LONDON – Dubai’s Emirates Airline said it is canceling an order for 10 large jetliners from Airbus and will use Boeing models instead, according to a published report Sunday.
Speaking to reporters at London’s Heathrow Airport, Emirates President Tim Clark said his airline won’t take the Airbus A340-600 jetliners it had ordered and is sending auditors to assess the European plane maker’s progress on building its A380 superjumbo, The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site.
Emirates will instead order 777 models from Boeing Co., Emirates Executive Vice Chairman Maurice Flanagan said.
Clark also said Emirates is interested in acquiring proposed passenger versions of Boeing’s planned 747-8 jetliner if Boeing stretches the design to increase seating capacity. In July, the carrier ordered 10 of the cargo version of the 747-8.
Afghanistan: 70 insurgents killed
NATO and Afghan troops killed 70 suspected militants who attacked a military base in southern Afghanistan, while a roadside blast killed one NATO soldier and wounded eight others, the alliance said Sunday. Some 100 to 150 militants attacked a military base north of Tarin Kowt in Uruzgan on Saturday, said Maj. Luke Knittig, a spokesman for the NATO-led force. The alliance and Afghan troops fought back for several hours with small arms fire, attack helicopters and airstrikes. One Afghan soldier was wounded.
Pakistan: Al-Qaida camp targeted
Pakistani troops backed by helicopters firing missiles destroyed an al-Qaida-linked training facility in a northwestern tribal area near the Afghan border Monday, killing “many” militants, officials said. The pre-dawn attack targeted a religious school compound holding 70 to 80 militants in a village near the town of Khar, the main town in the Bajur tribal district, said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan. He said the facility was destroyed but it was not immediately clear how many people had been killed, although there were no civilian casualties.
Philippines: Typhoon Cimaron hits
Typhoon Cimaron blew over the northern Philippines on Monday, felling trees, toppling power lines, blasting roofs off homes and leaving at least three people dead, officials said. Cimaron, which made landfall late Sunday, was packing maximum winds of 109 mph and gusts of up to 130 mph. It was forecast to head for Vietnam later today.
Brazil: Leftist president’s landslide
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won a second term in a landslide victory Sunday with Brazilians rewarding their first working-class leader after he helped ease grinding poverty while improving the economy of Latin America’s largest country. With 99 percent of the votes counted, Silva had 61 percent support compared with 39 percent for center-right rival Geraldo Alckmin, Sao Paulo state’s former governor.
S. Korea: Nuke tests expected
The top U.S. general in South Korea said today that more nuclear tests by North Korea could be expected as the communist nation continues work on its atomic weapons program. However, U.S. Army Gen. B.B. Bell didn’t cite any specific intelligence that another test was imminent.
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