JAKARTA: An AirAsia flight with 162 people aboard disappeared Saturday on the way from Indonesia to Singapore. It's a third air incident this year involving Malaysia, where budget carrier AirAsia in based. Here's a look at the two other disasters and the latest missing flight.
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MH370
The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 on March 8 triggered one of modern aviation's most perplexing mysteries. Flight 370 with 239 people aboard from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing vanished without trace, sending searchers across vast areas of the Indian Ocean. An initial multi-national operation to locate the wreckage far off Australia's west coast turned up empty-handed, without a single piece of debris found.
After a four-month hiatus, the hunt resumed Oct. 4 with new, more sophisticated equipment including sonar, video cameras and jet fuel sensors aboard three ships that will spend up to a year in a desolate stretch of the sea, about 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) west of Australia.
The 60,000-square kilometer (23,000-square mile) search area lies along what is known as the "seventh arc" — a stretch of ocean where investigators believe the aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed, based largely on an analysis of transmissions between the plane and a satellite.
Officials initially ruled out terrorism, but conspiracy theories have endured. Until the wreckage is found and examined, it will be impossible to say for sure what happened to the plane.
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MH17
All 298 passengers and crew aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 were killed when the Boeing 777 was shot down over rebel-held eastern Ukraine on July 17.
The plane was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when, according to Dutch air crash investigators, it was likely struck by multiple "high-energy objects" that some aviation experts say is consistent with a missile strike.
Hunks of the wreckage were transported to the Netherlands by trucks and will be reassembled in a hangar. However, international teams seeking to retrieve remains and salvage evidence have had difficulty reaching the crash site due to clashes between Ukrainian government and Russian-backed separatist rebels. Six victims have yet to be identified.
A high-ranking rebel officer has acknowledged that rebels shot down the plane with a ground-to-air missile after mistaking it for a Ukrainian military plane. Russian media, however, claim the plane was shot down by a Ukrainian jet.
The Dutch Safety Board's final report may rule out one or the other scenario but it will not seek to attribute responsibility.
Dutch prosecutors, meanwhile, are coordinating an international criminal investigation into the downing but have yet to name any suspects or say when or how charges might be brought.
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QZ8501
An Indonesia AirAsia flight with 162 people aboard, most of them Indonesians, disappeared on Sunday over the Java Sea, triggering a search involving several Southeast Asian nations.
The contact with Flight 8501 was lost about 42 minutes after the single-aisle, twin-engine A320-200 jetliner took off from Surabaya airport in Indonesia for Singapore.
It is not clear if it has any satellite tracking devices on board.
Malaysia-based AirAsia, owned by Malaysian businessman Tony Fernandes, has dominated cheap travel in the region for years. AirAsia Malaysia owns 49 percent of its subsidiary, AirAsia Indonesia. It said that the plane was on the submitted flight plan route when the pilots requested deviation due to weather before communication was lost.
AirAsia, which has a presence in most of Southeast Asia and recently in India, has never lost a plane before and has a good safety track record.
Missing flight is 3rd Malaysia-linked incident
Missing flight is 3rd Malaysia-linked incident
German minister says ‘historic opportunity’ to support new Syria
- Schulze announced that Berlin was expanding an international hospital partnerships program to include facilities in Syria
“After over 50 years of dictatorship and 14 years of civil war, Syria now has the chance of peaceful and stable development,” Schulze said in a statement.
Her visit comes a little over a month after Islamist-led forces toppled longtime president Bashar Assad.
Schulze is due to meet with the new leadership as well as aid organizations “to identify how Germany can support the development of a peaceful, stable and inclusive Syria,” the minister’s statement said.
“It would be wrong of us not to use this historic window of opportunity to support Syria in embarking on a peaceful new beginning,” she said.
“Germany can do a lot to support the new beginning for... Syrian society.”
Germany is home to Europe’s largest Syrian diaspora community, having taken in nearly a million people from the war-ravaged country.
A German study last month said that if they returned home, Germany could face labor shortages, particularly in the health care industry.
Schulze announced that Berlin was expanding an international hospital partnerships program to include facilities in Syria.
The expansion is part of reconstruction efforts but also aims at retaining “vital” medical professionals in Germany, according to the statement.
Schulze said that while “Syria’s new rulers are keen to regain the skilled workers and professionals who fled the country” during the civil war since 2011, “Germany also has an interest in retaining them.”
Under the expanded program, “doctors from Germany can visit Syria to conduct medical training courses or to train their Syrian colleagues in using new equipment,” the minister said.
“And Syrian doctors can come to Germany for training on both medical and organizational issues.”
Syria has seen a flurry of diplomatic activity since Assad’s fall on December 8, with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also traveling to Damascus earlier this month.
Mozambique inaugurates new president amid deadly unrest
MAPUTO: Mozambique kicked off an inauguration ceremony Wednesday where President-elect Daniel Chapo will be sworn into office after weeks of deadly political unrest, but the main opposition leader has vowed to “paralyze” the country with fresh protests against the fiercely disputed election result.
Venancio Mondlane had already called for a national strike in the days leading up to the inauguration and threatened on Tuesday to curtail the new government with daily demonstrations.
Mondlane, 50, who is popular with the youth, maintains the October 9 polls were rigged in favor of Chapo’s Frelimo party, which has governed the gas-rich African country since independence from Portugal in 1975.
