LONDON – The UK Independence Party (Ukip), which advocates withdrawal from the European Union, elected Nigel Farage as its leader for a second time.
Farage re-elected as Ukip leader
Farage, a member of the European Parliament, regained control of the party a year after stepping down to fight former House of Commons speaker John Bercow for his parliamentary seat at the May 6th election.
On the day of the election, Mr Farage (46), was injured when his light aircraft towing a campaign banner crashed into a field. Ukip failed to win any seats in parliament, but took 3.1 per cent of the vote.
“If you thought before the accident I was bold, then I promise you I am fearless now,” Mr Farage told party supporters in London yesterday. – (Bloomberg)
Second Qantas jet forced to land
SINGAPORE/SYDNEY - A Qantas Airways jet was forced to make an emergency landing in Singapore yesterday – less than 48 hours after another of the Australian carrier’s aircraft had to land prematurely due to engine failure.
The Sydney-bound Boeing 747-400 aircraft, with 412 people on board, returned to the airport 20 minutes after take-off in a move that an unidentified official from Qantas told Channel NewsAsia was “a precautionary matter”. That came a day after a Qantas Airbus A380 jet was forced to make an emergency landing after one of its four Rolls-Royce engines appeared to break apart in flight, scattering debris over an Indonesian island.
“It was a very big shock to us, especially after what happened yesterday,” Ranjan Sivagnanasundaram, an Australian citizen in his early 50s who was on the flight yesterday, told Reuters.
The earlier incident saw Qantas ground its fleet of six A380s pending safety checks that will take 24 to 48 hours, and led other airlines to check their A380s. – (Reuters)
Twelve killed at celebration
MOSCOW – Twelve people were killed in an attack in southern Russia yesterday while gathered together for a celebration.
Officials said eight adults died of multiple stab wounds and four children, including a newborn, were also killed in the incident in a home in Kushchevskaya, a farming village in the Krasnodar region. One of the children died of smoke inhalation, and another of suffocation.
Emergency services spokesman Alexander Tabakov said whoever was responsible moved the bodies to the second floor of the house and doused them with kerosene.
They then started a fire on the first floor, but it fizzled out before reaching the second floor. No motive is yet known for the killings. – (AP)