A round-up of today's other world stories in brief...
Pilot recalls moments engines failed
NEW YORK – Pilot Chesley Sullenberger said the moments after both engines of US Airways Flight 1549 lost power were the worst of his life. He says in a CBS 60 Minutes TV interview it was “the worst sickening, pit-of-your-stomach, falling-through-the-floor feeling” he had ever experienced.
Capt Sullenberger said his first reaction when birds flew into the aircraft’s engines on January 15th was disbelief.
He glided the Airbus 320 over the George Washington Bridge and into the Hudson River. All 155 people aboard survived.
The captain praised New York City’s emergency crews, saying “thank you seems totally inadequate” and he had “a debt of gratitude” he feared he may never be able to repay. The interview will be broadcast in the US tomorrow night. The interview will be broadcast in the US tomorrow night. – (AP)
Political crisis in right-to-die case
ROME – A right-to-die case turned into a political crisis for Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi yesterday when the country’s president refused to sign his decree ordering doctors to keep a comatose woman alive.
The Vatican, which believes that stopping feeding the woman would be tantamount to euthanasia, sided with the government and criticised President Giorgio Napolitano.
Eluana Englaro (38) has been in a coma since a car crash in 1992 and Italy’s top court ruled last year that she should be allowed to die.
Doctors began withdrawing food yesterday in line with that ruling. However, Mr Berlusconi’s cabinet quickly issued a decree barring them from stopping nutrition.
Shortly afterwards Mr Napolitano, who had warned Mr Berlusconi not to use a decree law on such a delicate issue, told him he would not give it the signature needed to become law. – (Reuters)