The Embraer 190 aircraft, which was operating between Durango and Mexico City, crashed around 4pm local time (21:00 GMT), “with 97 passengers and four crew members on board,” according to Mexico’s transport minister Gerardo Ruiz Esparza.

“It is confirmed that there have been no deaths from the flight #AM2431 accident,” tweeted Jose Rosas, the governor of Durango state where the crash happened.

“Approximately 85 people are injured,” Durango’s civil defense spokesman Alejandro Cardoza told the Milenio television channel, adding there are some “serious injuries” but the majority are “very light.”

Dozens of lightly injured passengers were seen leaving the plane, which was engulfed in gray smoke in a field.

Forty-nine were hospitalized while the rest were allowed to go home.

“The fire started after the emergency landing” but “fortunately no one suffered burns,” said Cardoza.

An image taken using a drone and obtained by AFP shows the aircraft immobilized in a field at the end of the runway.

‘We had to jump’

“We were on the runway when the visibility grew worse,” 47-year-old Jacqueline Flores, who was traveling with her 16-year-old daughter, told AFP.

“When we were already aloft, up high, it felt like the plane was going to level out but just then is when it plunged to the ground.

“I think we fell back on the runway because it was a hard surface, then we skidded on the ground until it stopped,” added the Durango native, a housewife who was on a journey back to Colombia where she lives.

With the plane on the ground amid some bushes and brush, Flores said luggage began sliding down the aisle and she started to smell smoke.

“I undid my seatbelt and saw flames, and realized we had to jump.

“There was a hole right next to us and the plane had broken up, I told my girl ‘We have to jump over here’ and we jumped,” she added.

According to Rosas, the passengers helped each other quickly evacuate the aircraft through the openings in the cabin caused by the accident.

In July 1981, an Aeromexico flight crashed on landing in northern Chihuahua due to bad weather, killing 32.

The government announced Monday evening that an “independent” commission of inquiry had been established but gave no details about its remit, powers or the timeframe given to complete its report.

The military tore through Rohingya villages in a campaign that started last August following a spate of insurgent attacks, forcing some 700,000 to flee over the border en masse to Bangladesh.

The Rohingya have recounted testimony of widespread murder, rape, torture and arson at the hands of the army and ethnic Rakhine Buddhist mobs, in violence the UN has branded as ethnic cleansing.

In the decades before that the Rohingya systematically had their rights stripped away by a country that widely regards them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Yangon-based analyst David Mathieson called the new commission a “political gimmick”.

“Given the weight of evidence collected by Amnesty International, the UN and the media, this CoI (Commission of Inquiry) is tantamount to a rude gesture, not a genuine inquiry,” he said, adding that it can only “collide with a military covering up ethnic cleansing”.

Members of the new commission include two foreign and two Myanmar nationals: former Philippine deputy foreign minister Rosario Manalo, Japan’s former UN representative Kenzo Oshima, the former chair of Myanmar’s constitutional tribunal U Mya Thein and Aung Tun Thet, who heads up the Myanmar government body dedicated to the Rohingya crisis.

In an interview with Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star in April, Aung Tun Thet denied that any ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya had occurred in Rakhine.

International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) legal advisor Sean Bain pointed out that previous inquiries on Rakhine had produced no tangible result.

They “tend to be ad hoc, rarely if ever lead to prosecution & fail to provide redress,” he tweeted. “Impunity results, undermining justice & emboldening perpetrators.”

Two prominent members of previous commissions — former Thai ambassador Kobsak Chutikul and US diplomat Bill Richardson — publicly quit their posts after expressing frustration with the government.

Human Rights Watch Myanmar researcher Rich Weir said the new body would be used like previous commissions “as distractions and shields from criticism and pressure”.

Myanmar political analyst Soe Myint Aung said the creation of the new commission will not play well inside the country either.

“Some think she is not tough enough. Others think she is conceding too much by internationalising a domestic problem,” he said of civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been globally lambasted over the crisis but remains a heroine domestically.

The military have denied nearly all allegations of human rights abuses, justifying their “clearance operations” as a way of flushing out Rohingya militants who killed around a dozen border guard police last August.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) estimates that at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in the first month of the army’s campaign alone.

