Pirates hijack chemical tanker

CNN) -- Pirates in the Gulf of Aden hijacked a chemical tanker carrying a crew of 15 Bulgarians on Tuesday, the European Union Naval Force Somalia said.
The Bulgarian-flagged tanker, the MV Panega, was about 100 nautical miles east of Aden, Yemen, en route from the Red Sea to India, the force said in a news release.

"As long as the pirates are on board the ship, we are just monitoring the situation," said Anders Kallin, a Swedish navy commander for the EU naval force. He said he had no reason to believe that anyone had been hurt.

The force's Operation Atalanta focuses on escorting merchant vessels carrying humanitarian aid for the World Food Programme and those of the African Union Mission in Somalia, protecting vessels in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, and deterring and disrupting piracy.

Child 10 lone survivor of Libyan plane crash that took 100.

CNN -- One person -- believed to be a 10-year-old boy -- survived a passenger plane crash in Libya that was feared to have killed more than 100 people, an official said Wednesday.
The boy was undergoing surgery at a hospital in the Libyan capital of Tripoli after the Afriqiyah Airways plane that left Johannesburg crashed as it neared the end of its flight.

The Dutch Foreign ministry said it had a representative at the hospital waiting to identify the boy, believed to be a Dutch national. He apparently suffered bone injuries.
The plane was carrying 93 passengers and 11 crew members when it crashed while trying to land at the Tripoli International Airport.

The president of the European Parliament said about 100 people perished, and Libya's state news agency said 96 bodies had been recovered.
Nicky Knapp, a representative of the Airports Company South Africa, provided the breakdown in the destinations of the passengers aboard: seven to London, 32 to Brussels, 42 to Dusseldorf, one to Paris, and 11 to Libya. She was speaking on behalf of Afriqiyah Airways.
The plane, an Airbus A330-200, was at the tail end of its nearly nine-hour-long flight when it crashed.

"We express our sincere regret and sadness on behalf of the airline. As well, we would like to express our condolences to the relatives and friends of those who had passengers on Flight 8U771 destined for Tripoli late last night, due to arrive around 6 o'clock this morning," she said.

Calling the incident a tragedy, Jerzy Buzek, the president of the European Parliament said "some 100 people have died no doubt from many countries around the world."
He said the child's survival "given this tragic event, is truly a miracle."
The Dutch Royal Touring Club said 61 of 62 Dutch passengers on the plane died.

A Dutch Foreign Affairs Ministry spokeswoman said the government was trying to get more information about those aboard.

The British Foreign Office said it was looking into whether British nationals were on board the flight.
At the crash site, workers with surgical masks combed through the smoldering wreckage that spilled over a large area. A wheel lay atop a pile of bags. Two green airline seats sat upright and intact amid burned parts of the aircraft.

Officials recovered the plane's flight data recorder, which investigators use to piece together a flight's last minutes.

The Tripoli-based Afriqiyah (Arabic for "African") operates flights to four continents. The planes in the fleet carry the logo 9.9.99 -- the date when the African Union was formed.
The Airbus that crashed is one of three Airbus 330-200s that the airline owns.

Wired: AVWK Grounds Sweetman!

One of the aviation industry’s biggest critics of the Pentagon’s gajillion-dollar fighter jet has been temporarily barred from writing about the controversial plane.

Bill Sweetman has authored over 30 books on military aircraft, and now edits Defense Technology International, a monthly magazine put out by Aviation Week. Few journalists today know more about tactical aircraft. And few have been more critical of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the jet that’s eventually supposed to replace as much as 95% of combat planes. “The program is no longer at risk of failure,” he wrote in March on Aviation Week’s defense blog, Ares. “It has already failed.”

But Sweetman, for the moment, won’t be allowed to opine on the JSF. Aviation Week has pulled him from the beat. The maker of the jet swears they had nothing whatsoever to do with the suspension. “Lockheed Martin has not asked Aviation Week to take disciplinary action against Bill Sweetman nor have we asked that he be removed from reporting on the F-35 program or any other Lockheed Martin program,” the company says in a statement.

But as the price tag for the supposedly low-cost JSF has grown — and as a once-ambitious test schedule has shrunk — Sweetman’s swipes at the program have gained more notoriety. PBS’ News Hour, for instance, featured Sweetman in a late April segment that focused on the project’s flaws. The following week, while Sweetman and his colleagues prepped for a trip Lockheed’s plant in Ft. Worth, Texas, he wrote on his Facebook page:

“Gentlemen, your target for tonight is Fort Worth. Flacks are predicted to be numerous and persistent on the run-in and over the target, and bullshit is expected to be dense throughout the mission. Synchronize watches and good luck.”

Shortly thereafter, Sweetman was asked to stop covering the JSF.

UPDATE: “Aviation Week is committed to providing objective aerospace and defense journalism based on independent and balanced coverage. Following comments posted on his personal Facebook page, the editorial team has decided that Bill Sweetman will not be covering the F-35 program for a period of time,” magazine spokesman Joe D’Andrea e-mails Danger Room. “We will continue to hold our journalists to the highest standards of editorial integrity to best serve the aersopace and defense community.”

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Obama adviser: Times Square bombing suspect linked to Taliban

Washington (CNN) -- The suspect in the failed Times Square bombing was likely working with the Taliban movement in Pakistan, President Obama's top terrorism adviser said Sunday.
John Brennan, the assistant to the president for counterterrorism and homeland security, told CNN's "State of the Union" that the ongoing investigation pointed to Faisal Shahzad having links to Tehrik-e-Taliban.

"It looks like he was working on behalf of the Pakistani Taliban," Brennan said.
Shahzad has been charged in connection with the attempted bombing in Times Square on May 1.

The group, also known as the TTP, is "closely allied with al Qaeda" and has pledged to carry out attacks on other parts of the world, including the United States, Brennan said.
Shahzad was arrested while trying to fly out of New York on Monday night, two days after he allegedly attempted to set off a car bomb in Times Square. The bomb failed to detonate.

It was the second case in the last six months of a bungled terrorist attack on the United States, following the failed bombing of a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day.
Brennan said U.S. counterterrorism efforts had degraded the ability of groups like al Qaeda and the

Taliban to launch successful attacks.
"They're trying to find vulnerabilities in our defenses," Brennan said, noting the attempts have been "unsophisticated."