A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Crocodile may have caused fatal air crash
A plane crash which killed a British pilot and 19 others could have been caused by an escaped crocodile. The aircraft plummeted to the ground in the Democratic Republic of the Congo when
the animal, which had been smuggled into the cabin, sparked panic among passengers, the unnamed sole survivor told magazine Jeune Afrique.
An expert investigating the crash for the UK department for transport, said he could not rule out a crocodile as the cause, but added it would be “extremely unlikely”.
First Officer Chris Wilson was among those killed when the Let-410 plane crashed on August 25th, en route from Kinshasa to Bandundu.
– (PA)
Putin should not stand in 2012, says think tank
MOSCOW – Prime minister Vladimir Putin should not stand in Russia’s 2012 presidential election so that President Dmitry Medvedev can fulfil his modernisation drive, the head of Mr Medvedev’s think tank said yesterday.
Mr Medvedev and Mr Putin have both hinted that one of them, but not both, will run in the election, with the winner likely to guide Russia’s development over the next 12 years due to the extension of the president’s term in office.
Igor Yurgens, the head of the Insor think tank, chaired by Mr Medvedev, praised Mr Putin for stabilising Russia, but said his return to the Kremlin in 2012 would lead to stagnation.
– (Reuters)
Life for military chief over murders
BELLEVILLE, Ontario – A top Canadian military commander whose obsession with stealing women’s underwear escalated into two horrific sex murders was jailed for life yesterday without possibility of parole for 25 years.
Col Russell Williams, who was in charge of Canada’s largest air force base and who once flew Queen Elizabeth’s aircraft, pleaded guilty to killing two women in separate attacks. Police said it was likely he would serve his sentence in solitary confinement.
The court heard Williams videotaped himself raping the women, capturing their pleas for mercy, and then filmed them as they died.
– (Reuters)
Diarrhoea kills 49 in Haiti outbreak
PORT-AU-PRINCE – An outbreak of severe diarrhoea in central Haiti has killed nearly 50 people in recent days and more than 450 have been hospitalised, a senior Haitian health official said.
Health department director general Gabriel Thimote said sick patients were overwhelming hospitals in the country’s Artibonite and Central Plateau regions, north of the capital Port-au-Prince.
Many of the 49 victims died in a matter of hours from dehydration as they tried to reach a hospital, Mr Thimote said. Samples from the dead and sick were being analysed urgently to determine exactly what caused the diarrhoea.
– (Reuters)