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S Korea to remove concrete barriers near runways after fatal crash

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South Korea will change the concrete barriers used for navigation at seven airports across the country following December’s plane crash that killed 179 people.
Seven airports will also have their runway safety areas adapted following a review of all South Korea’s airports that was carried out after the crash – the deadliest in the country’s history.
The Jeju Air flight was bringing passengers home from Thailand after Christmas when it made an emergency landing at Muan airport and exploded after slamming into a concrete barrier at the end of the runway.
The cause of the crash is still unknown but air safety experts had earlier said the number of casualties could have been much lower if not for the structure.
The concrete structure holds a navigation system that assists aircraft landings – known as a localiser. South Korea’s transport ministry had said this system could also be found in other airports in the country and even overseas.
Safety inspectors have now identified nine of these systems, which they say need to be altered. These include the systems at Muan and Jeju International Airport which is the country’s second-largest airport.
They are looking to either replace the concrete bases with more lightweight structures or bury them underground.
Officials added that Muan International Airport’s existing concrete mounds would be removed entirely and the localiser “reinstalled using breakable structures”.
Following the crash, it emerged that an operating manual from Muan International Airport, uploaded early in 2024, had said the concrete embankment was too close to the end of the runway.
The document, prepared by Korea Airports Corp, had recommended the location of the equipment be reviewed during a planned expansion.
Chris Kingswood, a pilot with 48 years’ experience who has flown the same type of aircraft involved in the crash, previously told the BBC that “obstacles within a certain range and distance of the runway are required to be frangible, which means that if an aircraft strikes them that they do break.

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International

Six Trump executive orders to watch

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Donald Trump has signed sweeping executive orders on his return to the US presidency, vowing swift action on some of his top campaign issues.
Among the directives that have gained the most publicity are an immigration crackdown and rollbacks of some climate-friendly policies.
But even presidential powers have their limits – and in some cases, he faces hurdles before his plans can become reality.
Here are six of Trump’s eye-catching actions with analysis by BBC reporters, who give their verdict on whether each order could take effect.
What are executive orders?
Live updates on Trump’s second term

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‘Hell on earth’: China deportation looms for Uyghurs held in Thailand

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Niluper says she has been living in agony.
A Uyghur refugee, she has spent the past decade hoping her husband would join her and their three sons in Turkey, where they now live.
The family was detained in Thailand in 2014 after fleeing increasing repression in their hometown in China’s Xinjiang province. She and the children were allowed to leave Thailand a year later. But her husband remained in detention, along with 47 other Uyghur men.
Niluper – not her real name – now fears she and her children may never see him again.
Ten days ago, she learned that Thai officials had tried to persuade the detainees to sign forms consenting to be sent back to China. When they realised what was in the forms, they refused to sign them.
The Thai government has denied having any immediate plans to send them back. But human rights groups believe they could be deported at any time.
“I don’t know how to explain this to my sons,” Niluper told the BBC on a video call from Turkey. Her sons, she says, keep asking about their father. The youngest has never met him.
“I don’t know how to digest this. I’m living in constant pain, constant fear that at any moment I may get the news from Thailand that my husband has been deported.”

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Antisemitic crimes may be funded overseas, say Australian police

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Australia’s federal police have said they are investigating whether “overseas actors or individuals” are paying criminals to carry out antisemitic crimes in the country.
There has been a spate of such incidents in recent months, the latest of which saw a childcare centre in Sydney set alight and sprayed with anti-Jewish graffiti. No-one was injured.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called a snap cabinet meeting in response, where officials agreed to set up a national database to track antisemitic incidents.
Thus far, the federal police taskforce, set up in December to investigate such incidents, received more than 166 reports of antisemitic crimes.
“We are looking into whether overseas actors or individuals have paid local criminals in Australia to carry out some of these crimes in our suburbs,” Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Reece Kershaw said, adding that it was possible that cryptocurrency was involved.
The digital currency can take longer to identify, Mr Kershaw said.
The commissioner said police were also investigating whether young people were carrying out these crimes and whether they had been radicalised online.
However, Mr Kershaw cautioned, “intelligence is not the same as evidence” and more charges were expected soon.
Last week, a man from Sydney became the first person to be charged by the federal taskforce, dubbed Special Operation Avalite, over alleged death threats he made towards a Jewish organisation.
Albanese said Tuesday’s incident at a childcare centre in the eastern Sydney suburb of Maroubra was “as cowardly as it is disgusting” and described it as a “hate crime”.
“This was an attack targeted at the Jewish community. And it is a crime that concerns us all because it is also an attack on the nation and society we have built together,” he wrote on social media.

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