Pakistani passenger plane crashed killing all 152 on board,..[ 1539 ]

Pakistan passenger plane crashes, 152 dead

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Rescue workers search the site of the crash of an Airblue passenger plane on the outskirts of Islamabad July 28, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Medhi Shah

By Kamran Haider

ISLAMABAD | Wed Jul 28, 2010 8:59am EDT

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A Pakistani passenger plane crashed in heavy rain near Islamabad on Wednesday, killing all 152 people on board, officials said, in the worst aviation accident in Pakistan.
Two Americans were among the victims, a U.S. embassy spokesman told Reuters. He had no further details.

"There are no survivors. We believe all are dead. We are recovering the remains of the dead bodies from the wreckage," Imtiaz Elahi, chairman of the state-run Capital Development Authority, a city municipal body.

The Airbus 321, belonging to private airline Airblue, crashed into a heavily wooded and hard-to-access hillside while flying from the southern port city of Karachi. More than 90 bodies had been recovered so far, but the bad weather was making recovery efforts difficult.
"We have suspended the air operation because of rain. It will take a long time to clear the area.
There's no way to transport bodies from the site except via helicopters and even helicopters cannot land there," said Aamir Ali Ahmed, senior city government official, said.
Rescuers said they had to dig through the rubble with their bare hands, with fire and thick smoke hampering their work. The fire has since been extinguished, but access to the hillside remained limited to pedestrians and helicopters.
"You find very few intact bodies. Basically, we are collecting bodies parts and putting them in bags," police officer Bin Yameen.

The plane lost contact with the control room of the Islamabad International Airport at 0443 GMT. It was carrying 146 passengers and six crew members.
"The pilot was given directions to land either on runway I or II," Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters. "The plane was at 2,600 feet before landing but suddenly it went to 3,000, which was unexplained."
"If the visibility to the runway was so poor then it should have been diverted."

Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhatar said the control tower at the airport had been sealed and a team would examine the "black box" data recorder and radio traffic between the plane and the tower.
"If you look at the position of the wreckage it's clear that the plane went beyond safety margins. It should have maneuvered within five miles of the runway but it did not happen," said Ejaz Haroon, managing director of state-run airline PIA.

The crash site is on the Margalla Hills facing Islamabad, about 300 meters (yards) up the side of the hills. Smoke could be seen from some districts of the city after the crash.
While Wednesday's crash is the worst aviation accident on Pakistani soil, PIA has had two worse disasters. In 1979 and 1992, PIA jets crashed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and Kathmandu, killing 156 and 167 people, respectively.
Within Pakistan, the last major aviation accident was in 2006 when a PIA plane crashed near the central city of Multan killing 45 people.

NEW PLANE

The military said it had sent three helicopters to the site and troops had also been moved there. Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani surveyed rescue operations from the air and the government declared Thursday a day of mourning for the victims.

Airblue began operations in 2004 with a fleet of Airbus A320 and A321 aircraft, according to its website www.airblue.com. It flies primarily domestic routes as well as to the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Manchester in Britain.

Spokesman Raheel Ahmed said this was the first crash for the airline and that an investigation was being launched.
"It's too early to speculate," he said about the cause of the crash. "The civil aviation authorities will also be involved."
Airbus confirmed one of its planes was involved in the Airblue crash.
"We regret to confirm there has been an accident with an Airbus aircraft and we will provide more information when we have more confirmed data available," said Airbus spokesman Stefan Schaffrath.

At Islamabad's international airport in the moments after the crash, passengers in the departure lounge scanned the television screens for news.
"I'm not surprised something like this has happened," said Ahmed Fairuz, a passenger awaiting departure. "The weather is just too bad for flying."
Aviation industry sources in Europe said the aircraft was leased from International Lease Finance Corp, the leasing unit of U.S. insurance giant AIG
Los Angeles-based ILFC was not available for comment and there was no immediate confirmation of these details.
The A321 is the largest of the A320 family of single-aisle jets produced by EADS subsidiary Airbus. This particular type of aircraft, which can seat up to 185 passengers, has been in service since 1994.

