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Air Asia plane overshoots runway in the Philippines


Sputnik
Tue, 30 Dec 2014 15:12 UTC
The passengers were forced to use emergency slides to evacuate the plane.
Air Asia Airbus A320
© AFP
Air Asia Airbus A320
An AirAsia plane has overshot a runway while making a landing at Kalibo International Airport in the Philippines, The Independent reports.

The Airbus A320 passengers were forced to use emergency slides to evacuate the plane.

Flight Z2272 was bound from Manila to Kalibo, a city in the central Philippines.

Jet Damazo-Santos, a journalist for Rappler who was onboard, posted several photos of the incident on Twitter, adding that apparently no one was hurt during the ordeal, according to The Straits Times.

Comment: See: SOTT EXCLUSIVE: Year of the planes: Cluster of plane problems as 2014 comes to a close

      Read More...
Boat

Ship off Greek coast carrying 700 'illegal immigrants' issues SOS: 'Armed people on board'

Sara Malm
Mail Online
Tue, 30 Dec 2014 00:00 UTC
Blue Sky
© marinetraffic.com
Shiptracking service Marinetraffic.com show that Blue Sky has recently changed its course and made a sharp turn towards Italy instead of Croatia where it was heading
A ship carrying hundreds of passengers near the island of Corfu has issued a distress call because of armed people on board, according to the Greek shipping ministry.

Several reports say the vessel, currently off the coast of Corfu, is carrying 700 passengers.

Greek state television has reported that 'illegal immigrants' are involved in the situation on the ship, while other news sources say all 700 passengers are 'undocumented migrants'.

Comment: And this happens right after the completion of a rescue operation involving a ferry-boat traveling from Greece to Italy around the same area, that caught on fire, and the Whys and Hows still remain unanswered:

Evacuation complete, 7 dead - Ferry stricken by flames between Greece and Italy evacuated, teams helped "avoid a massacre"

      Read More...
Airplane

SOTT EXCLUSIVE: Year of the planes: Cluster of plane problems as 2014 comes to a close

Harrison Koehli
Sott.net
Mon, 29 Dec 2014 21:53 UTC
Image
In addition to Ebola, ISIS, and Ukraine in general, some of the biggest events of 2014 have involved passenger jets. First there was the mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 and its 239 passengers and crew on March 8, followed by the shoot-down of MH17 over Ukraine on July 17, killing all 298 aboard. A week later, July 24, Air Algerie Flight AH5017 enigmatically crashed in Mali, burning to a crisp and killing all 116 aboard. After that, there was the plane crash in Brazil that killed presidential candidate Eduardo Campos and six others on 13 August.

Now, another Malaysia-connected flight has gone missing on December 28: AirAsia Flight QZ8501, with 162 aboard and presumed dead at this point. No distress signal, just an announcement that the pilots would gain altitude to navigate a storm, before disappearing completely from radar.
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Magnify

Police investigating cop for choking and body slamming man filming arrest

Tom Boggioni
Raw Story
Sun, 28 Dec 2014 21:39 UTC
Image
The Baton Rouge Police Department is investigating a claim by a Virginia man who reported he was choked and slammed to the ground by an officer while filming an arrest, after surveillance video showed officers lied in their incident report, according to WAFB.

Daniel Clement, 22, said he was using his cell phone to film the arrest outside of a club when an officer ripped his phone from his hand, and another officer grabbed him around the throat and then tossed him on the ground where he was mobbed by officers.

"I saw a police officer push somebody and I've always been told if something like that is going on, it's important to have an objective source of data for what happened," Clement said. "So, I pulled my phone out and I started filming."

According to Clement, that is when the officer snatched the phone from his hand and the other officer assaulted him.

"It got ripped from my hands and as I turned to see who ripped it, another officer slammed me into the railing outside," Clement added.

Comment: It is well worth noting that it is within citizens' First Amendment rights to film police officers.

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Question

Bizarre Chinese forum posts may have predicted doomed AirAsia Flight QZ8501

Ryan Gorman
AoL.com
Mon, 29 Dec 2014 20:04 UTC
AirAsia
© Screen Capture/AoL.com
A rambling post two weeks ago to a Chinese forum predicting the downing of an AirAsia flight that was previously ignored has now come back into focus after Flight QZ8501 disappeared Sunday over the Java Sea.

The warning claimed a shadow organization referred to in Chinese as an "international black hand" was responsible for attacks on two Malaysian Airlines flights earlier this year and that an attack on AirAsia was imminent.

The post to Tianya, a Chinese version of Reddit, came two weeks ago and predicted dire consequences for anyone flying AirAsia.

"Black hand has hijacked and shot down MH370 and MH17," wrote the poster, according to a translation posted on Reddit. "Now the black hand are targeting AirAsia to ruin this airline cause it too belong to Malaysia."

Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared earlier this year, possibly over the Indian Ocean. It has yet to be found.

Flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine only weeks later and crashed into a large field.

"Given how powerful the black hand are I suggest that all Chinese thinking about traveling to avoid AirAsia, so that you don't disappear like those on MH370," wrote the mysterious poster, who goes by the name "landlord".

