UN satellite analysis tracks Ukraine cultural damage

 Yahoo – AFP, October 26, 2022 

The United Nations is using before-and-after satellite imagery to monitor the cultural destruction inflicted by Russia's war in Ukraine, announcing Wednesday it will launch its tracking platform publicly within days. 

The UN's culture agency UNESCO said it had verified damage to 207 cultural sites in Ukraine since the Russian invasion on February 24. 

They include 88 religious sites, 15 museums, 76 buildings of historical and or artistic interest, 18 monuments and 10 libraries. 

"Our conclusion is it's bad, and it may continue to get even worse," UNESCO's cultural and emergencies director Krista Pikkat told reporters at a briefing in Geneva. 

So far in the war, none of the seven world heritage sites have been damaged. 

UNESCO -- the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization -- has joined forces with the UN Satellite Centre UNOSAT. 

Based on reports on the ground, UNESCO sends a list of potentially damaged sites to UNOSAT. It then asks for satellite images from commercial suppliers and a small team of experts studies the difference in before-and-after pictures. 

The team matches up the images and is then able to give a time window in which the damage took place. 

It does not attribute blame for the damage. 

"This is a kind of pilot experiment to see how we can usefully compile this information, and possibly in the long term, the ambition would be to widen the scope beyond Ukraine and take the tool to a global level so we can really have a kind of real-time, interactive tool for our experts," said Pikkat. 

UNESCO is also working with museums and collections in Ukraine to try to combat against the threat of looting -- a common problem in war. 

UNESCO has been discussing with Kyiv about possibly removing cultural heritage items from the country for the duration of the war, but Pikkat acknowledged that it was a "difficult call", with the first move being to evacuate collections to safer parts of Ukraine.

Metro aims to break new ground in car-mad Qatar

Yahoo – AFP, David Harding, March 9, 2017

Construction site of a new metro line in Qatar's capital Doha (AFP Photo/
Karim Jaafar)

Doha (AFP) - Qatar's metro, once completed, will run hundreds of kilometres across ultra-modern Doha, along the coast and into its expanding suburbs. But whether car-mad Qataris will actually use it remains an open question.

Driverless three-car trains are to serve 100 stations, easing into gleaming newly-built destinations with names such as Ras Bu Fontas, Al-Shaqab and Legtaifiya.

Now the main task for those behind the approximately $18-billion project -- in a country where car is king -- is to ensure it draws enough passengers to justify the huge outlay.

"We are not a culture that is used to the metro, not like Europe," said Khaled Al-Thani, a civil engineer with Qatar Rail, the state-owned company responsible for the metro.

"This is all new for us."

The Doha Metro is a massive venture even by the standards of the energy-rich Gulf desert emirate where infrastructure mega-projects are commonplace.

Officials at Qatar Rail are cagey about terming it the world's biggest ongoing engineering project, preferring to call it one of the largest.

Since ground was broken in the summer of 2013, a workforce of 41,000 has been digging, tunnelling and building. Large tracts of land in Doha have been set aside for a network of tunnels and stations.

Tunnel boring world record

Qatar even set a world record for using 21 tunnel boring machines at the same time in November 2015, the highest number ever recorded.

Ninety percent of the metro will run underground when operational. The station designs have been approved by the emir himself, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.

Qatar's metro, once completed, will run hundreds of kilometres across ultra-modern 

Doha, along the coast and into its expanding suburbs (AFP Photo/Karim Jaafar)

Qatar Rail says its target is to have completed 70 percent of the network by the end of 2017, with the opening due in late 2019 or early 2020.

"With metros in other developed countries, when they develop a metro they introduce a new line, but for us in Qatar, we're introducing a whole network system," said Khaled Al-Thani.

Probably the most symbolic part of the Doha Metro will be a station around 20 kilometres north of the capital.

Lusail, the final stop on the Red Line, will serve the $45-billion city emerging from the desert that will be the venue of football's 2022 World Cup final.

