Peres said he prefers the foreign ministry

Peres said he prefers the foreign ministry.Meanwhile, Labour switched tactics and demanded the Finance Ministry instead of defense, drawing the wrath of Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh. “What worries me now is the anarchy and stupidity in handling the affairs” of the party, Sneh told Israel radio. He considers himself a candidate for defence minister.The Labour Party scheduled a convention for Monday to decide whether to join Sharon’s government. Some leaders hoped to moderate Sharon’s policies from inside, while others said Labor should fight Sharon from the opposition.. Airport officials did not properly mark a closed runway that a Singapore Airlines jumbo jet tried to use when it slammed into construction debris and burst into flames in Taiwan, killing 83 people, investigators said. Airport officials did not properly mark a closed runway that a Singapore Airlines jumbo jet tried to use when it slammed into construction debris and burst into flames in Taiwan, killing 83 people, investigators said.
One runway marking light was broken and another was not bright enough when Los Angeles-bound Flight SQ006 tried to take off on the wrong airstrip during a fierce rainstorm caused by an approaching typhoon, Taiwan’s chief crash investigator, Kay Yong, said in a preliminary report on the October 31 accident.Kay also said that the runway, closed for construction, should have had a big cross marked on the runway, warning planes not to use it.”There should have been a marking that the runway was closed. But there was not,” said Kay, director of the Aviation Safety Council.But Kay said that the plane’s three pilots confirmed with the control tower five times that they were on the correct runway.

The pilots were also warned in a pre-flight briefing report that the runway was closed.Airport officials have said that they followed international marking and lighting standards when they closed the runway to takeoffs. The strip was still being used by taxiing planes.The crash investigator said a final report would be released as soon as December. He said that officials were still gathering facts and were not ready to formally announce what caused the crash and whether to blame pilot error.The Boeing 747-400 slammed into construction equipment on the runway, burst into flames and split into three pieces. The accident killed 83 of the 179 people on board.Singapore Airlines has long been considered one of the world’s safest airlines. Before the Taipei crash, the airline had never directly experienced a fatal accident in its 28-year history.The airline’s only other disaster came in 1997, when a plane operated by its subsidiary, SilkAir, crashed in Indonesia and killed 104 people.. A Chinese dissident has been sentenced to two years in a labour camp for “disturbing public order”, signing a petition to the International Olympic Committee, as an IOC delegation began a crucial visit to China.

Shan Chengfeng was arrested in Xiaoshan, in east China’s Zhejiang province, for her role in a 31 December letter in which 28 dissidents asked the IOC to pressure China to release political prisoners. A Chinese dissident has been sentenced to two years in a labour camp for “disturbing public order”, signing a petition to the International Olympic Committee, as an IOC delegation began a crucial visit to China. Shan Chengfeng was arrested in Xiaoshan, in east China’s Zhejiang province, for her role in a 31 December letter in which 28 dissidents asked the IOC to pressure China to release political prisoners.
The letter accused the Chinese government of violating the Olympic spirit by jailing activists including Ms Shan’s husband Wu Yilong, serving 11 years for “subverting state power”. He was trying to form China’s first opposition party.On Wednesday the IOC team began assessing China’s bid to host the Olympic Games.