President Xi Jinping has called for greater resolve and synergy in efforts to put an end to commercial activities of the military across the board.

Xi, also chairman of the Central Military Commission and general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remark at a collective study session of the CPC Central Committee’s Political Bureau on Tuesday, one day ahead of Army Day.

Xi said that innovation and breakthroughs should be made in a manner that is both proactive and secure, and commercial activities of the military must be halted without any compromise.

The military is expected to stop all its commercial activities by the end of the year, and related work is being conducted with good momentum, he said.

Over the past two years, the military has seen major progress in halting its commercial activities thanks to efforts to implement the decision by the CPC Central Committee and the Central Military Commission and focus on tackling difficulties, he said.

The target of separating the military from commercial operations has been basically reached, which helped promote stricter governance of the Party and the military and helped the military to focus on its main mission of battle readiness, he said.

However, the tasks at hand are still arduous and heavy, and it is important to continue the momentum, face difficulties head-on and ensure the targets already set can be fully reached, he said.

They should also face contradictions and problems head-on and work unswervingly toward solving problems.

Xi stressed that it is important to free the mind, step up exploration in practices and enhance innovation in mechanisms and systems.

Innovation and breakthroughs should be achieved in areas such as the unified management of military assets, following a path of replacement of assets between military and local governments, and pushing forward integration between military and civil sectors.

More work will also be done to push forward the optimized combination of resources for military and local governments to enable better utilization, he said.

Xi noted that there are many complicated factors that are related to work in halting the commercial activities of the military.

It is important to ensure the stability of both the military and society, he said.

Related policies and regulations should be further refined, and legal awareness should be further strengthened to better use legal tools so that there are rules to follow and the legitimate interests of the military and the people can be protected, he said.

He also stressed that the work must be comprehensive and has no forbidden areas and zero tolerance for wrongdoing.

Clues to solving problems must be followed thoroughly, and individuals and cases of legal or disciplinary violations must be dealt with stringently, he said.

China’s state councillor and minister of foreign affairs Wang Yi, during his first official visit to Malaysia, also said relations between the two countries will reach new highs under the present government.

“We are happy to see that since the assumption of office by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir, in keeping with the wish of the people, there has been new dimensions being opened up in the national development of Malaysia.

“As Malaysia’s good friend, China is happy to see these achievements that Malaysia has made and we have confidence that under Dr Mahathir’s leadership, Malaysians will stay united and will achieve new glories.

Wang, who is on a two-day official visit to Malaysia, will also call on Dr Mahathir on Wednesday.

With Dr Mahathir’s scheduled visit to China looming, Wang said his own visit to Malaysia was also to prepare for the event.

“The prime minister is an old and good friend of the Chinese people.

“We dearly cherish what he has built over the years and we believe during his visit there will be stronger mutual trust built between leaders of our countries,” said Wang.

Meanwhile, Saifuddin said the two had discussed several bilateral issues such as its ongoing bilateral cooperation in areas of trade and investment, education, tourism, agriculture and security.

“As a trading nation and a pro-business government, I assured his excellency that Malaysia welcomes China’s participation in our economy development, as long as they are aligned with Malaysia’s national interests and are carried out based on principles of equality and mutual respect,” said Saifuddin.

The minister added that on the South China Sea issue, both countries have agreed on the importance of maintaining peace and stability in the region.

“Disputes should be addressed through peaceful means, including through regional dialogue and discussions amongst the parties concerned, without resorting to threats or the use of force,” he said.

Eight states and the District of Columbia, that houses the capital Washington, had filed a lawsuit against the federal government, calling its settlement with Texas-based Defense Distributed “arbitrary and capricious.”

The Trump administration had settled a five-year legal fight by permitting the company to publish its website Defcad — which founder Cody Wilson envisioned as a WikiLeaks for homemade firearms called “ghost guns.”

Those weapons can be manufactured using 3D printers or personal steel mills, and lack traceable serial numbers. At least one of the guns can also be made from plastic, which is virtually invisible to metal detectors.

US District Judge Robert Lasnik in Seattle, Washington granted the plaintiffs’ motion for a temporary restraining order blocking the release of the digital plans, and scheduled a hearing for August 10.

