Air India crash, Cuba and Ecuador: overnight news

Air India crash: Fuel cut off just before the crash. A preliminary report on the Air India crash, which killed 260 people on June 12, reveals that “the engine fuel switches” switched “almost simultaneously” from the “on” to the “off” position, “depriving the engines of fuel,” reports New Delhi Television (NDTV) . The report by India’s Air Accidents Investigation Bureau (AAIB), released Friday, has not yet drawn any conclusions or assigned any responsibility. It also rules out “any bird strike or avian activity that could have impacted the flight,” the channel said. The Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed into a residential area 32 seconds after takeoff, killing 241 people on board and 19 on the ground. Only one passenger survived the disaster.

The United States sanctions the Cuban president. The US State Department announced sanctions against Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel on Friday for his involvement in “gross human rights violations,” four years to the day after the anti-government protests that rocked the island. “This is the first time the US government has imposed sanctions on Mr. Díaz-Canel,” who has previously been spared “ several rounds of sanctions against Cuban officials, both under President Donald Trump, during his first term, and under President Joe Biden,” notes the Miami Herald . He is now subject to a visa restriction on entering the US. On July 11, 2021, thousands of Cubans marched on the island to demand more freedom and better living conditions. The crackdown resulted in one death, dozens of injuries, and hundreds of arrests.

Ecuador: Drug trafficker “Fito” to be extradited to the United States. Adolfo Macías, alias “Fito,” Ecuador’s largest drug trafficker, agreed to his extradition to the United States on Friday during a hearing that lasted “less than twenty minutes” before the National Court of Justice. The extradition request must now be validated by Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, after which Fito “will be sent to a prison in the United States, where he faces seven counts of drug and weapons trafficking,” La Hora reports. Leader of the Choneros, one of the country’s main gangs, Adolfo Macías was linked to the August 2023 assassination of one of Ecuador’s leading presidential candidates, Fernando Villavicencio. He was arrested in late June after a year and a half on the run. He escaped in January 2024 from the Guayaquil penitentiary center, where he had been serving a 34-year prison sentence since 2011 for organized crime, drug trafficking and murder.