Gunmen assassinate peasant leader in Paraguay

ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — Gunmen murdered one of the surviving leaders of a peasant movement whose land dispute with a powerful politician prompted the end of Fernando Lugo‘s presidency last June.

Vidal Vega, 48, was hit four times early Saturday by bullets from a 12-gauge shotgun and a .38-caliber revolver fired by two unidentified men who sped away on a motorcycle, according to an official report prepared at the police headquarters in the provincial capital of Curuguaty.

A friend, Mario Espinola, told The Associated Press that Vega was shot down when he stepped outside to feed his farm animals.

Vega was among the public faces of a commission of landless peasants from the settlement of Yby Pyta, which means Red Dirt in their native Guarani language.

He had lobbied the government for many years to redistribute some of the ranchland that Colorado Party Sen. Blas Riquelme began occupying in the 1960s.

By last May, the peasants finally lost patience and moved onto the land. A firefight during their eviction on June 15 killed 11 peasants and six police officers, prompting the Colorado Party and other leading parties to vote Lugo out of office for allegedly mismanaging the dispute.

Twelve suspects, nearly all of them peasants from Yby Pyta, have been jailed without formal charges since then on suspicion of murdering the officers, seizing property and resisting authority. The prosecutor had six months to develop the case and will present his findings Dec. 16.

Vega was expected to be a witness at the criminal trial, since he was among the few leaders who weren’t killed in the clash or jailed afterward.

He wasn’t charged because he was away getting supplies when the violence erupted at the settlement erected by the peasants inside Riquelme’s ranch, the Naranjaty Commission’s secretary, Martina Paredes, told the AP.

“We think he was assassinated by hit men who were sent, we don’t know by whom, perhaps to frighten us and frustrate our fight to recover the state lands that were illegally taken by Riquelme,” she said.

Riquelme, who died of natural causes about a month after the battle in June, occupied the land during the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, whose government gave away land for free to anyone willing to put it to productive use.

A local court in Curuguaty upheld Riquelme’s claim to the land years later. Lugo’s government later sought to overturn the decision, but the case remains tied up in court.

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Bryce Dallas Howard film among the live-action short films on Oscar nominations shortlist

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “when you find me,” directed by “Twilight” star Bryce Dallas Howard and executive-produced by her father Ron Howard, is among 11 films that have been shortlisted for possible Oscars nomination, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Thursday.

Though the Academy typically only short-lists 10 entries, a tie in the nominations balloting resulted in an 11th title making the list. In all, 125 films originally qualified in the category.

From here, members of the Academy’s Short Films and Feature Animation Branch will select three to five nominees for the Oscars during December screenings in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.

Nominations will be announced January 10, with the Academy Awards taking place February 24.

Read the full short-list below.

“A Fábrica (The Factory),” Aly Muritiba, director (Grafo Audiovisual)

“Asad,” Bryan Buckley, director, and Mino Jarjoura, producer (Hungry Man)

“Buzkashi Boys,” Sam French, director, and Ariel Nasr, producer (Afghan Film Project)

“Curfew,” Shawn Christensen, director (Fuzzy Logic Pictures)

“Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw),” Tom Van Avermaet, director, and Ellen De Waele, producer (Serendipity Films)

“Henry,” Yan England, director (Yan England)

“Kiruna-Kigali,” Goran Kapetanovic, director (Hepp Film AB)

“The Night Shift Belongs to the Stars,” Silvia Bizio and Paola Porrini Bisson, producers (Oh! Pen LLC)

“9meter,” Anders Walther, director, and Tivi Magnusson, producer (M & M Productions A/S)

“Salar,” Nicholas Greene, director, and Julie Buck, producer (Nicholas Greene)

“when you find me,” Ron Howard, executive producer, and Bryce Dallas Howard, director (Freestyle Picture Company)

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Germany’s Merck Serono to produce medicines in UAE

ABU DHABI (Reuters) – Germany’s Merck Serono said it would team up with an Abu Dhabi firm to produce medicines for the domestic and regional markets, the first multinational of its kind to make branded products in the United Arab Emirates.

