Foreign News
Dead body placed beside Australian couple on flight
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An Australian couple have spoken of the “traumatic” moment the body of a dead passenger was placed next to them on a Qatar Airways flight.
Mitchell Ring and Jennifer Colin, who were travelling to Venice for a dream holiday, told Australia’s Channel 9 a woman died in the aisle beside them during the flight from Melbourne to Doha.
The couple say cabin crew sat her corpse, which was covered in blankets, next to Mr Ring for the remaining four hours of the flight and did not offer to move him, despite there being empty seats.
Qatar Airways said it apologised for “any inconvenience or distress this incident may have caused”, adding that it was in the process of contacting passengers.
Mr Ring said staff responded “in no time” when the woman collapsed, but that “unfortunately the lady couldn’t be saved, which was pretty heart-breaking to watch,” he told the ‘A Current Affairs programme.
Cabin crew tried and failed to move her body away towards business class, he explained. “They tried to wheel her up towards business class, but she was quite a large lady and they couldn’t get her through the aisle.
“They looked a bit frustrated, then they just looked at me and saw seats were available beside me – my wife was on the other side, we were in a row of four.
“They said, ‘can you move over please?’ and I just said, ‘yes no problem’.
“Then they placed the lady in the chair I was in.”
Ms Colin said she was shocked when her husband said they were being asked to move up: “I said, ‘are they going to put her there?'”
While Ms Colin was able to move to an empty seat nearby, Mr Ring said he was not given the option to do so by cabin crew – even though there were vacant seats.
When the plane landed four hours later, he said passengers were asked to stay put while medical staff and police came on board.
“Ambulance officers started pulling the blankets off the lady,” Mr Ring said.
“I got to see her face.
“I can’t believe they told us to stay.”
The pair said they had not been contacted nor offered any support by Qatar Airways or Qantas, the airline through which they booked the flight.
“They have a duty of care towards their customers as well as their staff,” Mr Ring said.
“We should be contacted to make sure, do you need some support, do you need some counselling?
“I don’t really know how I feel and would like to speak to somebody to make sure I’m alright.”
Ms Colin called the experience “traumatic” and said: “We totally understand that we can’t hold the airline responsible for the poor lady’s death, but there has to be a protocol to look after the customers on board.”
In a statement, Qatar Airways said: “First and foremost our thoughts are with the family of the passenger who sadly passed away on board our flight.
“We apologise for any inconvenience or distress this incident may have caused, and are in the process of contacting passengers in line with our policies and procedures.”
A Qantas spokesperson said: “The process for handling incidents onboard an aircraft like this is managed by the operating airline, which in this case is Qatar Airways.”
[BBC]
Foreign News
Chile power outage leaves millions without electricity
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Millions of people are thought to be without electricity across Chile after a large nationwide power outage.
According to the national service for disaster prevention and response (SENAPRED), an area spanning most of the country is impacted, including the capital city, Santiago.
The exact scale of the outage, which began earlier on Tuesday, is not yet known but SENAPRED has said it covers the regions of Arica and Parinacota in the north to Los Lagos in the south.
Reuters news agency has also reported that the world’s largest copper mine, Escondida, is without power, citing a source close to the matter.
LATAM Airlines said that some of its flights may also be disrupted while power supplies were down, and urged passengers to check their journey status.
In a post on X, the Santiago Metro operator said its service had been temporarily suspended due to the ongoing power outage, with stations being evacuated and closed.
Footage from the city showed passengers evacuating stations by walking up switched-off escalators, while traffic signals were also shown not working.
There were also long queues for buses which were still running on the city’s roads.
Maria Angelica Roman, 45, told AFP news agency: “They let us leave work because of the power cut, but now I don’t know how we will get home because all the buses are full.”
Chile’s interior minister, Carolina Toha, also posted on X to say that a meeting would be called to discuss ongoing measures to restore services.