"We are actualising a vision," said Abdulla Abdul Aziz al-Subai, managing director of Qatar Rail.

Gridlocked Doha

The company has begun holding special classes for Doha residents to make them aware of the metro and to encourage them to use it.

"I'm very confident that the metro will be a hit," said Thani on an upbeat note.

"It takes me approximately one hour every day to go to work. So, with the metro you have a safe and dependable transportation to reach from point A to point B."

The target is to remove 190,000 cars a day off Doha's heavily congested roads.

A report from the Qatar Mobility Innovations Centre (QMIC) found that commuters spent an average of 109 hours in traffic on the country's roads in 2016.

That was an increase of seven hours over the previous year and equivalent to around $1.5 billion in losses for the Qatari economy, according to QMIC calculations.

Many question whether Qataris will swap their beloved cars for public transport, and say foreign workers -- as in Dubai -- are more likely to fill the carriages.

The country's population could rise to 3.6 million by 2031, from 2.6 million today, and Qatar Rail wants 1.65 million people at year to be using the metro by that time.

"To change this culture, it will take time," said Abdulla Alsayed Zahran, a manager with Qatar Rail.

Russia's Tu-154 plane: a history of accidents

Yahoo – AFP, December 25, 2016

File photo shows a Tupolev-154 (TU-154) similar to a military plane which
crashed in the Black Sea as it made its way to Syria with 92 people
onboard (AFP Photo/Alexander NEMENOV)

Moscow (AFP) - The Tupolev aircraft maker's Tu-154, the type of plane that crashed Sunday in the Black Sea with 92 people on board, is an ageing Russian workhorse whose record is plagued with accidents.

Although Russian commercial airlines are no longer known to use the plane -- which first flew in 1972 and went out of production in 1994 -- it is still used by the military.

In spite of the tragedy, Russia's Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov told local news agencies Sunday that permanently retiring all Tu-154 aircraft would be "premature."

Similar in size and performance to a Boeing 737, with a range of 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles), the Tu-154 can carry between 155 and 180 passengers at a cruising speed of 850 kilometres an hour.

Russia has experienced several accidents involving the plane, including some that date back to the 1990s.

On January 1, 2011, a Tu-154B belonging to a commercial airline burst into flames before take-off on a runway at an airport in Russia's Far North. Three people were killed and more than 30 injured in the incident, which led to some of the planes being grounded.

On December 4, 2014, a Tu-154 passenger plane broke apart after rolling off the runway at Moscow's Domodedovo airport, killing two people.

Tupolev Tu-154 (AFP Photo)

On April 10, 2010, a Tu-154 carrying Polish president Lech Kaczynski and other top Polish officials came down in fog near the Russian city of Smolensk, and all 96 people on board perished.

The delegation was heading to a ceremony in Russia's Katyn forest for thousands of Polish army officers killed by Soviet secret police in 1940 -- a massacre the Kremlin had denied until 1990.

In July 2009, a Tu-154 belonging to the Iranian company Caspian Airlines crashed in northern Iran, killing all 168 on board.

In August 2006, a Tupolev of the Russian Pulkovo airline crashed in Ukraine after trying to fly above a storm, killing 170 people.

In February 2012, a Tu-154 on an Iranian domestic flight crashed in the southwest of the country, killing 117.

Other major accidents involving the Tu-154 were in July 2001 in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, with 145 dead, and in August 1996 on the Norwegian island of Spitzbergen, killing 141.

Russia's Tu-154 plane: a history of accidents https://t.co/RhPyByzY9m pic.twitter.com/7MIGZutrVF

— AFP news agency (@AFP) December 25, 2016

Three Chinese passengers grounded for bad behaviour

Yahoo – AFP, April 11, 2016

Chinese authorities last year declared 11 types of action 'strictly prohibited' on
 flights and at terminals, including damaging airport security facilities and
assaulting crew members (AFP Photo/Greg Baker)

China has banned three passengers from major airlines for "uncivilised behaviour", state media reported on Monday, as the country seeks to instil manners in its increasingly well-travelled populace.

