WELLINGTON: New Zealand broke South Africa’s grip on the Tri-Nations rugby title when it beat the defending tournament and world champions 31-17 on Saturday.

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New Zealand beat South Africa in rugby tie

QUETTA: The special airplane of Balochistan Chief Minister Sardar Aslam Raisani made emergency landing at Quetta airport after one of the engines of the aircraft caught fire.

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Balochistan CM airplane makes emergency landing

US special forces commander visited a family in rural Afghanistan to plead for forgiveness after finally admitting that his troops killed five innocent people in a raid.

Vice-Admiral William H. McRaven went to Paktia to the home of family who lost two sons, two pregnant women and teenage girl when the US special forces mistakenly opened fire in the house on February 12 when the family had accumulated to celebrate a newborn child.

“I am the commander of the soldiers who accidentally killed your loved ones. I came here to send my condolences. I also came to ask your forgiveness for these terrible tragedies,” he said. It was the first official acknowledgement of US Special Forces involvement in the raid in Khataba, near Gardez. The family welcomed his supplication but insisted on justice.

“When people come to your gate and ask forgiveness, according to Afghan law, it’s difficult to reject them,” head of the family Haji Sharabuddin said later. “I am happy they came.” But the family insists that it still wants justice.

“I don’t care about the money,” Haji Sharabuddin said. He believes the troops attacked after faulty intelligence from one of his enemies — a spy.

He wants the Americans to face international justice and the spy handed to Afghan authorities and punished. “When they surrender the spy, then I will make a decision. Maybe I will forgive them,” he said.
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US federal air marshals subdued a Qatari diplomat who tried to detonate a shoe bomb aboard a flight from Washington to Denver late Wednesday, US media reported.

Authorities have identified the passenger as Mohammed al-Modadi, who has full diplomatic immunity as the third secretary and vice-consul of the Qatari embassy in Washington.

Officials said United Airlines flight 663 carrying 157 passengers and six crew members from Washington’s Reagan National airport landed safely in Denver following the disturbance, the media reported.

Two officials said the man is a Qatari diplomat who has been in the US for years. Unlike the Christmas Day bomb attempt on an Detroit-bound airliner, officials say it is not immediately clear what the man was trying to do.

Officials insisted it was still too early to tell whether the incident was an attempted act of terrorism or a misunderstanding.

The US Transportation Security Administration said that the TSA is monitoring an incident on board United Airlines flight 663 from [Washington to Denver] after receiving initial reports that a Federal Air Marshal responded to a passenger possibly causing a disturbance on board this aircraft.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan News: Air Security Force arrested two suspect to foil a bid to hijack Birmingham bound flight of Pakistan International Airlines here at Islamabad airport.

ASF men found two knives from secret pocket of shoes of a man identified as Azhar Iqbal. The arrested men on questioning disclosed that he wanted to hijack the airliner. The security men arrested another person on indication of Azhar.

The security personnel conducted thorough search of the aircraft bound to fly Birmingham.

TEHRAN, Iran – A Russian-made Iranian passenger plane carrying 157 passengers and 13 crew crash landed in northeastern Iran on Sunday injuring at least 46 people, state television reported.

The broadcast quoted Iran’s civil aviation spokesman, Reza Jafarzadeh, as saying that no one was killed in the accident. He gave no indication of what might have caused the accident.

The Taban Air plane caught fire upon landing at Mashhad airport at 7:20 a.m. local time (0350 GMT). The injured have been taken to hospitals in Mashhad, the report added.

Jafarzadeh said the Tupolev plane initially took off from Abadan airport in southwestern Iran Saturday evening but landed in Isfahan, central Iran, because of bad weather in Mashhad, its destination.

“The plane took off from Isfahan airport at 5:35 a.m. local time Sunday … Despite bad weather and minimum visibility, the pilot made an emergency landing because a passenger was ill. But the incident then happened during landing,” he said.

Jafarzadeh said the plane was seriously damaged. State television added that part of the aircraft had burned and the left wing and undercarriage were torn off.

Iran has about a dozen Soviet-built Tupolev airliners.

Iran has seen numerous crashes in recent years and its airlines have been plagued by maintenance problems, partly because they are chronically cashed-strapped and cannot buy new planes.

Iranian officials often blame U.S. sanctions that prevent it from refurbishing the American aircraft bought before the 1979 Islamic revolution and make it difficult to get spare parts or planes from Europe.

The country has come to rely on Russian aircraft, many of them Soviet-era planes that are harder to get parts for since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Last July, a Tupolev passenger plane carrying 168 people crashed shortly after takeoff, nose-diving into a field and killing all those aboard. The Caspian Airlines Tu-154M jet had taken off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport and was headed to the Armenian capital Yerevan.

In February 2006, another Tu-154 operated by Iran Airtour, which is affiliated with Iran’s national carrier, crashed during landing in Tehran, killing 29 of the 148 people on board. Another Airtour Tupolev crashed in 2002 in the mountains of western Iran, killing all 199 on board.

