Israel welcomes Obama speech

 The Israeli government has welcomed Barack Obama’s speech to the Muslim world, saying it hoped the speech would bring a “new period of reconciliation” in the Middle East.

The government statement made no mention of the issue of settlements, after the US president used his speech in Cairo to reiterate his call for an end to Israeli construction on Palestinian land.

‘Naivety can be dangerous’

“We share President Obama’s hope that the American effort heralds the opening of a new era that will bring an end to the conflict and to general Arab recognition of Israel as the nation of the Jewish people that lives in security and peace in the Middle East,” the statement said.

“Israel is committed to peace and will do all it can to expand the circle of peace while considering its national interests, first and foremost being security,” it said on Thursday after Obama’s address.

 

 

Obama devoted a large portion of his speech to the issue of Israel and the Palestinian, and it comes amid reports of deepening differences between the US and Israel on the expansion of settlements. 

The US president restated Washington’s strong ties with Israel, calling on Muslims to recognise the Holocaust.

But Obama also used the term “Palestine”, as he reiterated his call for a Palestinian state.

Danny Seaman, the director of Israel’s Government Press Office, said the government backed Obama’s message.

“All in all, it’s not bad. I don’t think there’s anything we disagree with here,” he said.

“The state of Israel isn’t against reconciliation,” he added, but warned against any moves that could “be used by the extremists to endanger Israel and endanger the peace process”.

But Aliza Herbst, a 56-year-old resident of the West Bank settlement of Ofra, said Obama’s “naivety can be dangerous”.

“You can have your speechwriters find every good thing a Muslim has ever done. But more modern history is that the Muslim world is at war with the Western world,” she told the Associated Press news agency.

Speed an issue in Air France crash, search goes on

* Brazilian search teams continue scouring Atlantic waters

* Chances of finding bodies seem increasingly slim

* Flight speed may have played a role in crash (Recasts, adds new media report on investigation, changes dateline from FERNANDO DE NORONHA)

By Fernando Exman

RECIFE, Brazil, June 4 (Reuters) – Brazilian search teams on Thursday scoured choppy Atlantic waters for remains of a crashed Air France jet after the first debris retrieved by helicopter turned out to be trash.

With hopes of finding any bodies waning as the search headed into its fifth day, Brazil’s military shifted focus to recovering wreckage from the Airbus A330-200 crash that killed 228 people.

The New York Times reported that Airbus (EAD.PA) issued a warning on Thursday to airlines that pilots should follow “established procedures” if they suspect airspeed indicators are not working.

The warning followed a flurry of speculation that the plane may have crashed because it few into a storm too fast. But Brazilian and French officials cautioned that the evidence was far too slim to offer explanations.

“With each passing moment the possibilities of finding bodies decreases,” Brazilian Air Force Brigadier Ramon Borges Cardoso told reporters in Recife, the coastal city where wreckage from the crash would be brought.

“We were initially concentrating on searching for bodies and survivors, but now we’re focused on finding debris that can help in the investigation,” he added.

The New York Times said Airbus told clients “there was inconsistency between the different measured airspeeds” in the Airbus 330 that crashed, though the company noted it was not prejudging the investigation’s outcome.

Other reports from the Wall Street Journal and France’s Le Monde both pointed to air speed, combined with thunderstorms in a notoriously dangerous tropical area, as a potential factor in the crash that has baffled aviation experts.

Airbus earlier declined to comment.

A luggage pallet and two buoys were pulled by helicopters from the crash area about 1,100 km (680 miles) northeast of Brazil’s coast, but investigators later determined they weren’t part of the jet.

MOURNING IN RIO

Searchers have found several debris sites spread out over 90 km (56 miles), a sign the plane may have broken up in the air. Cardoso said they have yet to collect any debris from the Airbus.  

Air France Flight 447 was en route to Paris when it plunged into the Atlantic four hours after leaving Rio de Janeiro.

Eleven air force planes have been searching over a 6,000 sq km (2,300 sq mile) area from a base on the islands of Fernando de Noronha, off Brazil’s northeastern coast.