Merck Serono, the pharmaceutical arm of Merck KGaA, will initially produce two of its products at Neopharma‘s facilities in Abu Dhabi, the German firm’s first such partnership in the Middle East, the company’s CEO said.

“The Middle East is very important and the fastest growing region for our products,” Stefan Oschmann told reporters. “We plan to meet 100 percent of the regional demand for the products,” he added.

Oschmann declined to give specific figures but said revenues from emerging markets accounted for a third of Merck‘s total.

The two products to be produced at Neopharma’s facilities are Euthyrox, a synthetic thyroid hormone and Glucophage, for people suffering from type 2 diabetes.

Production of both branded products will start in 2013.

The UAE suffers from a high prevalence of diabetes. Some 827,000 people between the ages of 20 and 79 have diabetes in the UAE, according to the Ministry of Health.

Treatment of diabetes accounts for about 40 percent of the UAE’s overall healthcare expenditure, Amin al Amiri, assistant under-secretary for Medical practice & license at the ministry of health said.

“This alliance will provide increased supply of trusted branded medicines needed to help ease the diabetes crisis which is straining the financial resources of the UAE,” he said.

The Middle East is the largest market for Merck’s diabetes drug, Glucophage, which is currently imported from Europe.

(Reporting By Stanley Carvalho; Editing by Sami Aboudi and Helen Massy-Beresford)

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US budget talks ‘in stalemate’

2 December 2012 Last updated at 11:20 ET

US treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said there will be no deal to avert a “fiscal cliff” unless Republicans accept a tax hike for the wealthy.

But House Speaker John Boehner has dismissed a 10-year plan, which aims to raise $ 1.6tn (£1tn) through tax rises and spending cuts, as “silliness”.

The two men met on Thursday as time runs out to broker a deal.

Economists warn planned tax rises and spending cuts due to take effect on 1 January could trigger a recession.

Mr Geithner, negotiating for the White House, has drafted a plan that includes more spending to help for the unemployed and struggling homeowners, as well as cuts in Medicare and other benefits.

On Friday President Barack Obama warned of a “Scrooge Christmas” if soon-to-expire tax breaks for households earning below $ 250,000 were not renewed as part of the deal to avert the fiscal cliff.

But Mr Boehner, negotiating for the Republicans who control the House of Representatives, said talks with the administration had so far gone “almost nowhere”.

Talk show entrenchment

Mr Geithner and Mr Boehner’s appearances on a number of Sunday television talk shows showed how entrenched their positions were.

“There’s not going to be an agreement without rates going up. There’s not,” Mr Geithner told CNN’s State of the Union.

He called on Republicans to make a counter-offer to the Obama administration’s plan.

But Mr Boehner said he was “flabbergasted” by Mr Geithner’s proposals – which he said asked Congress to give up its power to set the nation’s debt limit.

Continue reading the main story

• Under a deal reached last year by the White House and the Republicans, existing stimulus measures – mostly tax cuts – will expire on 1 January 2013


• Cuts to defence, education and other spending will then automatically come into force – the “fiscal cliff” – unless Congress acts


• The economy does not have the momentum to absorb the shock from going over the fiscal cliff without going into recession

“What do you think would happen if we gave the president $ 1.6tn of new money?” Mr Boehner asked Fox News Sunday. “He’d spend it.”

Mr Boehner says asking the top 2% of US taxpayers to pay more would deal a “crippling blow” to a fragile economy, and has criticised criticised the Obama administration’s proposed spending cuts as inadequate.

The White House has suggested it would not support any deal that did not increase tax rates on the wealthiest.

The fiscal cliff would suck about $ 600bn (£347bn) out of the economy.

The measures were partly put in place within a 2011 deal to curb the yawning US budget deficit.

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Italy votes for center-left candidate for premier

ROME (AP) — Italians are choosing a center-left candidate for premier for elections early next year, an important primary runoff given the main party is ahead in the polls against a center-right camp in utter chaos over whether Silvio Berlusconi will run again.

Sunday’s runoff pits a veteran center-left leader, Pier Luigi Bersani, 61, against the 37-year-old mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi, who has campaigned on an Obama-style “Let’s change Italy now” mantra.

