His office says the international peace negator and his wife Eeva, who has also tested positive, are doing well.

ends intro

Martti Ahtisaaari’s efforts as a United Nations diplomat and mediator in serious and long-lasting conflicts in Namibia, Indonesia, Kosovo and Iraq earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008.

He was Finland’s President from 1994 until the year 2000.

Eight years ago he was named as a possible mediator in the Syrian conflict which has become the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet.

He asked to be excused that appointment.

It is not clear where the 82-year-old contracted COVID 19 and his office has asked that journalists respect his privacy 

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According to the authority closely observing passenger place accidents the DRC is number five on the list of countries with the most crashes.

The two crashes in Goma and Kole left 35 people dead in the DRC which has seen the most passenger plane accidents in Africa since 1945.

The Aviation Safety Network puts this down to the size of the country, its poor road network necessitating aviation access, weak regulation and the use of obsolete aircraft.

The body lists the United States as the country with the most airline accidents this past decade followed by Russia, Canada, Mexico, Indonesia and then the DRC.

The post Congo is deadliest place in Africa to fly appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

That crash and an earlier disaster involving a similar jetliner in Indonesia five months earlier has led to the world-wide grounding all 380 Boeing 737 Max.

At the Paris Air Show, Ethiopian Airlines  chief executive Tewolde Gebremariam says US congressmen blaming pilot error for the Boeing 737 Max crashes are seriously misinformed.

Boeing’s chief executive Dennis Muilenberg repeated the admission that the company had failed to communicate properly with regulators and customers about problems that Boeing would correct.

Gebremariam says the world-wide fleet of 394 Boeing 737 Max remains grounded. The facts speak for themselves. 

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Britain, the European Union, India and Australia have joined the growing list of countries temporarily barring the plane from their airspace.

Some families of the 157 people who died in last Sunday’s Ethiopian Airlines crash have 

visited the site near Addis Ababa to lay flowers.

Experts are coming the wreckage in an attempt establish the cause of the crash – and particuarly to learn if there are similarities with the Lion Air crash outside the Indonesia capital Jakarta last October.

The US Federal Aviation Authority insists the Boeing 737 Max is airworthy.

However US Senators and aviation workers are urging the government to keep the plane grounded until the investigations can confirm this.

The post US under pressure to bar Boeing 737 Max from its air space appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

He’s convinced that crashed the new plane by Lion Air in Indonesia month ago killing all 189 people aboard was caused by pilot error.

Comair chief executive Eric Venter says the fatal Lion Air crash was caused by pilots fighting against a faulty sensor.

Standard operating procedure would have been to turn off the auto trim and fly the plane manually.

Indeed the previous crew on the same aircraft had done exactly that.

Venter says  the first  two of the Boeing 737 MAX planes is due for delivery in January and February. 

The order would take four years to complete

He’s hoping the final purchase price will be determined by a stronger rand  

The post Comair will buy controversial Boeing 737 MAX appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

They’re on their way home where their families say they never gave up hope of seeing them again.

It took international mediators nearly two years of negotiations to secure their freedom.

ends into

The hostages were met by their diplomatic representatives in Nairobi.

They come from Cambodia, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Their ship was seized south of the Seychelles.

When eventually it sank, the hostages were moved into the bush where they were forced to live off the land.

They spoke of eating rats to stay alive.

Their ship was  not insured against piracy.

Mediators had to get the pirates to modify their huge demands and accept a lesser payment for what they called compensation for the local community

The post Somali pirates release Asian hostages appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

The Asian helmeted hornbill has a unique feature that makes it particularly attractive to poachers.

The helmeted hornbill, about as large as the trumpeter hornbill in South Africa, has been fully protected on CITES schedule one for many years.

This bans any trade in this critically endangered bird.

The large casque on the top of its bill is solid – in every other large hornbill that lump  is hollow.

As Dr Richard Thomas of the animal charity Traffic explains: “The solid casque is made from hard red-tinged keratin, that can be carved like ivory.”

So,  gangs go into the jungles killing any hornbill hoping it is helmeted.

The CITES decision is to give additional assistance to the Indonesian authorities to protect the bird

The post CITES votes to give extrude help to save helmeted hornbill from extinction appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

He was speaking a the Africa Asian summit in Indonesia where he called for a the establishment of a new Silk Road binding the continents even closer together.

Dealing with the xenophobic violence at home forced President Jacob Zuma to miss this historic gathering that ocurrs ever decade.

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, who went in his stead, notes that the 1955 Bandung conference, followed independence for many of the participants and created ties of solidarity and cooperation between countries driven by a desire to build a free, just and peaceful world.

That conference helped to shape the post-colonial world.

The Indonsian meeting wrapped up yesterday with participants vowing to give better play to the private sector’s role in advancing economic growth and sustainable development in Asia and Africa.

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