23, December 2019
Death of army chief Gaid Salah caps turbulent year for Algeria 0
Algeria’s powerful army chief General Ahmed Gaid Salah died of a heart attack at age 79 on Monday, threatening to deepen the country’s political crisis at the end of a turbulent year.
Gaid Salah was seen as Algeria’s de facto strongman following the April resignation of longtime president Abdelaziz Bouteflika in the face of massive protests against his bid for a fifth term.
“The deputy defence minister and chief of staff of the army died Monday morning of a heart attack,” the presidency said in a statement read out on state news channel Algeria 3.
The general died at home of a heart attack at about 6:00 am (0500 GMT) before his body was transferred to a military hospital, the statement said.
The lifelong military man had made his last public appearance Thursday at the swearing-in of new president Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who was seen as close to Gaid Salah.
Gaid Salah was instrumental in pushing the December 12 vote that elected establishment insider Tebboune — in defiance of a months-long protest movement demanding deep-rooted political reforms before any poll.
– Guardian of system –
At Thursday’s ceremony, Gaid Salah was also awarded the rank of “Sadr” in Algeria’s National Order of Merit, an honour normally reserved for heads of state.
As chief of the military for a record 15 years and a veteran of Algeria’s war for independence from France, the general was seen as the guardian of the military-dominated system that has been in power since.
When Bouteflika appointed him in 2004 to head the armed forces — the backbone of Algeria’s opaque regime — he became one of the North African country’s most powerful men.
He loyally supported Bouteflika for years until the president’s February announcement that he would run for re-election sparked unprecedented protests by the youth-led “Hirak” movement.
In early April, Gaid Salah called on his boss to resign. Bouteflika quit the same day, leaving the armed forces chief effectively in charge of the country.
But the old soldier categorially rejected the Hirak movement’s key demands: deep reforms, the establishment of transitional institutions and the dismantling of the military-dominated regime.
– Hot temper –
Moussaab Hammoudi of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris said weeks before Gaid Salah’s death that he was “not a great strategist”.
“He acts like a brutal soldier,” he said. “For him, Algeria is a huge barracks, and making a concession is a weakness.”
His death comes as huge numbers of Algerians have continued protesting after Tebboune’s appointment as president, rejecting his call to engage in dialogue.
Gaid Salah was born in 1940 in Batna region, some 300 kilometres (190 miles) southwest of Algiers, and spent more than six decades in the armed forces.
At the age of 17, he joined Algeria’s National Liberation Army in its gruelling eight-year war against French colonial forces.
When the country won independence in 1962 after 132 years as a French colony, he joined the army, attended a Soviet military academy and rose through the ranks.
Gaining a reputation for a hot temper, he commanded several regions before becoming chief of Algeria’s land forces at the height of a decade-long civil war pitting the regime against Islamist insurgents.
In 2004, as he hit retirement age, he was picked by Bouteflika to replace overall chief of staff Mohamed Lamari, who had opposed the president’s quest for a second mandate.
Tebboune on Monday appointed land forces commander General Said Chengriha as interim military chief of staff, Algeria 3 reported.
He also declared three days of national mourning.
Source: AFP
23, December 2019
US: Boeing fires CEO Muilenburg as 737 MAX crisis deepens 0
US aerospace company Boeing has fired Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg, following a year of intense scrutiny and industrial setbacks set off by twin fatal crashes of its 737 MAX jetliner.
The management shakeup comes as the worldâs largest planemaker struggles to win regulatory approvals for its grounded best-selling jetliner while trying to regain trust with passengers and airline customers.
Boeingâs chairman David Calhoun will take over as CEO and president, effective January 13, the company said Monday, adding that a change in leadership was necessary to restore confidence in the company.
The 737 MAX grounding was the biggest crisis of Muilenburgâs 34-year tenure at Boeing, where he started as an intern in 1985, rising through the companyâs defense and services ranks to the top job in 2015.
The company said this month it would stop production of the 737 Max in January after the head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Boeing was pushing for an unrealistically quick return of the grounded jets.
A senior industry source called the wording of Boeingâs statement âbrutalâ. Another said the decision was inevitable after spiraling pressures from the 737 production halt to a public slap-down from the FAA, topped off by an embarrassing space launch snafu on Friday.
Speculation that Muilenburg would be fired had been circulating in the industry for months, intensifying in October when the board stripped him of his chairman title.
A Boeing official said the board deliberated over the weekend and they made the decision to fire Muilenburg in a phone call on Sunday.
In keeping Muilenburg in the job as long as Boeing has, the company was ignoring elements of the classic crisis communications playbook used by other companies, said Paul Argenti, a professor at Dartmouthâs Tuck School of Business.
âYou want to bring somebody from the outside to bring fresh perspective to âsave the day,ââ Argenti said. âHe should have been gone a long time ago. He is part of the problem.â
The 737 Max was grounded worldwide after two crashes â one in October 2018 off the cost of Indonesia and another in March 2019 in Ethiopia â which killed a combined total of 346 people.
Investigators say that in both crashes, a faulty sensor caused the plane’s MCAS system to push the nose of the plane down and pilots were unable to regain control.
“This is something that we have been asking and struggling for quite some time,” said Ababu Amha, who lost his wife, a flight attendant, in the second crash involving an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft. âThe CEO reluctantly and deliberately kept the aircraft in service after the Lion Air crash. The Ethiopian Airlines crash was a preventable accident.â
The resignation, however, is not enough, Amha said. âThey should further be held accountable for their actions because what they did was a crime.”
(Source: Agencies)