Nearly all polls show Bersani winning the primary, after he won the first round of balloting Nov. 25 with 44.9 percent of the vote. Since he didn’t get an absolute majority, he was forced into a runoff with Renzi, who garnered 35.5 percent.

After battling all week to get more voters to the polling stations for round two, Renzi seemed almost resigned to a Bersani win by Sunday, saying he hoped that by Monday “we can all work together.”

Bersani, a former transport and industry minister, seemed confident of victory as well, joking about Berlusconi’s flip-flopping political ambitions by asking “What time did he say it?” when told that the media mogul had purportedly decided against running.

Next year’s general election will largely decide how and whether Italy continues on the path to financial health charted by Premier Mario Monti, appointed last year to save Italy from a Greek-style debt crisis.

The former European commissioner was named to head a technical government after international markets lost confidence in then-Premier Berlusconi’s ability to reign in Italy’s public debt and push through sorely needed structural reforms.

Berlusconi has largely stayed out of the public spotlight for the past year, but he returned with force in recent weeks, announcing he was thinking about running again, then changing his mind, then threatening to bring down Monti’s government, and most recently staying silent about his political plans.

His waffling has thrown his People of Freedom party into disarray and disrupted its own plans for a primary — all of which has only seemed to bolster the impression of order, stability and organization within the center-left camp.

A poll published Friday gave the Democratic Party 30 percent of the vote if the election were held now, compared with some 19.5 percent for the upstart populist movement of comic Beppe Grillo, and Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party in third with 14.3 percent. The poll, by the SWG firm for state-run RAI 3, surveyed 5,000 voting-age adults by telephone between Nov. 26 and 28. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.36 percentage points.

It’s quite a turnabout for Berlusconi’s once-dominant movement, and a similarly remarkable shift in fortunes for the Democratic Party, which had been in shambles for years, unable to capitalize on Berlusconi’s professional and personal failings while he was premier.

But Berlusconi’s 2011 downfall and a series of recent political party funding scandals that have targeted mostly center-right politicians have contributed to the party’s rise as Italy struggles through a grinding recession and near-record high unemployment.

Angelino Alfano, Berlusconi’s hand-picked political heir, seemed again exasperated Sunday after a long meeting with his patron over Berlusconi’s plans. News reports have suggested Berlusconi might split the party in two and re-launch the Forza Italia party that brought him to political power for the first time in 1994.

“We have to work to reconstruct the center-right, and reconstructing it means having a big center-right party,” not a divided one, Alfano said.

He added that Berlusconi didn’t say one way or another if he would run himself. “It’s his choice,” he said. “If there are any decisions in this regard, he’ll be the one to say so.”

___

Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

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The Kids Are All Right: How Social Media Created a Generation of Activists

This week marked the nation’s inaugural  “Giving Tuesday,” a UN sponsored initiative, which utilized social media to encourage businesses, schools, and community members to give back. The effort resulted in $ 10 million worth of donations made in a single day, a 53 percent increase over the same day last year.

Conceived as a means to promote activism and charity, the campaign’s use of social media to spread its message is most likely a large part of the initiative’s success. 

Certainly people from every age group use Twitter and Facebook, but social media activism is especially resonant with young adults. According to TBWA, people between the ages of 18-29 strongly identify as activists and count social media as their first point of engagement when they learn about a new cause.

MORE: ‘Tis Always the Season to Give: Creating a Corporate Culture That Gives Back

In fact, about half believe that activism is important to their personal identity and about a third look to it as a means of socializing and relating to one another.

But more than identifying with activism, this younger generation’s aptitude for social media can effect real change. Look at the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Earlier this year, when the organization announced it would pull its funding for breast cancer screenings from Planned Parenthood, cutting off medical access for millions of women, Twitter and Facebook lit up with vitriolic statements, claiming the organization had become a puppet of the religious right. The ensuing bad press proved to be too much and within days, the organization reversed its decision and issued a public apology.

Similarly, when Florida law enforcement officials refused to arrest George Zimmerman after he fatally shot Trayvon Martin, the case lay dormant for almost a month. But an online petition started by Martin’s parents went viral and galvanized a nation demanding justice for the boy’s death. Zimmerman was arrested and charged as a result.

