Duterte threatens 'suicide mission' if Beijing oversteps in South China Sea - CNN

Duterte's speech at a rally in the city of Puerto Princesa in Palawan came days after the Philippine government claimed as many as 275 Chinese boats and ships had been spotted in recent months around Manila's Thitu Island in the Spratly Island chain.

"Let us be friends, but do not touch Pagasa Island and the rest," Duterte said, according to CNN Philippines, using the Philippine word Pagasa for Thitu.

"If you make moves there, that's a different story. I will tell my soldiers, 'Prepare for suicide mission'."

Duterte said his words were not a warning, but rather "advice to my friends."

"I will not plead or beg, but I'm just telling you that lay off the Pag-asa because I have soldiers there," he said, according to CNN Philippines.

CNN has reached out to the Philippines government for further comment.

A small Philippine military garrison as well as about 100 civilians are based on Thitu, which lies about 500 kilometers (310 miles) from Palawan, one of the islands that make up the Philippines.

Tensions have risen since the start of 2019 in the South China Sea, one of the world's most disputed regions and an important shipping lane.

The Philippines and China each claim overlapping areas of the vast sea, along with multiple other countries including Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei. The area where Thitu is located is also claimed by China as part of its territory.

The latest arrival of Chinese vessels around Thitu Island has provoked a stern response from Manila.

The Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs in a statement Thursday said their presence was "illegal" and a "clear violation of Philippine sovereignty."

"It has been observed that Chinese vessels have been present in large numbers and for sustained and recurring periods — what is commonly referred to as 'swarming' tactics — raising questions about their intent as well as concerns over their role in support of coercive objectives," the Philippine statement said.

Independent analysis by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) of the hundreds of vessels which have appeared around Thitu Island since January has determined they are composed of dozens of fishing vessels, as well as China Coast Guard ships and People's Liberation Army Navy ships.

When asked about the disputed island on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang pointed to a meeting between Philippine and Chinese representatives to discuss a bilateral consultation mechanism to avoid South China Sea conflicts.

"I believe that the consensus reached by the two sides through discussion in this meeting is the best answer to your question," he said.

Diplomacy and intimidation

To reinforce its claims to the South China Sea, China has built and militarized artificial islands and has attempted to undermine other countries' positions through a combination of diplomacy and intimidation.

Its aggressive moves in the region had antagonized previous Philippine administrations, which took Beijing to court to prove its claims over the sea.

But relations between China and the Philippines have warmed considerably since the 2016 inauguration of Duterte, who has pushed for a closer economic relationship with Beijing.

"I need China. More than anybody else at this point, I need China," Duterte said before flying to China in April 2018.

Compared with his predecessors, Duterte has viewed the dispute in the South China Sea as more negotiable than a matter of principle.

But China has been strengthening its hold over the region. In May 2018, Beijing announced it had successfully landed bombers on islands under its control for the first time, a big step in the militarization of the region.

The United States has also ramped up its freedom of navigation exercises in the region under US President Donald Trump, in an apparent attempt to hold back Chinese influence.

In a defiant statement to then-US Secretary of Defense James Mattis during a Beijing meeting in June 2018, President Xi Jinping said China wouldn't give up "any inch of territory."

Fishing vessels and naval ships

Philippines armed forces spokesperson Edgard Arevalo cautioned on Monday that it was difficult to quantify how many ships are around the island at any one time, as Chinese vessels "come and go" from the area.

In an article published in February, the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative said the sudden increase in the number of ships between December and January appeared to be a response to reclamation and construction by the Philippines government.

"The fishing boats have mostly been anchored between 2 and 5.5 nautical miles west of Thitu, while the naval and coast guard ships operate slightly farther away to the south and west," the AMTI said in an article.

"The fishing vessels display all the hallmarks of belonging to China's maritime militia, including having no gear in the water that would indicate fishing activity and disabling their Automatic Identification System (AIS) transceivers to hide their activities."

AMTI noted that Thitu is only about 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) from Subi Reef, one of the main places China has fortified in its recent buildup in the South China Sea.

The Philippines Foreign Ministry said on Thursday if the Chinese government didn't repudiate the actions of the fishing vessels in the vicinity of Thitu, it would be assumed to have directed them.

"The presence of Chinese vessels within the (island group), whether military, fishing or other vessels, will thus continue to be the subject of appropriate action by the Philippines," the statement said.

Duterte's administration has made threats of military action against Chinese troops in the South China Sea before which have come to nothing. In May 2018, his foreign minister threatened "war" if Beijing attempted to access the oil and gas reportedly buried beneath the sea.

