On February 21, 1970, a Convair CV-990 Coronado jet called “Baselland” was flying on the route with 38 passengers and with nine crew members. A bomb detonated in the aircraft about nine minutes after take-off climb-out on southerly course approximately at 12:15 UTC in the area of Lucerne north of the St. Gotthard Pass.

The crew tried to turn around and attempt an emergency landing at Zürich but had difficulty seeing the instruments due to smoke in the cockpit. The aircraft deviated more and more to the west and crashed a short time later in a wooded area at Würenlingen near Zürich, Switzerland, due to the loss of electrical power. All aboard the aircraft were killed.

A Government air inspector was flown to the scene in a helicopter. He was followed shortly afterward by a team of 50 investigators. The police said that a woman handed in a 9-mm. pistol found at the scene of the crash immediately after the disaster. Some of the wreckage, including pieces of cloth, was strung out on the tops and branches of trees.

Sabotage was immediately suspected here because of the anger caused in Arab countries by the sentencing the previous December of three Palestinians to 12 years imprisonment by a Swiss court.

An Arab guerrilla splinter group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command, said in Beirut, Lebanon, that it had been responsible for the explosion. Reuters reported later, however, from Amman, Jordan, that a spokesman for the guerrilla group had denied that it was involved.

A barometric triggered IED had been used. On the same day, a bomb exploded aboard a Vienna-bound Caravelle after takeoff from Frankfurt. The Caravelle landed safely.

An article from Wikipedia

On April 24 Armenians in the whole world commemorate an anniversary of Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire. Traditionally, solemn and mourning events take place in Yerevan at the Memorial Complex on top of Tsitsernakaberd hill. The monument is 12 inward-leaning slabs that symbolize 12 vilayets (provinces) of the Ottoman Empire, which territory Armenians inhabited before the genocide. The eternal flame is housed in the center of the monument. In Armenian churches there is a funeral service this day. Besides, numerous mourning events are held in different cities of the world: in Moscow, Tbilisi, Paris, Marseilles, Cologne, Berlin, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires and others.

Meanwhile, the fact that Armenian genocide was acknowledged by Turkey, the assumed successor of the Ottoman Empire, long became a stumbling block to the relations between Ankara and Yerevan. Turkey seeks to join the EU, however most EU members demanded the acknowledgement of the genocide. Experts and analysts question: “Will the issue of Turkey’s responsibility for genocide turn into the issue of the world politics?”

It is to be noted that today the fact of the genocide was acknowledged by 15 countries, including Russia, France, Italy, Switzerland, Canada, Lithuania and above 30 US states. Last year the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations approved of the resolution that acknowledged Armenian genocide by Turkey, despite the fact that the White House recommended not to do it for fear of possible aggravations in the relations with Turkey. Anyway, the resolution is neither an obligation, nor a law.

Turkey stated in response that it might decrease its help to US troops in Iraq. According to Egemen Bagis, the deputy chairman of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, “US troops in Iraq are largely dependent on Turkey, and if the USA adopts a law on Armenian genocide, Ankara will have to reduce the help.”

Why has the issue of Armenian genocide turned into the issue of the world politics?” It is not persistence of Ankara and its own view of the history of Armenians and Turks. According to Armenian sources, the genocide claimed 1.5 million lives. At night of April, 24 1915 the government of Young Turks arrested and killed practically all the Armenian intelligence in Istanbul. Then there was a mass deportation of Armenians from all the provinces of the Ottoman Empire.

Col. Photsawat Tangchui, a police chief in Thailand’s border district of Mae Sot – across the Moei River from Myawaddy – said that a bomb exploded in a room at the Shwebyisaya Guest House, located near the Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge linking the two countries.

He said two hotel staff were hurt. But a Myawaddy resident interviewed by phone said five people were injured by the blast. The resident, who insisted on anonymity for fear of harassment by the authorities, said police interrogated all the lodgers at the guest house and held four for further questioning.

Maj. Gen. Surachet Chaiwong, the Thai army commander for Mae Sot, said a Myanmar counterpart told him that a cooking gas tank at a small hotel had exploded, injuring one person.

There was no immediate evidence linking the incident to the pro-democracy protests in other parts of Myanmar that have been suppressed by the ruling military.

After the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives defied warnings by President George W. Bush with 27-21 approval Wednesday to send the measure to the full House for a vote, the administration will now try to pressure Democratic leaders not to schedule a vote. If the measure is brought to the floor for a vote, it is expected to pass.

Hours before the vote, Bush and his top two Cabinet members other senior officials made last-minute appeals to lawmakers to reject the measure.

“Its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror,” Bush said a few hours before.

Afterward, it fell to State Department spokesman Sean McCormack to enunciate the government’s dismay at the event.

