Passenger Plane With 71 Aboard Has Crashed Near Moscow, Russian Officials Say

Agencies
February 12, 2018

Moscow, Feb 12:  A regional airliner flying out of one of Russia's busiest airports crashed Sunday outside Moscow, killing all 71 people aboard, officials said.

Saratov Airlines Flight 703, heading from Moscow's Domodedovo airport to the city of Orsk on the Kazakhstan border, was carrying 65 passengers and six crew members, Russian officials said. It disappeared from radar screens several minutes after takeoff and went down in what witnesses described as a fiery crash southeast of Moscow.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear. Officials said that none of the people aboard the Antonov An-148 jet are believed to have survived, according to reports from Russian news agencies.

Authorities spotted the wreckage in a field outside Moscow, the RIA Novosti news agency said.

"I walked out of my house and heard the plane hit the ground," a witness who was not identified said in an interview with REN TV. "There was a huge explosion."

Witness footage from the scene broadcast on Russian television showed orange-painted pieces of the fuselage scattered across the snow.

"We have all kinds of scenarios" for what may have caused the crash, Russian Transportation Ministry official Zhanna Terekhova told Rossiya-24 news channel. "This could have been caused by anything, including human error or weather conditions."

Almost all of the people on the plane were from the eastern part of the Orenburg region, according to the regional governor's office, the Interfax news agency said. Orenburg lies on the southern end of the Ural Mountains.

"This is a tragedy for all of Orenburg," Gov. Yury Berg said in a statement. "We will not leave anyone alone with the pain of losing loved ones."

Russia's most recent high-profile plane accident occurred in December 2016, when a military transport plane carrying dozens of members of the Red Army Choir to Syria crashed into the Black Sea.

Russia has long struggled with a poor airline safety record. From 2008 to 2017, 326 people died in accidents on Russian-scheduled commercial flights, according to the International Civil Aviation Organization. Sixty-one people died in the same period on U.S. flights.

Saratov Airlines, a regional airline based in the Volga port city of Saratov, said the An-148 that crashed came into service in 2010. The airline said that, in accordance with Russian law, relatives of the deceased could claim insurance payments of 2,025,000 rubles - about $35,000.

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News Network
December 5,2025

Mangaluru: In a significant step to curb online hate and intimidation, Mangaluru City Police have registered a suo motu case against multiple Instagram accounts accused of circulating alleged provocative and threatening content.

While monitoring social media activity on Tuesday, Kankanady Town PSI Anitha Nikkam identified the Instagram handle ‘team_targetttt_900’ for posting a hate message alongside images of lethal weapons. Another account, ‘team_nagara_900’, allegedly shared a threatening post targeting activist Bharath Kumdelu, tagging additional pages such as KARAVALI-OFFICIAL.

Several other accounts — including ‘immu_bhai.fan’, ‘target_boy_900’, ‘kings_of_manglore’, ‘team_target_boys.900’, ‘arshad_mangalore’, ‘target_ka19_ullal’, ‘team_target__’, ‘troll_tigersz_900’, ‘tr_group_900’, and ‘team_target_900’ — are also under scrutiny for spreading similar inflammatory material, police said.

Authorities have urged citizens, especially young social media users, to report suspicious pages and avoid engaging with groups that glorify violence or threaten individuals. Online hate can quickly escalate into real-world harm, and police stress that sharing or promoting such content can attract legal consequences.

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News Network
November 30,2025

The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) has condemned the Israeli regime for enforcing a policy of “organized torture” against Palestinians.

In a report published on Friday, CAT stated that the occupying regime enforces a deliberate policy of “organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” against Palestinian abductees, particularly since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

The committee expressed “deep concern over repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, water-boarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence” inflicted on Palestinians.

Palestinian prisoners were degraded by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on,” systematically denied medical care, and subjected to excessive restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation,” the report added.

CAT also condemned the routine application of “unlawful combatants law” to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children.

More than 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups, with 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention,” meaning they are imprisoned without trial for indefinite periods.

The report highlighted the “high proportion of children who are currently detained without charge or on remand,” noting that while Israel sets the age of criminal responsibility at 12, even younger children have been abducted.

Children designated as security prisoners face severe restrictions on family contact, may be subjected to solitary confinement, and are denied access to education, in clear violation of international law.

The committee further suggested that Israel’s policies across the Occupied Territories constitute collective torture against the Palestinian population.

“A range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population,” the report said.

On Thursday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas condemned the systematic killing and torture of Palestinian abductees in Israeli prisons, urging international action to halt these abuses.

Citing human rights data, Hamas stated that 94 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli prisons since the start of Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“This reflects an organized criminal approach that has turned these prisons into direct killing grounds to eliminate our people,” the resistance movement said.

Hamas called on the international community, the UN, and human rights organizations to immediately pressure Israel to end crimes against prisoners and uphold their rights as guaranteed by all international conventions and norms.

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News Network
December 4,2025

Udupi: A 40-year-old NRI from Udupi has reportedly lost more than Rs 12.25 lakh in an online investment scam operated through Telegram.

According to a complaint filed at the CEN police station, Leo Jerome Mendonsa, who has been working in Dubai for the past 15 years in computer accessories sales, maintains NRI accounts in Karkala and Nitte.

On November 12, 2025, Mendonsa was added to a Telegram group called Instaflow Earnings by unknown individuals. Users identified as Priya and Dipannita persuaded him to invest in “Revenue Tasks.” Initially, Mendonsa transferred Rs 1,100 multiple times and received the promised returns, encouraging him to continue.

On November 14, another user, Nishmitha Shetty, directed him to register on a website, digitvisionuoce.cc, and invest Rs 4 lakh in various shares. Over the next few days, he made multiple transfers totaling Rs 12,25,000, including Rs 50,000 via Google Pay, believing the scheme was legitimate.

After receiving the money, the alleged handlers stopped responding, and neither the invested amount nor the promised profits were returned.

The CEN police have registered a case under Sections 66(C) and 66(D) of the IT Act and Section 318(4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), and investigations are ongoing.

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