Contact lost with Air Algerie plane carrying 116 people

ALGIERS: Authorities have lost contact with an Air Algerie flight en route from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso to Algiers with 110 passengers on board, Algeria's APS state news agency and a Spanish airline company said.
APS said authorities lost contact with flight AH 5017 an hour after it took off from Burkina Faso, although other officials gave other timings, adding to confusion about the fate of the flight and where it might be.
Spanish private airline company Swiftair confirmed it had no contact with its MD-83 aircraft operated by Air Algerie, which it said was carrying 110 passengers and six crew.
The company said in a notice posted on its website that the aircraft took off from Burkina Faso at 0117 GMT and was supposed to land in Algiers at 0510 GMT but never reached its destination.
An Algerian aviation official said the last contact Algerian authorities had with a missing Air Algerie aircraft carrying 116 people from Burkina Faso to Algiers was at 0155 GMT when it was flying over Gao, Mali.
Aviation authorities in Burkina say they handed the flight to the control tower in Niamey, Niger, at 1:38 am (0138 GMT). They said last contact with the flight was just after 4:30 a.m. (0330 GMT).
Burkinabe authorities have set up a crisis unit in Ouagadougou airport to provide information to families of people on the flight.
A diplomat in the Malian capital Bamako said that the north of the country - which lies on the plane's likely flight path - was struck by a powerful sandstorm overnight.
Issa Saly Maiga, head of Mali's National Civil Aviation Agency, said that a search was under way for the missing flight.
"We do not know if the plane is Malian territory," he said. "Aviation authorities are mobilised in all the countries concerned — Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Algeria and even Spain."
Whatever is the fate of the flight, the loss of contact is likely to add the to jitters in the airline industry after a Malaysia Airlines plane was downed over Ukraine last week, a TransAsia Airways crashed off Taiwan during a thunderstorm on Wednesday and airlines cancelled flights into Tel Aviv due to the conflict in Gaza.

TOKYO ( Japanese Supermarket serving " NASTY NUGGETS " )

Japanese Supermarket Chain Newly Affected by Chinese Meat Scam

TOKYO – The 24-hour Japanese convenience chain FamilyMart announced on Wednesday it had stopped buying chicken from the Chinese company Husi, which was shut down after selling meat past its expiry date.

FamilyMart was the second Japanese company hit by the Chinese meat scam after McDonald’s subsidiary in Japan announced on Tuesday it would stop serving chicken McNuggets, which were also supplied by Husi.

McDonald’s Holdings Japan, which last year imported 4,300 tons of McNuggets from the Shanghai-based meat processing firm, announced it will resume chicken sales in its 3,300 restaurants in Japan on Wednesday, after finding new suppliers in China and Thailand.

The meat scandal has also led to the withdrawal of some of the most popular items on menus of fast food chains Burger King, McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Burger King and Dicos in China, all of which bought meat supplies from Husi.

The fraud was uncovered last week in a report on Chinese television channel Dragon TV, which led health authorities to shut down the Husi factory in Shanghai.

The Shanghai channel revealed on Sunday that Husi had consistently falsified meat expiration dates.

The TV released footage filmed at the Husi plant showing how chicken discarded after routine checks were repeatedly reprocessed to pass quality controls.

The report, made with a hidden camera and undercover journalists, also showed employees picking up meat from the floor and throwing it into the grinder to make hamburgers.

A Husi director told the journalists top company executives had allowed personnel to use expired meat to make hamburgers.

Husi is the Chinese subsidiary of the OSI Group, a food processing company with its main U.S. headquarters in Aurora, Illinois, that has issued a statement apologizing for “the problems caused or if any consumer has been affected.”

This is the latest case regarding food insecurity in China, one of the most serious problems affecting the country, where irregularities of this kind are on the rise leading to growing public concern.

This is not the first time that foreign fast food chains have been affected.

In 2012, KFC was involved in another such scandal when it was found buying chicken with excessive levels of antibiotics in Shanghai for two years despite being aware of it, according to local authorities.

KABUL ( Drone Attack Kills Six Taliban Members in Afghanistan )

Drone Attack Kills Six Taliban Members in Afghanistan

KABUL – Six alleged Taliban members died in an air attack launched by an unmanned US aerial vehicle in the eastern Afghan province of Logar, an official reported on Wednesday.

The drone attack took place late Tuesday in the area of Baboos, near the provincial capital of Pul-e-Alam, said Din Mohammed Darwish, spokesperson of the local government.

