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Plane ditches into sea near Sicily A Tuninter flight carrying 39 people came down near Sicily. The plane went into see after the capitan asked for an emergency landing in Palermo Punta Raisi airport. Stranded Russian minisub is trapped by 60 tonne anchor The Interfax news agency is reporting that a Russian minisub that was stranded underwater in the Pacific Ocean is trapped by a 60 tonne anchor.

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Four Israeli Arabs killed by Army deserter A uniformed AWOL Israeli private suddenly opened fire in a crowded bus, killing 4 Israeli Arabs and wounding 12. A mob stormed the bus and beat the shooter to death. The Israel government condemned the random shooting and mobilized troops in anticipation of rioting in the north of Israel.

Wikipedia Current Events
The British politician and former Cabinet Minister Robin Cook dies suddenly at the age of 59. Jimmy Wales clarified the recent media statements made about possible changes to Wikipedia editorial content. India and Pakistan announced that they have agreed to give each other advance notice of future nuclear missile tests. Nineteen people are killed and twenty people are injured when a Tunisian ATR 72 passenger plane made an emergency landing in the sea off the coast of the Italian island of Sicily.

Finnish police isolates ports in Helsinki

View of Helsinki

The Finnish police isolated the ports of Katajanokka and Länsisatama on Saturday. The ports were isolated at around 9.30 p.m. local time and the isolation was called off at around 11.30 p.m.

Finnish police received reports from Estonia that a shipping container loaded with explosives could be coming from Estonia Saturday evening. They checked every truck that passed the ports with the assistance of the Border Guard Service. There are still 2 ships due to arrive in Helsinki tonight, but they were already checked in Tallinn.

Robin Cook dies after a collapse

Robin Cook (middle)

Robin Cook, the former British foreign secretary and current Member of Parliament, has died after collapsing on a walk with his wife on Ben Stack hill, Scotland. Cook, aged 59, was flown to a hospital in Inverness by a rescue service helicopter half an hour after collapsing.

A spokesperson for NHS Highland said that Cook arrived at hospital 90 minutes after his collapse, and was reported dead 5 minutes later.

Cook was a critic of the war in Iraq, and resigned as Leader of the House of Commons in 2003 in protest against Prime Minister Blair's foreign policies.

Plane ditches into sea near Sicily

file photo of an ATR-72

A plane crash 13 km from Palermo and 12 miles North East of Capo Gallo off the Sicilian coast killed at least 14 people.

A Tuninter flight was carrying 39 people (34 passengers and 5 crew members) when it came down near Sicily.

A magistrate of Palermo said there were 20 survivors.

The Tunisian ATR-72 airliner had taken off from Bari and is believed to have developed a technical fault. All the passangers seem to be Italian.

Ten passengers have reached land in Palermo, a city on the southern Italian island of Sicily. "It's a miracle we're alive," survivors said, according to Ansa

The plane went into the sea after the captain asked for an emergency landing at Palermo Punta Raisi airport. When the captain realized he could not reach the airport, he was forced to land the plane at sea. The captain Chafik Garbis told Ansa, "The engine lost power and I had to try to ditch."

Palermo, Sicily location

Most of the survivors have big signs of burns on their skin. A fire spread out before, or just after, the plane ditched.

The wreck of the airplane was found broken in three parts.

The number of the fatalities is not yet clearly known. A member of the Italian aviation reported to the Italian Radio Rai while coming back to land from the area of the crash that some people are not yet found. Most of the survivors have been injured.

The Italian Ansv (Agenzia nazionale sicurezza al volo, or National Agency for flight safety) opened an investigation into the crash. It will also involve France (where the ATR planes were built) and Tunisia.

The Publico Ministero of Palermo (the judge who is in charge of investigation) said to the Italian television Rai, "Luckly, and this is the most important thing, we can exclude that it is due to a terrorism attack." He then added that the investigation has not yet formally started so he needs more time to be sure.

Senior citizen group seeks recovery of Medicare expenses from U.S. cigarette makers

A U.S. lobbyist group, the United Seniors Association, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Boston to recover Medicare expenses related to tobacco smoking. The suit says there is a link between nicotine addiction and smoking-related diseases.