Several hundred relatives and friends of the passengers crammed into the Candelaria church in Rio on Thursday morning, crying and hugging each other.

“Those who are missing are here in our hearts and in our memories,” French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told them.

Experts have been mystified by the sudden crash of a modern airliner operated by three experienced pilots. Determining what happened may be difficult because the plane’s flight data and voice recorders may be at the bottom of the ocean.

The plane sent a series of automatic messages in the space of four minutes indicating system failures and a sharp dive, specialist magazine Aviation Herald said on its website, citing Air France sources.

The messages started arriving at 0210 GMT on Monday, indicating the automatic pilot had been disengaged, and ended at 0214 with an advisory that the cabin was at “vertical speed.”

The crash appears to have been sudden and brutal.

Spanish newspaper El Mundo said a transatlantic airline pilot reported seeing a flash of white light at the same time the Air France flight disappeared.

“Suddenly we saw in the distance a strong, intense flash of white light that took a downward, vertical trajectory and disappeared in six seconds,” the pilot of an Air Comet flight from Lima to Madrid told his company, the newspaper reported. (Additional reporting by Alonso Soto, Brian Ellsworth and Pedro Fonseca in Rio; Christian Balmer and Estelle Shirborn in Paris; Andrew Hay in Madrid; William Maclean in London; Writing by Brian Ellsworth, editing by Todd Benson and Eric Beech)

India safe, assures Chidambaram after US issues travel advisory

NEW DELHI: The US has said in a travel advisory that there is a “high threat from terrorism throughout India” and has urged its citizens to be 
vigilant and maintain “a low profile” even as India asserted the country is safe.

The latest “urgent warden message” or travel advisory urged Americans in India to be vigilant at all times and monitor local news reports. It further asked its citizens to vary their routes and times in carrying out daily activities.

“he United States mission in India wishes to urgently remind all US citizens resident in or traveling to India that there is a high threat from terrorism throughout India” the message said. “As terror attacks are a serious and growing threat, US citizens are urged to always practice good security, including maintaining a heightened situational awareness and a low profile,” it said. American citizens have also been asked to consider the level of security present when visiting public places like religious sites, or choosing hotels, restaurants, entertainment and recreation venues.

The advisory was released by the US embassy which called it a routine matter. But the timing of this particular advisory raised eyebrows. Foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon met US Charge D’ Affaires Peter Burleigh on Thursday after home minister P Chidambaram asserted that India would take up the matter with the US through the ministry of external affairs.

The US embassy in New Delhi sought to downplay the advisory calling it “routine” . “We are required by American law to inform the traveling public on their security,” said the US embassy spokesman, adding it was also based on media reports of heightened security alerts.

But Mr Chidambaram in his reaction to the travel advisory assured that India is “safer than many other countries in the world” . He further said that New Delhi would try to persuade Washington to withdraw the advisory. “India is a completely safe country… India is a safe place, it is safer than many other countries in the world. Thousands of tourists come to India and we look forward to welcoming them” he told reporters.

On what could be the reason behind the advisory, Mr Chidambaram said, “Why should we jump to conclusions . We will try to find out why this advisory was issued.”

Sri Lanka says up to 5,000 civilians died in Tigers battle

 A senior Sri Lankan official ­today estimated the civilian death toll from the last stages of the war with the Tamil Tigers as 3,000 to 5,000 and defended the use of mortars in a government-designated ­”no-fire zone”.

 

Rajiva Wijesinha, permanent secretary in Sri Lanka‘s ministry of disaster management and human rights, rejected reports that 20,000 civilians were killed as the army overran the Tigers. He also rejected an unpublished UN report that 7,000 people had been killed by the end of April.

“I would estimate it altogether at 3,000 to 5,000,” Wijesinha said in an interview with the Guardian, attributing the deaths to the Tigers’ use of refugees as human shields. “The Tigers had prepared this hostage situation and the figures went up very badly,” he said, adding that the UN figures had not officially been made public because they had not been verified. “These UN figures I’m afraid are not worth the emphasis that is placed on them.”

