A roundup of today's other foreign news in brief
At least 70 dead after Iran Air jet crashes
TEHRAN– At least 70 people were killed and 35 injured when an Iranian Boeing 727 passenger jet crashed in bad weather in northwestern Iran yesterday, the head of the Iranian Red Crescent said.
Mahmoud Mozafar said that 106 people, 12 crew members and 94 passengers, were on board the Iran Air aircraft when it crashed.
Another Red Crescent official, Heidar Heidari, told state news agency IRNA that the “death toll is expected to increase”. – (Reuters)
Call for tough action over dioxin scare
BERLIN– Germany yesterday called for stern legal action against those responsible for contaminating food with carcinogenic dioxin, while authorities gave a clean bill of health to the majority of farms closed earlier as a precaution.
Agriculture minister Ilse Aigner called the conduct that led to excessive levels of the highly toxic chemical entering animal feed, causing bans on some farm goods, a “criminal act”. Operations at 4,700 German farms were shut down last week and thousands of hens culled in eight states. – (Reuters)
Top UK surgeon backs right to die
LONDON– One of the UK's leading surgeons has backed the right-to-die campaign by insisting he would be willing to help terminally ill patients end their lives.
Sir Terence English, who performed the UK’s first heart transplant, has offered his support to an influential committee that backs assisted dying. Sir Terence, a former president of the Royal College of Surgeons and the British Medical Association, performed the UK’s first successful heart transplant in 1979. – (PA)