The three were blacklisted for hitting a checkpoint security officer with a can of milk, attacking airline personnel over a flight delay, and refusing to switch off a tablet PC during a landing, the China Daily newspaper said.

They are the first to be included in a system rolled out by the China Air Transport Association in February, and will be unable to book flights with five of China's biggest airlines for up to two years, it added.

Chinese authorities last year declared 11 types of action "strictly prohibited" on flights and at terminals, including damaging airport security facilities and assaulting crew members, according to the China Daily.

Such behaviour has frequently made headlines in the country with the world's worst track record for flight delays.

In January last year, 25 passengers were held by police for questioning after they fought with crew members over a bad weather delay and opened the emergency exits.

In 2013, an official who missed two flights lost his temper at the boarding counter and went on a rampage, violently destroying two computers and attempting to smash a window with a signboard.

In December 2014, a Chinese woman en route back to China from Thailand threw a cup of noodles full of boiling water at a Thai flight attendant and punched the cabin windows, threatening to jump out, in a dispute that began over seat arrangements.

An editorial in the China Daily on Monday said such blacklisting was "long overdue", and that the first punishments would warn other travellers to "toe the line".

"There is no reason for them to be respected when they do not show enough respect for others," it said.

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Crackdown on bad behavior by Chinese air passengers

Want China Times, Li Hsin-tung and Staff Reporter 2015-08-14

Passengers boarding a plane at Chongqing Jiangbei International
Airport, July 27. (File photo/Xinhua)

The Chinese authorities have decided to reign in disorderly behavior among air passengers, announcing new safety rules that ban travelers from occupying seats not assigned to them.

The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) of China reiterated its determination to crack down on illegal or unsafe behavior by air passengers in a statement released Aug. 12.

The CAA highlighted 11 types of bad behavior, such as blocking security checks and boarding gates, attacking or threatening attacks on crew members and occupying seats not assigned to them, for which people will face fines of up to 3,000 yuan (US$469) and even detention.

According to the CAA, airport authorities across the country reported 16 violations between late July and early August, including passengers opening airplane doors, fighting in the terminal and smoking during flights.

One man was detained for five days for making a hoax bomb threat when going through a security check at Shenyang Taoxian International Airport in northeastern China Aug. 5.

Another man was arrested and detained for five days after pushing a staff member when going through security checks at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport in central China Aug. 11.

A report about a 12-year-old girl being denied boarding Aug. 6 after she insulted flight attendants also sparked discussion in China.

The amount of problematic behavior, which is rising along with the growing number of overseas trips made by Chinese travelers, has led to calls for stricter regulations.

According to China's three major state-owned carriers–Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines–the number of passengers on their international flights between January and June is estimated to have grown by 20%-40% from last year.

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Enraged passengers open exits on delayed China flight

Delayed air passengers opened three emergency exits, aborting their flight's takeoff from Chengdu, according to Chinese state media. Twenty-five passengers were detained after China's latest 'air rage' incident.

Deutsche Welle, 11 Jan 2015

Passengers frustrated by China's fast growing but delay-plagued aviation sector opened their plane's exits on Saturday, forcing the China Eastern flight to taxi back to the terminal.

China's state news agency Xinhua said the incident happened early on Saturday morning when China Eastern's flight to Beijing was delayed by a snow storm.

Passengers had been left waiting in their seats for hours as ice was removed from the plane's fuselage. The flight had already been delayed for five hours before boarding.

Pair accused of inciting passengers

Kunming province police in an online statement cited by the AFP news agency said a man named Zhou and a tour guide identified as Li had been put in 15-day "administrative detention" for opening exits and "inciting" other passengers.

An unidentified passenger quoted by Xinhua said the flight's vice captain "swore and cursed" during the runway delay, leaving occupants worried he was unable to control himself.

Other delayed passengers later traveled on another flight to Beijing, Xinhua said.

Second biggest in aviation sector

China's air travel market has become the world's second biggest but the world's worst for flight delays, because of heavy traffic and military control of airspace.

