India search for missing 'copter

2 May 2011 Last updated at 05:25 GMT Mr Khandu was travelling with four others A massive search operation for a missing helicopter carrying the chief minister of India's north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh and four others has entered its third day.

The helicopter carrying Dorjee Khandu went missing on Saturday morning, 20 minutes after taking off from Tawang on its way to the state capital, Itanagar.

Bad weather has been hampering the search operation, officials said.

A number of Indian politicians have been killed in helicopter crashes.

In 2009, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh state YS Rajasekhara Reddy was killed along with four others in a helicopter crash in southern India.

And in 1997, junior federal minister NVN Somu and two senior army officers were killed when an air force helicopter they were travelling in crashed in Arunachal Pradesh.

Satellite help

Indian air force fighter jets and helicopters have joined ground troops from India and across the border in neighbouring Bhutan to look for the helicopter carrying Mr Khandu.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) has also provided satellite pictures of the route that the helicopter, owned by Pawan Hans company, was scheduled to take on its way to Itanagar.

The other passengers on the helicopter were Mr Khandu's security officer Yeshi Choddak and a relative of a state lawmaker, Yeshi Lamu, and two crew members JS Babbar and KS Malick.

There were some reports on Saturday that the helicopter had landed in Bhutan, which were immediately denied by the authorities in Thimphu.

Last month, 17 people, including two children, were killed in a helicopter crash in Arunachal Pradesh.

And in November, an air force helicopter crashed minutes after take off, killing all the 12 passengers on board.

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Scores missing off Italian coast

6 April 2011 Last updated at 21:08 GMT The BBC's Emma Wallis in Rome: "Coastguards are not giving up on the missing people yet"

Rescuers are searching for scores of migrants missing in the Mediterranean after their boat capsized off the south Italian island of Lampedusa.

Italian coast guards rescued 48 and three were saved by a fishing boat, but 20 deaths were confirmed and at least 130 people are unaccounted for.

Officials say the boat left two days ago from western Libya.

Lampedusa has struggled to cope with thousands of migrants arriving by boat from north Africa.

The Italian coast guard responded to a distress call from the boat, which was in Maltese waters some 70km (40 miles) from Lampedusa, at about 0400 local time (0200 GMT) on Wednesday.

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What we saw was incredible: heads were coming in and out [of the water] and people were screaming”

End Quote Francesco Rifiorito Captain of fishing boat Three coast guard vessels were dispatched along with at least one helicopter, which spotted the bodies in the water. A Maltese plane was reportedly also involved in the operation.

Lifejackets and lifeboats were cast into the water to help any survivors.

Coast guard spokesman Vittorio Alessandro told AFP news agency the boat, just 13m (42 ft) long, had been caught in high seas caused by strong winds and had overturned after passengers panicked.

Coast guards said the boat had been carrying around 200 people but the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) put the figure at 300.

Teams of rescuers, working in conjunction with the Maltese authorities, battled heavy seas, a force six storm and winds of up 30 knots (35 mph; 55 km/h) all day.

'Eritreans and Somalis'

The captain of the fishing boat described what he said was a terrifying scene.

"What we saw was incredible: heads were coming in and out [of the water] and people were screaming," Francesco Rifiorito told Italy's Ansa news agency.

"We did all we could."

Lampedusa's small field hospital has been overwhelmed, the survivors lying on beds around electric heaters to combat hypothermia.

The coast guard said the boat had left two days ago from the town of Zuwara in western Libya, which is embroiled in a civil war.

Those on the boat were mostly Eritreans and Somalis, they added. However, according to the IOM, the migrants and asylum-seekers came from Bangladesh, Chad, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan.

Among them there were five children and 40 women - of whom only two survived, the organisation said.

The European parliament held a minute's silence to mark the tragedy.

Hundreds of refugees from Libya, many of them migrant workers, have landed in Italy in recent days.

Italy and Tunisia agreed measures on Tuesday to stop large numbers of illegal immigrants arriving on Lampedusa from Tunisia, which has also been in turmoil since a revolution in January.

Italy says it will give six-month residency papers to some 20,000 migrants already in Italy, but new arrivals will be deported.

The accord followed talks between Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Tunisian ministers in Tunis on Monday. Mr Berlusconi also visited Lampedusa last week and pledged to tackle the island's migrant influx.

Italy has moved many migrants from Lampedusa to the mainland, because they outnumbered locals and overwhelmed the holding facility there. Unhygienic conditions, with dozens of migrants sleeping rough outdoors, created a health risk.

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NHS still missing safety alerts

22 February 2011 Last updated at 08:58 GMT Drug dosage is one area where alerts are issued Too many trusts are still not responding to patient safety alerts in England, campaigners say.

Alerts are issued when potentially harmful situations are identified in health settings, such as the risk of overdoses or using medical equipment.

Department of Health data showed there were over 650 cases of NHS trusts not complying with alerts within deadline.

This is a 50% fall from last year, but Action against Medical Accidents said there was no excuse for non-compliance.

The charity first highlighted the issue last year when it obtained the figures under a freedom of information request.

But now the government has started publishing the figures itself.

Warnings

The latest data, from January, showed that there were 654 instances of patient safety alerts not having been complied with - half the figure from August.

In total there were 203 trusts which had failed to comply with at least one alert, while five trusts had not complied with 10 or more alerts.

Peter Walsh, chief executive of Action against Medical Accidents, said: "There can be no excuse for not implementing these alerts. Each alert not complied with means patients are being put at unnecessary risk. Lives are being lost as a result."

But he added: "We welcome the fact that as a result of the pressure we have brought to bear, there has been a significant improvement in compliance."

A Department of Health spokesman said: "Although progress has been made, much more needs to be done across the system. We expect trusts to comply with safety alerts."

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