Flying ash changes PM’s flight plan

By Manish Chand, IANS
Friday, April 16, 2010

BRASILIA - Flying ash from Iceland’s erupting volcano has forced a last-minute change in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh´s journey back home. Now he will return via Johannesburg in South Africa.

Manmohan Singh, who wrapped up his two-day visit to Brazil after attending two back-to-back India-Brazil-Russia (IBSA) summit and Brazil-Russia-India-China (BRIC) summit, leaves for India Friday morning local time.

The prime minister´s special aircraft was earlier scheduled to land in Frankfurt in Germany for a technical halt.

However, the ash clouds drifting from Iceland’s spewing volcano forced widespread closures of European airports with thousands of airline passengers left stranded across key European airports.

Manmohan Singh is expected to reach New Delhi Saturday evening after at least 20 flying hours. He returns to India after an eight-day two-nation visit that included the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington and IBSA and BRIC summits in the Brazilian capital.

Besides three multilateral summits, the prime minister held nine bilateral meetings with the leaders of the US, Morocco, Kazakhstan, France, Germany, Canada, Russia, Brazil and China.

Filed under: Diplomacy

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