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The time is 17:00 (UTC) on May 26th, 2006, and this is Audio Wikinews News Briefs.

Monday, April 25, 2005

With two space walks, 78 million miles and six months on board the International Space Station under their belts, Commander-Science Officer Leroy Chiao and Flight Engineer Salizhan Sharipov, the station’s 10th crew, landed in Kazakhstan in a Soyuz spacecraft at 6:08 p.m. EDT Sunday.

Also returning was European Space Agency Astronaut Roberto Vittori of Italy, who launched to the Station with the Expedition 11 crew and spent eight days doing experiments. He was aboard under a contract between ESA and the Russian Federal Space Agency.

The re-entry of the ISS Soyuz 9 spacecraft was perfect, returning the astronauts to Earth 53 miles northeast of the town of Arkalyk after 192 days, 19 hours and 2 minutes in space for the Expedition 10 crew. The recovery team reached the capsule in minutes.

They launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan last Oct. 13 at 11:06 p.m. EDT. During their increment they performed two spacewalks, continued station maintenance and did scientific experiments.

Notable accomplishments included replacing critical hardware in the Joint Quest Airlock; repairing U.S. spacesuits; and submitting a scientific research paper on ultrasound use in space. Chiao was also the first astronaut to vote in the U.S. Presidential election from space. The crew completed two spacewalks, including experiment installation and tasks to prepare the Station for the arrival of the new European Automated Transfer Vehicle next year.

Aboard the Station, Commander Sergei Krikalev and Flight Engineer and NASA Station Science Officer John Phillips, the Expedition 11 crew, are beginning a six-month mission. It will include the resumption of Space Shuttle flights and two spacewalks from the Station. Expedition 11 is scheduled to return to Earth on October 7, 2005. The two latest occupants of the station launched with Vittori from Baikonur April 14.

Krikalev and Phillips will have light duty for the next two days, as they rest after completing a busy handover period. For the past week, they have been learning about Station operations from the two men who called the ship home since October. Chiao and Sharipov briefed Krikalev and Phillips on day-to-day operations and gave them hands-on opportunities at Station maintenance. Chiao and Phillips restored the Quest airlock to working order for future spacewalks and practiced operating the Canadarm2 robotic arm.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said on Wednesday that 2009 was the “worst year” that the airline industry has ever seen since 1945.

“In terms of demand, 2009 goes into the history books as the worst year the industry has ever seen,” said IATA boss Giovanni Bisignani. “We have permanently lost 2.5 years of growth in passenger markets and 3.5 years of growth in the freight business.”

According to the group, passenger traffic was down by 3.5% compared to a year earlier, and freight by 10.1%. The group estimated that the airline industry lost a total of US$11 billion in 2009 last year, and will lose another $5.6 billion in 2010.

Airlines in Africa had the biggest passenger demand drop, at 6.8%; North American airlines and Asian carriers had demand go down 5.8%. European airlines saw a drop of 5%. Middle Eastern and Latin American carriers, however, had rises in demand, with gains of 11.3% and 0.3%, respectively. According to the Agence France-Presse news agency, part of the reason Middle Eastern carriers performed better is because of their position between Asia, Africa, and Europe, resulting in more connecting flights through hubs.

“While both North American and European carriers saw demand improvements in the first half of the year, the second half was basically flat,” said IATA.

IATA represents 230 airlines, accounting for 90% of scheduled air traffic, although some budget carriers are not included.

The IATA boss said that, although the worst appeared to be over due to the global economic recovery airlines would have to keep their costs low. “Revenue improvements will be at a much slower pace than the demand growth that we are starting to see,” he noted.

“Profitability will be even slower to recover and airlines will lose an expected 5.6 billion dollars in 2010. The industry starts 2010 with some enormous challenges. The worst is behind us, but it’s not time to celebrate. Adjusting to 2.5 to 3.5 years of lost growth means that airlines face another spartan year, focused on matching capacity carefully to demand and controlling costs,” Bisignani continued.

Costs for security were also an issue. Bisignani said: “Governments and industry are aligned in the priority that we place on security. But the cost of security is also an issue. Globally, airlines spend US$5.9 billion a year on what are essentially measures concerned with national security. This is the responsibility of governments, and they should be picking up the bill.”

Analysts, however, say that cost cutting measures, intended to attract more customers, would also harm airline profits. Saj Ahmad, an independent airline analyst, commented: “Continued fare wars between airlines mean that yields and profitability will be low. Airlines are struggling to fill their airplanes and discounted ticketing has done little to alleviate the pressures on their costs,” as quoted by the BBC.

“Capacity has come out of the global airline system, but until a few airlines perhaps exit the industry through bankruptcy or mergers, there is still a very long road until we see serious stability, let alone growth,” Ahmad added.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Five of the six defendants accused of manslaughter over the 2006 fire on board Egyptian ferry al-Salam Boccaccio 98 have been cleared of all charges. The February 3 fire and subsequent sinking killed 1,034 of around 1,400 passengers.

Mamdouh Ismail, owner of the al-Salam company, his son and three company executives were all cleared of manslaughter. Ismail is a member of parliament directly appointed by the president, and both he, his son and another of the executives were tried in absentia as they have left the country. They had all been charged with manslaughter stemming from safety violations on the ship.

Convicted was Salaheddin Gomaa, captain of nearby ferry Saint Catherine. He was jailed for six months after the court found he did not come to the stricken al-Salam 98′s aid. It found he “did not do his duty by failing to go to the rescue of victims,” and that he failed to show any compassion.

The ship went down in the Red Sea near Egyptian port Safaga, where the trial was held, having departed earlier from Saudi Arabia’s Dhaba port. A parliamentary report balmed the disaster’s scale on the owners, as well as the government and Panama, the state where the ship was registered. The report said al-Salam had kept operating the ship “despite serious defects” with her, and that the government had “failed to manage the crisis adequately” in the following days.

It was found that the 36-year-old al-Salam 98′s safety documents were forged, that the ship’s extuinguishers and life rafts were not fit for purpose and that there were an inadequate number of winches to lower the rafts into the sea. However, the elder Ismail had put the blame on his ferry’s captain, who he claimed wrongly believed the crew could deal with the fire when it broke out. The captain was amongst the dead.

Ismail’s assets were frozen and a travel ban was imposed on him following the disaster, but both were lifted later that year after he paid E£300,000,000 (US$57,000,000) into a victim’s compensation fund. Many victims were poor Egyptian migrant workers, and some were bringing home savings accumulated over months or years.

The Misdemeanor Court’s acquittal of all except Gomaa — who was fined E£10,000 (US$1,887) — met with anger from relatives, who turned out en masse to hear the verdicts. One man told al-Jazeera “The day of the accident everybody saw that the ship was in bad shape and two years later they say the boat was in good shape. It doesn’t make sense. This is awful. My wife and children died and after two years everyone responsible is found to be innocent.”

Public prosecutor Abdel Meguid Mahmud was also unhappy with the result. In a statement he said he intends to appeal the verdict and demand a retrial. He alleges serious “violations in documented records, corruption in investigation, shortcomings in validatings and arbitrary conclusions,” and cites these as his reasons for a retrial.