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Cathay Pacific fires cabin crew over discrimination claim

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Cathay Pacific's CEO Ronald Lam has apologised for the incident (pic BBC)

Cathay Pacific Airways has fired three flight attendants after a complaint that they had discriminated against non-English speaking passengers.

They were sacked after an audio clip of the cabin crew apparently mocking passengers went viral. The Hong Kong carrier launched an internal investigation and apologised for causing “widespread concern”.

Chinese state media claimed the airline was “looking down on mainland Chinese people”. A passenger traveling from Chengdu to Hong Kong said the cabin crew mocked passengers who mistakenly asked for a “carpet” instead of a “blanket”. In the audio clip, a flight attendant can be heard laughing as she tells her colleagues: “If you cannot say blanket in English, you cannot have it. Carpet is on the floor.”

The incident has drawn much criticism on social media in China, with some users calling for a boycott of Cathay Pacific.

Hong Kong chief executive John Lee also said the incident had “hurt the feelings of compatriots in Hong Kong and the mainland”.

The airline’s CEO Ronald Lam apologised for the incident and said he will personally lead a task force to conduct a review into the company’s code of conduct.

(BBC)



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Thousands flee floods after dam collapse near Nova Kakhovka

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An aerial image shows water pouring through what appears to be a breach in the dam (pic BBC)

BBC reported that thousands of people are being evacuated downstream of a major dam which has been blown up in Russian-held Ukraine.

President Zelensky said 80 towns and villages were at risk of flooding after the destruction of the dam at Nova Kakhovka, which he blamed on Russia. Water is surging down the Dnipro river and is said to pose a catastrophic flooding risk to the city of Kherson.

Russia has denied destroying the dam – which it controls – instead blaming Ukrainian shelling. Neither Ukraine or Russia’s claim has been verified by the BBC.

The Kakhovka dam is crucial in the region. It contains a reservoir, which provides water to farmers and residents, as well as to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. It is also is a vital channel carrying water south to Russian-occupied Crimea.

Video footage shows a torrent of floodwater gushing through a breach in the dam. Several towns are already flooded, while people in areas further downstream were forced to flee by bus and train.

Around 40,000 people need to be evacuated, Deputy Prosecutor-General Viktoriya Lytvynova said on Ukrainian television – 17,000 people in Ukraine-controlled territory west of the Dnipro River and 25,000 on the Russian-controlled east.

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Developing and underdeveloped countries are paying the price for the wrong policies of some developed nations – Narendra Modi

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(pic PTI)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday (05) said developing and underdeveloped countries are paying the price for the “wrong policies” of some developed nations, and asserted that India has raised the issue of climate justice with every such advanced country.

In his video message at a World Environment Day event, Modi said for the protection of the world climate, it is important that all countries think, rising above vested interests.  “For a long time, the model of development in big and advanced countries was contradictory. In this developmental model, the thinking was that we first develop our country then we can think about the environment,” the prime minister said.  “With this, they achieved the goals of development, but the world’s environment had to pay the price for their development. Today also, the developing and underdeveloped countries of the world are paying the price for the wrong policies of some developed countries,” he said.  For decades, no one was there to object to this attitude of some developed countries, Modi said.  “I am happy that India has raised the question of climate justice with all these countries,” he said.

In the thousands of years old Indian culture, there is nature as well as progress, Modi said as he credited this to the country’s attention to ecology and economy.

The prime minister said as India is investing unprecedentedly in its infrastructure, it is focusing equally on the environment.

(PTI)

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More than 260 dead after Odisha accident

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(pic PTI)

At least 261 people have been killed and 650  injured in a crash involving three trains in India’s eastern Odisha state, officials say.

One passenger train derailed and its coaches fell on to the adjacent track where they were struck by an incoming train on Friday evening. A freight train was stationary.

The rescue operation at the crash site has ended, officials said.

The cause of India’s worst train crash this century is not yet clear. Officials said several carriages from the Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express derailed at about 19:00 (13:30 GMT) in Balasore district, hit a stationary goods train and several of its coaches ended up on the opposite track. Another train – the Howrah Superfast Express travelling from Yesvantpur to Howrah – then hit the overturned carriages.

“The force with which the trains collided has resulted in several coaches being crushed and mangled,” Atul Karwal, chief of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) told news agency ANI.

It was the third deadliest crash in the history of Indian railways, he said.

More than 200 ambulances and hundreds of doctors, nurses and rescue personnel were sent to the scene, the state’s chief secretary Pradeep Jena said.

Sudhanshu Sarangi, Director General of Odisha Fire Services, had earlier said` 288 had died. The rescue operation recovering people from the wreckage has finished and work to restore the site of the crash begun, India’s South Eastern Railway company said on Saturday.

Residents of the neighbouring villages were among the first to reach the site of the accident and start the rescue operation. Some surviving passengers were seen rushing in to help rescue those trapped in the wreckage.Local bus companies were also helping to transport wounded passengers.

India has one of the largest train networks in the world with millions of passengers using it daily, but a lot of the railway infrastructure needs improving.

India’s worst train disaster was in 1981, when an overcrowded passenger train was blown off the tracks and into a river during a cyclone in Bihar state, killing at least 800 people.

(BBC)

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