South Korea Tests Drone Taxi for First Time in Seoul

^{PHOTO: URBAN AIR MOBILITY VEHICLE (UAM) ON TEST FLIGHT OVER SOUTH KOREA'S GIMPO AIRPORT DRONE FOOTAGE OF UAM IN FLIGHT UAM LANDING DRONE DROPPING PARCEL INTO TRANSPORTER SOUNDBITES FROM SOUTH KOREAN GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL AND UA}

INTERNATIONAL: The future that could only be imagined in movies and dreams in the past has come true when South Korea has demonstrated a system for controlling urban air mobility vehicles (UAM) on Thursday.

It is hoped to serve as taxis between major airports and downtown Seoul as soon as 2025.A two-seater multirotor personal air vehicle from Volocopter was mobilized for a government event to see how air transportation and urban air mobility can coexist at crowded airports.

Volocopter is a German aircraft manufacturer specialising in the design of electric multirotor helicopters for air taxi use,After a three-minute flight of about three kilometers at a speed of 48 kilometers per hour in a designated corridor, the Volocopter flying vehicle landed safely onto a takeoff place at Gimpo Airport located in the western end of Seoul.

Speculators were government officials and members of Urban Air Mobility Team Korea which is a public-private consultative body that aims to commercialize drone taxis in 2025. Urban air mobility (UAM) is an ecosystem covering personal air vehicles and infrastructure such as a new navigation system, take-off and landing fields and charging technologies.

Heavy Rains in Southern India Kill 14 People

^{PHOTO: VEHICLES AND PEOPLE ON FLOODED ROADS, VEHICLES AND PEOPLE TRAVELLING THROUGH HEAVY RAIN, FLOODED HOSPITAL, RESCUE WORKERS CUTTING UPROOTED TREES, SOUNDBITES FROM GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL, CHENNAI RESIDENT, HOSPITAL PATIENT AND}

At least 14 people have been killed on Thursday due to heavy rain pounding India's southern Tamil Nadu state.Several districts in the state are on high alert, bracing for more torrents as a depression over the south-west Bay of Bengal. The Indian Meteorological Department has given a warning of intense rain in isolated places.Footage shows residents wading through knee-deep water and vehicles nearly submerged on flooded roads.

A state government official says some of the deaths were due to walls collapsing on people.Two people were killed in the past 24 hours. At least 800 huts have been destroyed. Multiple teams of the National Disaster Response Force have been sent to help local authorities with rescue efforts.

In Chennai, which is among the worst hit, hundreds of people have been led to safety from vulnerable areas. Authorities have also set up more than 100 relief centers and distributed free food to the victims. Flights into Chennai have been suspended. The rains this week are among the heaviest to have hit the city since 2015.

Russia’s Carrier Aeroflot Denies Connivance in Poland-Belarus Dispute

^{PHOTO: FILE FOOTAGE OF RUSSIAN AEROFLOT COMPANY PLANES AND CHECK-IN COUNTERS IN MOSCOW AEROPORT SHEREMETEVO}

Russian flag carrier Aeroflot has denied any involvement in organizing mass transportation of migrants and refugees from the Middle East travel to Belarus on Thursday. The European Commission was considering sanctioning the state-controlled airline for participating in what Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has called “human trafficking”.

It triggered a furious response in Moscow and saw shares in the airline fall by as much as two percent at the start of trading Thursday, after the reports on possible sanctions. The company has issued a statement saying that the airline does not operate regular flights to the cities of Iraq and Syria, or flights on the Istanbul-Minsk route.

 Charter flights to these destinations are also not carried out.The situation on the border between Belarus and Poland has escalated dramatically in recent days, with thousands having traveled from the Middle East to the ex-Soviet country amassing at the Polish border hopes of crossing into Europe and seek asylum.