MOSCOW: Emergency teams combed the snowy fields outside Moscow on Monday, searching for debris from a crashed Russian airliner and the remains of the 71 people aboard it who died.
The An-148 twin-engine regional jet bound for Orsk in the southern Urals went down minutes after taking off from Moscow’s Domodedovo airport Sunday afternoon. All 65 passengers and 6 crew on board were killed.
Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said the search for victims’ remains will take a week. He noted that emergency teams already have found the plane’s flight data recorder, which is crucial for determining the crash’s cause.
Russian investigators quickly ruled out a terror attack but will not speculate on possible reasons for the crash.
Still the crash Sunday re-ignited questions about the An-148, since the model’s safety record is spotty, with one previous crash and a series of major incidents in which pilots struggled to land safely.
The Investigative Committee, Russia’s premier state investigative agency, said the plane was intact and there had been no fire on board before it hit the ground.
The plane’s fuel tanks exploded on impact, scattering debris across 30 hectares (74 acres) in deep snow, according to the Emergency Ministry, which used drones to direct the search.
The 65 passengers ranged in age from 5 to 79, according to a list posted by the Russian Emergencies Ministry. Most victims were from Orsk, where the authorities declared an official day of mourning on Monday.
The plane was operated by Saratov Airlines, which said the plane had received proper maintenance and passed all the necessary checks before the flight. The plane was built in 2010 for a different airline that operated it for several years before putting it in storage. Saratov Airlines commissioned it last year.
The airline said the plane’s captain had more than 5,000 hours of flying time, 2,800 of them in an An-148. The other pilot had 812 hours of experience, largely in that model.
The An-148 once was touted as an example of Russian-Ukrainian cooperation, but it fell into trouble as relations between the two neighbors unraveled following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
It was developed by Ukraine’s Antonov company in the early 2000s. About 40 were built, most of them in Russia that manufactured the plane under license.
Along with several commercial carriers, the An-148 was operated by the Russian Defense Ministry and several other government agencies. Ukraine’s president has used the plane for some of his trips.
But the plane’s production in Russia was halted last year because of low demand and media reports indicated that some carriers, including the Saratov Airlines, were experiencing a shortage of spares. Some airlines reportedly had to cannibalize some of their planes to keep others airworthy.
Among the major problems, in March 2011 an An-148 crashed during a training flight in Russia, killing all six crew on board. Investigators blamed pilot error.
In 2010, another An-148 operated by a Russian carrier suffered a major failure of its control system but its crew managed to land safely.
Last September, a Saratov Airlines An-148 had one of its engines shut down minutes after takeoff, but landed safely. And in October, another An-148 that belonged to a different Russian carrier suffered an engine fire on takeoff but managed to land.
The last large airline crash in Russia occurred on Dec. 25, 2016, when a Tu-154 operated by the Russian Defense Ministry on its way to Syria crashed into the Black Sea minutes after takeoff from Sochi. All 92 people on board were killed.
Emergency teams search for victims of Russian plane crash
Emergency teams search for victims of Russian plane crash
Bangladesh orders banks to assist UK minister graft probe
Siddiq is the niece of former Bangladeshi premier Sheikh Hasina, who fled abroad last August after a student-led uprising against her iron-fisted tenure.
Last month the national anti-corruption commission launched a probe into the alleged embezzlement by Hasina’s family of $5 billion connected to a Russian-funded nuclear power plant.
Two officials from the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU), speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Bangladeshi banks had been instructed to furnish any financial records relating to Siddiq.
A BFIU document issued Tuesday and seen by AFP showed that banks had also been told to provide transaction records for Hasina, her son and daughter, Siddiq’s two siblings and her mother Sheikh Rehana.
The kickback allegations relate to the $12.65 billion Rooppur nuclear plant, which was bankrolled by Moscow with a 90 percent loan.
“The claims of kickbacks, mismanagement, money laundering, and potential abuse of power raise significant concerns about the integrity of the project and the use of public funds,” the anti-corruption commission said last month when announcing the probe.
The order came a day after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer revealed that Siddiq had referred herself to his standards adviser.
Siddiq insists she has done nothing wrong and a spokesman for Starmer said he retains “full confidence” in her.