(Additional reporting by Augustine Anthony, Zeeshan Haider, Chris Allbritton and Shiza Shahid in ISLAMABAD; Sahar Ahmed in KARACHI; Tim Hepher in PARIS; Writing by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Miral Fahmy)

Spain faces bullfighting ban ..[ 1538 ]

Spain faces bullfighting ban vote in Catalonia

 

Bullfighting has declined in popularity in Catalonia but fights are still held in Barcelona

BBC  28 July 2010 Last updated at 03:28 GMT

By Sarah Rainsford BBC News, Barcelona

The parliament of Catalonia is to vote on whether or not to become the first region of mainland Spain to ban bullfighting.

The vote is taking place as the result of a petition brought to parliament signed by 180,000 people who argue that the practice is barbaric and outdated.

Bullfight supporters insist that the corrida, as it is known, is an important tradition to preserve.

They also fear the vote could be the first of many in the country.

Wednesday's vote could bring a long tradition in Catalonia to an end.

Barcelona's main bullring is one of the oldest in Spain, but support for the bullfight has waned here.

Now the regional parliament will now decide whether to ban the practice altogether.

The vote was brought to the agenda by activists who argue it is cruel and unacceptable and say most spectators in Catalonia these days are tourists.

Supporters says the corrida is an art form that it is vital to preserve.

The vote is expected to be close, as the two main parties in parliament have taken the unusual step of allowing members to cast their ballots according to their conscience.

But while the official debate is over animal rights, many believe this process is an attempt by nationalist-minded Catalans to mark their difference from the rest of Spain by rejecting one of its best known traditions.

Pro-bullfighting groups fear that a ban here could spark a wave of similar campaigns across the country. They argue that threatens the livelihood of thousands of people.

German - Russian syringe plant ..[ 1537 ]

German firm to invest in Russian syringe plant

By Eugene Gerden | PRW

Posted July 27, 2010

MUNICH, GERMANY (July 27, 11:20 a.m. ET) -- 
Munich-based Farmar is planning to set up a plant for production of disposable syringes in Russia’s Siberian Omsk region.

According to company CEO Jan Kostshevsky, the new plant will have capacity to produce up to 150 million disposable syringes each year and will compete with Chinese producers. Financial details were not disclosed.

Most of the syringes produced at the site will be sold within Omsk (where demand for syringes is estimated at 33 million to 35 million a year) and neighboring regions.
Construction of the plant is part of a major project being planned for Siberia, which aims to establish of an industrial cluster for production of medical equipment.

A PP resins plant at Omsk, which is scheduled to be launched later this year, is expected to provide raw materials for the Farmar facility.

Farmar is a holding company that provides medical services to overseas markets. In Russia, the company has offices in the Moscow and Perm regions.

Russia, No more Soviet-style justice..[ 1536 ]

Russian courts dish out Soviet-style justice

Despite Medvedev's promises of reform, Russia's dissidents still bring suitcases to court — expecting a jail term.

By Miriam Elder - GlobalPost
Published: July 27, 2010 13:45 ET in Europe

Members of the ultra-left Russian National Bolshevik party shout slogans during an unsanctioned protest outside the Russian parliament building in Moscow over a 2007 decision labeling the party "extremist" and forcing it to liquidate. (Natalia Kolesnikova/Getty Images)

 
MOSCOW, Russia — In the United States, Yulia Privedyonnaya would probably be called a hippie.

She writes bad poetry and has devoted her life to developing a “theory of happiness.” She believes everyone should smile more. She shares a communal home with like-minded thinkers.

But Privedyonnaya lives in Russia. Since she was charged with leading an illegal armed group two years ago, she has spent nearly 80 days in a rat-infested prison, one month in a psychiatric facility and endless days fighting a legal system that seems determined to imprison her.

On Wednesday, she is due to attend court one last time to see whether a judge has found her guilty of leading an illegal militant group, illegal detainment of minors and torture. Privedyonnaya and her supporters call the charges “ridiculous.” She risks up to four and a half years in prison if found guilty.

If precedent is anything to go by, she likely will be. Less than 1 percent of all people on trial in Russia walk free. Last year, according to Supreme Court head Vyacheslav Lebedev, 920,000 people were convicted while just 9,000 were acquitted.

Critics say that Privedyonnaya’s case is a damning illustration that, despite President Dmitry Medvedev’s rhetorical commitment to reforming Russia’s notoriously corrupt and politicized court system, little has changed on the ground.

In May 2008, six officers from the Federal Security Service, the powerful main successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB, arrived at Privedyonnaya’s doorstep in Odintsovo, a small town on Moscow’s outskirts.

