Kuala Lumpur, March 23—Malaysian authorities said today that they received new satellite images from the French, showing objects in the southern Indian Ocean that could be part of the missing Malaysian airliner.

A statement issued by Malaysia’s Transport Ministry said the “potential objects” were spotted  ”in the vicinity of the southern corridor.”

Malaysian authorities did not hold a media briefing today, breaking with practice that stretches back to the day the aircraft went missing, on March 8.

The French discovery adds to findings made by Chinese and Australian satellites but the sightings have yet to translate into discoveries in the sea area where the search is going on.

“As of 2:30pm Malaysia time, Australian officials have informed us that they have not made any new sightings regarding MH370,” the statement added.

The current focus of the hunt for the Malaysia Airline jet  is on a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean, some 2500 km southwest of Perth in Western Australia.

Australia is leading the international search for the Malaysia Airline aircraft carrying 239 people which went missing on March 8.

The Australian rescue co-ordination centre deployed eight aircraft to the search area today.

Meanwhile, 2 Chinese Ilyushin IL-76s have arrived in Perth, and will depart for the search and rescue operation tomorrow.

Two Japanese P3 Orions today left Subang airport for Perth. ne Indian Navy P8 Poseidon and one Indian Air Force C130 left also Subang airport to join the search and rescue operation in the northern part of the southern corridor, which is being led by Indonesia.

But poor weather has been hampering search efforts.

“A number of other sorties from Subang airport to the southern corridor were cancelled today due to bad weather caused by tropical cyclone Gillian,” the statement added.

MH370, a Boeing 777-200ER aircraft, left Malaysia’s main airport, KLIA, around 12.40 am on March 8. The plane, bound for Beijing, travelled on the path charted for it for just under an hour. It’s last contact with air control was around 1.20 am the same day, when it was 120 nautical miles off Kota Baru and flying over the South China Sea.

What happened next has been subject to intense debate and speculation but military radar detected the plane turning back, flying in the opposite direction of its intended flight path. There were no distress calls and the plane stopped communicating its position like it normally would.

Working  on the data from military radars, experts plotted one of two possible paths for the flight : a northern corridor stretching approximately from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand, or a southern corridor stretching approximately from Indonesia to the southern Indian ocean.