SENAPRED added that electricity companies across the impacted area were investigating the fault and attempting to restart services, and no emergency situations had been reported.
[BBC]
Business
UK and India relaunch trade talks in Delhi
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India and the UK have restarted free trade talks, nearly a year after negotiations were paused ahead of general elections in both countries.
Jonathan Reynolds, the UK’s business and trade secretary, met his Indian counterpart Piyush Goyal in Delhi on Monday and kicked off the two-day discussions.
The talks focused on “advancing” the negotiations and ensuring that the deal was “balanced, ambitious and mutually beneficial”, Goyal wrote on X.
The countries have held more than a dozen rounds of negotiations since 2022, but an agreement has remained out of reach.
Sticking points include high tariffs in India on Scotch whisky and relaxing fees and visa rules for Indian students and professionals going to the UK.
Talks are being held for the first time after the Labour Party came to power in the UK and Reynolds says securing a deal is a “top priority” for his government.
“Growth will be the guiding principle in our trade negotiations with India and I’m excited about the opportunities on offer in this vibrant market,” he said in a statement ahead of the meeting.
India is forecast to become the world’s third-largest economy in a few years.
The ministers held a joint press conference after the meeting, but neither side offered a deadline for talks to conclude. Deadlines set by former ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss had passed without an agreement being finalised.
For Delhi, the trade talks have assumed renewed significance on the back of US President Donald Trump’s decision to impose reciprocal or tit-for-tat tariffs on imported goods from countries, including India.
The UK is also a high-priority trading partner for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which has an ambitious target to grow exports by $1 trillion by FY30.
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The UK had announced in November last year – soon after Sir Keir Starmer met PM Modi at the G20 summit in Brazil – that talks would restart in the new year.
The two countries share a trade relationship worth £41bn ($52bn) currently, according to a UK government statement, and a trade deal could unlock new opportunities for both countries.
London has identified sectors that could benefit, which include advanced manufacturing, clean energy and professional and trade services. An agreement could also potentially unlock a valuable market for British cars, Scotch whisky and financial services worth billions of dollars.
India is seeking greater mobility for its working professionals and students to the UK, while pushing for faster visa processing times.
It may also seek concessions for its residents working temporarily in the UK on business visas, who are required to pay national insurance but are still ineligible for social benefits.
Speaking at the joint conference, Goyal said that immigration was not a part of the discussions.
“India has never ever discussed immigration in any free trade negotiations,” he said. Reynolds added that business mobility was a “separate issue” from immigration.
During Reynolds’ visit, he and Goyal will also visit the BT office in the northern Indian city of Gurugram.
UK Investment Minister Poppy Gustafsson is also in India and will be participating in events in India’s two big business hubs – Mumbai and Bengaluru.
After years of scepticism over free trade deals, India has been signing agreements or is in talks with several countries or blocs. Last year, it signed a $100bn free trade agreement with the European Free Trade Association – a group of four European countries that are not members of the European Union – after almost 16 years of negotiations.
It is also set to resume negotiations with the European Union this year.
[BBC]
Foreign News
Germany’s conservatives celebrate, but far right enjoy record result
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Friedrich Merz‘s conservatives have won Germany’s election, well ahead of rival parties but short of the 30% vote-share they had expected.
“Let’s celebrate tonight and in the morning, we’ll get to work,” he told cheering supporters. His immediate priority is to try to form a government with the third-placed Social Democrats of Olaf Scholz.
Even before the result was clear, Merz said his top priority was unity in Europe, so that “step by step, we can really achieve independence from the US”.
The other big winner in Sunday’s vote was the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), who are celebrating a record second-place result of 20.8%.
The AfD’s candidate for chancellor, Alice Weidel, did a victory lap of her supporters, but even her party had hoped for a greater result and the mood at AfD HQ was subdued.
Merz, 69, has never held a ministerial job, but he has promised if he becomes the next German chancellor to show leadership in Europe and beef up support for Ukraine.
