PEOPLE who are in leadership positions should always bear in mind that they are judged by a higher standard.

As such, they should be conscious of their public behaviour and comments.

This newspaper, and indeed other media houses have, in the past, found reason to chide political leaders for offensive statements they have made on the hustings.

This time we take issue with Mr Mike Henry’s comments in response to his detractors’ remarks about his continued political involvement at his age.

Sure, Mr Henry elicited laughter when he suggested at a Jamaica Labour Party meeting last Sunday that his age was not a problem to his wife and his girlfriend.

However, the people who found that remark funny should ask themselves what kind of example is Mr Henry setting for the country, especially our young people, when he promotes the idea that it’s okay to have both a wife and a girlfriend. The silence of the church, women’s and civil society groups on this one is deafening.

The need for answers after a year of pain

Almost a year to the date the world is still left wondering what caused Malaysia Airlines flight 370 to disappear.

The past 12 months have been extremely painful for the families, friends and loved ones of the 238 people aboard the Boeing 777-200ER aircraft that simply vanished on a flight from Malaysia to Singapore on March 8, 2014.

For those people have not been able to find closure in this most unfortunate incident, and their hope of at least knowing what really went wrong fades each day that search teams scouring a large, remote section of the Indian Ocean return empty-handed.

How long the search will continue is anyone’s guess, even as we are told that officials say they are committed to finding the aircraft.

But, as wire service reports are pointing out, the uncomfortably practical concern of the cost of the search is now facing Australia and Malaysia, which have each contributed US$60 million to the effort.

Yesterday, the Associated Press reported Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott as saying that he can’t promise that the search will go on at this intensity forever. “But we will continue our very best efforts to resolve this mystery and provide some answers.”

It appears that the month of May has been established as a deadline to call an end to the search.

If the aircraft isn’t found by then, one option, according to Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss, “is to expand the hunt beyond the current search zone into a wider area surrounding it”.

The problem, though, the Associated Press notes, is that that “wider area” is 1.1 million square kilometres (425,000 square miles) — “nearly 20 times the size of the current search zone, which itself is expected to take more than seven months to cover. Searching such a vast stretch of ocean would take an incredible amount of time and money”.

However, failure to find the aircraft will still leave the authorities guessing what happened.

That information is pertinent to aviators, the families and loved ones of the missing passengers and crew, and, indeed the world at large. For we all need to know what can be done to reduce the likelihood of a recurrence.