A passenger plane has crashed in central Iran during a flight from Tehran to the southwestern city of Yasuj, killing all 66 people on board, authorities said on Sunday.

The ATR 72, a twin-engine turboprop operated by Aseman Airlines, crashed in bad weather into Dena Mount near the town of Semirom, an official at the Iranian carrier said.

Local officials in Semirom said the crash site was hard to reach and rescue helicopters had been unable to land because of heavy fog and rain.

Spokesman for Iran’s emergency services Mojtaba Khaledi said rescue teams had traveled to the crash site by land and were trying to find the debris.

“The weather is currently cloudy and rainy and rescuers are searching for the plane but they have not sighted it yet. Despite the poor weather conditions, relief groups are continuing their search,” he said.

Air controllers said the plane went off radar screens 50 minutes after take-off from Mehrabad airport in Tehran at around 8:00 am (0430 GMT). The flight had 60 passengers, including a child, and six crew.

The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) said the plane crashed around 23 kilometers (14 miles) from Yasuj, some 500 kilometers south of the capital.

Franco-Italian planemaker ATR  has a deal with flag carrier Iran Air for the delivery of 20 ATR 72-600 passenger planes. The company delivered eight aircraft in 2017 and plans to deliver a further 12 by the end of this year.

The 70-seat ATR planes are aimed at domestic routes, which Iran seeks to revitalize after the lifting of sanctions in early 2016.

Iran is also renovating its aging fleet for international or long-distance flights under deals signed with Airbus and Boeing to buy a total of 180 passenger jets.

The country has received three Airbus jets in 2017 – one Airbus A321 and two Airbus A33 – and was due to get another by year-end which did not come through. The first Boeing is due around May 2018.

Source: Presstv

A student from a Florida high school where yet another US mass shooting left 17 people dead has blasted President Donald Trump and many lawmakers in the country for receiving money from the powerful lobby group National Rifle Association (NRA), which fervently opposes gun control across the nation.

“If the president wants to come up to me and tell me to my face that it was a terrible tragedy and how it should never have happened, and maintain telling us how nothing is going to be done about it, I’m going to happily ask him how much money he received from the National Rifle Association,” said student Emma Gonzalez of Marjory Stohneman Douglas High School during her speech at a major gun control rally in Ft. Lauderdale on Saturday.

“I already know — $30 million,” she then added. “Divided by the number of gunshot victims in the United States in the one and a half months of 2018 alone, that comes out to being $5,800.”

“Is that how much these people are worth to you, Trump?” she then asked as thousands of protesters at the rally started changing “shame on you” after she mentioned the NRA’s donations to Trump.

Gonzalez further told the crowd that US politicians should stop accepting political donations from the NRA.

The protesters carried anti-NRA signs and demanded changes to gun control laws in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, days after 17 people were shot and killed at the high school in the city of Parkland, some 25 miles away.

Thousands of students, parents, teachers and neighbors also chanted, “Vote them out!” as they called for gun control legislation, which has always been opposed and foiled by NRA-backed members of the US Congress.

Gonzalez further censured Trump for signing a bill last year that overturned an Obama-era regulation designed to make it more difficult for mentally ill people to purchase guns.

“The people in the government who are voted into power are lying to us. And us kids seem to be the only ones who notice and our parents to call ‘B.S.,’ ” Gonzalez said. “We are prepared to call ‘B.S.’ ”

Gonzalez then condemned lawmakers who “sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA” for saying nothing can be done to prevent shootings.

“They say that tougher gun laws do not decrease gun violence. We call ‘B.S.’ They say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. We call ‘B.S.’ ”

“If you agree, register to vote,” she underlined. “Contact your local congresspeople. Give them a piece of your mind.”

Meanwhile, The Network for Public Education and the American Federation of Teachers called on students, teachers and administrators to organize sit-ins, walkouts and other acts of protest on April 20, the anniversary of the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado.

The groups said the aim is to push lawmakers to enact gun control legislation.

You or the gun!

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said the answer to school violence is to keep guns away from people who should not have them.

A number of Democratic lawmakers have renewed their call for gun control legislation after the mass carnage. Survivors of the shooting have also joined the call, demanding Republican lawmakers take action following the bloody shooting.

The development came as Florida State Legislature is struggling with what to do in the aftermath of the carnage.

Some Republican lawmakers wanted to consider a bill to put trained, armed volunteers or school employees inside the state’s public schools.

The state’s Senate Judiciary Committee was due to take up the legislation (SB 1236), but committee chairman Senator Greg Steube announced late Friday that the measure would not be taken up after all.

Steube made his decision after several top senators said they were opposed to considering the bill, AP reported.

