Jakarta, PAB-Online
Indonesian searchers with body bags and hoists scaled a steep volcano Friday to retrieve at least 45 bodies spread over the jungly terrain where a Russian jet crashed during a sales flight.

The crews were using climbing equipment to ascend the near-vertical face of Mount Salak, a dormant volcano south of Jakarta, and were believed to be about 200 metres (650 feet) from reaching the first bodies, authorities said.

All aboard the Sukhoi Superjet 100 were killed, authorities said Thursday, a day after the plane slammed into the mountain during a flight that was meant to spur international sales of Russia's first post-Soviet civilian jet.

The military commander of the mission said that one team was climbing up from the foot of the mountain, while another was going down from the top.

The difficult terrain over the dormant volcano, which juts more than 2,200 metres into the air and is most days shrouded in thick fog, has been an extreme challenge to the searchers.

The mist had stopped helicopters from getting close to the area, since a chopper pilot first spotted the wreckage Thursday morning, authorities said.

"The plane crashed into the mountain and slid 250 metres down, to 1,800 metres," said the commander, Colonel Anton Mukti Putranto.

The twin-engine Superjet Wednesday descended to 1,800 metres before vanishing from radar screens, 50 minutes into what was meant to be a short flight to show off its capabilities to prospective airline buyers.

"There is so far no information about (the number of) victims. They could see only the debris of the plane because it's still quite a distance from where they are," Putranto said, referring to the team closest to the site.

Ketut Parwa, search and rescue agency chief for the capital Jakarta, said victims would be placed into body bags, hoisted up the mountain, then carried to ambulances a long distance away on foot.

He said helicopters would then fly the bodies to the capital's Halim Perdanakusuma military airport, where authorities have set up a forensics post to identify victims through DNA samples taken from relatives.

The company representing Sukhoi in Indonesia, Trimarga Rekatama, originally said 50 passengers were on board but Thursday revised the number to 45. Local rescue officials said the plane was carrying 46 people.

Those aboard were mostly Indonesian aviation representatives, but there were also eight Russians -- four of them crew and four Sukhoi employees -- plus an American and a Frenchman, officials said.

The demonstration flight was part of an Asian tour to promote the aircraft, a joint venture between Sukhoi and Italy's Alenia Aeronautica, which made its first commercial flight last year.

In Russia, investigators on Thursday opened a criminal probe into possible misconduct during preparations for the flight.

An investigative committee said it would look at "the procedure for preparing the flight crew and also the technical condition of the craft itself before its departure from Russia".

The captain, 57-year-old Alexander Yablontsev, was a veteran pilot.

The loss of the new Superjet is a heavy blow to the Russian aviation industry, which was hoping that the country's most advanced civilian jet would improve its image.

But Sukhoi's agent in Jakarta said there was no talk of suspending sales in Indonesia, Southeast Asia's largest economy and an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands where air travel and airlines are booming.

"There is no suspension on Sukhoi purchases at the moment," said Sunaryo, a spokesman for Trimarga Rekatama, who goes by one name.(AFP/IP)

Kabul, PAB-Online
Taliban rebels attacked foreign targets in Kabul on Wednesday, hours after US President Barack Obama said on a surprise visit on the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death that a "time of war" was ending.

A suicide car bomb attack rocked the "Green Village", a complex of foreign guesthouses used by international organisations near the main airport in the Afghan capital, killing at least six people, and explosions and gunfire were heard from the area.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks and said they were a riposte to Obama, shortly after the president left the city after an overnight visit to sign a new partnership pact governing Afghan-US relations after 2014.

In a highly political election-year address from outside Kabul, Obama posed as a commander-in-chief who ended two long wars and crushed Al-Qaeda, and tried to conjure up a new dawn for a US public exhausted by conflict and recession.

"This time of war began in Afghanistan, and this is where it will end," Obama said, recalling a decade-long "dark cloud of war", as America fell into an Afghan morass after Osama bin Laden plotted the September 11 attacks in 2001.

"Yet here, in the pre-dawn darkness of Afghanistan, we can see the light of a new day on the horizon," said Obama, seeking to use political capital earned by bringing troops home to validate his request for a second White House term.

Obama earlier dropped from the night skies into Kabul in secrecy and signed a deal with President Hamid Karzai, cementing 10 years of US aid for Afghanistan after NATO combat troops leave in 2014.

"Neither Americans nor the Afghan people asked for this war, yet for a decade we've stood together," Obama said at the signing ceremony at Karzai's presidential palace.

"We look forward to a future of peace. We're agreeing to be long-term partners," said the president, who later headed home aboard Air Force One after just six hours on the ground.

