Search for missing plane with 38 on board
Punta Arenas: Searchers using planes, ships and satellites are combing Antarctic seas for a
Chilean Air Force transport plane carrying 38 people that vanished en route to a base on the frozen continent.
Seven hours after contact was cut off, the air force declared the plane a loss, although there was no sign of what happened to it.
The air force said two ships, more than a dozen planes and three satellites were being used in the search.
Officials said the plane had taken off in favourable conditions on Monday, although it was flying in an area notorious for rapidly changing conditions, with freezing temperatures and strong winds.
The C-130 Hercules carried 17 crew members and 21 passengers, including three civilians. They were en route to check on a floating fuel supply line and other equipment at the Chilean base.
President Sebastian Pinera said he was with his defence and interior ministers at the air force headquarters monitoring developments.
Harrisburg: An appeals court has rejected Bill Cosby’s bid to overturn his sexual assault conviction.
The ruling is being closely watched as Cosby was the first celebrity convicted in the #Metoo era.
Cosby’s spokesman attacked the ruling as “a political scheme to destroy America’s Dad”.
The Pennsylvania state Superior Court says the trial evidence of five other accusers was evidence that Cosby had a “unique sexual assault playbook”.
Victim Andrea Constand, who has agreed to be named in reports, said the decision shows no one is above the law.
Cosby, who is serving a prison sentence, can now ask the state Supreme Court to consider his appeal.
The Hague: Former pro-democracy figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi has denied that her country’s armed forces committed genocide against the Rohingya minority, telling the UN’S top court that the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Muslims was the result of a battle with insurgents.
Suu Kyi calmly refuted allegations that the army had killed civilians, raped women and torched houses in 2017 in what Burma’s accusers describe as a deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide that saw more than 700,000 Rohingya flee to neighbouring Bangladesh.
She said the allegations stem from “an internal armed conflict started by co-ordinated and comprehensive armed attacks... to which Myanmar’s (Burma’s) defence services responded. Tragically, this armed conflict led to the exodus of several hundred thousand Muslims.”
Her appearance at the International Court of Justice was striking as she was defending the armed forces that had kept her under house arrest for about 15 years.