The referral came after the Sunday Times and Financial Times newspapers reported that she had lived in properties linked to her aunt Sheikh Hasina’s administration.
“In recent weeks I have been the subject of media reporting, much of it inaccurate, about my financial affairs and my family’s links to the former government of Bangladesh,” Siddiq wrote in her letter to ministerial standards watchdog Laurie Magnus.
“I am clear that I have done nothing wrong,” she added. “However, for the avoidance of doubt, I would like you to independently establish the facts about these matters.”
Her aunt Hasina, 77, fled Bangladesh by helicopter on August 5, shortly before protesters stormed her palace in the capital Dhaka.
She remains in neighboring India but the interim government that replaced her has demanded her extradition to face trial for the police killing of protesters during the revolt against her regime.
US seeks prisoner swap with Afghanistan involving Guantanamo detainee arrested in Pakistan — media
- Outgoing US administration seeks to bring back three Americans in exchange for Muhammad Rahim Al-Afghani
- Al-Aghani reportedly had ties with bin Laden and was the last person brought to the CIA interrogation program
WASHINGTON: The Biden administration is negotiating with Afghanistan to exchange Americans detained in the country for at least one high-profile prisoner held in Guantanamo Bay with alleged ties to former Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
Representatives of the White House and the US State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report. Representatives for the Afghan Taliban also did not immediately respond.
US President Joe Biden’s administration is seeking the return of three Americans seized in 2022 — Ryan Corbett, George Glezmann and Mahmood Habibi — in exchange for Muhammad Rahim Al-Afghani, the WSJ reported.
A source familiar with the matter confirmed to Reuters that the Biden administration has been negotiating with the Taliban since at least July on a US proposal to exchange Corbett, Glezmann and Habibi for Rahim.
The Taliban, who deny holding Habibi, countered with an offer to exchange Glezmann and Corbett for Rahim and two others, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Corbett and Habibi were detained in separate incidents in August 2022 a year after the Taliban seized Kabul amid the chaotic US troop withdrawal. Glezmann was detained later in 2022 while visiting as a tourist.
A spokesperson for the National Security Council said they could not confirm the WSJ story, but added that the administration was “working around the clock” to secure the release of the three Americans.
Rahim’s lawyer, James Connell, told Reuters that neither the Biden administration nor the Taliban had informed him or Rahim of the negotiations.
“It does seem important to include Rahim or his representative in the conversation,” said Connell. “As it happens, he is willing to be traded or exchanged.”
Rahim was “the last person brought into the CIA torture program,” said Connell, referring to an agency program instituted after the Sept. 11, 2001, Al Qaeda attacks that used harsh interrogation methods on suspected Islamist militants.
The CIA denies the methods amounted to torture.
A Senate intelligence committee report on the agency’s so-called enhanced interrogation program called Rahim an “Al Qaeda facilitator” and said that he was arrested in Pakistan in June 2007 and “rendered” to the CIA the following month.
He was kept in a secret CIA “black site,” where he was subjected to tough interrogation methods, including extensive sleep deprivation, and then sent to Guantanamo Bay in March 2008, the report said.
The US-Taliban talks have been in motion since July, according to the WSJ, which cited sources who attended a classified House Foreign Affairs Committee briefing last month with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
On Monday, Biden’s administration sent 11 Guantanamo detainees to Oman, reducing the prisoner population at the detention center in Cuba by nearly half as part of its effort to close the facility as the president prepares to leave office Jan. 20.
Blinken in Paris to discuss Mideast, receive honor
- The top US diplomat arrived early on Wednesday in Paris after stops in Japan and South Korea
The top US diplomat arrived early on Wednesday in Paris after stops in Japan and South Korea on what is expected to be his final trip before he is slated to be replaced with Marco Rubio once President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated on January 20, according to an AFP reporter traveling with him.
Blinken will meet President Emmanuel Macron, who will decorate him with the Legion of Honour, France’s highest order of merit.
The award will be especially poignant for Blinken, a fluent French speaker who spent part of his childhood in Paris and has spoken of France’s role in forming his worldview.