About two hours after his departure, Afghan police said a suicide car bomb detonated in the airport area of Kabul, which is close to several foreign military bases, prompting the US embassy to go into lockdown.

"Today a devoted mujahid (holy warrior) carried out a suicide car bomb attack on a foreign military base in Kabul, followed by other devoted mujahids entering the base," a Taliban spokesman told AFP.

"It is a message to Obama that he and his forces are never welcomed in Afghanistan and that we will continue our resistance until all the occupiers are either dead or leave our country," said Zabiullah Mujahid.

The explosion was a reminder of the extremist threat that stalks Afghanistan still, with the Taliban resurgent a decade after they were driven from power for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden following the 9/11 attacks.

Karzai said the US pact "is not only not threatening any third country, including the neighbouring countries, but we are hoping that this leads to stability, prosperity and development in the region".

Neighbouring Pakistan has a key role to play in Afghanistan's future, but its relationship with both Kabul and Washington remains mired in mistrust a year after Osama bin Laden was found and killed by US commandos on its soil.

The US-Afghan pact, agreed last month, sees the possibility of American forces staying behind to train Afghan forces and pursue the remnants of Al-Qaeda for 10 years after 2014.

It does not commit Washington to specific troop or funding levels for Afghanistan, though is meant to signal to US foes that despite ending the longest war in US history, Washington intends to ensure Afghanistan does not revert to a haven for terror groups like Al-Qaeda.

But after a war that has cost the lives of nearly 3,000 US and allied troops, maimed tens of thousands more, saw thousands of Afghans killed and cost hundreds of billions of dollars, Afghanistan's future is deeply uncertain.

Obama trod a delicate political line, reassuring Americans the war was ending but steeling them for possible sacrifices to come -- all while trying to pivot politically back to the need to rebuild at home.

Furious Republicans have accused him of exploiting the heroism of Navy SEAL special forces who conducted the raid to kill Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad on May 2 last year.

But the president, who faces a tough re-election fight, did not shirk from presenting himself as the man to shepherd his country out of "a decade of conflict abroad and economic crisis at home".

"It is time to renew America," Obama said at Bagram air base north of Kabul, against a backdrop of military vehicles in their sandy desert liveries.

"A united America of grit and resilience, where sunlight glistens off soaring new towers in downtown Manhattan, and we build our future as one people, as one nation."

Though he sought to put a capstone on the war, Obama's statement effectively meant that US troops could be fighting for two more years, and some could remain in danger for a decade after that.

Obama bluntly told US soldiers that "some of your buddies are going to get injured, some of your buddies may get killed".

"There is going to be heartbreak and pain and difficulty ahead, but there is a light on the horizon because of the sacrifices you have made."

A Pentagon report issued Tuesday laid out the challenges, saying security had improved in most of Afghanistan but that insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan and pervasive corruption pose "long-term and acute challenges".

About 87,000 US troops and 44,000 other international forces are deployed in Afghanistan along with 344,000 Afghan army and police, the report said.

The deal signed by Obama and Karzai states that the United States does not seek permanent military bases in Afghanistan, and was concluded just over two weeks before a NATO summit in Chicago.

On Monday, Obama had publicly questioned whether his Republican opponent Mitt Romney would have taken the same decision as he did to launch the audacious raid that killed Osama bin Laden deep in Pakistan.

Romney accused Obama of inappropriately exploiting a moment of great national unity for political gain.

"Of course, I would have taken out Osama bin Laden, but what's the right course for the economy?" Romney said on CBS programme "This Morning".(AFP/IP)

Sydney, PAB-Online
One of Australia's richest men, Clive Palmer, has unveiled plans for a 21st century version of the Titanic to be built in China, with its first voyage from England to New York set for 2016.

Palmer, a self-made mining billionaire, said he has commissioned state-owned Chinese company CSC Jinling Shipyard to construct Titanic II with exactly the same dimensions as its predecessor.

"It will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic but of course it will have state-of-the-art 21st century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems," Palmer said in a statement, released on Monday.

"Titanic II will sail in the northern hemisphere and her maiden voyage from England to North America is scheduled for late 2016.

"We have invited the Chinese navy to escort Titanic II on its maiden voyage to New York."

His announcement comes just weeks after the 100th anniversary of the sinking of Titanic, which went down on April 15, 1912 after striking an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.

Palmer said the new ship would be a tribute to the spirit of the men and women who worked on the original.

"These people produced work that is still marvelled at more than 100 years later and we want that spirit to go on for another 100 years," he said.

Titanic was commissioned by White Star Line and was the largest liner in the world at the time.

Palmer said he has established his own shipping company, Blue Star Line, with the new ship having the same dimensions as its predecessor, with 840 rooms and nine decks.(AFP/IP)