In a written statement, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood, one of plaintiffs, called the ruling “a major victory for common sense and public safety.”

“As we argued in the suit we filed yesterday, it is – simply – crazy to give criminals the tools to build untraceable, undetectable 3-D printed guns at the touch of a button. Yet that’s exactly what the Trump administration decided to allow.”

As uproar mounted Tuesday, the White House expressed skepticism over the legality of Wilson’s efforts, even though the administration had green-lighted the project.

Early in the day, Trump weighed in on Twitter, revealing that he had spoken to America’s main pro-gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, about the topic.

“I am looking into 3-D Plastic Guns being sold to the public,” the president said. “Already spoke to NRA, doesn’t seem to make much sense!”

White House spokesman Hogan Gidley expanded on the president’s comments Tuesday night, telling reporters, “It is currently illegal to own or make a wholly plastic gun of any kind — including those made on a 3D printer. The administration supports this nearly two-decade old law.”

‘I intend to litigate’

In the meantime, Wilson remained defiant and vowed to fight in court. He told Wired magazine that he is facing legal action from “at least 21 state attorneys general” who have cited a risk to public safety — but insisted he will not back down.

“I intend to litigate,” he told the magazine. “Americans have the unquestionable right to share this information.”

The self-proclaimed “crypto-anarchist” also made the digital blueprints available online earlier than the Wednesday launch date he had previously announced.

AFP was able to download two files from the website on Tuesday, though it had some technical glitches and was difficult to access. The site had 10 firearms and weapons components with downloadable digital files.

Wilson, a law school dropout who has taken up the cause of allowing unfettered information online without government interference, contends that the US Constitution’s Second Amendment, which guarantees the right to bear arms, should extend to a person’s right to make their own guns.

His legal team has argued that any move to prevent the distribution of the blueprints would run counter to the “foundational principles of free speech.”

But federal courts have disagreed. Before the settlement with the Trump administration, Wilson had lost in both district and appellate court. The US Supreme Court had declined to take up his case.

Politicians, gun control advocates and law enforcement had expressed concerns that Defcad’s files would allow anyone — from a teen to a convicted felon — to make dangerous weapons.

– Global problem –

But while Wilson has somehow become the public face of homemade weapons technology, the phenomenon of “ghost guns” is bigger than his website alone.

Earlier in July, Los Angeles police showcased an arsenal of such weapons seized from gang members during a six-month undercover operation.

The firearms, including AR-15-style semiautomatic rifles, were fashioned from kits purchased online, according to police. Wilson’s website also features blueprints for the AR-15.

Over the last five years, Wilson’s Defense Distributed has grown to 15 employees inside a non-descript warehouse in the Texas state capital Austin.

They have created a plastic 3D-printable handgun called the “Liberator,” a machine called the “Ghost Gunner” with which homemade metal gun parts can be constructed, and amassed other digital gun files.

Jonathan Lowy of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence told AFP that if Wilson’s website is ultimately allowed to publish, the consequences could be even greater outside of the US.

“It’s certainly a huge international problem, particularly given that many other countries have much stronger gun laws than in America,” Lowy said.

“So, in those countries, there are many people who shouldn’t have guns and could not get them unless they can get their hands on a 3D-printed gun.”

It said the “bad actor” accounts on the world’s biggest social network and its photo-sharing site Instagram could not be tied directly to Russian actors, who American officials say used the platform to spread disinformation ahead of the 2016 US presidential election.

The US intelligence community has concluded that Russia sought to sway the vote in Donald Trump’s favor, and Facebook was a primary tool in that effort, using targeted ads to escalate political tensions and push divisive online content.

With the 2018 mid-terms barely three months away, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced his company’s crackdown.

“One of my top priorities for 2018 is to prevent misuse of Facebook,” Zuckerberg said on his own Facebook page.

“We build services to bring people closer together and I want to ensure we’re doing everything we can to prevent anyone from misusing them to drive us apart.”

Trump, now president, has repeatedly downplayed Kremlin efforts to interfere in US democracy.

Two weeks ago, he caused an international firestorm when he stood alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin and cast doubt on assertions that Russia tried to sabotage the vote.