For all we hear about “kids these days” and their irresponsible use of social media−posting questionable pictures of themselves doing kegstands or letting Twitter corrode their ability to hold a thought for more than a nanosecond−it turns out that most are using it to express a genuine passion for changing the world around them. And they’re succeeding.

And these trends extend well beyond the U.S. That same age group in other countries shows similar interests in contributing to larger causes. China’s young adults for instance, lead the world in online political discussions and offline they donate the most money to charities. India’s younger generation ranks the first in the world when it comes to staying informed, and they’re the most optimistic about the impact their activism has on the world around them.

It seems that our youngest generation of adults are the ones leading the charge when it comes to effectively making a difference.

Do you consider yourself an activist? Let us know in the Comments what social causes inspire you to get involved.

Related Stories on TakePart:

• Secret Santas: Profiles in Anonymous Holiday Generosity

• Rwanda Genocide Survivor Wins Grant for Giving Back

• 40 U.S. Billionaires Pledge Half of Fortunes to Charity

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A Bay Area native, Andri Antoniades previously worked as a fashion industry journalist and medical writer.  In addition to reporting the weekend news on TakePart, she volunteers as a webeditor for locally-based nonprofits and works as a freelance feature writer for TimeOutLA.com. Email Andri | @andritweets | TakePart.com

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How Aggressive Hyena Moms Give Their Kids a Boost

