23 killed in crash of plane near Baku
Baku, Azerbaijan An Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane with 23 people aboard crashed on the Caspian Sea coast and all aboard were believed killed, a police official said early today.
The police duty officer in the Sabunchi region north of the capital, Baku, said the plane’s wreckage was found along the shore. He declined to give his name because he was not authorized to act as a spokesman.
The plane disappeared from radar shortly after takeoff from Baku’s airport en route to Aktau, Kazakhstan, on the other side of the Caspian, two airport employees told the Associated Press. The plane was identified as an An-140, a twin-engine turboprop.
Both Baku and Aktau are centers of the thriving Caspian Sea oil industry. There was no immediate indication whether any Westerners were aboard the plane.
U.N. budget deal will force reforms
United Nations U.N. members agreed Friday night on a two-year budget that seriously restricts spending and applies pressure for management reform – a top priority for the United States and the European Union.
The General Assembly’s budget committee was expected to approve the $3.8 billion plan, which includes a spending cap next year of $950 million.
The agreement was reached after weeks of intense negotiations.
The United States, Japan, Europe and other wealthy nations who pay about 85 percent of the U.N.’s budget joined forces to back a $950 million spending cap next year – which means the United Nations will likely run out of money in six months.
Their aim is to put pressure on all U.N. members to agree on management reforms by June, so that when the General Assembly is asked to approve another $950 million to cover U.N. operations for the rest of 2006 there will be sufficient progress for a “yes” vote.
Sharon’s medical signs surprisingly normal
Jerusalem Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who suffered a mild stroke less than a week ago, has cholesterol and blood pressure levels that are astonishingly normal for a man of his weight and age, his doctor said Friday.
Despite Sharon’s love of fatty foods, tests taken three weeks before Sharon’s stroke showed his blood pressure at 120 over 80, and his overall cholesterol level at 195 – both completely normal.
The 77-year-old politician has long refused to release his medical records, but a sampling of them appeared Friday in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. Sharon’s personal physician and a senior Sharon aide confirmed the records were authentic.
“It’s very unexpected and very, very unusual,” Boleslaw Goldman, Sharon’s doctor for three decades, said of the normal measurements.
Sharon’s doctors and aides will not reveal the 5-foot-7-inch leader’s weight. Press reports this week estimated it at 313 pounds.
His stroke left no lasting damage, doctors said, but it raised questions about his health as he prepared to run for a third term in office as head of his new centrist Kadima party.