But after Facebook’s announcement, the White House stressed Trump opposed all efforts at election interference.

“The president has made it clear that his administration will not tolerate foreign interference into our electoral process from any nation state or other malicious actors,” deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley told reporters.

Facebook said “some of the activity is consistent” with that of the Saint Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency — the Russian troll farm that managed many false Facebook accounts used to influence the 2016 vote.

“But we don’t believe the evidence is strong enough at this time to make public attribution to the IRA,” Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamps said during a conference call with reporters.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is heading a sprawling investigation into possible collusion with Russia by Trump’s campaign to tip the vote toward the real estate tycoon.

Mueller has indicted the Russian group and 12 Russian hackers connected to the organization.

Facebook said it is shutting down 32 pages and accounts “engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior,” even though it may never be known for certain who was behind the operation.

The tech giant’s investigation is at an early stage, but was revealed now because one of the pages being covertly operated was orchestrating a counter-protest to a white nationalism rally in Washington.

The coordinators of a deadly white-supremacist event in Charlottesville last year reportedly have been given a permit to hold a rally near the White House on August 12, the anniversary of the 2017 gathering.

Facebook said it will notify members of the social network who expressed interest in attending the counter-protest.

US ‘not doing’ enough

Facebook has briefed US law enforcement agencies, Congress and other tech companies about its findings.

“Today’s disclosure is further evidence that the Kremlin continues to exploit platforms like Facebook to sow division and spread disinformation, and I am glad that Facebook is taking some steps to pinpoint and address this activity,” said the Senate Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat Mark Warner.

The panel’s chairman, Republican Senator Richard Burr, said he was glad to see Facebook take a “much-needed step toward limiting the use of their platform by foreign influence campaigns.”

“The goal of these operations is to sow discord, distrust and division,” he added. “The Russians want a weak America.”

US lawmakers have introduced multiple bills aimed at boosting election security.

While top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer applauded Facebook’s action, he said the Trump administration itself “is not doing close to enough” to protect elections.

Some of the most-followed pages that were shut down included “Resisters” and “Aztlan Warriors.”

Facebook said some 290,000 users followed at least one of the pages.

“Resisters” enlisted support from real followers for an August protest in Washington against the far-right “Unite the Right” group.

Inauthentic pages dating back more than a year organized an array of real world events, all but two of which have taken place, according to Facebook.

The news comes just days after Facebook suffered the worst single-day evaporation of market value for any company, after missing revenue forecasts for the second quarter and offering soft growth projections.

Zuckerberg’s firm says the slowdown will come in part due to its new approach to privacy and security, which helped experts uncover these so-called “bad actors.”

 The stories went viral worldwide about 10 days ago. Iga Mayor Sakae Okamoto held a press conference to deny the news, and the flood of applications has now abated.

National Public Radio in the United States interviewed Okamoto in the city office building on July 5. The mayor wore a ninja costume and talked about the city’s tourism promotion strategy, which takes advantage of the legacy of the Iga ninja school.

Okamoto did not mention the annual income of ninja actors or ninja recruitment during the interview, according to the city.

The uproar began after NPR broadcast a segment based on the interview in mid-July. An NPR reporter said that few people wanted to become ninja, even for the generous annual salary of $85,000. Internet sites then disseminated the news secondhand.

Source remains mystery

The city emailed the Foreign Press Center Japan in Tokyo, which helped arrange the interview, about where the claim originated. According to the U.S. radio network, the information about the shortage of ninja performers and their annual income came from the Ninja Museum of Igaryu in the city and Mie University International Ninja Research Center, not from the mayor.

However, the museum said the Ashura troupe that puts on ninja shows at the museum is not short of staff because plenty of young people are training to perform as ninja. Mie University also denied the report, saying it explained the ninja’s income during the Edo period (1603-1867) but did not discuss the current annual salary of ninja performers.

The city is unsatisfied with NPR’s response and intends to ask for further explanations about the incident.

“Fortunately, we haven’t been harmed by the incident. We welcome the publicity to some extent,” said a city official in charge of tourism promotion.

“However, it’s a serious problem if people regard future news about the city as fake. We’ll thoroughly investigate why the report was so misinformed,” the official said.

