World Nation Briefs April 14, 2013
All 108 on board survive jetliner crash
BALI, Indonesia - All 108 passengers and crew survived after a new Lion Air jet crashed into the ocean and snapped into two while attempting to land Saturday on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, injuring up to 45 people.
The injured were taken to several different hospitals for treatment, but there appeared to be no serious injuries, said airport spokesman Alfasyah, who like many Indonesians uses only one name. There were three foreigners on board - two Singaporeans and a French national - all of whom suffered slight injuries.
TV footage showed police and rescuers using rubber boats to evacuate the 101 passengers and seven crew members. The Boeing 737 could be seen sitting in the shallow water with a large crack in its fuselage.
Officials initially said the plane overshot the runway before hitting the water, but a spokesman for Lion Air, a low-cost carrier, said at a news conference that the plane crashed about 164 feet ahead of the runway. The weather was cloudy with rain at the time of the incident.
"It apparently failed to reach the runway and fell into the sea," said the spokesman, Edward Sirait.
U.S., China agree to rid North Korea of nukes
BEIJING - Bound by threats from North Korea, the U.S. and China agreed Saturday to rid the bellicose nation of nuclear weapons in a test of whether the world powers can shelve years of rivalry and discord, and unite in fostering global stability.
Beyond this latest attempt to restrain North Korea, the burgeoning nuclear crisis has so frustrated the U.S. and China that they are forming a new and tentative bond with the potential to carry over into areas that have vexed them for decades.
But they will need to overcome the longstanding prickly relations between Beijing's communist government and Washington's free-market democracy. The two are economic competitors, and China is far more reluctant than the U.S. to intervene in international military conflicts.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday described a "synergy" between the two countries to achieve worldwide security and economic stability.
Newtown victim's mother pleads for gun control
WASHINGTON - The mother of a 6-year-old boy killed in the Connecticut school shooting used the opportunity to fill in for President Barack Obama during the weekly radio and Internet address to make a personal plea from the White House for action to combat gun violence.
"Thousands of other families across the United States are also drowning in our grief," said Francine Wheeler, choking back tears in the address broadcast Saturday. "Please help us do something before our tragedy becomes your tragedy."
Ben Wheeler was among the 20 first-graders and six adults killed in the Dec. 14 attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.
Francine Wheeler was the first person to deliver the address other than Obama or Vice President Joe Biden since the two took office in 2009.
Her husband, David Wheeler, sat silently next to her as she made the recording in the White House Library. Both wore the small green pins that have become a symbol of the shooting.
- The Associated Press