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2019-04-05 08:11:00Z
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Consumer champion to sue Boeing over crash - BBC News

Ex-US presidential hopeful Ralph Nader is taking Boeing to court over the Ethiopia Airlines crash, which killed his great-niece.

Samya Rose Stumo was one of the 157 people who died when a Boeing 737 Max 8 crashed in March.

Mr Nader has a history of successfully suing large corporations .

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2019-04-04 20:47:03Z
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Ethiopian Airlines preliminary crash report shows similarities to Lion Air disaster - CNN

The captain and the first officer struggled as the Boeing 737 Max 8's systems, designed to prevent the plane stalling, repeatedly forced the nose of the plane down. For nearly six minutes, the report shows, the pilots worked through a series of procedures to try and regain control of the plane.

The captain called out "pull up" three times to tell the first officer to raise the nose. Both pilots tried to pull the nose up together to keep the plane flying, but they were unable to regain control. In total, the anti-stall system pushed the nose down four times during the flight.

In the end, after the pilots had turned back to Addis Ababa, the automated system pitched the plane into a steep dive from which it was impossible to recover, and it crashed into the ground. All 157 people on board were killed.

The problems on board the Ethiopian Airlines jet mirror those encountered on the doomed Lion Air flight 610 -- which operated the same 737 Max 8 model and crashed in October -- in what could be a significant blow to Boeing as it struggles to get the aircraft back in service.

The report on the Ethiopian Airlines crash does not specifically name the Max 8's plane's anti-stall system -- called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) -- which is suspected to have contributed to the Lion Air disaster.

But its findings make it likely that the MCAS system pushed the plane into a dive fueled by erroneous angle of attack sensor readings.

Boeing is currently working on a change to the system's software. The company recognized the similarities between the two crashes and acknowledged the role of the MCAS system in a statement Thursday. "The preliminary report contains flight data recorder information indicating the airplane had an erroneous angle of attack sensor input that activated the MCAS function during the flight, as it had during the Lion Air 610 flight," the statement said.

"To ensure unintended MCAS activation will not occur again, Boeing has developed and is planning to release a software update to MCAS and an associated comprehensive pilot training and supplementary education program for the 737 MAX."

Speaking before the release of the report, Ethiopian Minister of Transport Dagmawit Moges suggested that Boeing review "the aircraft flight control system related to the flight controllability."

She told reporters in Addis Ababa that said her agency would recommend that aviation authorities verify that Boeing has "adequately addressed" flight control issues "before release of the aircraft to operations."

The preliminary report, which has not yet been publicly released, does not specify a cause for the crash. A final report could take as long as a year to produce.

Struggle began just after takeoff

The timeline of the flight, detailed in the preliminary report, reveals that the pilots' struggle to control the plane began moments after the plane took off from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport, en route to Nairobi.

Just after takeoff, one of the angle of attack sensors on board the aircraft began providing faulty information to the aircraft's systems, indicating an imminent stall to the flight crew. A stick shaker -- another system intended to warn a pilot of an imminent stall -- began shaking the pilot's yoke. Incorrectly sensing a stall, the aircraft's system tried to force the nose down.

Recognizing a problem with the automatic trim, the pilots followed emergency procedures and turned off the system. Instead, the pilots tried to use the backup manual trim wheel to adjust the trim, but the airplane was traveling too fast and the manual trim wheel would have been physically impossible to operate, according to a 737 pilot who spoke with CNN.

In the final minute of the flight, the pilot told his first officer that they had to pull up together. Thirty-two seconds before the crash, both pilots tried to trim the nose up with, and for a brief moment, the aircraft's stabilizer, controlled by the trim, made the corresponding change,

But five seconds later, the aircraft's automated systems once again trimmed the nose down, pitching the nose down even further, steepening the dive. The plane was angled 40 degrees nose down, hurtling towards the ground at 575 miles per hour as it crashed.

Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde Gebremariam has told CNN that it was too early to say whether the remedial actions being taken by Boeing would be sufficient. He added that the preliminary report proved "all the speculators with false allegations" wrong, referring to criticism and doubts over the pilot's qualifications. The airline had "always been confident" of its pilots, he said.

