Passengers freed from plane hijacked by Gaddafi loyalists

December 23, 2016

Valletta, Dec 23: All passengers were freed from a hijacked plane in Malta on Friday, but some crew remained on board with hijackers believed to be loyalists of late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

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The aircraft was on an internal flight in Libya on Friday morning when it was diverted to Malta, 500 km (300 miles) north of the Libyan coast, after a man told crew he had a hand grenade.

Initial reports said a hijacker had told crew he was "pro-Gaddafi" and that he was willing to let all passengers leave the Airbus A320 if his demands were met.

It was unclear what the hijackers' demands were. A Libyan television channel reported that it had spoken by phone with one of them, who described himself as head of a pro-Gaddafi party.

Gaddafi was killed in an uprising in 2011, and Libya has been racked by factional violence since.

Buses were driven onto the tarmac at Malta International Airport to carry away 109 passengers, as well as some of the crew. Television footage showed no signs of struggle or alarm.

After passengers had left the plane, a man briefly appeared at the top of the steps with a plain green flag resembling that of Gaddafi's now-defunct state.

MP Hadi al-Saghir told Reuters that Abdusalem Mrabit, a fellow member of Libya's House of Representatives on the plane, had told him the two hijackers were in their mid-20s and were from the Tebu ethnic group in southern Libya.

Troops were positioned a few hundred metres (yards) from the plane as it stood on the tarmac. Several other flights at the airport were cancelled or diverted.

A senior Libyan security official told Reuters that when the plane was still in flight on Friday morning the pilot told the control tower at Tripoli's Mitiga airport it had been hijacked.

"Then they lost communication with him," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The pilot tried very hard to have them land at the correct destination but they refused."

The aircraft had been flying from Sebha in southwest Libya to Tripoli for state-owned Afriqiyah Airways, a trip that would usually take a little over two hours.

The government of Malta said Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had discussed the hijack with Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj by phone, and a negotiating team had been formed and was at the airport. Britain offered Malta help with dealing with the incident.

The last major hijacking on the tiny Mediterranean island was in 1985, when Palestinians took over an Egyptair plane. Egyptian commandos stormed the aircraft and dozens of people were killed.

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News Network
April 17,2020

Paris, Apr 17: The number of coronavirus-related deaths in France has increased by 753 to 17,920 over the past 24 hours, with the total case count now standing at 108,847, Jerome Salomon, the head of the state health agency, said on Thursday.

On Wednesday, the country reported a total of 106,206 cases, including a record 1,438 new fatalities. Salomon specified that it was not the daily death toll, as the data had been compiled over the last three-day weekend.

"The total number of victims since March 1 is 17,920," Salomon said at a briefing on Thursday.
He noted that 11,060 of them had died in hospitals, and 6,860 others in social and medical-social facilities.

President Emmanuel Macron on Monday extended nationwide movement restrictions, which had been introduced due to the epidemic, until May 11. Afterwards, the country is set to gradually reopen kindergartens, schools and universities.

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Agencies
July 17,2020

Washington, Jul 17: US President Donald Trump's economic adviser Larry Kudlow has said that TikTok may cut off ties to its Chinese parent and become a 100 per cent American company to circumvent demands to ban it as India has done.

"I think TikTok is going to pull out of the holding company which is China-run and operate as an independent American company," he told reporters at the White House on Thursday.

The US has not made a final decision on whether to ban it - which has been suggested by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, he said.

TikTok being divested by ByteDance Technology Company "is a much better solution than banning or pushing away", said Kudlow, who is the Director of the National Economic Council.

He said that its services will be located in the US and "it will become an hundred per cent American company".

If it becomes a US company without Chinese links, India may have to reconsider the ban on the short video app wildly popular in the country.

India banned TikTok along with 58 other Chinese apps on June 29 citing threats to its defence and national security.

The ban came after a deadly clash between Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh.

Under Beijing's National Security Law, all Chinese companies have to provide intelligence requested by the government, creating risks for users and their countries.

India was TikTok's biggest market outside of China, where it operates as Douyin.

There were about 200 million users in India and over 300 million downloads.

The US comes next with over 30 million users for the app.

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News Network
May 29,2020

Karachi, May 29: Investigators and rescue officials have found around Rs 3 crore in cash in the wreckage of the Pakistan International Airlines' aircraft that crashed wth 99 people on board, killing 97 people, including nine children.

Flight PK-8303 from Lahore to Karachi crashed in a residential area near Karachi International Airport on Friday, with only two passengers miraculously surviving the crash.

Investigators and rescue officials have found currencies of different countries and denominations worth around Rs 30 million from the aircraft's wreckage, an official said on Thursday.

"An investigation has been ordered into how such a huge amount of cash got through airport security and baggage scanners and found its way into the ill-fated flight," the official said.

He said that the amount was recovered from two bags in the wreckage.

"The process of identifying the bodies and their luggage which will be handed over to their families and relatives is going on," he said.

A total of 97 people including the aircraft crew died in the crash, one of the most catastrophic aviation disasters in Pakistan's history.

A government official said on Thursday that the identification of 47 bodies had been completed, while 43 bodies were handed over for burial.

Friday's accident was the first major aircraft crash in Pakistan after December 7, 2016 when a PIA ATR-42 aircraft from Chitral to Islamabad crashed midway. The crash claimed the lives of all 48 passengers and crew, including singer-cum-evangelist Junaid Jamshed.

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