.

“This resulted in population decline and poor breeding success” for all the king penguin colonies in the region, Weimerskirch said.

El Nino’s are cyclical events that occur every two to seven years. But they can be amplified by global warming, which itself produces many of the same results, albeit on a longer timescale.

Indeed, Weimerskirch and colleagues showed in an earlier study that climate change, on its current trajectory, will likely make the Iles Crozet — the archipelago that contains Ile aux Cochon — unviable for king penguins by mid-century.

Migration is not an option because there are no other suitable islands within striking range.

Other factors may be contributing to the decline of the Ile aux Cochon colony, including overcrowding.

One egg at a time

“The larger the population, the fiercer the competition between individuals,” noted a statement from France’s National Centre for Scientific Research, which funded the study.

“The repercussions of lack of food are thus amplified and can trigger an unprecedented rapid and drastic drop in numbers.”

But this so-called “density-dependent effect” can also be made worse by climate change, the study notes.

Another possible culprit is avian cholera, which has affected seabirds on nearby Marion and Amsterdam Islands, including some king penguins.

But until Weimerskirch and other researchers return to Ile aux Cochons — hopefully, he said, in early 2019 — they won’t know for sure.

It is also possible that invasive species such as rats, mice or cats, have found their way onto the island.

The Red List of Threatened Species conservation status for king penguins is currently “least concern,” but the new data may prompt a reevaluation.

King penguins are the second-largest penguin species after the Emperor.

They do not make a nest, but rather lay one egg at a time and carry it around on their feet covered with a flap of abdominal skin, called a brood patch.

Parents take turns incubating the egg, switching every couple of weeks over a two-month period.

There are two sub-species of kings. Aptenodytes patagonica patagonicus inhabits the Falklands and South Georgia Island, while Aptenodytes patagonica halli resides in the southernmost reaches of Indian Ocean and South Pacific.

Pompeo will depart later this week on a trip to Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia to hammer home the Trump administration’s commitment to the region, and also press for denuclearization in North Korea.

The trip comes at a time of tension with Beijing over its moves to assert sovereignty over disputed areas of the South China Sea, which Pompeo alluded to in a speech in Washington to business leaders from the region.

“When we say ‘free’ Indo-Pacific, it means we all want all nations, every nation, to be able to protect their sovereignty from coercion by other countries,” he said, adding that it also meant good governance to protect citizens’ rights.

“When we say ‘open’ in the Indo-Pacific, it means we want all nations to enjoy open access to seas and airways. We want the peaceful resolution of territorial and maritime disputes,” Pompeo said.

The State Department said Pompeo will expand on the “free and open” theme at an annual meeting in Singapore with foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Pompeo’s first stop on the August 1-5 trip will be in Malaysia, where a historic opposition victory in May elections returned former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad to power, and resulted in the release from prison of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

The 92-year-old Mahathir has promised to turn over the reins to Anwar within two years.

Citing “our strongly shared democratic values,” the State Department said Pompeo will hold talks with senior Malaysian government officials on security and economic interests during the visit to Kuala Lumpur Thursday and Friday.

From Kuala Lumpur, Pompeo will travel to Singapore for the ASEAN meeting, set for Friday and Saturday.

“The secretary will discuss our shared commitment to the final, fully verified denuclearization of the DPRK, upholding the rules-based order in the South China Sea, and countering terrorism,” the State Department said.

It did not say whether he will meet with his North Korean counterpart to discuss the implementation of the commitments US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made at their June 12 summit.

His last stop will be in Jakarta, where he will seek to “reinforce the US-Indonesia Strategic Partnership as we look ahead to celebrating 70 years of bilateral diplomatic relations in 2019,” the State Department said.

Thousands of firefighters in California made some progress against several large-scale blazes that have turned close to 200,000 acres (80,940 hectares) into an ashen wasteland, destroyed expensive homes, and killed eight fire personnel and civilians in the most populous US state.

The worst blaze, northern California’s Carr Fire, has killed six people since Thursday, including a 70-year-old woman and her two great-grandchildren aged four and five. They perished when flames swallowed their home in Redding.

Local media identified the victims as Melody Bledsoe and the children, Emily Roberts and James Roberts, nicknamed “Junior.”

“I talked to Junior on the phone ’til he died,” Melody’s husband Ed Bledsoe told CNN, recounting the last words of the boy, his sister, and Bledsoe’s wife.

“He said ‘Come and get me, the fire’s comin’ in the back door. Come on, grandpa,'” Bledsoe said, his voice choking.

But he couldn’t get there in time to save them.

“I’ve been a lifelong resident of this community, and I’ve never seen a fire with such destruction here in this area ever before,” Shasta County Supervisor Leonard Moty said of the Carr Fire.