Representatives of US pilots gave a cautious welcome to the report. "The initial findings of the Ethiopian investigation confirm for us that an MCAS malfunction is a serious emergency and not a benign event," said Captain Jason Goldberg, a spokesman for the American Pilots Association. "We remain cautious and hopeful that the potential fix will be thoroughly vetted and not hurried or fast tracked. The APA will remain actively engaged to ensure that the 737 Max will fly again only when all stakeholders are satisfied the aircraft is ready."​

CNN's Robyn Kriel and journalist Kaleyesus Bekele reported from Addis Ababa. Oren Liebermann wrote from Jerusalem. CNN's David Shortell and Richard Quest contributing reporting.

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2019-04-04 18:58:00Z
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Caracas, once a thriving metropolis, is struggling as country plunges further into chaos - Fox News

A billboard stands empty above a highway with no traffic as the sun sets in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, March 18, 2019. When the sun goes down in Venezuela's capital, the once-thriving metropolis empties under darkness. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Caracas at night was like many major cities around the world – crazy traffic, people going in and out of shops, eateries, and dance clubs -- but now, as night falls in the Venezuelan capital, it seems more and more like a ghost town.

Many street lights don’t work. Residents avoid stepping outside their homes due to crime — or for lack of anything to spend — as a creeping economic collapse has accelerated amid a political battle between socialist President Nicolas Maduro and his foes at home and abroad. A string of devastating nationwide blackouts last month dramatized the decay.

Even under the light of day, billboards often have nothing to promote, their skeletal framework bare long after the wind has ripped away old advertising.

VP MIKE PENCE TO MEET IN DC WITH FAMILIES OF 6 CITGO EXECS DETAINED IN VENEZUELA

As dusk falls, many storefronts are just graffiti-scrawled security doors chained shut. Often just a single business along a city block is able to stay open, awaiting sparse customers. Others close earlier, like a beauty salon, the few remaining clients forced to decide between the simple luxury of haircut or buying food.

Caracas’ La Mercedes neighborhood, famous for its upscale shopping and nightlife, hasn’t been spared. Many of its pubs and fancy restaurants are devoid of waiters and customers. A shopping mall keeps its lights on, but the doors lock hours earlier than they did before, when they teemed with life.

The moon rises above an empty avenue in Caracas, Venezuela, late Thursday, March 21, 2019. Residents avoid stepping outside their homes due to crime, or for lack of anything to spend. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

High-rise buildings stand unfinished, the workers having long ago abandoned their jobs. Windows are covered over with cardboard rather than finished with glass.

Residents desperate for cash transform patches of sidewalk into their impromptu shops, laying out old shoes or second-hand shirts as merchandise.

The poor and hungry scour through household trash, scattering it across street corners before it’s collected, grabbing anything they can use or eat.

The despair and blight mark a precipitous fall for a country that has larger oil reserves than Saudi Arabia and that had one of Latin America’s highest living standards.

Maduro blames his domestic political opponents and the increasing grip of U.S. economic sanctions, which he says are part of a coup aimed at toppling his socialist government.

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The opposition, led by lawmaker Juan Guaidó, blames years of corrupt leadership, lack of investment and economic bungling that has left the country dependent on a collapsing oil sector and on remittances sent home by the millions who have fled the growing hardship.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, 15 U.S. senators introduced bipartisan legislation to provide $400 million in new aid, internationalize sanctions and ease penalties on Venezuelan officials who recognize Guaidó as the country's president.

Maduro still retains the support of much of the Venezuelan's military, including its hierarchy, and still gets aid from countries such as Russia, Cuba and China.

David Smilde, a Venezuela expert at Tulane University, wrote in The Conversation: "Russia has become Maduro’s most important ally. The Russian military equipment and personnel sent in March will likely help maintain and operate Venezuela’s sophisticated Russian-made S-300 air defense system, which protects the capital and key military bases from air attack."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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2019-04-04 18:32:37Z
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Ethiopian Airlines preliminary crash report shows similarities to Lion Air disaster - CNN

The captain and the first officer struggled as the 737 Max 8's systems, designed to prevent the plane stalling, repeatedly forced the nose of the plane down. For nearly six minutes, the report shows, the pilots worked through a series of procedures to try and regain control of the plane.

In the end, after the pilots had turned back, the automated system pitched the plane into a steep dive from which it was impossible to recover, and it crashed into the ground.

The problems on board the Ethiopian Airlines flight mirror those encountered on the doomed Lion Air flight 610 -- which operated the same 737 Max 8 model and crashed in October -- in what could be a significant blow to Boeing as it struggles to get the aircraft back in service.

