Fighter jets escort US Airways flight after Îmiscommunication'
The Associated Press
LINTHICUM, Md. ÷ Two military jets escorted a US Airways flight to Baltimore-Washington International Airport after a "miscommunication" yesterday between the pilot and air traffic controllers, officials said.
"The pilot said something to the control tower that was perceived as a possible security threat. What he said I don't know," said David Castelveter, a spokesman for US Airways, calling it a "miscommunication."
The miscommunication came shortly after Flight 1814 took off at 8:07 a.m. from Charlotte, N.C., for BWI, Castelveter said.
Two F-16 jets from Andrews Air Force Base were sent to intercept and escort the Airbus A319, said Maj. Ed Thomas of the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
The plane landed about 9:30 a.m. and was boarded by FBI agents, who talked to the crew of five and the 45 passengers and concluded it was a false alarm, said FBI spokesman Barry Maddox.
Passengers were released from the plane shortly after 11 a.m. They said the plane's crew gave them little information and were unaware of a problem until the plane landed and was surrounded by police cars.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Security Administration were investigating.
Passenger Ebony Gill, 18, of Baltimore, said she was thinking of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as she waited for agents to clear the plane.
"It was terrifying," she said. "But we're safe, and I guess they were just taking the proper precautions, and I can't complain too much about that."
Mexican leaders turn to private sector to relieve crowded jails
The Associated Press
MEXICO CITY ÷ Mexico state officials unveiled plans yesterday for the country's first private prisons to relieve the government's overcrowded jails.
Several U.S. companies and one French firm have expressed interest in the $110 million (1.1 billion peso) project to build and operate four jails in the state, officials said at a meeting yesterday with foreign correspondents.
Bidding was expected to begin in three weeks.
The state's 21 penitentiaries are busting at the seams. Some house as many as a dozen inmates in cells built for three, said Evangelina Lara Alcantara, director of the state prison system. Mexico state borders Mexico City, and 89 percent of its prisoners come from the capital.
Human rights officials complain about corruption within Mexico's jails, where guards and gang leaders are allegedly in cahoots and prisoners with little clout are forced to live in deplorable conditions.
The new facilities will be built to house 4,500 low risk inmates. About 70 percent of the state's current prison population is serving time for robbery, Alcantara said.
Officials visited private prisons in France, Chile, and the U.S. states of Texas, Oklahoma and Arizona before drafting their plans.
Chile was the first Latin American country to use privately run prisons, and it is working on building 10 such facilities, Alcantara said.
Industrialized nations, oil states scuttling clean energy timetable
The Associated Press
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa ÷ The United States, Saudi Arabia and other wealthy nations at a U.N. summit worked yesterday to water down proposals to rapidly expand the use of clean, renewable energy technologies around the globe.
Renewable energy sources like wind power and solar energy produce smaller and more expensive amounts of electricity than a traditional power plant. But the technologies generate a tiny fraction of the smog that comes from burning oil, coal and other fossil fuels, as well as carbon dioxide and other gases believed to accelerate global warming.
A proposal for the World Summit on Sustainable Development's action plan calls for the use of the technologies to be increased to account for 15 percent of the world's total energy production by 2010.
Sources sitting in on the negotiations said delegates from the United States, Saudi Arabia and other industrialized and oil states were lobbying to eliminate the provision and set no specific goals.
Arab world urges Iraq to back down on weapons inspectors
The Associated Press
CAIRO, Egypt ÷ America's allies in the Arab world fear a U.S. strike on Iraq would thrust their already unstable region into chaos, and they and others are urging Baghdad to act to avoid war.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said yesterday that Arab leaders would not be able to contain outrage in the street in event of a U.S. attack on Iraq.
"There might be repercussions and we fear a state of disorder and chaos," Mubarak said at a question-and-answer session with Egyptian university students in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria.
Mubarak, who sent his troops against Iraq a decade ago as part of the U.S.-led Gulf War coalition, said that this time he had warned the United States against attacking Iraq at a time when Palestinian-Israeli violence is roiling the Arab street.
President Bush has called for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to be toppled, saying his development of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons threatens the United States and the world in general. Even as administration officials stress that no decision has been made, they have been stepping up talk about why such an attack is needed.