They threw her into a van. “I asked them why they were taking me, the charges made no sense. One of them said: 'To us, ideas are scarier than criminals,' ” she said during a recent interview.

It’s hard to imagine an FSB officer being so eloquent, but Privedyonnaya is one of the hundreds of opposition activists in Russia who speak as if the Soviet Union still existed, comparing their cases to those of prominent Soviet dissidents like Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov. 

“It’s like in the ‘Gulag Archipelago,’” Privedyonnaya said, referring to Solzhenitsyn’s most famous book, which exposed the vast network of Soviet labor camps. “Criminals were seen as in with the guards, while political prisoners were more dangerous. The same principle exists today.”

Privedyonnaya was thrown into prison, and kept there, without court sanction, for 77 days. During that time, she was let outside twice for 10 minutes each time. “I was given a nickname — ‘the terrorist,’” she said. “Even the prison guards called me that and would laugh and say, “Ah, so they thought up some charges!”

If you ask Privedyonnaya, she was arrested because of her increasing presence in Russia’s opposition circles. She had begun attending anti-Putin rallies. She likes to point out that President Dmitry Medvedev was inaugurated days before her arrest.

Yet often in Russia, the case is more complicated.

Privedyonnaya, 36, belongs to a group called — in all seriousness — the Poetical Association for the Elaboration for a Theory of Happiness, known by its Russian initials, PORTOS. She joined the group in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse after meeting some members and taking advantage of the classes they offered in Esperanto, the universal language that Privedyonnaya still believes will one day tie the world together.

By 2000, the group was involved in various kinds of community service, delivering food to old people and tutoring underprivileged youth. To fund their activities, they started a business, using trucks to deliver grocery cargo to shops. They moved to a 3.7 acre plot of land in the village of Lyubertsy, outside Moscow.

Less than one year later, organized crime police and FSB officers raided the grounds, seizing computers and arresting four people, including the group’s founder. They were accused of the same three charges Privedyonnaya faces, and were all found guilty, each being sentenced to four to five and a half years in jail. The land was confiscated.

Privedyonnaya and her supporters believe that case was linked to a new law inaugurated in the wake of the deadly terrorist bombings on four apartment blocks in Russia in 1999 that provided the premise for a newly elected president, Vladimir Putin, to launch a second war against separatists in Chechnya.

“They needed to find a case that showed the fight against terrorism was happening,” said Mikhail Trepashkin, Privedyonnaya’s lawyer and former FSB officer who was imprisoned for four years after investigating the bombings and finding FSB involvement.

Privedyonnaya agrees: “They need to fulfill a plan to ‘catch bandits.’ To catch real ones is dangerous — they tend to shoot — and this way they show they’re fighting terrorism.”

It is unclear what promoted Privedyonnaya’s arrest eight years later.

Her captors said she had been on the country’s wanted list since the 2000 raid. “They said they had been searching for me and couldn’t find me, but that’s impossible — I was on TV, on the radio, all the time.”

Her trial began in September 2008 and has been marked by delays and what her lawyer says are procedural violations.

A first judge refused to try it, saying there wasn’t enough evidence. The prosecution called 42 witnesses, including police and FSB officers, but not one has showed up to the trial.

Several months into the hearings, prosecutors asked the judge to order a psychiatric check, arguing that the “theory of happiness makes no sense,” Privedyonnaya said. She was interred at Moscow’s Serbsky Institute, a notorious psychiatric ward that was used in Soviet times to imprison political prisoners, for 21 days.

“They asked what books I read. One doctor asked what I thought of Stalin, what I thought of Putin,” she said.

Privedyonnaya’s supporters launched an international outcry. Amnesty International began a letter-writing campaign. The psychiatric hospital eventually found that she was sane.

Privedyonnaya thinks only similar public pressure could help her at Wednesday’s hearing, yet she fully understands that a guilty verdict is the most likely outcome.

NASA image of the Day. July 27th.[ 1535 ]

The latest NASA "Image of the Day" image.

Wild 2: If You Were There

On Jan. 2, 2004 NASA's Stardust spacecraft made a close flyby of comet Wild 2 (pronounced "Vilt-2"). 

Among the equipment the spacecraft carried on board was a navigation camera.that Comet Wild 2 is about 3.1 miles in diameter. 

This artist's concept depicts a view of Wild 2 that shows the faint jets emanating from the comet.  

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Τρίτη, 27 Ιούλιος 2010 7:00:00 πμ