Early one morning I caught sight of Morpheus, silhouetted against a pink African dawn. Her long, sloping neck was stretched out as she loped away from me, disappearing over a hill. I followed her to a nearby plain and was met with the unmistakable sound of a group of hyenas squabbling over a carcass. Morpheus entered the fray, first lunging at a smaller male on her right. A moment later, she looked up briefly, her nose and mouth covered in blood, then turned and snapped at a hyena feeding nearby.I’m intimately acquainted with Morpheus and these other hyenas because they have been studied for more than twenty years by various members of the lab where I did my Ph.D. research; I’ve staked these hyenas out at dens for hours on end and followed them as they raced across open plains. From watching these animals, we’ve learned about hyenas’ social system, their physiology, and the conservation challenges they face.But to me, it’s the aggression that is the most fascinating thing about hyenas. It’s rule-based and constrained by specific social norms, but at the same time, it’s incredibly primal and ruthless. Studying aggression has helped us understand what makes hyenas tick, offering us a glimpse into the evolutionary pressures that have made them one of the most unusual and misunderstood species in the animal kingdom.Formidable femalesFor more than 1000 years, people believed that hyenas were hermaphrodites, since female hyenas have long, fully-erectile pseudopenises that mimic male genitalia. Seeing a hyena play the role of mom while sporting what looks like a penis would bewilder even an astute naturalist. Not only do female hyenas look like males, they are also the more aggressive and socially dominant sex, exhibiting aggression more than three times more often than male hyenas do.For many animals, too much aggression is detrimental, at least in terms of reproductive success; in baboons, aggressive females have reduced fertility and increased rates of miscarriage , and in western bluebirds, overly-aggressive males tend to fledge fewer offspring than other males. But in these species, males are generally more aggressive than females; how is aggressiveness related to fitness in a species where females are the more aggressive sex?Life in the clanHyenas live in huge social groups called clans that are structured by a “linear dominance hierarchy.” That’s the scientific way of saying that in these societies, a high-ranking individual is dominant to every lower-ranking animal in the clan: Morpheus is dominant to Scrabble, who is dominant to Hendrix, and so on. For hyenas, social rank isn’t just a title or a badge of honor. Rank determines access to food, so a high-ranking hyena like Morpheus can drive a lower-ranking hyena off a kill at any time, no matter who hunted or scavenged the meat.Social rank also plays an important role in aggressive behavior among hyenas, since dominance determines who can exhibit aggression toward whom. Aggression is nearly always directed down the hierarchy, toward lower-ranking hyenas (and if a hyena disregards this rule, it’s not taken lightly by other clan members). This means that the highest-ranking hyenas have a lot of opportunities for aggression – they can attack nearly any other hyena in the clan – whereas lower-ranking hyenas have far fewer possible targets. Aggression can occur over food, in defense of cubs, or to reprimand a pesky suitor.But unlike many species, aggression doesn’t dictate social rank among hyenas; instead, social rank is inherited. Hyenas are stuck with their lot in life, unable to move up the hierarchy. So does all this aggression actually benefit hyenas, and if so, how?The implications of aggressionAggressiveness, it turns out, varies drastically among hyenas; some hyenas tend to threaten – or outright attack – group members more frequently than others do. There is more than a five-fold difference in the aggression rates of the least aggressive and the most aggressive females, even after controlling for social rank and the number of opportunities for aggression.This type of consistent variation in behavior, called “animal personality,” is being found in several traits, such as sociability, boldness, and docility, across many species. And aggressiveness, like other personality traits, can have major implications for fitness. However, for hyenas, aggression doesn’t affect fitness by improving a hyena’s own survival; aggressive females don’t live longer or survive at higher rates than others that attack less often.Instead, the benefits of aggressiveness are seen later down the line, in the survival of offspring. Female hyenas that are particularly aggressive over food successfully rear a larger proportion of their cubs to adulthood than do females that aggress less often over food. But interestingly, the benefits of aggressiveness depend on social rank. For high-ranking hyenas, aggressiveness doesn’t matter much in terms of reproductive success; the offspring of dominant females do well no matter how aggressive their mom is. However, for hyenas low on the totem pole, aggression plays an important role in reproductive success, greatly improving their offspring’s odds of surviving until adulthood. But how?Competition and reputationsIt all comes down to acquiring resources for your offspring. High-ranking hyenas already have prime access to food, so being super-aggressive at a kill or carcass isn’t a huge advantage. However, for hyenas low on the totem pole, being able to secure a little extra food for a cub could mean the difference between its survival and starvation.When cubs begin eating meat at around 4 months of age, they start visiting kills with their moms. But as these cubs attempt to eat, they are often harassed by older hyenas and chased off the carcass. Additionally, these young hyenas have another disadvantage when it comes to feeding: their skulls haven’t finished developing yet. Although being able to crush bone is a big benefit for hyenas evolutionarily, it’s a huge morphological handicap for cubs. It takes up to 35 months for a hyena’s skull to develop the integrity and strength to crack bone, so until about three years of age, young hyenas feed more slowly and less efficiently than adults. Combine this physical disadvantage with the incredible feeding competition seen at kills, and cubs – especially low-ranking ones – often don’t get much to eat during these communal feeding situations.Here’s where a mom’s aggressiveness comes in: we found that the cubs of aggressive females are tolerated better, and are able to feed longer, at these kills than the cubs of less aggressive females are. By being super-aggressive, moms secure extra feeding time and valuable calories for their cubs during this particularly handicapped period in their lives. Although we don’t completely understand the process yet, aggressive females appear to develop a type of “mean girl” reputation within the clan that gives their offspring a boost early in life. This effect is incredibly strong and persists even when the mom isn’t present at the kill, allowing cubs to benefit from their mom’s aggressiveness even in her absence. This increased access to resources benefits low-ranking hyenas disproportionately, since they generally have very limited access to food.A combination of behavioral, morphological, and ecological research has helped us begin to understand why these highly aggressive and masculinized females have been favored evolutionarily. But even after 20 years of intensive research, there’s so much more to learn; we still aren’t sure what the functions and implications of male aggression are, and it’s possible that there are consequences of aggression in females that we haven’t yet discovered.Morpheus and her clanmates are still being observed, and you can follow the trials, tribulations, and musings of the researchers studying these hyenas out in the field at the Mara Hyena Project blog.

Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs.Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
© 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
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French unions rage at Hollande over Mittal deal

PARIS (Reuters) – French trade unions accused President Francois Hollande of betrayal on Saturday after his government backed away from a threat to nationalize ArcelorMittal‘s Florange steelworks.

The Socialist government said on Friday it had won promises from ArcelorMittal to avoid forced redundancies and inject 180 million euros to develop the Florange plant, meaning it would no longer have to take over the site.

Hollande came to office promising to create jobs and keep open the two furnaces at the site in northern France which ArcelorMittal says are not viable in a European steel sector suffering over-capacity.

