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Syria-bound Russian military jet crashes with 92 onboard

[email protected] (Agencies)
December 25, 2016

Moscow, Dec 25: A Russian military plane crashed today in the Black Sea as it made its way to Syria with 92 people onboard, including Red Army Choir members heading to celebrate the New Year with troops.plane

Local news agencies, citing the defence ministry, said the Tu-154 plane had crashed shortly after take-off from the southern city of Adler at 5:40 am local time.

Defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told Russian news agencies that one body had been recovered six kilometres off the coast of the resort city of Sochi, as a frantic search operation continued to hunt for the missing.

"Fragments of the Tu-154 plane of the Russian defence ministry were found 1.5 kilometres from the Black Sea coast of the city of Sochi at a depth of 50 to 70 metres," the ministry said.

The plane had been on a routine flight to Russia's Hmeimim airbase in western Syria, which has been used to launch air strikes in Moscow's military campaign supporting its ally President Bashar al-Assad in the country's devastating civil war.

Among the 84 passengers of the plane were Russian servicemen as well as members of the Alexandrov Ensemble, the army's official musical group internationally known as the Red Army Choir, who were headed to Syria to participate in New Year celebrations at the airbase.

There were also eight crew members onboard, the ministry said.

Nine journalists were among the passengers, with state-run channels Pervy Kanal, NTV and Zvezda saying they each had three staff onboard the flight.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told news agencies that President Vladimir Putin had been informed of the situation and was being kept updated on the search operation.

"It's too early to say anything," agencies quoted Peskov as saying, adding that Putin was in constant contact with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.

"The president is waiting for the picture to be clear."

Konashenkov said that Deputy Defence Minister Pavel Pop
ov had flown to Adler along with a team tasked with clarifying the circumstances surrounding the crash.

Russia's Investigative Committee said a criminal probe had been launched to determine whether violations of air transportation safety had led to the crash.

Investigators are currently questioning the technical personnel responsible for preparing the plane for take-off, the committee said.

Tu-154 aircraft have been involved in a number of accidents in the past.
In April 2010 many high-ranking Polish officials, including then president Lech Kaczynski, were killed when a Tu-154 airliner went down in thick fog while approaching the Smolensk airport in western Russia.

Moscow has been conducting a bombing campaign in Syria in support of Assad since September 2015 and has taken steps to boost its presence in the country.

In October, Putin approved a law ratifying Moscow's deal with Damascus to deploy its forces in the country indefinitely, firming up Russia's long-term presence in Syria.

Russian warplanes have flown out of the Hmeimim base to conduct air strikes, and the base is also home to an S-400 air defence system.

Comments

HOFZ
 - 
Sunday, 25 Dec 2016

RUSSIAN PRESEDENT PUT IN NOW REALIZING

Abdul
 - 
Sunday, 25 Dec 2016

Innocent people of Syrian children prayer will burn Russia one by one.

Mohammed
 - 
Sunday, 25 Dec 2016

Trust Allha every one........ will be punish...............

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News Network
May 29,2020

Washington, May 29: Reiterating his offer to mediate on the border dispute between India and China, US President Donald Trump has said that he spoke with Narendra Modi about the "big conflict" and asserted that the Indian Prime Minister is not in a "good mood" over the latest flare-ups between the two countries.

Speaking with the reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on Thursday, Trump said a "big conflict" was going on between India and China.

"I like your prime minister a lot. He is a great gentleman," the president said.

"Have a big conflict …India and China. Two countries with 1.4 billion people (each). Two countries with very powerful militaries. India is not happy and probably China is not happy," he said when asked if he was worried about the border situation between India and China.

"I can tell you; I did speak to Prime Minister Modi. He is not in a good mood about what is going on with China," Trump said.

A day earlier, the president offered to mediate between India and China.

Trump on Wednesday said in a tweet that he was "ready, willing and able to mediate" between the two countries.

Responding to a question on his tweet, Trump reiterated his offer, saying if called for help, "I would do that (mediate). If they thought it would help" about "mediate or arbitrate, I would do that," he said.