According to local press reports, the teen accused of shooting and killing 17 people in a Florida high school is said to have left a suburban Palm Beach County mobile home in November because his benefactor gave him an ultimatum: you or the gun.

Source: Presstv

At least 13 people on the ground, including three children, were killed when a Mexican military helicopter carrying top officials surveying damages from an earthquake crashed in a small town in the southern state of Oaxaca, authorities said on Saturday.

The helicopter, which was carrying Mexico’s interior minister and the state governor, crashed on top of two vans in an open field while trying to land in Santiago Jamiltepec after a tour of damage from a powerful earthquake on Friday, officials said.

The senior officials survived but 12 people at the scene were killed and another died later in a hospital, Oaxaca’s attorney general’s office said in a statement. Fifteen more people were injured.

The 7.2 magnitude quake left nearly a million homes and businesses without power in Mexico City and the south and damaged at least 50 homes in Oaxaca.

The state, along with Mexico City, is still reeling from earthquakes that caused widespread damage in September and killed at least 471 people.

(Source: Reuters)

For the first time in his life, Victor Obi believes that the only way to win freedom in Cameroon is with a gun.

“I don’t want to die, but the only future is our independence, and they will not give it to us,” said the student, whose name has been changed for his own safety.

The 25-year-old is camped out in a small Nigerian village just kilometres from his home in Cameroon where authorities have launched a crackdown on English-speaking separatists.

“They killed my sister and my brother,” said Obi, his voice heavy with hatred. “I have nothing to lose.”

In December, Obi says soldiers invaded his hometown of Kajifu and started shooting indiscriminately at suspected separatists, said to be running a major training camp in the thick equatorial forest surrounding the village.

Kajifu is located in one of Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions that have been pushing for independence from the French-speaking elite who rule the West African country.

On October 1, separatists declared the two regions as the self-proclaimed republic of “Ambazonia”, marking a turning point for the country’s English-speaking minority, which makes up around a fifth of the population.

Cameroon President Paul Biya dispatched troops, combat helicopters and armoured vehicles to root out the dissidents, forcing tens of thousands to flee to neighbouring Nigeria.

At least 26 soldiers have been killed in the violence, according to an AFP tally.

But the civilian death toll isn’t known, with non-governmental organisations and independent media barred from the area.

Though the original Ambazonia leaders have dissociated themselves from militant offshoots – they claim their struggle is peaceful – there are a growing number of attacks against the government.

‘Raise an army’ 

On Sunday, before a national youth day parade in Batibo, a town near the Nigerian border, a government official was kidnapped and his car was burnt in an attack claimed by separatists.

Lucas Cho Ayaba, leader of the Ambazonian Defence Forces (ADF), took credit for the kidnapping, declaring: “You kill my people, we will chase you to the gates of hell.”

The ADF, along with three other militias, represent the main groups which count more than 300 fighters, according to an International Crisis Group (ICG) estimate. There are also 10 much smaller but violent factions engaged in the conflict.

Few claim attacks and it’s difficult to know exactly who is responsible, said ICG researcher Hans De Marie Heungoup.

“The main issue for Ambazonian groups is that they really lack finance,” he said.

“If they had money to buy weapons, train and feed their people, they could raise an army.”

But amidst the chaos, one thing seems certain: the crackdown has radicalised many English-speakers, among them the farmers and managers who have long felt marginalised by Yaounde but have never been interested in politics – until now.

‘They are angry’ 

English-speakers in Cameroon have been marginalised for too long, said Pastor John Mbe, one of more than 33,000 refugees in Cross River State, Nigeria.

“Many people have died already, we can’t go back home,” he said, “young people may not have guns and bullets, but I can tell you they’re angry.”

A source close to the militants says they have adopted the guerilla philosophy of freedom fighters in Eritrea as well as that of Nelson Mandela’s anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.

In Manyu, a region at the epicentre of the conflict, separatists block roads with tyres and tree trunks to ambush and attack military bases.

The militants are armed mostly with homemade rifles, some Kalashnikovs, grenades and other improvised explosive devices.

The few sophisticated weapons they possess have been stolen from police stations.

As a result of the simmering violence, thousands of refugees are arriving in Ikom, a city just over the border in a Nigeria, raising fears that the conflict is spiralling out of control.

Black magic 

No formal fighter camp has been identified, but according to several witnesses interviewed by AFP, young refugees are performing black magic rituals to prepare for war.

They gather in small groups for “juju” ceremonies, during which they cut their foreheads and rub the bleeding wound with “magic potions” to make them invincible, said a Nigerian soldier who attended one of the ceremonies.

Their presence is a growing concern for Nigeria, an ally of Cameroon, which last month arrested and extradited 47 separatist leaders and deployed soldiers along the border.

Yet that hasn’t stopped the rebels from launching attacks from Nigerian territory in recent weeks, according to security sources.