ArcelorMittal confirmed the details of the deal on Saturday, saying it would negotiate a voluntary redundancy deal with unions.

Workers are angry the furnaces will remain idled rather than reopened and expressed doubt over ArcelorMittal’s promise to offer alternative posts or early retirement packages for the 630 workers affected.

“We’re on a war footing,” Edouard Martin, head of union CFDT’s Florange chapter, told the commercial i

“We’ve seen Mr. (Lakshmi) Mittal’s pledges in the past and what has become of them – nothing – so we’re not going to let anything pass without a fight.”

Martin said the union had been a “nightmare” for former president Nicolas Sarkozy in the past over his jobs record, which analysts say was a factor in his election defeat in May, and could soon become one for Hollande.

ArcelorMittal rejects accusations it has broken promises in a country where it employs 20,000 over several sites.

The group incurred union wrath in 2009 when it shuttered the nearby Gandrange steelworks and laid off about 500 workers. Sarkozy had pledged to keep that site open.

‘EXPECTING THE WORST’

France’s prime minister defended the Florange deal.

“The prime minister will keep a close watch to ensure that promises made yesterday by the group are kept,” Jean-Marc Ayrault said in a statement.

“They are unconditional, and the government will use all legal means at its disposal in the event they are not respected.”

Unions say revamping Florange will require about 400 million euros in funding from the European Union on top of ArcelorMittal’s pledge – cash which has yet to be committed.

Threats this week by Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg of a state takeover of Florange were denounced as “scandalous” by France’s main employers group Medef, which fears it will jeopardize foreign investment in France.

Hollande has tried to cultivate a worker-friendly image but his popularity has suffered as an economic slowdown pushes unemployment above 10 percent. A survey by pollster IFOP showed 41 percent of the French back him, one of the lowest scores for a president only six months into his term.

“We complained about Nicolas Sarkozy, but Francois Hollande is not doing any better,” CGT unionist Frederic Maris told BFM television. “For the future, we’re expecting the worst.”

French officials argue that Mittal promised to keep blast furnaces running beyond 2010 when his company merged with Arcelor in 2006.

ArcelorMittal denies breaching commitments. Sources close to the group say Arcelor planned in 2003 – before its 2006 takeover by Mittal – to wind down inland blast furnaces in Europe, including the two in Florange, by 2010.

(Additional reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek in Brussels; Editing by Mark John and Janet Lawrence)

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Cargo plane crashes in Brazzaville, 3 dead

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo (AP) — A cargo plane owned by a private company crashed Friday near the airport in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo, killing at least three people, officials said.

The Soviet-made Ilyushin-76 belonged to Trans Air Congo and appeared to be transporting merchandise, not people, said an aviation official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The plane was coming from Congo‘s second-largest city, Pointe Noire, and tried to land during heavy rain, he said.

Ambulances rushed to the scene in the Makazou neighborhood, located near the airport, but emergency workers were hampered by the lack of light in this capital, which like so many in Africa has a chronic shortage of electricity.

“At the moment, my team is having a hard time searching for survivors in order to find the victims of the crash because there is no light and also because of the rain,” Congolese Red Cross head Albert Mberi said.

He said that realistically, they will only be able to launch a proper search Saturday, when the sun comes up.

Reporters at the scene fought through a wall of smoke. Despite the darkness, they could make out the smoldering remains of the plane, including what looked like the left wing of the aircraft. A little bit further on, emergency workers identified the body of the plane’s Ukrainian pilot, and covered the corpse in a blanket.

Firefighters were trying to extinguish the blaze of a part of the plane that had fallen into a ravine. They were using their truck lights to try to illuminate the scene of the crash. Although the plane was carrying merchandise, emergency workers fear that there could be more people on board.

Because of the state of the road connecting Pointe Noire to Brazzaville, many traders prefer to fly the roughly 400 kilometers (250 miles).

Africa has some of the worst air safety records in the world. In June, a commercial jetliner crashed in Lagos, Nigeria, killing 153 people, just a few days after a cargo plane clipped a bus in neighboring Ghana, killing 10.

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