Unable to stabilize the 737 Max 8 plane even after following the emergency procedures recommended by Boeing, the pilots tried together to pull the jet's nose up repeatedly during the last moments of the flight, the preliminary report revealed. But the downward force of the aircraft was too great to overcome.

The captain called out "pull up" three times to tell the first officer to raise the nose. Both pilots tried to pull the nose up together to keep the plane flying, but they were unable to regain control. The aircraft's automated systems lowered the nose four times during the flight.

The problems on board the Ethiopian Airlines flight mirror those encountered on the doomed Lion Air flight 610 -- which operated the same 737 Max 8 model and crashed in October -- in what could be a major blow to Boeing as it struggles to get the aircraft back in service.

The report on the Ethiopian Airlines crash does not specifically name the Max 8's plane's anti-stall system -- called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) -- which is suspected to have contributed to the Lion Air disaster. But its findings make it likely that the MCAS system pushed the plane into a dive fueled by erroneous angle of attack sensor readings.

Boeing is currently working on a change to the system's software. The company acknowledged the similarities between the two crashes in a statement Thursday. "The preliminary report contains flight data recorder information indicating the airplane had an erroneous angle of attack sensor input that activated the MCAS function during the flight, as it had during the Lion Air 610 flight," the statement said.

"To ensure unintended MCAS activation will not occur again, Boeing has developed and is planning to release a software update to MCAS and an associated comprehensive pilot training and supplementary education program for the 737 MAX."

Speaking before the release of the report, Ethiopian Minister of Transport Dagmawit Moges suggested that Boeing review "the aircraft flight control system related to the flight controllability."

She told reporters in Addis Ababa that said her agency would recommend that aviation authorities verify that Boeing has "adequately addressed" flight control issues "before release of the aircraft to operations."

The preliminary report, which has not yet been publicly released, does not come to a finding of probable cause. A final report could take as long as a year to produce. ​

The timeline of the flight, detailed in the preliminary report, reveals that the pilots' struggle to control the plane began moments after it left the ground.​

Seventy seconds after takeoff from Addis Ababa's Bole International Airport on March 10, one of the angle of attack sensors on board the aircraft began providing faulty information to the aircraft's systems, indicating an imminent stall to the flight crew.

The stick shaker on the pilot's yoke -- another system intended to warn a pilot of an imminent stall -- began shaking the yoke. Incorrectly sensing a stall, the aircraft's system tried to force the nose down four separate times during the flight, in the end overpowering the flight crew's ability to keep the airplane climbing.

Recognizing a problem with the automatic trim, the pilots followed emergency procedures and turned off the system. Instead, the pilots tried to use the backup manual trim wheel to adjust the trim, but the airplane was traveling too fast and the manual trim wheel would have been physically impossible to operate.

Less than two minutes later, Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crashed, killing 157 passengers and flight crews.

CNN's Robyn Kriel and journalist Kaleyesus Bekele reported from Addis Ababa. CNN's Oren Liebermann wrote from Jerusalem

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2019-04-04 17:47:00Z
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Ethiopian Airlines preliminary crash report shows similarities to Lion Air disaster - CNN

Unable to stabilize the 737 Max 8 plane even after following the emergency procedures recommended by Boeing, the pilots tried together to pull the jet's nose up repeatedly during the last moments of the flight, the preliminary report revealed. But the downward force of the aircraft was too great to overcome, as the aircraft's automated systems lowered the nose four times during the flight.

The captain called out "pull up" three times to tell the first officer to raise the nose. Both pilots tried to pull the nose up together to keep the plane flying, but they were unable to regain control.

The problems on board the Ethiopian Airlines flight mirror those encountered on the doomed Lion Air flight 610 -- which operated the same 737 Max 8 model and crashed in October -- in what could be a major blow to Boeing as it struggles to get the aircraft back in service.

The report on the Ethiopian Airlines crash does not specifically name the Max 8's plane's anti-stall system -- called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) -- which is suspected to have contributed to the Lion Air disaster. But its findings make it likely that the MCAS system pushed the plane into a dive fueled by erroneous angle of attack sensor readings.

Boeing is currently working on a change to the system's software. The company acknowledged the similarities between the two crashes in a statement Thursday. "The preliminary report contains flight data recorder information indicating the airplane had an erroneous angle of attack sensor input that activated the MCAS function during the flight, as it had during the Lion Air 610 flight," the statement said.

"To ensure unintended MCAS activation will not occur again, Boeing has developed and is planning to release a software update to MCAS and an associated comprehensive pilot training and supplementary education program for the 737 MAX."

