Iran world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism: US

Beirut, Jun 12: Angry Lebanese protesters blocked roads across the country with burning tyres, debris and their vehicles, incensed over the local currency's depreciation by more than 25 percent in just two days.

The demonstrations from northern Akkar and Tripoli to central Zouk, the eastern Bekaa Valley, Beirut and southern Tyre and Nabatieh on Thursday were some of the most widespread in months of upheaval over a calamitous economic and financial crisis.

Protesters set ablaze a branch of the Central Bank, vandalised several private banks and clashed with security forces in several areas. At least 41 people were injured in Tripoli alone, according to the Lebanese Red Cross.

"I'm really pissed off, that's all. If politicians think they can burn our hearts like this the fire is going to reach them too," unemployed computer engineer Ali Qassem, 26, told Al Jazeera after pouring fuel onto smouldering tyres on a main Beirut thoroughfare.

Tens of thousands of Lebanese have lost jobs in the past six months and hundreds of businesses have shuttered as a dollar shortage led the Lebanese pound to slide from 1,500 to $1 last summer - where it was pegged for 23 years - to roughly 4,000 for each US dollar last month.

But the slide turned into a freefall between Wednesday and Thursday when the pound plummeted to roughly 5,000 to $1 on black markets, which have become a main source of hard currency. There was widespread speculation the rate hit 6,000 or even 7,000 pounds to the dollar, though most markets stopped trading.

Protesters began amassing on streets across the country before sunset and increased into the thousands across the country as the night fell.

Prime Minister Hassan Diab cancelled all meetings scheduled for Friday to hold an emergency cabinet session at 9:30am and another at 3pm at the presidential palace to be headed by President Michel Aoun.

The pound's collapse is the perhaps the biggest challenge yet for Diab's young cabinet, which gained confidence in February after former prime minister Saad Hariri's government was toppled by an unprecedented October uprising that had the country's economic crisis at its core.

Economy Minister Raoul Nehme told Al Jazeera that there was "disinformation" being circulated about the exchange rate on social media and said he was investigating possible currency manipulation.

"I don't understand how the exchange rate increased by so much in two days," he said.

Many protesters have pitted blame on Central Bank governor Riad Salameh, nominally in charge of  keeping the currency stable. But they have also called on the government to resign.

"If people want reform between dawn and dusk, that's not going to work, and if someone thinks they can do a better job then please come forward," Nehme said.

"But what we can't have is a power vacuum - then the exchange rate won't be 5000, it'll be a catastrophe."

'Everyone paying the price'

When protesters set a large fire in Beirut's Riad al-Solh Square, which lies at the foot of a grand Ottoman-era building that serves as the seat of government, firefighters did not intervene to extinguish it.

It later became clear why: Civil Defence told local news channel LBCI they had run out of diesel to fuel their firetrucks.

Basic imports such as fuel have been hit hard by the currency crisis, making already-weak state services increasingly feeble.

A half-dozen or so police officers with Lebanon's Internal Security Forces observed the scene unfolding in front of them in the square.

"Why do you destroy shops and things and attack us security forces - do you think we're happy? Go and f****** break that wall or go to the politicians' houses," one police officer told Al Jazeera, referring to a large concrete barrier separating protesters from the seat of government.

"In the end we are with you and we want the country to change. Don't you dare think we're happy. My salary is now worth $130," the officer said.

The currency's spectacular fall seems to have pushed many Lebanese to put common interests above their differences.

Large convoys of men on motorbikes from Shia-majority areas of southern Beirut joined the demonstrations on Thursday, though they have clashed with protesters many times before - including at a protest on Saturday.

Some chanted sectarian insults, leading to brief clashes in areas that were formerly front lines during the country's devastating 15-year civil war.

Instead, the motorbike-riding demonstrators on Thursday chanted: "Shia, Sunni, F*ck sectarianism."

"We are Shia, and Sunnis and Christian are our brothers," Hisham Houri, 39, told Al Jazeera, perched on a moped with his fiancee behind him just a few metres from a pile of burning tyres.

The blaze sent thick black smoke into the sky towards an iconic blue-domed mosque and church in downtown Beirut.

"Politicians play on these sectarian issues and sometimes succeed, but in the end, they'll fail because all the people have been hurt," he said. "The dollar isn't just worth 6,000 for Shias or for Sunnis, everyone is paying that price."

Dubai, Jan 4: Three UAE airlines have made it to lists of the safest carriers in 2020, reinforcing the value these companies provide passengers in the increasingly competitive aviation scene.

Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways and Dubai's Emirates are in the list of the top 20 safest airlines, while Sharjah-based Air Arabia is in the list of the top 10 low-cost carriers, safety and product rating website AirlineRatings.com reported on Thursday.

It named Qantas as the safest airline for 2020 out of the 405 carriers it monitors.

