Group pushes effort to improve jet tracking
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – An aviation industry group is creating a task force to make recommendations this year for continuously tracking commercial airliners because “we cannot let another aircraft simply vanish” like Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
The aviation mystery has highlighted the need for improvements in tracking aircraft and security, according to the International Air Transport Association, a trade association for the world’s airlines meeting in Kuala Lumpur.
“In a world where our every move seems to be tracked, there is disbelief that an aircraft could simply disappear,” said Tony Tyler, the director general of the group whose 240 member airlines carry 84 percent of all passengers and cargo worldwide.
“We cannot let another aircraft simply vanish,” he said in announcing the high-level task force to make recommendations on tracking commercial aircraft.
NATO moves to increase members’ defenses
BRUSSELS – NATO foreign ministers moved Tuesday to beef up the defenses of front-line alliance members feeling menaced by a more assertive Russia, with Secretary of State John Kerry proclaiming the U.S. commitment to their security is “unwavering.”
The ministers from NATO’s 28 member nations also ordered suspension of all “practical civilian and military cooperation” with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, though they made sure a line of communication with the Kremlin remains open at the ambassadorial level.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, keystone of U.S. and European security since the end of World War II, is facing its most acute geopolitical crisis in years: the fallout from Moscow’s unilateral annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
Brazil to investigate possible torture sites
RIO DE JANEIRO –Brazil’s defense minister has agreed to investigate military facilities where human rights abuses are believed to have been committed during the country’s 21-year dictatorship, the National Truth Commission said Tuesday.
In a statement on its website, the National Truth Commission said Defense Minister Celso Amorim agreed Tuesday by phone to form inquiry units within the armed forces to probe military installations thought to have been the sites of torture.
Associated Press