At the end of January, suspected separatists detonated an explosive device at the Cameroon border post of Ekok, partially destroying an office.

“The truth is that many militants are hiding among the refugees, and they just cross the border at will through the forest,” said Lawrence Asuquo, head of immigration at Ikom.

“They launch attacks on the Cameroonian army and they run back to Nigeria. It’s almost impossible to track them.”

AFP

A Turkish court has sentenced six journalists to life in prison over accusation of involvement in the country’s 2016 failed coup.

On Friday, the court handed the life sentences to the six defendants for “seeking to overthrow the constitutional order by force,” the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

All six, three of whom have already been imprisoned for nearly 17 months, have denied the charges.

Prominent Turkish journalists Nazli Ilicak, Mehmet Altan and his brother Ahmet are among the defendants.

Turkey’s highest court, the Constitutional Court, had previously ordered the release of Mehmet Altan, saying the detention violates his rights, but the penal court dismissed the request.

The Altan brothers were accused of giving coded messages on a television talk show a day before the coup.

“Whatever the developments were that lead to military coups in Turkey, by making the same decisions, [President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is paving the same path,” Ahmet Altan had said at the TV show.

On the same program, Mehmet Altan pointed to “another structure” within the government that was monitoring the political developments in the country to “take its hand out of the bag.”

Prosecutors say the comments were coded messages to followers of US-based opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of masterminding the putsch.

“This sets a devastating precedent for scores of other journalists charged with similarly groundless charges,” said Sarah Clarke of writers organization PEN International.

The lawyer for the Altan brothers, Ergin Cinmen, told Reuters that they would appeal against the verdict, saying, “This is a trial that wiped out freedom of thought.”

“This verdict will be definitely reversed. Turkey cannot go on with this verdict,” he added.

‘Unprecedented assault on freedom of expression’

The verdict drew fierce criticism from international organizations and rights groups, including the UN, which urged Turkey to reverse the ruling.

”These harsh sentences are an unacceptable and unprecedented assault on freedom of expression and on the media in Turkey,” the UN human rights office said in a statement.

During the botched putsch in July 2016, a faction of the Turkish military declared that it had seized control of the country and the government of Erdogan was no more in charge. The attempt was, however, suppressed a few hours later.

Turkey, which remains in a state of emergency since the coup, has been engaged in suppressing the media and opposition groups suspected to have played a role in the failed coup.

Tens of thousands of people have been arrested in Turkey on suspicion of having links to Gulen and the failed coup. Nearly 150,000 others, including military staff, civil servants and journalists, have been sacked or suspended from work over the same accusations.

The international community and rights groups have been highly critical of the Turkish president over the massive dismissals and the crackdown.

Source: Presstv

Florida Governor Rick Scott has asked the FBI director to resign after the bureau admitted it had ignored a warning about the perpetrator of the recent high school shooting in the state.

On Wednesday, Nikolas Cruz, 19, opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, killing 17 people and injuring at least 14 others.

Following the tragedy, the FBI admitted it had received a tip-off about the gunman yet failed to stop him.

Apparently, a person close to Cruz had contacted an FBI tip line on Jan. 5, weeks before the shooting to report concerns about him, the FBI said in a statement.

“The caller provided information about Cruz’s gun ownership, desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and disturbing social media posts, as well as the potential of him conducting a school shooting,” it said.

“The information then should have been forwarded to the FBI Miami field office, where appropriate investigative steps would have been taken,” the agency said, adding, “We have determined that these protocols were not followed.”

On Friday, Scott issued a statement, saying, “The FBI’s failure to take action against this killer is unacceptable,” adding, “The FBI Director needs to resign.”

“An apology will never bring these 17 Floridians back to life or comfort the families who are in pain,” he said.

Other Republicans including Florida Senator Marco Rubio also severely criticized the FBI.

Cruz, who has alleged ties to a white supremacist group, confessed Thursday to the shooting at his former high school.

Appearing before a judge, the troubled teen was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder and was ordered to be held without bond.

Expelled from school for disciplinary reasons, Cruz was known to be fixated on firearms — and had reportedly been identified as a potential threat to his classmates.

The incident came as Americans reeled from the country’s worst school massacre since the horror at Sandy Hook six years ago which left dead 20 children between six and seven years old, as well as six adult staff members.

US President Donald Trump, who has defied calls to address gun control, went to Florida to meet with the victims of the shooting who are recovering at a hospital there.

However, some of the parents, survivors and others affected by the tragedy were more interested in firm action than a presidential visit.

“I don’t want Trump to come but we want more gun safety,” said 18-year-old Kevin Trejos, a senior at the school. “It’s a dream. It hasn’t hit me yet.”

Source: Presstv