Most Germans have been shocked by President Donald Trump’s conduct towards Ukraine and Europe and Friedrich Merz said the US leader had shown “the Americans are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe”.
Trump has labelled Ukraine’s leader a “dictator” and two of his leading figures have openly backed the AfD in the run-up to the vote. Vice-President JD Vance was accused of meddling in the vote during a visit to Munich, while billionaire Elon Musk has made repeated remarks on his X platform.
Friedrich Merz’s first priority will be to try to form a coalition made up of his Christian Democrats (and their Bavarian sister party, the CSU) and Scholz’s centre left, despite the Social Democrats’ worst-ever showing of 16.4%.
Merz’s CDU party leadership will meet on Monday and so will the Social Democrat SPD’s, separately, but Scholz will not take part in the talks.
Merz is keen to form a government by Easter. It could be possible, because between the two parties, they have 328 seats, a majority of 12 in the 630-seat parliament.
But it was not until the early hours of Monday that that became clear.
After the collapse of Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition late last year, Merz had asked the electorate for a strong mandate to form a clear-cut coalition with one other party.
In the event, he secured enough seats only because two of the smaller parties failed to get into parliament.
A two-party coalition would enable him to solve as many of Germany’s problems as he could in four years, he said, from a stagnant economy to closing its borders to irregular migrants.
German voters had other ideas. They came out in big numbers, with a 83% turnout not seen since before reunification in 1990.
Merz’s Christian Democrats had been looking for more than the 28.6% of the vote they and their Bavarian sister party received.
His most likely partner was always going to be the Social Democrats – known in Germany as a GroKo, or grand coalition.
But Germany’s electorate has fractured, and the two big beasts of its post-war politics can no longer be sure of success.
The AfD under Alice Weidel enjoyed a 10-point increase in support on four years ago, their support boosted by anger over high prices and a series of deadly attacks in German cities.
Three took place during the election campaign.
Weidel also benefited from a successful TikTok campaign that drew in big numbers of young voters.
As results came in during the early hours of Monday, it became clear the AfD was far ahead of the other parties in the east, with a projected 34%, according to a survey for public broadcaster ZDF.
“Germans have voted for change,” said Weidel. She said Friedrich Merz’s attempt to forge a coalition would ultimately end in failure: “We’ll have fresh elections – I don’t think we’ll have to wait another four years.”
But just as the election map turned light blue in the east, much of the rest of Germany turned black – the colour of the CDU.
And Merz dismissed the rise of the AfD out of hand. “The party only exists because there have been problems that haven’t been solved. They’re happy if these problems get worse and worse.”
“We need to solve the problems… then that party, the AfD, will disappear.”
Merz was equally withering towards the new Trump administration.
President Trump did welcome Merz’s victory. He said it was proof that Germans were, like Americans, tired of “the no common sense agenda, especially on energy and immigration”.
If it was an overture, Merz did not take it as one. He told a round-table TV discussion on Sunday night that the interventions from Washington had been “no less dramatic and drastic and ultimately outrageous than the interventions we have seen from Moscow”.
Last week, Trump appeared to accuse Kyiv of starting the war which Russia unleashed on its neighbour exactly three years ago.
Merz’s victory was quickly welcomed by leaders across much of Europe. France’s Emmanuel Macron spoke of uniting at a time of uncertainty to “face the major challenges of the world and our continent”, while the UK’s Sir Keir Starmer sought to “enhance our joint security and deliver growth for both our countries”.
Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats continue to rely on older voters for their success, while voters aged 18-24 appear to be far more interested in both the AfD and another party, the Left, which surged in the polls in recent weeks.
Not long ago, the Left was heading out of the parliament, with poll numbers well below the 5% threshold.
But a series of TikTok videos showing co-leader Heidi Reichinnek giving fiery speeches in parliament went viral and they ended up close to 9%, and a quarter of the younger vote, according to an ARD survey.
[BBC]
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