Alyce Macken said she had only minutes to flee with her husband Ted from the flames sweeping closer to her home in Redding. A sheriff’s officer pounded on the door and gave them 15 minutes to leave, Macken told AFP.

“We were out in 10 minutes. I was shaking, it just went by really fast,” the retiree said.

Macken told AFP that she met other panic-stricken neighbors at a nearby shopping center — and watched from afar as her home went up in flames.

“It was almost like a tornado with fire in it and it came over the hill and it wiped out our house, it wiped out our next door neighbor’s home,” she said.

About 38,000 people had been evacuated in Shasta County due to the Carr Fire, officials said, though some evacuation orders have been lifted.

Over the weekend, US President Donald Trump approved California’s request for federal help to fight the blaze and assist evacuees.

A thick smoke haze covered a large part of northern California, severely limiting visibility and contributing to breathing problems.

According to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), 12,000 firefighters from as far away as Florida and New Jersey have deployed across the state.

Firefighter killed by tree

A firefighter identified as Brian Hughes died on Sunday while battling the Ferguson Fire near Yosemite National Park, a major tourist attraction partially closed because of the fire.

Hughes “was struck and killed by a tree” while fighting the blaze, the Sequoia and Kings National Parks Service said.

Another firefighter died days earlier working at the fire around Yosemite.

Much of that blaze is in steep, rugged terrain with little or no access roads, officials said.

The remains of a person who ignored Carr Fire evacuation orders was found in a burned-out residence on Sunday, said Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko.

Two fire personnel were killed late last week battling the Carr blaze.

Seven other people were reported missing, Sheriff Bosenko said, adding that 600 National Guard soldiers had been deployed for support duties such as roadblocks.

Police have reported cases of looting from areas emptied of residents — but then there was also the case of the missing python.

Sandra Dodge-Streich, an evacuee forced to move four times, warned that a 14-foot long albino python she owned was lost at her latest stop in south Redding.

“She is part of our store family and Reptile Exhibit. Please don’t be afraid of her — she is lost and scared!” Dodge-Streich, the owner of Redding Reptiles, said on Facebook.

Feeling ‘optimistic’

The Carr Fire covers almost 99,000 acres and is 20 percent contained, according to Cal Fire, the state’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

“Firefighters worked through the night to build control lines,” and will now work to mitigate potential spot fires, Cal Fire said in a morning update.

Cal Fire incident manager Bret Gouvea earlier told reporters “we’re feeling a lot more optimistic… as we’re starting to make up some ground instead of being on the defensive.”

But current conditions are perfect for fanning the flames: very hot, with little wind or humidity.

In southern California, where thousands fled the deliberately-set Cranston Fire, Cal Fire said crews had stopped flames from reaching Idyllwild town and the blaze was more than 50 percent contained by Monday.

Last year was California’s deadliest ever for wildfires, with more than 40 fatalities.

The report on sexual exploitation and abuse in the sector, produced by the International Development Committee scrutiny panel of MPs, said self-regulation had completely failed to deal with the issue.

“The overall impression is one of complacency, verging on complicity,” the report said.

Lawmakers were investigating the aid sector following revelations earlier this year of a prostitution scandal in Haiti involving staff from the British charity Oxfam.

That triggered a flood of complaints across the sector.

The committee said the scale of the problem was impossible to define but there were suspicions that known cases so far were the tip of the iceberg.

“Sexual exploitation and abuse is happening and it is happening across organisations, countries and institutions. It is endemic, and it has been for a long time,” the parliamentary report said.

“The delivery of aid to people and communities in crisis has been subverted by sexual predators who exploit weakened systems of governance.”

In its conclusions, the report said the international aid sector’s response to tackling abuse had been “reactive, patchy and sluggish”.

It said there had been a collective failure of leadership and the aid sector was in “self-delusion” over its efforts to deal with the issue.

“Impunity for sexual exploitation and abuse is utterly unacceptable. The lack of accountability entirely undermines the notion of zero tolerance,” the MPs said.

The committee called for a global register of aid workers, to prevent sexual predators seeking to drift around the sector.

“Reactions driven by concern for reputational management” will “never bring about meaningful change,” the MPs said.

October conference

Britain is hosting an international safeguarding conference on October 18 aimed at striking a common front agreement across the sector.

Britain’s International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said survivors needed to be put first.

“Until the sector is fully prepared to address the power imbalance, cultures, and behaviours that allow sexual abuse, exploitation and harassment to happen, we will never stamp it out,” she said.

Judith Brodie, who heads Bond, Britain’s network of international development non-governmental organisations, said the sector was working to end sex abuse.

“We as NGOs know that ‘business as usual’ is not going to cut it and change has started,” she said.

Oxfam chair of trustees Caroline Thomson said the report made for “incredibly painful reading.”

“We failed to protect vulnerable women in Haiti, and we accept we should have reported more clearly at the time — for that we are truly sorry,” she said.