PARIS: A Turkish airlines DC-10 crashed in a forest north of here today [March 3] apparently killing all 345 people on board in the worst single airline disaster ever, officials said. There were 334 passengers and 11 crew aboard the ... wide-bodied plane... . A Turkish airlines official said people of a number of nationalities were aboard but the majority were Turkish, French, Japanese and British. … The plane was on a flight usually connecting Istanbul to Paris, London, Paris and back to Istanbul. It was on its ... Paris to London leg when it was reported to have disappeared from radar and radio signal tracking stations... .

[Meanwhile, as reported by our Islamabad Bureau,] amidst bitter exchanges, a joint session of Parliament’s two Houses ... discussed … two Government resolutions seeking to extend the emergency for another six months and suspend fundamental rights during the emergency period. Moving the two resolutions, the Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Mr Abdul Hafeez Pirzada asserted that extension of emergency — enforced since Nov 23, 1971 — was necessary for national security, solidarity and survival.

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2024