US fines Air Canada over flights over prohibited Iraqi airspace
Air Canada must pay $125,000 of the fine and owes another $125,000 if it violates the order again within a year.
Updated 28 September 2024
Reuters
WASHINGTON: The US Department of Transportation said Friday it had fined Air Canada $250,000 for operating flights in 2022 and 2023 in prohibited Iraqi airspace.
The agency had jurisdiction because those flights had United Airlines’ designator code. The violations occurred on numerous flights between the United Arab Emirates and Toronto in airspace that was prohibited by the Federal Aviation Administration to US operators.
Air Canada must pay $125,000 of the fine and owes another $125,000 if it violates the order again within a year. Air Canada stopped codesharing with United on the route in January 2023. Emirates was fined $1.5 million by the Transportation Department in June for operating flights carrying JetBlue Airways’ code over Iraqi airspace.
China says Philippines distorted facts about incident near disputed atoll
Updated 2 sec ago
BEIJING: China’s defense ministry accused the Philippines on Wednesday of distorting the facts about an incident involving the Chinese coast guard and Filipino fishermen near a South China Sea shoal, a charge Manila strongly rejected. The Philippine coast guard said over the weekend that three Filipino fishermen were injured and two fishing vessels damaged when Chinese coast guard ships cut their anchor lines and fired water cannon near the Sabina Shoal on Friday, actions the Philippine defense secretary denounced as “dangerous” and “inhumane.” The Chinese ministry defended its coast guard’s actions as “reasonable, lawful, professional and restrained,” and vowed to “take strong and effective measures” in response to “all acts of infringement and provocation,” according to a statement released on its social media account. “The Philippine side amassed a large number of ships in an organized and premeditated manner to illegally intrude” into the atoll’s lagoon, the ministry said. “Philippine personnel even threatened Chinese coast guard on site with a knife,” it added. Philippine defense ministry spokesperson Arsenio Andolong maintained that Manila has evidence to counter China’s assertions. “The facts are not distorted. They are documented, timestamped, and corroborated by video recordings, vessel logs, and on-site reporting by the Philippine Coast Guard,” Andolong said in a statement. “The Philippines is not hyping the issue, the facts speak for themselves. These are aggressive and excessive actions of an encroaching state,” he added. Sabina Shoal, which China refers to as Xianbin Reef and the Philippines as the Escoda Shoal, lies in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone 150 km (95 miles) west of Palawan province. China claims almost the entire South China Sea, a waterway supporting more than $3 trillion of annual commerce. The areas Beijing claims cut into the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. An international arbitral tribunal ruled in 2016 that Beijing’s sweeping claims had no basis under international law, a decision China rejects.