"You could be happily vacationing, working, or studying abroad, but if you go on Malaysian airline or AirAsia, you're dead, be careful everyone," landlord insisted, urging people to warn family and friends against flying either airline.
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Ambulance

Evacuation complete, 7 dead - Ferry stricken by flames between Greece and Italy evacuated, teams helped "avoid a massacre"

Steve Scherer and James MacKenzie
Reuters
Mon, 29 Dec 2014 17:15 UTC
Image
© Reuters
Rescue teams on Monday completed the evacuation of nearly 500 people from a car ferry that caught fire off Greece's Adriatic coast, working through the night and defying high seas and freezing weather in a 36-hour drama.

But seven people were killed in the incident, the Italian coastguard said.

The fire broke out on a vehicle deck of the Norman Atlantic ferry, which was carrying 478 passengers and crew and more than 200 vehicles, early on Sunday. Rescue efforts were immediately complicated by bad weather.

Comment: See also:

Ferry catches fire off Greek coast, 466 passengers and crews are being evacuated

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USA

The zombification of America (no, this isn't metaphor)

Michael Snyder
End of the American Dream
Mon, 29 Dec 2014 00:13 UTC
Zombies
© End of the American Dream
Do you know people that seem like they have had their souls sucked out of them? On dictionary.com, a "zombie" is defined as "the body of a dead person given the semblance of life, but mute and will-less, by a supernatural force, usually for some evil purpose".

And that sounds very much like what has happened to tens of millions of Americans. When you look into their eyes, it doesn't look like anything is even there. That is because who they once were is now dominated and controlled by the overwhelmingly powerful "matrix" that is being constructed all around us.

As I wrote about the other day, virtually all news, information and entertainment that Americans consume is controlled by just six monolithic corporations. And today, Americans are more "plugged in" than ever before. The average person watches 153 hours of television a month in addition to spending countless hours watching movies, playing video games, listening to music, reading books and surfing the Internet. In the end, all of that "programming" turns many of us into virtual zombies, and that is the way that the elite like it.

Just think about it. What was the biggest news story in the entire country over the holiday weekend?

It was the fact that some hackers had taken down the Sony Playstation and Microsoft Xbox networks and millions of kids could not log in and play the video games that they had just received for Christmas.

Sadly, most parents don't even bother to pay attention to what those video games are actually teaching their children.
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Boat

Hundreds trapped as ferry catches fire between Greece and Italy

John Phillips
The Telegraph, UK
Sun, 28 Dec 2014 19:59 UTC
Ferry Disaster
© AP Photo/SKAI TV Station

Ten hours after the fire began, some 131 people had been rescued, leaving 347 on board according to the Italian navy.
Hundreds of people have been stranded for ten hours on the top deck of a burning ferry in the Adriatic sea as strong gales and rough waves hampered attempts to save them.

As the sun set, rescue helicopters had resorted to the slow process of lifting the passengers on board the Norman Atlantic from the top deck in pairs, as a fire blazed around them.

At least two Britons were among the 478 people who were travelling on the car ferry between Patras in Greece and Ancona in northern Italy.

The mother of Nicholas Channing-Williams, a British horse rider who lives in Greece, said she had spoken to her son, but that the line had been cut off.

"People in Greece are saying that their communications have been cut off, so as not to hamper rescue operations which I can fully understand," said Dotty Channing-Williams, to Sky News. "They're keeping me updated via the news coming over the Greek television. But nevertheless it is very, very worrying and very scary.
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Attention

Remember Libya? Civil war escalates with govt airstrikes on opposition


Sputnik
Sun, 28 Dec 2014 19:16 UTC
libya
© Flickr/ Ben Sutherland
Libya's official government conducted several tactical airstrikes in the vicinity of the town of Misrata Sunday, another episode in the ongoing war between the internationally recognized government of Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni and the coalition of his political opponents known as Libyan Dawn.

According to the official reports, the Libyan air force, controlled by Thinni, hit several targets in the Libyan Dawn controlled city of Misrata, including a sea port, an air force academy near the airfield and a steel mill, the largest in the country, in an attempt to disrupt the town's economic viability. Representatives for Libyan Dawn confirmed the airstrikes, claiming no immediate victims or damage.

Comment: Thanks, America! Thanks, NATO! We need more folks like you spreading democracy and making the world a better place. We can't imagine how much worse things would've been if you hadn't had Gaddafi murdered and destroyed Libya.

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Family

Millions of Britons facing malnutrition and relying on food banks

Ian Johnston
The Independent
Sun, 28 Dec 2014 09:51 UTC
UK food bank
© unknown
Shocking' figures show that for the first time since the Second World War, the poor cannot afford sufficient calories.
Millions of the poorest people in Britain are struggling to get enough food to maintain their body weight, according to official figures published this month.

The Government's Family Food report reveals that the poorest 10 per cent of the population - some 6.4 million people - ate an average of 1,997 calories a day last year, compared with the average guideline figure of about 2,080 calories. This data covers all age groups.

One expert said the figures were a "powerful marker" that there is a problem with food poverty in Britain and it was clear there were "substantial numbers of people who are going hungry and eating a pretty miserable diet".
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