Led by the Philippines’ former deputy foreign minister, Rasario Manalo, the Independent Commission of Enquiry was set up as part of a national initiative to address reconciliation, peace and development in Rakhine, according to a statement issued on Monday by Myanmar’s Office of the President.

The latest move was made after international pressure, notably from the United Nations, on the widespread use of violence and human-rights violations in the strife-torn state.

Some 700,000 Muslim Rohingya fled from the state from August last year after a group of Rohingya militants attacked Myanmar military outposts, prompting a harsh response from the military and a clearance operation affecting the broader Rohingya population.

The UN and many international rights defenders blamed the government and the military for ethnic cleansing during the crackdown.

A Fortify Rights report indicated that the military had planned the genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya and called for the International Criminal Court to prosecute those officials responsible.

However, the Myanmar Office of the President issued a statement blaming the militant group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, for the violence in Rakhine.

Manalo, 83 – a career diplomat, political scientist and educator in the Philippines – is the Special Representative of the Philippines to the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, but many rights defenders were not so impressed by her roles back then.

Other members of the commission are Kenzo Oshima, a former permanent representative of Japan to the UN; Myanmar’s former constitutional-tribunal chair, Mya Thein; and Aung Tun Thet, a former senior official of Unicef.

The commission will be assisted by national and international legal and technical experts, according to the statement from the Myanmar Office of the President.

The suspects face prosecution under the colonial era Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that outlaws “intercourse against the order of nature” — the same provision that also criminalises gay sex.

Police raids were bing conducted in the Mewat region of Haryana state, around 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Delhi, to look for the men.

“We have identified three of the eight accused and the police teams are out on raids to arrest them as soon as possible,” police official Naazneen Bhasin told AFP.

The case was launched after the owner of the goat saw three men sexually assaulting the animal late at night last week.

“He initially raised the alarm fearing goat thieves but was shocked at what he saw,” local police inspector Vipin, who only goes by one name, told AFP.

The goat died after the alleged incident. A vet has taken samples for forensic analysis. The accused are also wanted under the animal cruelty act.

This was during a match in Surabaya, Indonesia, between Malaysia and Thailand at the Asean Football Federation (AFF) Under-16 tournament. Malaysia lost to Thailand 2-1 in the Group B match on Monday (July 30).

Before departing for the tournament, Malaysia U-16 forward Amirul Ashrafiq Hanifah uploaded a picture of the team at the airport on his Instagram account, and included the Indonesian flag in the caption.

However, he mistakenly picked the white and red Polish flag, which is the reverse of the red and white Indonesian flag but has since apologised for his error.

“Nonetheless, action needs to be taken. I believe that it has to be done immediately.

“You have to be diplomatic but this is not a question of resolving the situation diplomatically,” he said in a statement posted on Johor Southern Tigers official Facebook page.

FAM secretary-general Stuart Ramalingam in a statement said that the Indonesian fans had gone overboard with their insults and hopes action will be taken to prevent a recurrence of such an incident at the team’s next match against Brunei on Friday.

“The action of sending in the letter of protest to AFF and AFC was swiftly undertaken so that both parties concerned can take the necessary actions in making sure the same thing will not happen during the team’s next Group B match against Brunei in the same stadium this Friday.

“In making sure that the safety level of the team is assured, FAM has decided to send FAM exco member, ACP Mohd Dali Wahid, who is a high ranking police official to Surabaya tomorrow (Aug 1) to evaluate the safety measures implemented by the host nation and organisers.

“If it is found that the host nation and organisers are taking this issue lightly, FAM will not hesitate to take more drastic actions in the future,” he added.

Stuart also hoped that AFF and AFC would seriously address this issue, citing a previous incident when Malaysia was fined US$30,000 (RM121,702) after Malaysian fans sang defamatory chants towards Brunei and Singapore during the men’s football matches at the 2017 Kuala Lumpur SEA Games.

Meanwhile, in a tweet, Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman said previously action had been taken against Malaysia over the irresponsible behaviour of some Malaysian fans.

“Now, when our players are called dogs and threatened to be killed, FAM must take strict action and report it to the AFF. Stern action must be meted out,” he said.