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Reza Nakhjavani, head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization, has publicly stated that he blames yesterday's jet crash on pilot error. Nobody was killed when the Tupolev Tu-154 crash-landed and caught fire on the runway. Media reports at the time said the aircraft was performing an emergency landing in Mashad owing to a passenger requiring medical attention. Nakhjavani said that he is yet to see confirmation of this passenger's existance, and accused the pilot of placing one life before over 150 others; there were a combined 170 passengers and

An elderly woman has died in a house fire in South Yorkshire, England. The woman, who is currently remaining unidentified, was blind and 93-years-old when her bungalow in Sheffield caught fire as a result of an accident in her kitchen yesterday afternoon. An internal investigation into the fire has suggested that while the woman was cooking, she dropped a towel onto one of the stovetops while attempting to move a pan on the cooker. The towel then set alight. When she attempted to put out the fire, the towel dropped to the side of the cooker, a

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Brian Cowen, the current Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, have met in Northern Ireland for emergency talks about policing and justice. The talks follow a failed lunchtime meeting between Northern Irish politicians Peter Robinson, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, and Martin McGuinness, the Deputy First Minister. The meeting between Robinson—who recently stood down as First Minister temporarily due to a sexual and financial and scandal concerning his wife Iris—and McGuinness lasted less than o

A court martial got underway today accusing a Canadian soldier of murder for shooting a member of the Taliban on an Afghan battlefield. Captain Robert Semrau's case is believed to be a military and legal first. Semrau, 38, is facing four charges for the 2008 death. He is accused of second-degree murder, attempted murder, behaving in a disgraceful manner, and negligently performing a military duty. It is alleged that he shot the man twice despite him being an unarmed and "seriously wounded" prisoner. Court documents set a scene in which 36-yea

Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a businessman from Chicago, Illinois, pleaded not guilty earlier today of helping to plot the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people with a friend from a Pakistani military school. Rana, aged 49, has been held in prison since being arrested last October. He was also charged with helping to plot an attack on a Danish newspaper that printed controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in 2005. Prosecutors allege that Rana is used his immigration service as a cover for his Pakistani-American friend, David Col

Airbus has confirmed that there was a software glitch on its Airbus A400M military transplort plane's maiden flight. The problem was relatively minor, and affected the software controlling its engines. The glitch was not reported when the plane made its maiden flight on 11 December—four years behind schedule and $7.3 billion over budget, due to what the manufacturers call "political interference"—and only became public attention this weekend, when German magazine Der Spiegel cited confidential documents from engine maker Europrop in a report.

A middle-aged British couple who have been held hostage by Somali pirates for more than three months said on Friday, in a telephone interview with ITN, that their captors have threatened to kill one or both of them if a government ransom is not received "within four or five days." Paul and Rachel Chandler disappeared on October 23, 2009, while in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia while en route from the Seychelles to Tanzania. Their 38-foot yacht, the Lynn Rival, was later found abandoned. Days later, pirates confirmed they were in fac

Robert B. Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, is to begin an eight-day, three-nation tour of Africa starting next Tuesday. He will take part in the African Union summit scheduled to be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The World Bank boss would first travel to Sierra Leone, then Cote d'Ivoire, and finally heading to Ethiopia for the AU summit. According to a statement from the World Bank, Zoellick is to meet with leaders, donors, investors, and representatives of the civil society, to discuss the ongoing food crisis on the continent and po

An American client of Switzerland-based bank, UBS, has won an appeal in Swiss court on Friday against providing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the United States with relevant information about his offshore accounts. The Swiss court ruled that the man's failure to complete an IRS tax form, no matter how much money it pertained to, was not in itself fraudulent behavior. The case calls into question an agreement made between Switzerland and the United States last year in which Swiss tax authorities would supply the IRS with information on

The UK's Home Secretary said today that Britain has raised its terrorism alert level to "severe", the second-highest level, which indicates that an attack is "highly likely". The highest level, "critical", means that an attack is believed to be "imminent". "The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre has raised the threat [...] from 'substantial' to 'severe'. This means that a terrorist attack is highly likely," Home Secretary Alan Johnson said. "But I should stress that there is no intelligence to suggest that an attack is imminent [...] We still fac

The Ministry of Defence has made the announcement of the death of a soldier in Afghanistan. The soldier came from A Company 4 Rifles. The man, whose service was as a part of 3 Rifles Battle Group, has currently not been identified as his next of kin have requested waiting for a time period of 24 hours before releasing any more information. He was on foot patrol near the town of Sangin in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan when he was killed as the result of an explosion in the area on the afternoon of January 22. The total number of military

The United Nations has announced that the government of Haiti has put an end to its efforts to find and rescue buried survivors of the earthquake that hit the region eleven days ago. The announcement comes just a day after two people were found alive. According to Elizabeth Byrs, the UN spokeswoman, 132 people have been rescued since the earthquake hit. The death toll, as of Friday, is estimated to be 110,000. It is thought that the chances of survival are so slim that it is not worth the resources required for a successful rescue operation. B