Sri Lanka has been accused by the UN and western governments of using heavy weapons against a “no-fire zone” it had designated for civilians caught up in the last stages of the conflict on a ­narrow coastal strip in the north-east of the island.

Wijesinha said: “I asked the army and they said ‘we said we’re not using heavy weaponry’ but that does not preclude what they describe as 81mm mortars, an ­infantry weapon. “They were using infantry operations, and never said they were not, in order to get the civilians free.”

Wijesinha said the mortars were being used against Tamil Tiger heavy weapons, including tanks, which he said were firing on refugees attempting to flee.

Commenting on his explanation, a British official said there was no agreed definition of a heavy weapon, but added: “Towards the end of the conflict the ­civilians were crammed into such a confined space any such weaponry would have a devastating effect.”

Brad Adams, the Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said: “The government told people to go to the no-fire zone. They were packed into a small area. Then they fired on them, with 81mm mortars and other weapons. And they denied again and again they were using these weapons … there is very strong evidence that they did commit war crimes.”

The source for many of the early reports of civilian casualties was a handful of government doctors in the war zone, who described the scene at makeshift clinics to the international media as the army offensive unfolded. They have since been detained by the Sri Lankan government and there is confusion over their fate. Adams claimed they were being held to prevent information about war crimes getting out.

Wijesinha said he hoped the doctors, who include two hospital directors, would be released “fairly soon”, arguing they had been forced to give harrowing accounts of civilian suffering by the Tamil Tigers.

“I think the doctors were under a lot of stress and they behaved as most people would in such circumstances. We don’t hold it against them at all,” he said.

But he added: “They are being questioned to find out exactly what happened. I don’t think we need to let them out immediately just because the press wants to come and get them.”

But the human rights minister, Mahinda Samarasinghe, told the BBC the doctors were being detained on ­”reasonable suspicion of collaboration with the LTTE [Tamil Tigers]”.

Brazil: Crash investigation looks at sensors

Brazil: Crash investigation looks at sensors

By BRADLEY BROOKS and JOAN LOWY – 58 minutes ago

 

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Investigators trying to determine why Air France Flight 447 broke apart in a violent storm over the Atlantic are looking at the possibility that speed sensors — or an external instrument key to collecting speed data — failed in unusual weather, two aviation industry officials said Thursday.

Brazil’s Navy and Air Force, meanwhile, issued statements saying that despite earlier reports by the military, no wreckage had been recovered from the Airbus A330, which went down off the country’s northeastern coast, killing all 228 people aboard. It is the world’s worst aviation disaster since 2001.

Officials with knowledge of the investigation and independent analysts all stressed they don’t know why a plane that seemed to be flying normally crashed just minutes after the pilot messaged that he was entering an area of extremely dangerous storms.

They will have little to go on until they recover the plane’s “black box” flight data and voice recorders, now likely on the ocean floor miles (kilometers) beneath the surface.

Other hypotheses — even terrorism — haven’t been ruled out, though there are no signs of a bomb. Officials have said a jet fuel slick on the ocean’s surface suggests there was no explosion.

Two officials told The Associated Press that investigators are looking at the possibility an external probe that measures air pressure may have iced over. The probe feeds data used to calculate air speed and altitude to onboard computers. Another possibility is that sensors inside the aircraft reading the data malfunctioned.

If the instruments were not reporting accurate information, the jet could have been traveling too fast or too slow as it entered turbulence from towering bands of thunderstorms, according to the officials.

“There is increasing attention being paid to the external probes and the possibility they iced over in the unusual atmospheric conditions experienced by the Air France flight,” one of the industry officials explained to the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity because he isn’t authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.

Meteorologists said the Air France jet entered an unusual storm with 100 mph updrafts that acted as a vacuum, sucking water up from the ocean. The incredibly moist air rushed up to the plane’s high altitude, where it quickly froze in minus-40 degree temperatures. The updrafts also would have created dangerous turbulence.

The jetliner’s computer systems ultimately failed, and the plane broke apart likely in midair as it crashed into the Atlantic on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris Sunday night.