Iran’s worst crash came in February 2003 and also involved a Russian-made Ilyushin that plowed into the mountains of southeastern Iran, killing 302 people — mostly members of the elite Revolutionary Guard.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan News: Pakistan Air Force received Sweden Saab-2000 aircraft today.
The ceremony was attended by Chief of Air Staff Air Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman as chief guest at Kamra Airbase.
With the induction of this aircraft, Pakistan has become one of the few air forces in the world to have Airborne Early Warning capability.
Besides detecting high- and medium-altitude aircraft, this state-of-the-art system is also capable of detecting low-level flying objects over land and sea at extended ranges. The system is capable of picking even the surface targets over the sea.

KINGSTON : American Airlines Crash in Jamaica Update, The American Airlines crash landing at Kingston’s international airport injured 91 people, the country’s Information Minister Daryl Vaz said Wednesday.

None of the injuries were deemed critical and Vaz said most had been released from hospital.

“The majority of injuries are broken bones and of course cuts and bruises and badly shaken up,” Vaz said in the report on CNN’s website.

American Airlines Flight 331, carrying 148 passengers and six crew members, overshot the runway late Tuesday at Kingston’s Norman Manley International Airport as it landed in heavy rain.

One of the jet’s engines broke off, part of its landing gear fell apart and the aircraft body was cracked in the accident, officials said.

The airport was immediately closed and all other flights were diverted to Montego Bay, on the western end of the island.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan News: PM Gilani Formally Hands Over JF-17 to PAF, First JF-17 Thunder aircraft has been handed over to Pakistan Air Force.. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani says JF-17 Thunder is an important achievement towards self-sufficiency.
Air Chief Marshal says that 40 aircrafts will be built in Pakistan Aeronautical Complex. Talking to media after a ceremony of handing over JF-17 Thunder to Pakistan Air Force, the Prime Minister said that all the governments prolonged their tenures in the name of accountability since 1988
The PM maintained that media personnel talked about 34 politician beneficiaries of the NRO and ignored others in the list. “General Musharraf used these cases to prolong his tenure,” the PM told. Addressing the ceremony, Gilani mentioned PAF’s role in recent war against militancy. JF-17 Thunder is an important achievement towards self-sufficiency, he added.

The JF-17 Thunder a new generation, light-weight, all weather, day/night multi-role fighter aircraft with glass cockpit, hands-on-throttle-and-stick (HOTAS) controls and efficient man-machine interface will ensure a minimal pilot workload. The maximum speed of Mach 1.6 and a high thrust-to-weight ratio will enable it to perform well in an air defence role. An ability to carry short – as well as long-range air-to-air missiles, lends the aircraft a first shot capability of conventional as well as non-conventional arsenal.
In the surface attack role, a variety of weapons – conventional as well as precision-guided, a sophisticated avionics suite along with accurate weapon delivery system, ensure higher mission success rate. An effective ECM suite will greatly enhance survivability of the platform. Its anticipated air-to-air refueling capability will provide the JF-17 with more loiter time to safeguard the frontiers and the ability to deliver the required punch at distance. It will replace the ageing fleets of A-5s, F-7Ps and the Mirages in the PAF inventory thus fulfilling a multi-role task. In addition to that the PAC would also be able to export its surplus production in the days to come as the aircraft has received acclaims from the user like PAF.

Pakistan News: PM Gilani To be Chief Guest at Roll Out of JF-17, Pakistan will formally rejoice its joining the fighter aircraft manufacturers club on Monday on roll out of first multi-role state-of-the art aircraft being crafted with the help of time-tested friend China. Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani will be the chief guest at the rolling out of the bomber-cum-fighter plane which is to be held at the mother industry – Pakistan Aeronautical Complex – of JF-17 Thunder at Kamra.
This will kick start a new era in Pak-China relationship, and aviation industry, an official told APP. Both China as well as PAF attach a lot of importance to this project which is materializing after hectic and laborious efforts, spanning over almost a decade, he said. The PAC has generated all the capability to produce the aircraft locally for its onward delivery to PAF besides materializing purchase orders from abroad as export.
The JF-17 Thunder a new generation, light-weight, all weather, day/night multi-role fighter aircraft with glass cockpit, hands-on-throttle-and-stick (HOTAS) controls and efficient man-machine interface will ensure a minimal pilot workload. The maximum speed of Mach 1.6 and a high thrust-to-weight ratio will enable it to perform well in an air defence role. An ability to carry short – as well as long-range air-to-air missiles, lends the aircraft a first shot capability of conventional as well as non-conventional arsenal.
In the surface attack role, a variety of weapons – conventional as well as precision-guided, a sophisticated avionics suite along with accurate weapon delivery system, ensure higher mission success rate. An effective ECM suite will greatly enhance survivability of the platform. Its anticipated air-to-air refueling capability will provide the JF-17 with more loiter time to safeguard the frontiers and the ability to deliver the required punch at distance. It will replace the ageing fleets of A-5s, F-7Ps and the Mirages in the PAF inventory thus fulfilling a multi-role task. In addition to that the PAC would also be able to export its surplus production in the days to come as the aircraft has received acclaims from the user like PAF.