At least six insurgents died when their vehicle laden with explosives was destroyed, Darwish said.

This was the fourth American drone attack this month and the sixth this year, according to Afghan authorities.

Over the past year Afghanistan has been the scene of the worst violence since the invasion of US troops led to the fall of the Taliban regime 12 years ago.

In 2011 international troops started to gradually withdraw from the Asian country and transfer security to Afghan forces.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force will conclude its mission in Afghanistan by the end of this year, while the United States has announced that it will maintain around 9,800 soldiers in the country until its complete exit in 2016

Mexico ( Mexican Man Arrested After Posting Murder Confession on Facebook )

MEXICO CITY – A 32-year-old schizophrenic was arrested in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon after he confessed to murdering his fiance’s mother in a Facebook post, officials said Monday.

Roberto Alejandro Santos was arrested on Sunday and is being held in connection with the killing of 61-year-old Lucila Reyes, Nuevo Leon deputy prosecutor’s office spokesman David Perales told Efe.

Reyes’s body was found Saturday afternoon at her house in the city of San Nicolas, but investigators suspect she was killed in the early morning hours.

“I did it, I don’t know how they can allow me to live another day,” Santos said in a Facebook post.

Santos was already a suspect in the case because his fiance, 25-year-old Julibeth, had filed a complaint with police after he beat her.

The suspect is being held on a preventive arrest order of up to 30 days, prosecutors said, adding that a judge will decide whether to charge him once the order expires.

Santos’ confession is not enough to charge him and the case will depend on what he tells prosecutors.

terrifying rock slide slams into busy road in China

Israel shells hospital killing 5, wounding 70

GAZA CITY: Israel shelled a hospital in the central Gaza Strip on Monday, killing five people and wounding at least 70, medics said.
Emergency services spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra said the 70 injured included at least 20 hospital staff, among them doctors.
He said the third floor of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir Al-Balah had been hit, with an Interior Ministry official saying it was hit by Israeli tank fire.
Palestinian television showed footage of wounded people, including medical staff, being treated after the bombing.
The top Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip says the aim of his group’s current battle with Israel is to force an end to the blockade of the territory.
Ismail Haniyeh’s comments indicate that Hamas will continue to reject an unconditional cease-fire proposed by Egypt last week.
Israel and Egypt imposed the closure in 2007, after Hamas took over Gaza from the Western-backed Palestinian authority.
Haniyeh said in a televised speech Monday that “we cannot go back, we cannot go back to the silent death” of the blockade.He says “Gaza has decided to end the blockade by its blood and by its courage.”
Turkey declared three days of national mourning for the Palestinian victims, denouncing the Zionist assault as a “massacre.”
“We condemn Israel’s massacre of the Palestinian people,” Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told reporters in Ankara in televised comments after a Cabinet meeting as the Palestinian death toll topped 500.
“In a show of solidarity with the Palestinian people, three days of mourning have been declared starting from tomorrow (Tuesday).”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal issued a joint appeal for an end to “Israeli aggression” in Gaza during talks in Doha on Monday.

CHARLOTTE ( Pro-Immigrant Activist Detained at U.S. Airport )

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina – Pro-immigrant groups in North Carolina launched a campaign Monday on behalf of a community organizer detained while trying to board a plane at Buffalo Niagara International Airport in New York.

Rausel Arista, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, is the father of two U.S.-born children who has struggled to get immigration laws changed since 2006.

He is currently a community organizer with the Latin American Coalition in Charlotte.

“We know that Rausel was returning to Charlotte after a personal visit to New York when he was detained by immigration agents. He is being held at a detention center in Buffalo in the process of deportation, and we’re doing everything possible to get him out of there,” LAC spokesman Armando Bellmas told Efe on Monday.

Arista came to Charlotte 15 years ago from the southern Mexican state of Guerrero in search of a better future and found work in restaurants, factories and construction sites, until 2012 when he decided to dedicate himself entirely to community activism.

He has taken part in national campaigns in favor of immigration reform with the American Friends Service Committee and the Keeping Families Together campaign.

His commitment to the cause of the undocumented led him to get himself arrested last October in Washington with another 200 people, including Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and five other lawmakers, in an act of civil disobedience in support of immigration reform.

The North Carolina immigrant community will meet Monday night for a vigil in a Charlotte church to raise awareness of Arista’s case and to call for having his deportation to Mexico canceled.