YANGON - Various kinds of items including one iron box and steward suits have been recovered in the vicinity of the sea area where the tail of the Myanmar military plane was found, Myanmar News Agency reported Tuesday. The items of the victims were recovered by two fishing motor boats on Monday evening while searching for the remaining parts of the crashed plane. However, two divers were injured by water pressure while conducting retrieve of parts of the plane wreckage in deep waters, the report said. On Sunday evening, Flight Data Recorder (Black Box) and CVR (Cockpit Voice Recorder) were found in the already retrieved plane's tail section which was entangled with a fishing net of a local vessel under the sea off the country's southern coast. Authorities are continuing to probe into the causes of the plane crash based on the black box. So far, a total of 92 bodies have been recovered as of late Sunday. With a load of 2.4 tons of cargo and 122 people aboard, including 108 military personnel and their family members and 14 crew members, the aircraft of the Myanmar Air Force lost contact with the ground shortly after taking off from Myeik on June 7. The plane was believed to have crashed in the Andaman Sea off the southern Tanintharyi region on a flight to Yangon. customize silicone braceletsmotivational wristbands for athletespaper wristbands ukprinted bracelets24 hour bracelets
United States Secretary of Defense James Mattis will visit China from June 26 to June 28. [Photo/IC] United States Secretary of Defense James Mattis' first visit to China will help ease tension, promote mutual trust and facilitate healthy interactions and relations between the two militaries, experts said. Chinese military officials will also take this chance to directly communicate China's stance of resolutely safeguarding its national sovereignty, territorial integrity and other core interests to the top US defense official, they added. Mattis will visit China from Tuesday to Thursday. He will meet with State and military leaders to discuss issues of common concern, Ren Guoqiang, a spokesman for Ministry of National Defense, said on Monday. It will be the first visit to China of a US defense secretary since Chuck Hagel in April 2014. Mattis will also visit the Republic of Korea and Japan after his trip to China. Developing healthy and stable Sino-US military-to-military relations is in accordance with the mutual interest of both countries and the common aspirations of the international community, Ren said. China values developing military relations with the US, and hopes the US works with China to turn the military relationship into a stabilizing factor for the countries' overall relations, he added. While Mattis' trip to China was part of the bilateral consensus reached last year, his visit comes amid recently heightened security tensions between the two over the South China Sea and Taiwan. On May 23, the Pentagon disinvited China from the 2018 Rim of the Pacific naval exercise as part of its criticism of China's military buildup in the South China Sea. The US is also helping Taiwan bolster its defense capabilities. One week ago, the US Senate passed the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, calling for joint military drills with the island, despite Beijing's strong opposition to any country having military interactions with Taiwan. Mattis, however, has shown an interest in less contentious dialogue with China before traveling to Asia, insisting to reporters that he will not poison the well before going into the talks and will focus on larger, more strategic security issues, The Associated Press reported on Sunday. Colonel Liu Lin, an associate researcher of foreign militaries at the People's Liberation Army Academy of Military Science, said while some degree of competition is inevitable between China and the US, there is more room for cooperation than confrontation. Having high ranking military officials directly interact with each other will help increase strategic communication and build mutual trust, facilitating a healthy military relationship between the two countries, she said. Senior Colonel Zhou Bo, director of the Center for Security Cooperation under the Central Military Commission Office of International Military Cooperation, said the South China Sea, Taiwan and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula will be among the key topics discussed during Mattis' visit to China, as well as bilateral military cooperation. Although not all differences could be managed overnight, the gesture of his coming to China is already a positive sign for Sino-US military relations, he said.