The decision to recognize Blinken also shows the full turnaround in relations since the start of President Joe Biden’s term in 2021, when France was infuriated after the United States forged a new three-way alliance with Britain and Australia that resulted in the rescinding of a lucrative contract for French submarines.
Biden and Blinken have repeatedly said that their priority has been to nurture ties with US allies and partners — a sharp contrast with Trump, who even before taking office has not ruled out military force to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal.
Blinken will also meet Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot for talks focused on the Middle East including Syria, where Islamist-led forces toppled longtime ruler Bashar Assad last month.
Barrot visited Damascus last week with his German counterpart, part of cautious Western efforts to engage with the new Syrian leadership and encourage stability after a brutal civil war that contributed to the rise of the Islamic State extremist group and a migration crisis that rocked European politics.
Blinken on Monday said that he will also work until his final hours in the job for a ceasefire in Gaza, as the United States and Qatar step up indirect diplomacy between Israel and Hamas.
Blinken on Thursday will head to Rome for talks with European counterparts on Syria before joining Biden on his final international trip in which the US president will see Pope Francis.
Wildfire rages in Los Angeles, forcing 30,000 to evacuate
- Wildfire forces 30,000 evacuations in upscale Los Angeles area
- Evacuations cause traffic jams, residents flee on foot
LOS ANGELES: A rapidly growing wildfire raged across an upscale section of Los Angeles on Tuesday, destroying homes and creating traffic jams as 30,000 people evacuated beneath huge plumes of smoke that covered much of the metropolitan area.
At least 2,921 acres (1,182 hectares) of the Pacific Palisades area between the coastal settlements of Santa Monica and Malibu had burned, officials said, after they had already warned of extreme fire danger from powerful winds that arrived following extended dry weather.
The fire spread as officials warned the worst wind conditions were expected to come overnight, leading to concerns that more neighborhoods could be forced to flee. The city of Santa Monica later ordered evacuations in the northern fringe of town.
Witnesses reported a number homes on fire with flames nearly scorching their cars when people fled the hills of Topanga Canyon, as the fire spread from there down to the Pacific Ocean.
“We feel very blessed at this point that there’s no injuries that are reported,” Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley told a press conference, adding that more than 25,000 people in 10,000 homes were threatened.
Firefighters in aircraft scooped water from the sea to drop it on the nearby flames. Flames engulfed homes and bulldozers cleared abandoned vehicles from roads so emergency vehicles could pass, television images showed.
As the sun set over Los Angeles, towering orange flames illuminated the hills leading to Topanga Canyon.
The fire singed some trees on the grounds of the Getty Villa, a museum loaded with priceless works of art, but the collection remained safe largely because of preventive efforts to trim brush surrounding the buildings, the museum said.
With only one major road leading from the canyon to the coast, and only one coastal highway leading to safety, traffic crawled to a halt, leading people to flee on foot.
Cindy Festa, a Pacific Palisades resident, said that as she evacuated out of the canyon, fires were “this close to the cars,” demonstrating with her thumb and forefinger.
“People left their cars on Palisades Drive. Burning up the hillside. The palm trees — everything is going,” Festa said from her car.
Before the fire started, the National Weather Service had issued its highest alert for extreme fire conditions for much of Los Angeles County from Tuesday through Thursday, predicting wind gusts of 50 to 80 mph (80 to 130 kph).
With low humidity and dry vegetation due to a lack of rain, the conditions were “about as bad as it gets in terms of fire weather,” the Los Angeles office of the National Weather Service said on X.
Governor Gavin Newsom, who declared a state of emergency, said the state positioned personnel, firetrucks and aircraft elsewhere in Southern California because of the fire danger to the wider region, he added.
“Hopefully, we’re wrong, but we’re anticipating other fires happening concurrently,” Newsom told the press conference.
A second blaze dubbed the Eaton Fire later broke out some 30 miles (50 km) inland in the foothills above Pasadena, consuming 200 acres (80 hectares), Cal Fire said.
The powerful winds changed President Joe Biden’s travel plans, grounding Air Force One in Los Angeles. He had planned to make a short flight inland to the Coachella Valley for a ceremony to create two new national monuments in California but the event was rescheduled for a later date at the White House.
“I have offered any federal assistance that is needed to help suppress the terrible Pacific Palisades fire,” Biden said in statement. A federal grant had already been approved to help reimburse the state of California for its fire response, Biden said.
