A powerful blizzard battered the Northeast on Thursday, knocking out power for tens of thousands of people and snarling travel amid a long cold snap that has gripped much of the United States for more than a week and killed more than a dozen people. Thousands of flights were cancelled, firefighters scrambled to rescue motorists from flooded streets in Boston, snow plows and salt trucks rumbled along roads and highways, and New York City’s two main airports halted flights due to whiteout conditions. Blizzard warnings were in effect along the East Coast from North Carolina to Maine. Nearly 5,000 US airline flights were cancelled. New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport temporarily halted all flights due to whiteout conditions, the FAA said. At those airports, the metropolitan area’s third major airport in Newark, New Jersey, and Boston’s Logan International Airport, as many as three out of four flights were called off, according to tracking service FlightAware.com. Passenger train operator Amtrak ran reduced service in the Northeast. Sporadic delays were reported on transit systems, including New York state’s Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North commuter lines, as well as the Boston area’s Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority system.<br/>
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The United Arab Emirates said Thursday it would resume flights to Tunisia after an exchange of security information, resolving a row over a ban on female Tunisian passengers. A statement by the foreign ministry on state news agency WAM said the decision was taken in light of extensive cooperation and information received from the Tunisian side that eased the national carriers’ concerns. Tunisia’s transport ministry said an agreement had been reached after “contacts with the Emirati side at various levels”. The UAE angered Tunisia by banning Tunisian women from its passenger flights in December. Tunis later said the UAE was acting on intelligence that female jihadists returning from Iraq or Syria could try to use Tunisian passports to stage attacks. “In light of preventing dangers and threats that should be avoided to the largest degree, and in light of an extensive security dialogue and information received from the Tunisian side, the concerned authorities in the UAE have decided to return to normal procedures before the extraordinary circumstance,” the statement said. Tunisia suspended flights from Dubai carrier Emirates to Tunis on Dec. 24 after the airline refused to carry Tunisian women.<br/>
President Vladimir Putin authorised the resumption of regular Russian airline flights to Cairo, according to a document published on the Moscow government’s website Thursday. Russia halted civilian air traffic to Egypt in October 2015 after Islamist militants detonated a bomb on a Russian Metrojet flight departing the tourist resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all 224 people on board. Putin’s clearance for flights to resume was effective from Jan. 2, the Russian government document said, though it gave no timeline for the actual resumption of service. Egyptian airport sources said flights would resume first between Cairo and Moscow in February, and negotiations about restoring flights to the Red Sea resorts of Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada, popular with Russian tourists, will follow in April. “The resumption of flights between Russia and Cairo is a very good sign, giving hope that charter flights to the Red Sea resorts will be possible soon,” Russia’s RIA news agency quoted the head of Russia’s tour operators association, Maya Lomidze, as saying.<br/>
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has barred China United Airlines, MIAT Mongolian Airlines, Air Algerie, and Ariana Afghan Airlines from adding more scheduled services, charters, and making new route applications into China until the end of March. The Chinese regulator says this is due to the airlines' failure to meet performance requirements. Somon Air and Uzbekistan Airways have also been barred through to February, while Tajik Air, TAAG Angola Airlines and Angara Airlines face the same ban till the end of January. CAAC also criticised Okay Airways, Maldivian, and Azerbaijan Airlines in its monthly monitoring report without providing further details. It adds that while Beijing Capital International airport met requirements between September and November, it continues to be barred from adding flights through to end-March due to poor performance from April to August. Similarly, Shanghai Pudong International airport will also maintain status quo through to the end of April. The two airports can, however, adjust their existing flights to raise the number of international services, as well as flights to Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.<br/>
Mongolia has delayed until 2019 the completion of a long-awaited $500m airport project, originally expected this year, the transport minister said, a setback in efforts to diversify a mining-dependent economy. To reduce its dependence on commodities such as coal and copper, Mongolia has ambitions to become an air freight hub for northern Asia and wants to develop tourism. But the new airport is unlikely to open this year as originally scheduled, Roads and Transportation Minister Jadamba Bat-Erdene said, as Mongolia negotiates a management contract with Japanese investors. "The airport was expected to be operational this year, but plans are for it to be operational within the next year, due to management issues," he said on the ministry's official website. "It is planned to set up a joint management team headed by Japan," he said. The new airport is intended to replace the Chinggis Khan (Genghis Khan) International Airport, and take the name of the country's 13th-century ruler, regarded as a national symbol. Mongolia will be able to receive 3m passengers a year by 2024 at the new airport, about 50 km from Ulaanbaatar, the capital. Its predecessor, a one-way runway built near a mountain range, is prone to disruptions and flight cancellations.<br/>