Unruly behavior, some filmed and posted online, has become more frequent.

Last month, two women brawled on a flight from Chongqing to Hong Kong, during an argument about seating arrangements and a noisy child, according to Chinese media.

Chongqing's Morning Post newspaper decried what it termed as rude behavior by airline customers.

In another incident reported by Chinese media in December, a first-time passenger opened an emergency exit, reportedly to get some fresh air, as a flight from Hangzhou to Chengdu was preparing for takeoff.

Hot noddles flung

And, hot noodles were flung by a Chinese tourist, scalding an AirAsia flight attendant, during a flight to China, forcing its crew of a budget flight to return to Bangkok and make an emergency landing.

Ensuing social media discussion was intense and focused on China's tourist reputation.

Last month, Chinese state media said authorities were planning to build a third airport in Beijing to handle the rising demand for air transport among China's growing middle class.

Lengthy tarmac waits prompted US aviation authorities in 2010 to require planes to return to the terminal after a wait of three hours.

Last July, Germany's Lufthansa signed a partnership with Air China, aiming to forge a stronger presence in the Chinese aviation market.

ipj/jlw (dpa, AP, AFP)

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Korean Air Heiress Charged Over ‘Nut Rage’ Case

Jakarta – AFP, Jan 07, 2015

South Korea's Korean Air plane, center, sits on the tarmac at Gimpo airport
in Seoul on Dec. 9, 2014. (AFP Photo/Jung Yeon-je)

Seoul. South Korean prosecutors on Wednesday charged Korean Air heiress Cho Hyun-ah with causing a safety hazard on a flight following a “nut rage” incident that sparked a national uproar.

Cho, daughter of the airline’s boss and herself a KAL executive at the time, ordered the chief purser off a Dec. 5 New York-Seoul flight and compelled the taxiing plane to return to the terminal gate so he could disembark.

She had taken exception to being served macadamia nuts which she had not requested — and in a bag, not a bowl.

“The plane was forced to change its planned line of movement and the chief purser, who was on duty to ensure flight safety, had to leave the plane, causing safety hazards,” senior prosecutor Kim Chang-hee told journalists.

“Korean Air staff were mobilized in attempts to eliminate and tamper with evidence” by fabricating statements in order to get Cho off the hook, he said.

Cho is charged with forcing the flight to change its planned movements and using violence against crew members, both breaches of an aviation safety law, as well as obstructing official duties by leading the company’s attempts to cover up the incident.

If convicted, she could face up to 15 years in prison but legal experts said she would likely draw a suspended jail sentence.

Cho, 40, was arrested and jailed on Tuesday last week after a local court issued a warrant, citing “the gravity of the issue as well as the organized efforts to cover up” the case.

She has been sharing a cell in a Seoul detention center.

Cho is one of three children of KAL boss Cho Yang-Ho, who is also the patriarch of business conglomerate and KAL’s parent company Hanjin Group.

She has publicly apologized for the incident and resigned from all her posts at Korean Air and its affiliates.

Prosecutors also brought charges against a Korean Air executive surnamed Yeo for his alleged involvement in Korean Air’s attempts to eliminate evidence.

A transportation ministry official who leaked details of a government probe into the case to Yeo was also indicted.

Prosecutors said they would investigate allegations that government officials got free upgrades to business-class seats from Korean Air.

The transport ministry has vowed to sanction the airline with a flight ban, most likely on the New York-Seoul route, that could last for up to a month, or with fines of up to $2 million.

Separately, the ministry has announced it would punish eight of its officials after admitting that their investigation into the affair was biased in favor of Cho and Korean Air.

In the public eye, the incident exemplified the authoritarian mindset of the family-run business conglomerates known as “chaebol”, and their unhealthy connections with government officials.

“The case fueled seething public resentment against chaebols and government watchdogs who are enjoying their patronage instead of overseeing them,”, said Sogang University sociology professor Chun Sang-Jin.

Agence France-Presse

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