Speaking before the release of the report, Ethiopian Minister of Transport Dagmawit Moges suggested that Boeing review "the aircraft flight control system related to the flight controllability."

She told reporters in Addis Ababa that said her agency would recommend that aviation authorities verify that Boeing has "adequately addressed" flight control issues "before release of the aircraft to operations."

The preliminary report, which has not yet been publicly released, does not come to a finding of probable cause. A final report could take as long as a year to produce. ​

The timeline of the flight, detailed in the preliminary report, reveals that the pilots' struggle to control the plane began moments after it left the ground.​

Seventy seconds after takeoff from Addis Ababa's Bole International Airport on March 10, one of the angle of attack sensors on board the aircraft began providing faulty information to the aircraft's systems, indicating an imminent stall to the flight crew.

The stick shaker on the pilot's yoke -- another system intended to warn a pilot of an imminent stall -- began shaking the yoke. Incorrectly sensing a stall, the aircraft's system tried to force the nose down four separate times during the flight, in the end overpowering the flight crew's ability to keep the airplane climbing.

Recognizing a problem with the automatic trim, the pilots followed emergency procedures and turned off the system. Instead, the pilots tried to use the backup manual trim wheel to adjust the trim, but the airplane was traveling too fast and the manual trim wheel would have been physically impossible to operate.

Less than two minutes later, Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crashed, killing 157 passengers and flight crews.

Kaleyesus Bekel contributed reporting from Addis Ababa

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2019-04-04 17:07:00Z
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Ethiopian Airlines preliminary crash report shows similarities to Lion Air disaster - CNN

Unable to stabilize the 737 Max 8 plane even after following the emergency procedures recommended by Boeing, the pilots tried together to pull the jet's nose up repeatedly during the last moments of the flight, the preliminary report revealed. But the downward force of the aircraft was too great to overcome, as the aircraft's automated systems lowered the nose four times during the flight.

The captain called out "pull up" three times to tell the first officer to raise the nose. Both pilots tried to pull the nose up together to keep the plane flying, but they were unable to regain control.

The problems on board the Ethiopian Airlines flight mirror those encountered on the doomed Lion Air flight 610 -- which operated the same 737 Max 8 model and crashed in October -- in what could be a major blow to Boeing as it struggles to get the aircraft back in service.

The report on the Ethiopian Airlines crash does not specifically name the Max 8's plane's anti-stall system -- called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) -- which is suspected to have contributed to the Lion Air disaster. But its findings make it likely that the MCAS system pushed the plane into a dive fueled by erroneous angle of attack sensor readings.

Boeing is currently working on a change to the system's software. The company acknowledged the similarities between the two crashes in a statement Thursday. "The preliminary report contains flight data recorder information indicating the airplane had an erroneous angle of attack sensor input that activated the MCAS function during the flight, as it had during the Lion Air 610 flight," the statement said.

"To ensure unintended MCAS activation will not occur again, Boeing has developed and is planning to release a software update to MCAS and an associated comprehensive pilot training and supplementary education program for the 737 MAX."

Speaking before the release of the report, Ethiopian Minister of Transport Dagmawit Moges suggested that Boeing review "the aircraft flight control system related to the flight controllability."

She told reporters in Addis Ababa that said her agency would recommend that aviation authorities verify that Boeing has "adequately addressed" flight control issues "before release of the aircraft to operations."

The preliminary report, which has not yet been publicly released, does not come to a finding of probable cause. A final report could take as long as a year to produce. ​

The timeline of the flight, detailed in the preliminary report, reveals that the pilots' struggle to control the plane began moments after it left the ground.​

Seventy seconds after takeoff from Addis Ababa's Bole International Airport on March 10, one of the angle of attack sensors on board the aircraft began providing faulty information to the aircraft's systems, indicating an imminent stall to the flight crew.

The stick shaker on the pilot's yoke -- another system intended to warn a pilot of an imminent stall -- began shaking the yoke. Incorrectly sensing a stall, the aircraft's system tried to force the nose down four separate times during the flight, in the end overpowering the flight crew's ability to keep the airplane climbing.

Recognizing a problem with the automatic trim, the pilots followed emergency procedures and turned off the system. Instead, the pilots tried to use the backup manual trim wheel to adjust the trim, but the airplane was traveling too fast and the manual trim wheel would have been physically impossible to operate.

Less than two minutes later, Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crashed, killing 157 passengers and flight crews.

Kaleyesus Bekel contributed reporting from Addis Ababa

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2019-04-04 16:33:00Z
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