Former President Jimmy Carter dies at 100 – National & International News – MON 30Dec2024

Former President Jimmy Carter dies at 100.

Treasury Department computers infiltrated by Chinese hackers.

Grief, theories, frustration after South Korean plane crash kills 179.

NATIONAL NEWS

Former President Jimmy Carter dies at 100

Jimmy Carter, who succeeded Gerald Ford and preceded Ronald Reagan as our 39th President, died in his home in Plains, Georgia, at the age of 100. Carter had been in hospice care for almost two years. His wife Rosalynn preceded him in death in November last year.

Carter served only one term as president after previously serving one term as the Governor of Georgia. His legacy as President remains controversial. He inherited a poor economic situation from his predecessor, a combination of inflation and recession leading to stagflation. Carter also faced an energy crisis due to the Saudi oil embargo and increased US dependence on domestically-produced coal. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Carter escalated the Cold War by ending policies of detente pursued by his predecessors. He also imposed a grain embargo on the Soviet Union and increased US military involvement in the Persian Gulf.

He also had some lasting successes. On the domestic front, Carter established the Departments of Energy and Education. On the diplomatic front, he successfully negotiated the Camp David Accords, ending decades of military conflict between Israel and Egypt.

Carter will be best remembered for his post-Presidential activities and advocacy in promoting international democracy and human rights and combating global health issues. He was a major supporter of Habitat for Humanity and volunteered building houses even into his 90s. In 2002, Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was also a man of deep faith and taught Sunday school at the Baptist church he attended for most of his adult life.

Carter’s state funeral will take place on January 9th, which will also be a national day of mourning.

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Treasury Department computers infiltrated by Chinese hackers

Earlier this month, the US Treasury Department learned that some of its workstations had been compromised when Chinese hackers obtained an override key used by a third-party software vendor. The agency informed Congress that the hackers had accessed some unclassified documents in a “major” incident. Public reporting does not indicate how many workstations were compromised, what documents were accessed, or the extent of the breach.

The agency has since disabled the compromised software and says that there is no indication that hackers were able to access department information beyond that point. Treasury is working with the FBI and the Cyber security and Infrastructure Security Agency (CSIS) to determine the overall impact of the breach.

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Grief, theories, frustration after South Korean airliner crash kills 179

On Sunday, a Boeing 737-800 operated by South Korean budget carrier Jeju Air exploded after overshooting the runway at Muan International Airport in the south of the country. The flight was returning from Bangkok, Thailand. The plane suffered some sort of engine failure and its landing gear failed to deploy, so the pilots went for a belly landing. After skidding on the ground for several hundred meters and overshooting the runway, the plane crashed into a concrete wall. At that point, it burst into flames.

Of the 181 occupants, only two survived. They were members of the flight crew, a male and female, who were rescued from the tail section of the plane.

The cause of the crash is still under investigation and investigators were able to recover the flight data recorder. The plane had initially attempted to land before receiving a bird strike alert from air traffic control. The pilots apparently reported a bird strike and called a mayday. They then attempted the belly landing on their second approach.

Search for answers

After the crash, the worst air disaster in South Korea’s history, the government launched emergency safety inspections of its entire commercial air fleet, with a special check for all Boeing 737-800s. The 737-800 is a direct predecessor to the 737 MAX. While the 737-800 is a slightly older plane, it has an excellent safety record.

Following Sunday’s tragedy, there was another incident involving another Jeju Air flight. The aircraft, an unspecified model, was forced to return to Gimpo airport in Seoul shortly after takeoff due to an unspecified problem with its landing gear.

The South Korean government declared a period of mourning to last until January 5. Hundreds of family members of the deceased, some of whom had been awaiting their arrival, remain encamped at Muan airport in search of answers and in hopes of claiming the remains of their loved ones. Unfortunately, due to the violent and fiery nature of the crash, most of the bodies were not intact. Over 600 body parts were recovered. They will have to be sorted and identified before they are released to the families for burial.

The families’ grief has been compounded by the distress and frustration over the delay in receiving their loved ones’ remains. They are also angry and perplexed by confusing and contradictory information as to the cause of the crash.

Expert eyes runway barrier as fatal factor

Aviation safety experts have expressed doubts that a bird strike alone would have accounted for all the failures that led to the tragedy. One expert in particular, David Learmount, spoke to Sky News and had a very specific culprit in mind. Learmount observed from the video that the pilots executed a very competent belly landing.

“[The pilots] brought it down beautifully given the circumstances. They are going very fast but the plane is still intact as it glides along the ground”. There was no evidence of fire or any unsurvivable damage until the plane crashed into the concrete structure at the end of the runway overrun. “That’s what killed the people on board,” Learmount said.

The structure contains instruments which help guide pilots in during poor visibility. However, Learmount said, there was no need for these instruments to be encased in a solid concrete barrier such as the one at Muan. “To have a hard object about 200 m or less into the overrun, I’ve never seen anything like this anywhere ever before”.

“That kind of structure should not be there,” he said. “That is awful. That is unbelievably awful.”

Had the barrier not been there, Learmount believes that the plane would have slowly come to a halt over the level ground. He thought it likely that everyone or nearly everyone would have survived. When asked if there was any justification for such a solid structure to be there, he replied that there wasn’t and that having it there was “verging on criminal”.

While other experts shared Learmount’s concern about the wall, at least one disagreed that it was likely everyone would have survived were it not there. Sally Gethin observed that the aircraft “seemed to be maintaining speed, so even if there had been more space at the end of the runway, it could have possibly ended up being catastrophic”.

South Korea’s deputy transport minister Joo Jong-wan insists that the walls at the end of the runway were built to industry standards.

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