The first of its kind lawsuit seeks to recover as much as $60 billion in estimated Medicare expenses outlaid for treatment of lung cancer and emphysema patients.

The Medicare Secondary Payer Statute (MSP) allows someone to sue on behalf of Medicare. The medical expenses that another party was legally obligated to cover, in this case the tobacco companies if they are found liable in court, would be split between parties to the suit and Medicare. The MSP statute was entered in part because the government does not have the resources to prosecute every case under Medicare law.

Stranded Russian minisub is trapped by 60 tonne anchor

The mini sub is trapped off the south-easteren coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula

The Interfax news agency is reporting that a Russian minisub that was stranded underwater in the Pacific Ocean is trapped by two 60 tonne anchors.

The submarine propeller has snagged on the antenna of a sonar underwater coastal defense station, (or perhaps very long low frequency arrays, which can be thousands of yards) 623 ft below the ocean 43 miles off Kamchatka. "The anchor needs to be blown up" in order to be able to raise the AS-28 submarine, the commander of the Russian Pacific Fleet told Interfax.

"If the explosion is successful, the system will be raised to a depth of 100 meters and lit up by the Tiger [television camera], and we can at last be 100% sure that it's the submarine, and deepwater divers will be able to continue work," he continued.

The AS-28 submarine, with seven crew onboard, became entangled on Thursday while at a depth of 190 m.

Earlier reports that the submarine had been taken under tow have been proved false. Ships had attempted to trawl for the submarine in order to drag it into shallower water, but it is reported that they failed to capture the submarine.

The Pacific Fleet commander says that the crew have enough food and water to survive until Monday although oxygen will run out by Saturday. The three-man submarine was designed to supply the crew with a five day supply of oxygen, however with the seven man crew the supply has been greatly depleted.

A C-5 Galaxy is loaded with people and equipment from the Deep Submergence Unit, Naval Base Coronado. The C-5 is bringing two Super Scorpio robotic rescue vehicles to Russia to assist in the rescue.

Around ten Russian navy ships are attending, to be joined by four Japanese vessels on Monday. The US and UK navies are also flying in specialist rescue equipment, including two U.S. navy owned remotely-operated underwater robots capable of cutting through steel lines up to 1" thick and one U.K. video array ROV. They will arrive on Saturday.

The crew have been using an underwater acoustic telephone to communicate with the surface, and are reported to be remaining calm. They have been told to keep still and to conserve the ship's power supplies.

The same class of vessel, which measures 13.5 m by 3.8 m, was used during the ill-fated rescue attempt on the Kursk, which was lost with all hands almost exactly five years ago.

Charles Jarvis, the CEO of the group said, "Our motivation is one of taxpayer protection." He added, "Considering how badly the taxpayers have been injured financially, we believe the responsible parties -- the tobacco companies -- should be reimbursing the taxpayer to the greatest amount possible under the law."

Currently, U.S. employees are taxed by Medicare at 1.45% of their earnings. This payroll tax amount is matched by their employer when paid to the IRS.

The lawsuit names Philip Morris USA, Lorillard Tobacco, the Liggett Group, and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco and two of its subsidiaries as defendants. The United Seniors Association is asking for twice the amount paid by Medicare to treat smoking related illnesses since 1999.

Today in History
1679 - Le Griffon, a brigantine by René-Robert de LaSalle, became the first sailing ship to navigate the Great Lakes.

1782 - The Badge of Military Merit, the original Purple Heart, was established as a military decoration in the Continental Army.

1947 - An expedition led by Thor Heyerdahl crossed the Pacific Ocean in 101 days on his raft, Kon-Tiki.

1965 - Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman of the Federation of Malaysia demanded that Singapore withdraw from the Federation, choosing to "sever ties with a State Government that showed no measure of loyalty to its Central Government."

1998 - The bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya killed 224 people and injured over 4,500.

August 07 is Independence Day in Côte d'Ivoire (1960)

Quote of the Day

"Intelligence is like four-wheel drive. It only allows you to get stuck in more remote places." ~ Garrison Keillor

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