India on Wednesday said it was engaged with China to peacefully resolve the border row, in a carefully crafted reaction to Trump's offer to arbitrate between the two Asian giants to settle their decades-old dispute.

"We are engaged with the Chinese side to peacefully resolve it," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said, replying to a volley of questions at an online media briefing.

While the Chinese Foreign Ministry is yet to react to Trump's tweet which appears to have caught Beijing by surprise, an op-ed in the state-run Global Times said both countries did not need such a help from the US President.

"The latest dispute can be solved bilaterally by China and India. The two countries should keep alert on the US, which exploits every chance to create waves that jeopardise regional peace and order," it said.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Wednesday that both China and India have proper mechanisms and communication channels to resolve the issues through dialogue and consultations.

Trump previously offered to mediate between India and Pakistan on the Kashmir issue, a proposal which was rejected by New Delhi.

The situation in eastern Ladakh deteriorated after around 250 Chinese and Indian soldiers were engaged in a violent face-off on the evening of May 5 which spilled over to the next day before the two sides agreed to "disengage" following a meeting at the level of local commanders.

Over 100 Indian and Chinese soldiers were injured in the violence.

The incident in Pangong Tso was followed by a similar incident in north Sikkim on May 9.

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Agencies
August 5,2020

Ninety per cent of a sample group of coronavirus-recovered patients from a prominent hospital in China's Wuhan city where the pandemic broke out have reported lung damage and five per cent of them are again in quarantine after testing positive for the virus, according to a media report on Wednesday.

A team at the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University led by Peng Zhiyong, director of the hospital's Intensive Care Unit, has been conducting follow-up visits with '100 recovered patients' since April.

The first phase of this one-year programme finished in July. The average age of the patients in the study is 59.

According to the first phase results, 90 per cent of the patients' lungs are still in a damaged state, which means their lungs ventilation and gas exchange functions have not recovered to the level of healthy people, state-run Global Times reported.

Peng's team conducted a six-minute walking test with the patients. They found that the recovered patients could only walk 400 metres in six minutes while their healthy peers could walk 500 metres in the same period.

Some recovered patients have to rely on oxygen machines even three months after being discharged from the hospital, Liang Tengxiao, a doctor from the Dongzhimen Hospital, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, was quoted as saying by the report.

Liang's team is also conducting follow-up visits with recovered patients aged above 65.

The results also showed that antibodies against the novel coronavirus in 10 per cent of the 100 patients have disappeared.

Five per cent of them received negative results in Covid-19 nucleic acid tests but positive results in Immunoglobulin M (IgM) tests, and thus have to be quarantined again, the report said.

IgM is usually the first antibody produced by the immune system when a virus attacks. A positive result in an IgM test usually means that a person has just been infected by the virus.

It is still unclear if this means these people have been infected again.

The 100 patients' immune systems have not fully recovered as they showed a low level of B cells -- - a primary force for killing viruses in the human body -- but a high level of T cells which only recognise viral antigens outside infected cells.

"The results revealed that the patients’ immune systems are still recovering," Peng said.

The patients also suffered from depression and a sense of stigma. Most of the recovered patients told the team that their families were not willing to have dinner with them at the same table, the report said.

Less than half of the recovered patients have returned to work, it said.

The findings are significant as the coronavirus first emerged in Wuhan city.

Hubei province for which Wuhan is the provincial capital has reported a total of 68,138 confirmed Covid-19 cases till now. The disease has claimed 4,512 lives in the province, according to the official data.

China reported 27 new confirmed Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, including 22 locally-transmitted cases, the National Health Commission (NHC) said on Wednesday.

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News Network
May 13,2020

Islamabad, May 13 : The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Pakistan rose to 34,370 on Wednesday after new infections were confirmed in the country.

As per province-wise breakup of the total tally cited by Radio Pakistan, so far 13,225 cases have been registered in Punjab, 12,610 in Sindh, 5,021 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 2,158 in Balochistan, 759 in Islamabad, 475 in Gilgit Baltistan and 88 in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

As many as 2,255 cases positive were confirmed, while 31 deaths reported during the last 24 hours.

At least 737 patients have died so far while 8,812 stand recovered, the media reported further.

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