US-Bangla flight carrying 71 crashes in Kathmandu football field

Agencies
March 12, 2018

Kathmandu, Mar 12: A US-Bangla Airlines passenger plane carrying 71 people crashed on Monday while coming in to land at the airport in the Nepali capital, Kathmandu, an airport official said.

Plumes of black smoke could be seen rising from the football pitch where the plane crashed, to the east of the runway at Nepal's only international airport, in the capital Kathmandu.

"There were 67 passengers and 4 crew members" aboard the plane, said airport spokesman Prem Nath Thakur.

"So far 20 injured have been taken to the hospital. Police and army are trying to cut apart the plane to rescue others," he added.

Live footage posted on Facebook showed the towering columns of smoke rising behind the runway, where another plane stood waiting on the tarmac.

The Nepal Army has been pressed into rescue operations and the airport has been closed.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of airport policy, said the flight was arriving from Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital. He said the plane appeared to have caught fire just before it landed and skidded to a stop in a field beside the runway.

An employee who answered the phone at the US-Bangla offices in Dhaka said no one was available to talk.

"I have no other details," said the employee, who refused to give his name. "But a bad incident has happened."

Emergency vehicles appeared to be heading into the smoke as people watched from a distance or filmed on their mobile phones.

Nepal has suffered a number of air disasters in recent years, dealing a blow to its tourist industry.

Its poor air safety record has been blamed largely on inadequate maintenance, inexperienced pilots, and substandard management.

In early 2016, a Twin Otter turboprop aircraft slammed into a mountainside in Nepal killing all 23 people on board. Two days later, two pilots were killed when a small passenger plane crash-landed in the country's hilly midwest.

US-Bangla Airlines is a unit of the US-Bangla Group, a U.S. Bangladeshi joint venture company. The Bangladeshi carrier launched operations in July 2014 and operates Bombardier Inc and Boeing aircraft.

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Agencies
July 18,2020

Days after Twitter accounts of several billionaires were hacked to engineer a crypto scam, Twitter on Saturday said it is embarrassed, disappointed and, more than anything, sorry for what happened with some of its high-profile users as attackers successfully manipulated its employees and used their credentials to access internal systems, including getting through the two-factor protections.

In the first detailed summary of the "social engineering attack" via a crypto scam that hit at least 130 users this week, Twitter said for 45 of those accounts, the attackers were able to initiate a password reset, login to the account and send Tweets.

"We are continuing our forensic review of all of the accounts to confirm all actions that may have been taken. In addition, we believe they may have attempted to sell some of the usernames," the micro-blogging platform said in a statement.

For up to eight of the Twitter accounts involved, the attackers took the additional step of downloading the account's information via "Your Twitter Data" tool.

This is a tool that is meant to provide an account owner with a summary of their Twitter account details and activity.

"We are reaching out directly to any account owner where we know this to be true. None of the eight were verified accounts," said Twitter.

The company said the attackers were not able to view previous account passwords, as those are not stored in plain text or available through the tools used in the attack.

"Attackers were able to view personal information including email addresses and phone numbers, which are displayed to some users of our internal support tools," informed Twitter.

In cases where an account was taken over by the attacker, they may have been able to view additional information, Twitter added, saying its forensic investigation of these activities was still ongoing.

"We are actively working on communicating directly with the account-holders that were impacted".

The company said it will soon restore access for all account owners who may still be locked out as a result of the remediation efforts.

The New York Times reported on Friday that the Twitter crypto scam can be traced back to a group of hackers who congregate online at OGusers.com, a username-swapping community where people buy and sell coveted online handles.

The report said that the Twitter hack is not from Russian, Chinese or North Korean hackers but was done by a group of young people, "one of whom says he lives at home with his mother".

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Agencies
January 15,2020

Chandigarh, Jan 15: A man, who has killed two women over infidelity over the last 10 years was arrested from a news channel studio in Chandigarh when he confessed to these crimes during a live programme, police said.

In the television programme on News18, the 31-year-old accused, Maninder Singh, who is a cab driver, confessed killing his live-in partner, a 27-year-old nurse Sarabjit Kaur at a Chandigarh hotel on New Year's Eve.

Singh, a former murder convict and currently out on bail, also confessed about his crime committed in Karnal in 2010.

"I killed her (Sarabjit Kaur) because she was having an affair with her sister-in-law's brother," Maninder told the news channel.

Confessing his previous crime, Maninder said he had killed Renu in Karnal. "She was also having an affair with a man from Uttar Pradesh," he said.

Singh was arrested while the programme was still on air as police rushed into the studio.

Haryana Police had arrested him for killing the woman in 2010. He was convicted by a trial court, but he later got bail from the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

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Agencies
March 1,2020

Washington, Mar 1: Beginning April 1, Indians wishing to immigrate to America will now have to pay an additional $50,000 for the EB-5 or the US investor visa, a media report said.

Although, this additional tax would impact all visa categories, it will predominantly create a barrier for people investing in the EB-5 visa programme, the American Bazaar daily said in the report on Friday.

In 2019, the EB-5 investor visa programme, for the first time since the 1990's, increased the minimum investment amount to $900,000.

With this increase in minimum investment, the new 5 per cent additional tax would mean that applicants would have to pay the extra $50,000, when they move money to an escrow account in the US to fulfil their application criterion.

"The changes to the tax on remittances is a reminder to Indians to carefully plan their tax position before making the move to the US," the American Bazaar quoted Mark Davies, Global Chairman, Davies & Associates LLC, as saying.

"People seeking to emigrate who do not wish to pay this tax at source and rather account for it later may wish to move their money ahead of the new rules coming into effect.

"It is possible to pre-emptively move money into an escrow account in the US until such a time as they are ready to proceed with emigration process," he added.

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