The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- FAA: U.S. passenger jet nearly collided with drone in March
- Militants attack presidential palace in mounting Yemen turmoil
- South Sudan's rebel leader agrees new ceasefire with president
| FAA: U.S. passenger jet nearly collided with drone in March Posted: 09 May 2014 08:35 PM PDT NEW YORK: An American Airlines Group Inc aircraft almost collided with a drone above Florida earlier this year, a near-accident that highlights the growing risk from rising use of unmanned aircraft, the U.S. air safety regulator said. The pilot reported seeing a small, remote-control aircraft very close to his plane while preparing to land at Tallahassee Regional Airport, said Jim Williams, manager of the Federal Aviation Administration's Unmanned Aircraft System Integration Office. "The airplane pilot said that the UAS was so close to his jet that he was sure he had collided with it," Williams said at an industry conference on Thursday, referring to an unmanned aircraft system. The aircraft, operated by an American subsidiary, did not appear to be damaged when it was inspected after the March 22 incident, Williams said. But the incident served to highlight the risk of remote-control aircraft, he said. "The risk for a small UAS to be ingested into a passenger airline engine is very real," Williams said. "The results could be catastrophic." The FAA currently bans the commercial use of drones in the United States and is under growing pressure to set rules that would permit their broader use. Hobby and many law-enforcement uses are permitted. Last year, the agency began establishing test sites where businesses can try out commercial uses. Two of the centers have started working ahead of schedule. "The FAA is working aggressively to ensure the safe integration of unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace," the agency said in a statement. The March incident was reported to the Tallahassee control tower by the pilot for Bluestreak Airlines, a US Airways commuter carrier. US Airways is part of American Airlines. The plane, a Bombardier CRJ-200, was a traveling from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Tallahassee. It was at 2,300 feet and about five miles from the airport when it encountered the remote controlled jet. The FAA investigated but could not identify the pilot of the drone. American said it is "aware of the published report alleging an incident with one of our express flights and we are investigating." The airline said it would share any information with the FAA and would not comment further. The incident was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. In his address to the Small Unmanned Systems Business Expo in San Francisco, Williams also showed videos of several drone accidents, including one in which a drone crashed into a crowd during the running of the bulls in Richmond, Virginia, last fall. The crash was caused by a battery failure and resulted in minor injuries, he said. Williams also noted the "Miracle on the Hudson," in which birds hit the engine of a flight leaving New York, prompting an emergency landing on the river. "Imagine a metal-and-plastic object, especially that big lithium battery, going into a high-speed turbine engine," he said. – Reuters |
| Militants attack presidential palace in mounting Yemen turmoil Posted: 09 May 2014 07:45 PM PDT SANAA (Reuters) - Suspected al Qaeda-linked gunmen attacked Yemen's presidential palace on Friday and tried to kill the defence minister in his car, selecting high profile targets in apparent reprisal for the army's biggest push against militants in nearly two years. Four soldiers were killed in a gun battle of up to an hour that broke out when militants attacked the main gate of the palace in the capital Sanaa, a security source said. Sanaa was in lockdown after the gunfight, with checkpoints set up at all the main entrances into the capital. There was no immediate reaction from any senior Yemeni officials on the attack. State news agency Saba published a brief statement saying three security personnel were killed when a "terrorist group" attacked their patrol vehicle. An explosion was later heard near a building used by the government's intelligence services in another district of the city, residents told Reuters. There was no immediate word on the cause of the blast. In the south, Defence Minister Muhammad Nasir Ahmad escaped an assassination bid by suspected al Qaeda gunmen who attacked a his motorcade in the province of Shabwa. The defence ministry's website later said the shots heard near Ahmad's convoy were celebratory gunfire. The violence capped a turbulent few days both for Yemen - a country Washington sees as one of the main battlefields in its global campaign against Islamist militants - and for its Western allies. A French security agent working for the European Union was shot dead in the capital on Monday. Security forces staged raids on suspected militants across the capital on Wednesday and shot dead the man they said was responsible for the Frenchman's killing and for a number of other attacks on Westerners. Citing recent attacks against Western interests in Yemen, the United States closed its embassy in Sanaa to the public. The New York Times reported on Friday that two weeks ago, a United States Special Operations commando and a CIA officer shot and killed two armed Yemeni civilians who tried to kidnap them in a barber shop in Sanaa. The paper, quoting two U.S. senior officials, said the two Americans were whisked out of the country just days after the shooting, with the blessing of the Yemeni government. Yemeni security forces also arrested two French men believed to be members of an al Qaeda cell in Yemen, an official security source told Reuters on Friday. Paris confirmed that two of its citizens had been detained. Since late April the government has stepped up its campaign against the Yemeni group considered al Qaeda's most active unit, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), driving it from some of its strongholds in the south. AIR STRIKES The push