He expressed continued strong opposition and said passage of the resolution would gravely harm U.S.-Turkish relations and U.S. interests in Europe and the Middle East.

“The United States recognizes the immense suffering of the Armenian people due to mass killings and forced deportations at the end of the Ottoman Empire,” McCormack said in a statement. “We support a full and fair accounting of the atrocities that befell as many as 1.5 million Armenians during World War I, which H.Res. 106 does not do.”

Following Wednesday’s vote, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said he would call the Turkish ambassador to Washington, and that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would talk to Turkish leaders Thursday.

In a statement, the Turkish government said it “resents and condemns” the House vote.

“It is not possible to accept such an accusation of a crime which was never committed by the Turkish nation,” the statement said.

“It is blatantly obvious that the House Committee on Foreign Affairs does not have a task or function to re-write history by distorting a matter which specifically concerns the common history of Turks and Armenians.”

Local residents who saw Turkish troops pursue Kurdish rebels over the border in the 1980s and 1990s, with inconclusive results, believe a new operation will be no different.

This time, more is at stake. There is concern about hurting Turkey’s relationship with the United States, and fear in Iraq of instability in its north, which has escaped the violence that plagues the rest of the country.

In addition, any economic fallout could destroy livelihoods in the poor region. Turkey provides electricity and oil products to the Iraqi Kurdish administration in northern Iraq, and the annual trade volume at Habur Gate, the main border crossing, is more than $10 billion (EUR7.4 billion).

"If this border gate is closed because of war, then everybody in this region will suffer," said Mehmet Yavuz, a Turkish truck driver, hauling cement to the Iraqi Kurdish city of Irbil. "This border gate is daily bread for us."

Still, Turkish leaders are gearing up for a possible cross-border operation despite opposition from Washington and Iraqi Kurds, who say they are unable to control Turkish Kurd rebels fighting for autonomy in southeast Turkey while seeking refuge in remote mountains in Iraq.

For now, residents of the border towns of Cizre, Silopi and Sirnak are sipping tea at outdoor cafes at night while shopping for candy dayside for the religious holiday this week marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Kurdish separatist rebels operate mostly in rural, sparsely populated areas, but concern in the towns and cities is growing.

The mostly Kurdish residents on the Turkish side of the border fear that despite increased attacks by the Kurdish rebels who killed around 30 people – half of them soldiers – in less than two weeks, a cross-border offensive against the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, is unlikely to bring peace after more than two decades of fighting.

But Turkish military leaders have described an incursion as a necessary tactic to push back the rebels and disrupt their safe havens and supply lines. The government is also deeply frustrated at its inability to curb attacks by concentrating on operations within its own borders, and under pressure to show resolve to an outraged public.

If large a amount of US soldiers comes down with a bad chemical reaction to the invasion of Iraq, certainly the Kerry camp and the media would be exploiting this in order to dethrone Pres.Bush at the next elections…that pres. Bush has so mismanaged the Iraq war that it will cost thousands upon thousands of men their lives, at a very great cost too.

What we must have in Iraq, is that some soldiers have come down with some very bad chemical reactions, which is very often, and unfortunate occurrence, in the course of war…..

When it comes to WWII, it wasn’t only the Jews who suffered-the Jews went like lambs to their deaths while the Russians fought a bitter bloody war against the Nazi invaders….and lost millions too…the Muslims didn’t lose much…and were culturally a group of political nobodies until the western world freed them from the Ottoman empire in WWI…the Muslims are always good at forgetting the good and remembering the bad…it seems to be a cultural personality they are comfortable with….

Conspiracy theories always go around- if the Muslims have worries about Jewish domination of the world, then certainly they are going to worry about the Jewish domination of Heaven…my advice to the Muslims is love the Jews, because salvation doesn’t come from the Muslims, and the Jews have been following the one true God for the longest time…it would be best for the Muslim to concentrate less on this world and focus more on the next…after all, that’s what praying a hundred times a day should do for you…is getting you really connected to the hereafter…and setting you free from the worldly issues which sets you on an explosive and life ending collision with the world you can’t cope with….

If President Bush wanted to steal Iraqi oil, then his father G.H. should’ve set the example with Kuwait…but his father set a good example for young George to follow, by being honorable and noble in giving the Iraqi’s their oil, just like dad did with the Kuwaitis back in 1991 – a great and noble father and son team who show the holy spirit of their dynamic relationship….

Most of our debt comes from the Reagan years – when the country went on a huge defense spending budget, financing programs such as Starwars and B-1 bombers….

Freedom doesn’t come for free…if you want the best Army, Navy, Air Force, And Marines…then you’ve got to pay for it…

When It comes to Israel they are the birth culture of our Messiah, and the only country the USA can call a true ally in the Middle East…they are an important country, worth defending to the death…

George Person
Phoenix, Arizona