Pacific Palisades is home to several Hollywood stars. Actor James Woods said on X he was able to evacuate but added, “I do not know at this moment if our home is still standing.”
Actor Steve Guttenberg told KTLA television that friends of his were impeded from evacuating because others had abandoned their cars in the road.
“It’s really important for everybody to band together and don’t worry about your personal property. Just get out,” Guttenberg said. “Get your loved ones and get out.”
Wild weather halted ferries between New Zealand’s main islands again. Why isn’t there a tunnel?
WELLINGTON: Wild weather during New Zealand ‘s peak summer holiday period has disrupted travel for thousands of passengers on ferries that cross the sea between the country’s main islands.
The havoc wrought by huge swells and gales in the deep and turbulent Cook Strait between the North and South Islands is a recurring feature of the country’s roughest weather. Breakdowns of New Zealand’s aging ferries have also caused delays.
But unlike in Britain and Japan, New Zealand has not seriously considered an undersea tunnel beneath the strait that more than 1 million people cross by sea each year. Although every New Zealander has an opinion on the idea, the last time a prime minister was known to have suggested building one was in 1904.
A tunnel or bridge crossing the approximately 25-30 kilometers (15-18 miles) of volatile sea is so unlikely for the same reason that regularly vexes the country’s planners — solutions for traversing New Zealand’s remote, rugged and hazard-prone terrain are logistically fraught, analysts said.
Why isn’t a tunnel practical?
A Cook Strait tunnel would dramatically reduce the three- to four-hour sailing time between the North Island, home to 75 percent of the population, and the South.
“But it would chew up, off the top of my head, about 20 years of the country’s entire transport infrastructure development budget in one project,” said Nicolas Reid, transport planner at MRCagney.
He estimated a cost for a tunnel of 50 billion New Zealand dollars ($28 billion), comparable in today’s terms to the price of the undersea tunnel that connects Britain and Europe by rail. New Zealand is the same size as the United Kingdom — but the UK has a population of 69 million, more than 13 times New Zealand’s.
It’s also about the same size as Japan, which is home to the Seikan undersea rail tunnel connecting the islands of Honshu and Hokkaido — and has a population of 124 million.
“We have a large infrastructure burden if we want to reach out across the country,” said Reid. “And we’ve only got 5 million people to pay for it.”
New Zealand’s volatile ground could also prove a problem. Perched on the boundary between tectonic plates, fault lines run under both the North and South Islands and earthquakes are sometimes centered in the strait, said seismologist John Risteau of GNS.
Opposing tides and winds make journeys unpredictable
Sailing on both Cook Strait ferry services — which have five ships transporting people, vehicles and freight — resumed Tuesday after two days of dangerous waves. Clearing the backlog meant more waiting and some passengers on one carrier said they could not book a new berth for a fortnight.
The Cook Strait is less calm than many worldwide because it features opposing tides at each end — one where it joins the Tasman Sea and the other where it meets the Pacific Ocean.
“We tend to have the prevailing, dominating wind funnel through Cook Strait, northerlies or southerlies, and that’s why they’re stronger there,” said Gerard Bellam, a forecaster for the weather agency MetService. Swells in the strait this week reached 9 meters (30 feet), he said.
Julia Rufey, an English tourist waiting at the Wellington terminal, said she had flown between North Island and South Island on previous trips, but “adventure” had prompted her to choose the ferry.
“We thought, come to Wellington, try the ferry, which is already 3 1/2 hours late,” she said.
No clear plans on what to do about aging ferries
The ferries themselves, prone to breakdowns and more than half of them state-owned, have long been a political hot potato. The current government scrapped their predecessors’ plan to replace the vessels before they become defunct in 2029 as too costly. The opposition has criticized the government for only partly revealing its new ferry replacement plan in December and for not divulging the cost.
Still, some delayed on Tuesday said they would choose the ferry even if they had alternatives. Laurie Perino, an Australian tourist, said the pristine and scenic ocean views had prompted her to book.
“It would be more convenient,” she said, referring to a Cook Strait tunnel. “But I think a lot of people would still like to travel on the ferry.”
