MH370 victims’ kin to raise $15 mn to fund own search

Spurred by Brexit, a first-of-its-kind meeting of Commonwealth ministers responsible for trade, industry and investment is scheduled over two days next week, with London pinning much hope on India and other countries in the group.

Commerce secretary Rita A Teotia will represent India at the meeting titled Agenda for Growth. London-based sources rejected the perception that India downgraded the meet by not sending commerce minister Nirmala Seetharaman.

The Theresa May government has often indicated its post-Brexit trade direction by focusing on India and the Commonwealth countries as an alternative to Britain losing access to the European Single Market after leaving the EU.

The meeting is the first major event under the leadership of Patricia Scotland, Commonwealth secretary-general, who took over in April 2016.

The meeting, scheduled for March 9 and 10, is convened by the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council and the Commonwealth secretariat.

Scotland said, “Current global trade instability remains a priority concern for member states. It is vital that no country is left behind... Our trade experts have identified significant, untapped opportunities which, with the Secretariat’s support, can boost intra-Commonwealth trade from 17% to 25% over the next three years.”

Next week’s meet takes place as countries consider the implications of Brexit on key industries across Commonwealth.

The families of those on board missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 launched efforts on Saturday to raise at $15 million to fund a private search, marking the third anniversary of the plane’s disappearance.

The plane disappeared March 8, 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. Malaysia, Australia and China suspended the search in the Indian Ocean on January 17 after it failed to find any trace.

Jacquita Gomes, whose husband was a flight attendant on the plane, said families have no choice but to take matters into their own hands by raising the money. “What happened to MH370 is a mystery, but it should not go down in the history books as a mystery. Everybody wants answers,” she said. AGENCIES

mass grave containing the remains of babies and children was discovered at a former Catholic orphanage in Ireland, government-appointed investigators announced on Friday.

The judge-led Mother and Baby Homes Commission said excavations since November at the site of the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, found an underground structure divided into 20 chambers containing “significant quantities of human remains.”

The commission said DNA analysis of selected remains confirmed the ages of the dead ranged from 35 weeks to 3 years old and were buried in the 1950s. The home closed in 1961. Friday’s findings provided the first proof after decades of suspicions that the nearly 800 children who died at the home had been interred on the site in unmarked graves — a common but ill-documented practice at Catholic-run facilities amid high child mortality rates in early 20th century Ireland. AP