followed air strikes against AQAP in April that the government said had killed at least 55 militants, the biggest against al Qaeda since at least 2012. The militants have claimed attempted bombings of Western airliners and carried out dozens of bomb and suicide attacks and commando-style raids against military installations, government facilities and foreign nationals. Saudi Arabia also watches AQAP with concern, since the branch was founded by citizens of both countries and has sworn to bring down the ruling al-Saud family. In a separate incident on Friday, four soldiers were killed in an ambush by suspected al Qaeda fighters in the central province of al-Bayda, tribal sources told Reuters. In Sanaa, a security source said a vehicle carrying a number of armed militants suspected to be linked to al Qaeda attacked the main gate of the palace. "Four soldiers at the palace were killed by the militants," the source said. "There was a gunfight that lasted about 45 minutes and then a few of the militants managed to escape with their car," the source said, adding that there were casualties on both sides. Security forces in the area were looking for the militants in a nearby public garden, the source said. The insurgents have posed a challenge to government efforts to restore stability to the U.S.-allied country since veteran president Ali Abdullah Saleh was forced to step down in 2012 after months of pro-democracy protests. Western countries fear that further destabilisation in Yemen, whose government is also being challenged by separatists in the south and unrest in the north, could give more space to AQAP to plot attacks on international targets. (Additional reporting by Yara Bayoumy; Writing by Amena Bakr and William Maclean; Editing by Robin Pomeroy) |
| South Sudan's rebel leader agrees new ceasefire with president Posted: 09 May 2014 07:41 PM PDT ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and rebel commander Riek Machar signed a ceasefire deal on Friday after coming under growing international pressure to end ethnic fighting that has raised fears of genocide. Friday's deal was made at a meeting in Ethiopia that was the first time the two men had met face-to-face since violence erupted in December following a long power struggle. Kiir and Machar, both Christians, shook hands and prayed together. The men agreed that a transitional government offered the "best chance" to take the country towards elections next year, though there was no immediate decision on who would be part of an interim administration. "Now that we have come to our senses ... dialogue is the only answer to whatever problem we had," Kiir said after a signing ceremony in Addis Ababa's presidential palace. "We will continue to move in the right direction." The truce will take effect within 24 hours and both sides agreed to disengage their forces and refrain from any provocative actions, said Seyoum Mesfin, lead mediator from the regional IGAD grouping. "Today's agreement to immediately stop the fighting in South Sudan and to negotiate a transitional government could mark a breakthrough for the future of South Sudan," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement. A previous ceasefire accord struck in January swiftly fell apart, with each side blaming the other for fighting that has exacerbated deep-rooted tensions between Kiir's ethnic Dink community and Machar's Nuer group. Western powers had demanded a new deal. Kerry and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had both visited the Texas-sized country in the past week, part of a diplomatic push by regional and world leaders still haunted by Rwanda's 1994 genocide. "I saw with my own eyes last week the stakes and the struggles in a new nation we helped courageous people create. The people of South Sudan have suffered too much for far too long," Kerry added in Friday's statement. The United States has already slapped sanctions on two commanders on opposing sides of the conflict, a sign of its growing frustration with the leaders of Africa's youngest country, which declared independence from Sudan in 2011. Cranking up the pressure ahead of the Friday's meeting, the European Union also threatened sanctions against anyone blocking the peace effort. INTERIM GOVERNMENT Fighting erupted in South Sudan's capital Juba in mid-December between soldiers loyal to Kiir and those backing Machar and quickly spread across the country. Kiir's government at the time accused Machar of treason - a charge again denied by the rebel leader, who on Friday swapped his military fatigues for a dapper suit. Thousands of people have been killed and more than a million forced from their homes. Troops on both sides have committed murder, rape and other sexual abuses, a U.N. report said. The unrest has caused oil output to be cut by a third to 160,000 barrels per day. "I had no reason to bring South Sudan to war," Machar told Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn and envoys. Kiir and Machar have been locked in a long-running power struggle that intensified after the president sacked Machar as his deputy in July. Negotiators from the two sides will now hammer out the terms of an interim government that will guide the country of 10 million people to elections in 2015, the agreement said. Those discussions may be hard fought. Machar told Reuters in January that Kiir had lost the people's trust and should resign - a demand some in his camp were still making earlier on Friday. But Kiir's ministers say the president would not quit. One Western diplomat said there was a push for the peace process to include former political prisoners, the church and local civil society groups. "You can't leave it to warring guys because then it's basically about who gets what part of the cake," said the Juba-based Western diplomat. "These (talks) are a fundamental review of where the country is going and on what basis." (Additional reporting by Drazen Jorgic in Juba and Sandra Maler in Washington; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Mohammad Zargham) |
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