The top 20, in order, are Qantas, Air New Zealand, EVA Air, Etihad Airways, Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Alaska Airlines, Qatar Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, Virgin Australia, Hawaiian Airlines, Virgin Atlantic Airlines, TAP Portugal, SAS, Royal Jordanian, Swiss, Finnair, Lufthansa, Aer Lingus and KLM.

"These airlines are clear standouts in the airline industry and are at the forefront of safety," said AirlineRatings.com editor-in-chief Geoffrey Thomas.

"For instance, Australia's Qantas has been recognised by the British Advertising Standards Association in a test case in 2008 as the world's most experienced airline."

"Qantas has been the lead airline in virtually every major operational safety advancement over the past 60 years and has not had a fatality in the pure-jet era," said Thomas.

AirlineRatings.com editors also identified their top 10 safest low-cost airlines; they are, in alphabetical order, Air Arabia, Flybe, Frontier, HK Express, IndiGo, Jetblue, Volaris, Vueling, Westjet and Wizz.

Saj Ahmad, chief analyst at StrategicAero Research in London, says that it isn't a surprise that UAE carriers are on those lists.

"UAE airlines almost always feature in the top rankings for safety because they value the equipment that they fly their passengers on each and every day," he told Khaleej Times on Thursday.

"All airlines do; but for the UAE, where airlines have expanded rapidly in the last couple of decades, it's an amazing feat that they rank so highly while inducting so many new aeroplanes."

There's little benefit to adding luxurious cabins if maintenance, security and safety protocols as well as routine engineering schedules are not adhered to, he stressed.

"And with the UAE itself sporting MRO activities as well as through companies like Strata, which supply components to Airbus and Boeing directly, airlines here have harnessed that tech-change to ensure that their fleets have the highest redundancy and safety checks at every possible chance," Ahmad added. "That translates into passenger confidence - and we can see the brand and loyalty strength across Emirates, flydubai, Air Arabia and Etihad; it's no surprise that each year, they all fly more and more passengers across their network."

In making its selections, AirlineRatings.com editors and its industry advisors take into account numerous critical factors that include: Audits from aviation's governing bodies and lead associations, government audits, airline's crash and serious incident record, fleet age, financial position and pilot training and culture.

"All airlines have incidents every day and many are aircraft or engine manufacture issues instead of airline operational problems. And it is the way the flight crew handles incidents that determines a good airline from an unsafe one. So just lumping all incidents together is very misleading," said Thomas.

Dubai, Jan 8: A Ukrainian airliner crashed soon after taking off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini airport on Wednesday, killing all 176 people aboard, Iran's state television and Ukraine's leaders said.

The Boeing 737 belonging to Ukraine International Airlines crashed near the airport and burst into flames. Ukraine's embassy in Iran, citing preliminary information, said the plane had suffered engine failure and the crash was not caused by "terrorism".

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said there were no survivors.

"My sincere condolences to the relatives and friends of all passengers and crew," Zelenskiy said in a statement, adding that Ukraine was seeking to establish the circumstances of the crash and the death toll.

Iranian TV said the crash was due to technical problems but did not elaborate. State broadcaster IRIB said on its website that one of the plane's two black boxes - the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder - had been found.

Iranian media quoted an Iranian aviation official as saying the pilot of the airliner did not declare an emergency.

There was no official word from Ukraine International Airlines. It was the Kiev-based airline's first fatal crash.

"The fire is so heavy that we cannot (do) any rescue... we have 22 ambulances, four bus ambulances and a helicopter at the site," Pirhossein Koulivand, head of Iran's emergency services, told Iranian state television.

Ukraine's prime minister and Iranian state TV said 167 passengers and 9 crew were on board. Iranian TV said 32 of those on board were foreigners.

Television footage showed debris and smouldering engine parts strewn across a field, and rescue workers with face masks retrieving bodies of the victims.

According to air tracking service FlightRadar24, the plane that crashed was Flight PS 752 and was flying to Kiev. The plane was three years old and was a Boeing 737-800NG, it said.

The model's twin engines are made by CFM International, a U.S.-French venture co-owned by General Electric and France's Safran.

Modern aircraft are designed and certified to cope with an engine failure shortly after take-off and to fly for extended periods on one engine. However, an uncontained engine failure releasing shrapnel can cause damage to other aircraft systems.

A spokesman for Boeing said the company was aware of media reports of a plane crash in Iran and was gathering more information. The plane manufacturer grounded its 737 MAX fleet in March after two crashes that killed 346 people.

The 737-800 is one of the world's most-flown models with a good safety record and which does not have the software feature implicated in crashes of the 737 MAX.

Under international rules overseen by the United Nations, Iran is responsible for leading the crash investigation.

Ukraine would be involved and the United States would usually be accredited as the country where the Boeing jet was designed and built. France, where the engine maker CFM has half its activities, may also be involved.

There was no immediate word on whether the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board would be involved in the probe amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran. The NTSB usually invites Boeing to give technical advice in such investigations.