Update: Story about Mariela Castro being described as false

[flamingdem]

Source: http://abc30.com/

An Air Algerie jetliner carrying 116 people, reportedly including Fidel Castro's niece, has vanished from the radar in a desert area of Mali, authorities said today.

Air navigation services lost track of the plane, an MD-83 model, about 50 minutes after it took off from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, en route to Algiers.

French forces, which are stationed in Mali to combat al Qaeda and tribal separatists, sent two planes searching for the airliner.

The airport in Ouagadougou said the French planes found wreckage in an inaccessible desert area halfway between the towns of Gao and Kidal, but French officials in France said they had found "no trace" of the missing aircraft.

The airline said that there were 110 passengers on board as well as six crew members. The airport's Facebook page identified one of the passengers as Mariela Castro, a niece of the former Cuban strongman. Mariela Castro is a prominent gay rights advocate.


Read more: http://abc30.com/news/fidel-castros-niece-aboard-missing-air-algerie-plane-/215594/

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Well I guess this was false information. Who knows why. Yohandry who is basically the Cuban government blogger says she is in the country currently.

[dipsydoodle]

1. Air Algérie flight AH5017 wreckage found in Mali

The wreckage of Air Algérie flight AH5017 from Burkina Faso to Algeria has been discovered in Tilemsi, Mali, with 116 people on board.

The French media is quoting Zoheir Houaoui of Air Algérie saying the plane was carrying 50 French passengers, six Algerians, one Malian, one Belgian, two from Luxembourg, five Canadians, one from Cameroon, four Germans, one Nigerian, eight Lebanese, one Romanian, 24 from Burkino Faso and six so far unidentified passengers. The six crew – two pilots and four stewards – were all Spanish.

François Hollande has called an emergency meeting with the prime minister, Manuel Valls, foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, defence minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, as well as the interior and the transport ministers, for 5pm French time.

Air traffic controllers lost contact with the Swiftair-owned MD-83 about 50 minutes after takeoff at 1.17am local time (0117 GMT), said an Algerian aviation official. The news was not made public until several hours after the flight's scheduled 5.10am arrival in Algiers, by which time officials from Algeria, Burkina Faso and France had issued conflicting details.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/24/air-algerie-flight-5017-wreckage-found-mali

[flamingdem]

2. I think the source is the Facebook page of the airport

Aéroport de Ouagadougou
Aeropuerto · 1651 Me gusta · 1 hr · Editado ·
Parmi les passagers du vol AH5017, il y aurait deux fonctionnaires européens de nationalité française en poste à Ouagadougou et Mariela Castro nièce de Fidel Castro, ancien chef d'Etat cubain.

* She might be a French citizen as well as Cuba, not sure.

[flamingdem]

3. Yohandry is reporting that Mariela is in Cuba

i wonder how this one got started.. It's being carried by several reputable (semi) news sites but seems to only stem from the airport Facebook page.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Someone with the same name? BBC has been told she's in Havana, too

16:29: Pablo Esparza, BBC Mundo

Sources from the National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX), where Mariela Castro is the director, said to BBC Mundo that she is taking part in an event in Havana.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-28465010

[flamingdem]

6. I like that website

BBC live is preferable to the morning junk shows on cable.

Well it makes sense that it's a name confusion. I can't imagine what the right wingers would get out of a false Mariela death story. They get a lot of mileage out of Fidel death stories of course. Regardless I can imagine that there's extra agitation at Cafe Versailles today since they have something to discuss while drinking their very strong Cafe Cubano.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Venezuela TV has had interview with her

16:47: Pablo Esparza, BBC Mundo

Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuba's President Raul Castro, talks live to Venezuela's Telesur TV: "I'm alive, happy and healthy... Maybe the media that published that news needed a bit of publicity but here I am."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-28465010

[flamingdem]

7. It doesn't hurt her to get a little publicity as well

She's not that well known in the US and might add a humanizing touch to the Castro family image.

[Comrade Grumpy]

8. Uh, what about all the people on board who aren't Mariela Castro?

Are they dead, or what?

[alp227]

9. BBC: Algeria airliner feared crashed on flight from Burkina Faso

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-28460625

A passenger plane carrying 116 people is feared to have crashed on a flight from Burkina Faso to the Algerian capital Algiers.

Contact with the Air Algerie flight was lost over the Sahara as it crossed Mali in bad weather, officials said.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the plane, which has 50 French citizens aboard, "probably crashed".

French media reported that soldiers had found wreckage in Tilemsi, central Mali, but this was not confirmed.

[brooklynite]

11. Cuba has a Govt blogger? How nice...

Maybe some day the Cubans will be allowed to blog as well.

[flamingdem]

12. Yoani is blogging from Cuba

not sure of the details but she does that as do many others.