“This regime does not want peace,” Mondlane said in an address on Facebook Tuesday, adding that his communications team was met with bullets on the streets this week.
“We’ll protest every single day. If it means paralysing the country for the entire term, we will paralyze it for the entire term.”
Chapo, 48, called for stability on Monday, telling journalists at the national assembly “we can continue to work and together, united... to develop our country.”
International observers have said the election was marred by irregularities, while the EU mission condemned what it called the “unjustified alteration of election results.”
The swearing in ceremony was expected to be snubbed by foreign heads of state, a move “which sends a strong message,” Maputo-based political and security risk analyst Johann Smith told AFP.
Former colonial ruler Portugal is sending Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel.
“Even from a regional point of view there is a hesitancy to acknowledge or recognize that Chapo won the election,” Smith said.
However, neighboring South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa was at the ceremony.
Amid tensions, security forces blocked roads throughout the capital Maputo and around Independence Square, where the swearing-in is being held.
The extent of the unrest from now on “depends on how Chapo will tackle the crisis,” analyst Borges Nhamirre told AFP.
The inauguration of parliamentary lawmakers Monday was held amid relative calm.
The streets were deserted, with most shops closed either in protest against the ceremony or out of fear of violence, while military police surrounded the parliament building and police blocked main roads.
Still, at least six people were killed in the Inhambane and Zambezia regions north of the capital, according to local civil society group Plataforma Decide.
Unrest since the election has claimed 300 lives, according to the group’s tally, with security forces accused of using excessive force against demonstrators. Police officers have also died, according to the authorities.
Chapo, who is expected to announce his new government this week, could make concessions by appointing opposition members to ministerial posts to quell the unrest, said Eric Morier-Genoud, an African history professor at Queen’s University Belfast.
There have also been calls for dialogue but Mondlane has been excluded from talks that Chapo and outgoing President Filipe Nyusi have opened with the leaders of the main political parties.
Chapo has repeatedly said however that he would include Mondlane in talks.
Mondlane, who returned to Mozambique last week after going into hiding abroad following the October 19 assassination of his lawyer, has said he was ready for talks.
“I’m here in the flesh to say that if you want to negotiate... I’m here,” he said.
According to official results, Chapo won 65 percent of the presidential vote, compared to 24 percent for Mondlane.
But the opposition leader claims that he won 53 percent and that Mozambique’s election institutions manipulated the results.
Frelimo parliamentarians also dominate the 250-seat national assembly with 171 seats compared to the Podemos party’s 43.
Russia fires over 40 missiles at Ukraine’s energy sector: Zelensky
KYIV: Russia launched more than 40 missiles and over 70 attack drones in an overnight barrage that targeted Ukraine’s energy sector, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday.
“More than 40 missiles were involved in this strike, including ballistic missiles. At least 30 were destroyed. There were also more than 70 Russian attack drones overnight,” Zelensky said in a statement on social media.
Preventive power cuts introduced in Ukraine following a massive Russian missile attack
- Ukraine’s air force detected multiple missile groups launched by Russia during a nationwide air-raid alert
KYIV: Russia launched a massive aerial attack against Ukraine on Wednesday, forcing the country to introduce preventive power cuts, the Ukrainian energy minister said.
“The enemy continues to terrorize Ukrainians,” Herman Halushchenko wrote on Facebook, urging residents to stay in shelters during the ongoing threat and follow official updates.
The state energy company Ukrenergo reported emergency power outages in the Kharkiv, Sumy, Poltava, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kirovohrad regions.
Russian forces launched missile strikes targeting energy infrastructure in the western Lviv region early Wednesday, said the city’s mayor, Andrii Sadovyi.
“During the morning attack, enemy cruise missiles were recorded in the region,” he said.
No casualties or damage were reported.
Ukraine’s air force detected multiple missile groups launched by Russia during a nationwide air-raid alert, though initial reports indicated no damage.
Wednesday’s attack has further exacerbated the strain on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, which has been a frequent target during the nearly three-year-old war.
Suspected outbreak of Marburg virus kills eight in Tanzania, WHO says
- The viral hemorrhagic fever has a fatality rate as high as 88 percent, and is from the same virus family as the one responsible for Ebola
NAIROBI: A suspected outbreak of the Marburg virus in northwest Tanzania has infected nine people, killing eight of them, the World Health Organization has said, weeks after an outbreak of the disease was declared over in neighboring Rwanda.
The viral hemorrhagic fever has a fatality rate as high as 88 percent, and is from the same virus family as the one responsible for Ebola, which is transmitted to people from fruit bats which are endemic to that part of East Africa.
The WHO said it received reliable reports of suspected cases in the Kagera region of Tanzania on Jan. 10, with symptoms of headache, high fever, back pain, diarrhea, vomiting blood, muscle weakness and finally external bleeding.
Samples from two patients were awaiting testing at Tanzania’s national laboratory for confirmation of the outbreak, WHO said in a statement on Tuesday.
The patients’ contacts, including health care workers, have been identified and were being followed up, WHO reported.
The outbreak in Rwanda, which shares a border with Tanzania’s Kagera region, infected 66 people and killed 15 before it was declared over on December 20.
Marburg virus can spread between people through direct contact or via blood and other bodily fluids of infected people, including contaminated bedding or clothing.
An outbreak in the Kagera region in March 2023 killed six people and lasted for nearly two months.
