Colombo, Apr 22: An improvised pipe bomb discovered close to Colombo’s main airport was successfully defused by the Sri Lanka airforce, police said.
A police source told news agency that a “homemade” pipe bomb had been found late Sunday on a road leading towards the main terminal, which remains open with heavy security after deadly attacks on churchs and hotels.
Airforce spokesperson Group Captain Gihan Seneviratne said the IED was believed to be locally manufactured.
Johannesburg, Feb 22: To meet shortage of skilled nursing staff, private hospitals in South Africa are recruiting senior Indian nurses for their good work ethics and ability to become efficient trainers for the local staff, according to a media report.
A report at a 2018 jobs summit indicated that the country had a shortage of more than 47,000 nurses.
The shortage of the skilled nursing staff has been attributed to several factors, including preference of highly qualified nurses to emigrate or take up contract employment in countries such as the UK, the United Aarb Emirates, Saudi Arabia or New Zealand for want of higher salaries, a report in the weekly Business Times said.
Mediclinic, one of South Africa's largest private hospital groups, confirmed that it is recruiting 150 nurses from India this year.
“To supplement our training, as an internal strategy, we will continue to recruit senior registered nurses from India,” a Mediclinic spokesperson told the Business Times.
Mediclinic started recruiting nurses from India in 2005 but could not provide details about how many among the more than 8,800 nurses it employs at its hospitals are from India.
Another company, Life Healthcare SA, said it employed 135 Indian nurses between 2008 and 2014.
Top managements at the hospital groups lauded senior Indian nurses as being very efficient trainers for local staff.
“But we find that many of them prefer coming here on short-term contracts due to family commitments," a hospital executive said on the basis of anonymity.
The official said that the few who apply for long-term positions are usually young newly-qualified nurses, which is not the group in demand.
“They work hard, with a patient-oriented work ethic, and do not have the nine-to-five approach of many local nurses, especially those who are unionised," the official said.
“We would be very happy to take in more nursing staff from India," the official added.
New Delhi, May 15: Microsoft founder Bill Gates on Friday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the interaction and stressed that combating the coronavirus pandemic requires global collaboration.
"Thank you for the conversation and partnership PM Narendra Modi. Combating the pandemic requires global collaboration. India's role is key as the world works to minimize social and economic impact, and pave the way to vaccine, testing, and treatment access for all," Bill Gates said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday interacted with philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and discussed the global response to Covid-19 and the importance of global coordination on scientific innovation to combat the pandemic.
The Prime Minister underlined the conscious approach that India has adopted in its fight against the health crisis - an approach based on ensuring public engagement through appropriate messaging, a PMO release said.
He explained how this people-centric bottom-up approach has helped win acceptability for physical distancing, respect for frontline workers, wearing of masks, maintaining proper hygiene, and respecting lockdown provisions.
They agreed that given India's willingness and capacity to contribute to global efforts, particularly for benefit of fellow developing countries, it was important for India to be included in the ongoing global discussions for coordinating responses to the pandemic.
The Prime Minister also suggested that the Gates Foundation could take the lead in analyzing the necessary changes in lifestyles, economic organisation, social behaviour, modes of disseminating education and healthcare, that would emerge in the post-Covid world, and the associated technological challenges that would need to be addressed.
He said that India would be happy to contribute to such an analytical exercise based on its own experiences.
Washington, Jan 2: The number of people killed in large commercial airplane crashes fell by more than 50% in 2019 despite a high-profile Boeing 737 MAX crash in Ethiopia in March, a Dutch consulting firm said on Wednesday. Aviation consulting firm To70 said there were 86 accidents involving large commercial planes - including eight fatal incidents - resulting in 257 fatalities last year. In 2018, there were 160 accidents, including 13 fatal ones, resulting in 534 deaths, the firm said.
To70 said the fatal accident rate for large airplanes in commercial passenger air transport was just 0.18 fatal accident per million flights in 2019, or an average one fatal accident every 5.58 million flights, a significant improvement over 2018. The fatality numbers include passengers, air crew such as flight attendants and any people on the ground killed in a plane accident
Large passenger airplanes in the study are aircraft used by nearly all travelers on airlines worldwide but excludes small commuter airplanes in service, including the Cessna Caravan and some smaller turboprop airplanes, according to To70.
On Dec. 23, Boeing's board said it had fired Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg after a pair of fatal crashes involving the 737 MAX forced it to announce it was halting output of its best-selling jetliner. The 737 MAX has been grounded since March after an October 2018 crash in Indonesia and the crash of a MAX in Ethiopia in March killed a total of 346 people.
To70 said the aviation industry spent significant effort in 2019 "focusing on so-called 'future threats' such as drones." But the MAX crashes "are a reminder that we need to retain our focus on the basics that make civil aviation so safe: well-designed and well-built aircraft flown by fully informed and well-trained crews."
The Aviation Safety Network said on Wednesday that, despite the MAX crash, 2019 "was one of the safest years ever for commercial aviation." The 157 people killed in March on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 accounted for more than half of all deaths last year worldwide in passenger airline crashes.
Over the last two decades, aviation deaths around the world have been falling dramatically even as travel has increased. As recently as 2005, there were 1,015 deaths aboard commercial passenger flights worldwide, the Aviation Safety Network said.
Last week, 12 people were killed when a Fokker 100 operated by Kazakh carrier Bek Air crashed near Almaty after takeoff. In May, a Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft caught fire as it made an emergency landing at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, killing 41 people.
The figures do not include accidents involving military flights, training flights, private flights, cargo operations and helicopters.
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