Independent aviation experts said it is plausible that a problem with the external probe — called a “pitot tube” — or sensors that analyze data collected by the tube could have contributed to the disaster.

The tubes have heating systems to prevent icing. But if those systems somehow malfunctioned, the tubes could quickly freeze at high altitude in storm conditions, said the other industry official, who also was not authorized to discuss the investigation.

Other experts outside the investigation said it is more likely that the sensors reading information from the tubes failed.

“When you have multiple system failures, sensors are one of the first things you want to look at,” said John Cox, a Washington-based aviation safety consultant and former crash investigator for the Air Line Pilots Association.

Jetliners need to be flying at just the right speed when encountering violent weather, experts say — too fast and they run the risk of breaking apart. Too slow, and they could lose control.

“It’s critical when dealing with these conditions of turbulence to maintain an appropriate speed to maintain control of the aircraft, while at the same time not over-stressing the aircraft,” said Bill Voss, president and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va.

France’s accident investigation agency has established that the series of automatic messages gave conflicting signals about the plane’s speed, and that the flight path went through dangerously stormy weather. The agency warned against any “hasty interpretation or speculation” after the French newspaper Le Monde reported, without naming sources, that the Air France plane was flying at the wrong speed.

Two buoys — standard emergency equipment on planes — were spotted Thursday in the Atlantic Ocean about 340 miles (550 kilometers) northeast of Brazil’s northern Fernando de Noronha islands by a helicopter crew, which was working off a Brazilian navy ship.

Among other debris spotted Wednesday and Thursday were a 23-foot (seven-meter) chunk of plane, an airline seat and several large brown and yellow pieces that probably came from inside the plane, military officials said.

Confusion broke out after the Air Force announced Thursday afternoon that a helicopter plucked an airplane cargo pallet from the sea that came the Air France flight, but then said six hours later that it was not from the Airbus.

The pallet was made of wood, and the plane was not carrying wooden pallets, Brazilian Air Force Gen. Ramon Cardoso told reporters. He did not say where the pallet might have come from.

“So far, nothing from the plane has been recovered,” Cardoso said.

Air France’s CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon told family members at a private meeting that the plane disintegrated, either in the air or when it slammed into the ocean, and there were no survivors, according to Guillaume Denoix de Saint-Marc, a grief counselor who was asked by Paris prosecutors to help counsel relatives.

More than 500 people packed the historic Candelaria church in the center of Rio de Janeiro Thursday for a Mass for the victims.

With the crucial flight recorders still missing, investigators were relying heavily on the plane’s automated messages to help reconstruct what happened as the jet flew through thunderstorms.

The last message from the pilot was a manual signal at 11 p.m. local time Sunday saying he was flying through an area of black, electrically charged cumulonimbus clouds that come with violent winds and lightning.

At 11:10 p.m., a cascade of problems began: the autopilot had disengaged, a key computer system switched to alternative power, and controls needed to keep the plane stable had been damaged. An alarm sounded indicating the deterioration of flight systems. Then, systems for monitoring air speed, altitude and direction failed. Controls over the main flight computer and wing spoilers failed as well. At 11:14 p.m., a final automatic message signaled loss of cabin pressure and complete electrical failure as the plane was breaking apart.

The pilot of a Spanish airliner flying nearby at the time reported seeing a bright flash of white light plunging to the ocean, said Angel del Rio, spokesman for the Spanish airline Air Comet.

The pilot of the Spanish plane, en route from Lima, Peru to Madrid, said he heard no emergency calls.

France’s defense minister and the Pentagon have said there were no signs that terrorism was involved.

“We have no evidence, we have no proof, we don’t know,” French Foreign Minister Bernard Kochner said after he was asked about the possibility of a bomb. “Is it possible? I mean to look at an explosion? Yes it is. It is one of the hypotheses.”

Lowy reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Alan Clendenning and Stan Lehman in Sao Paulo; Marco Sibaja in Brasilia; Slobodan Lekic in Brussels; Daniel Woolls in Madrid; and Greg Keller, Angela Charlton and Emma Vandore in Paris also contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.