QUITO, ECUADOR (AP) – The tallest mountain in the Galapagos islands erupted on Friday, spewing lava down its flanks and clouds of ash over the Pacific Ocean, according to Ecuador’s Geophysical Institute.
A cloud of gas and ash from Wolf Volcano rose to 3,793 metres above sea level following the eruption that began shortly before midnight on Wednesday, the Institute said.
Ecuador’s Emergency Operations Committee said the new eruption on Isabela Island, the largest in the Galapagos chain, didn’t represent a risk to humans or to native local species. Populated areas are located at the opposite side of the island.
But the Environment Ministry said eight people, including national park guards and scientists doing field work on pink iguanas living on the volcano’s slopes, were evacuated from the area.
The Galapagos Government Council said the emergency committee would continue monitoring the volcano to see in which direction the lava flows.
Lava is seen from the eruption of Wolf Volcano on Isabela Island, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. PHOTO: AP
LONDON (AP) – United Kingdom (UK) government advisers have recommended against giving a fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccine to nursing home residents and people over 80 because data shows that a third shot offers lasting protection against admission to the hospital.
For people over 65, protection against hospitalisation remains at about 90 per cent three months after the third dose, according to data compiled by the UK Health Security Agency.
As a result, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization on Friday advised the government that there was no need to offer a fourth dose, or second booster, to vulnerable people at this time. Instead, the government should focus on giving a third dose to as many people as possible to boost protection against the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
“The current data show the booster dose is continuing to provide high levels of protection against severe disease, even for the most vulnerable older age groups,’’ said Proffesor Wei Shen Lim, the committee’s chair. “For this reason, the committee has concluded there is no immediate need to introduce a second booster dose, though this will continue to be reviewed.’’
The UK is racing to offer booster shots to adults across the country after research showed that two doses were not enough to protect people from Omicron. The variant has fuelled a surge in coronavirus infections and hospitalisations.
The number of people in the UK hospitalised with COVID-19 rose to 18,454 on Thursday, more than double the figure two weeks earlier. Rising staff absences at UK hospitals have already prompted the military to provide backup to beleaguered doctors and nurses.
More than 39,000 staff members at hospitals in England were off work for reasons related to COVID-19 on January 2, up 59 per cent from the previous week, according to NHS England.
The respected trade publication, the Health Service Journal, said staff absences across the entire National Health Service, including mental health trusts and other areas, may be as high as 120,000.
Paramedics push a trolley next to a line of ambulances outside the Royal London Hospital in the Whitechapel area of east London. PHOTO: AP
ASHGABAT, TURKMENISTAN (AFP) – Turkmenistan’s strongman leader has ordered experts to find a way to finally extinguish a massive five-decade old fire in a giant natural gas crater in the Central Asian country, dubbed the “Gateway to Hell”.
Citing environmental and economic concerns, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov appeared on state television yesterday telling officials to put out the flames at the Darvaza gas crater in the middle of the vast Karakum desert.
In 2010, Berdymukhamedov also ordered experts to find a way to put out the flames that have been burning ever since a Soviet drilling operation went awry in 1971.
President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said that the man-made crater “negatively affects both the environment and the health of the people living nearby”.
“We are losing valuable natural resources for which we could get significant profits and use them for improving the well-being of our people,” he said in televised remarks.
Berdymukhamedov instructed officials to “find a solution to extinguish the fire”.
The crater was created in 1971 during a Soviet drilling accident that hit a gas cavern, causing the drilling rig to fall in and the earth to collapse underneath it.
To prevent the dangerous fumes from spreading, the Soviets decided to burn off the gas by setting it on fire.
The pit has been ablaze ever since and previous attempts to put it out have been unsuccessful.
The resulting crater – 70 metres wide and 20 metres deep – is a popular tourist attraction in the ex-Soviet country.
In 2018, the president officially renamed it to the “Shining of Karakum”.
People visiting the huge burning gas crater in the heart of Turkmenistan’s Karakum desert. FILE PHOTO: AFP
WASHINGTON (CNA) – The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Friday disclosed a list of 50 United Stataes (US) airports that will have buffer zones when wireless carriers turn on new 5G C-band service on January 19.
AT&T and Verizon Communications on Monday agreed to buffer zones around 50 airports to reduce the risk of disruption from potential interference to sensitive airplane instruments like altimetres. They also agreed to delay deployment for two weeks, averting an aviation safety standoff.
The list includes airports in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Detroit, Dallas, Philadelphia, Seattle and Miami.
The FAA said it does not “not necessarily” mean that low-visibility flights cannot occur at airports that are not among the 50.
AT&T and Verizon, which won nearly all of the C-Band spectrum in an USD80-billion auction last year, declined comment.
A Verizon contract crew installing 5G telecommunications equipment on a tower in Orem, Utah. PHOTO: CNA
On Thursday, the FAA renewed warnings that despite the agreement 5G wireless service could still disrupt flights, saying “even with the temporary buffer around 50 airports, 5G deployment will increase the risk of disruption during low visibility” including “flight cancellations, diverted flights, and delays during periods of low visibility”.
Some major airports such as Denver, Atlanta and Ronald Reagan Washington National are not on the list because 5G is not yet being deployed, while others are not on the list because “5G towers are far enough away that a natural buffer exists”.
Other airports not listed do not currently have the ability to allow low-visibility landings, the FAA said. It said the delay would allow it to evaluate ways to minimise disruptions, and also gives companies more time to prepare.
“If there’s the possibility of a risk to the flying public, we are obligated to pause the activity, until we can prove it is safe,” the FAA said.
ACI-NA President and Cheif Executive Officer Kevin Burke, who heads the association representing US and Canadian airports, said on Friday the FAA list “is largely irrelevant because the entire aviation system is about to be adversely impacted by this poorly planned and coordinated expansion of 5G service in and around airports”.
He said the “so-called fix will create winners and losers within the airport community, and the entire aviation system will suffer under the terms of this deal”.
Airlines for America, a trade group representing US passenger and cargo carriers, said it appreciated the “FAA’s efforts to implement mitigations for airports that may be most impacted by disruptions generated by the deployment of new 5G service”.
CNA – The head of communications at Facebook parent Meta Platforms, John Pinette, is leaving the company, the social media company said late on Friday.
Vice president of international communications Chris Norton will cover the role on an interim basis, a Meta spokesperson said in an emailed statement to a news agency.
“John Pinette has left Meta. We are thankful for his positive contributions during an intense and significant time in the company’s history, and we wish him well going forward,” the statement said.
The spokesperson declined to say why Pinette was leaving, citing Meta policy of not commenting on personnel matters.
A 3D printed Meta logo on a laptop keyboard. PHOTO: CNA
KINGSTON, NEW YORK (AP) – A juvenile harbor seal has forgone life in the ocean, instead choosing a home nearly 100 miles up the Hudson River – behaviour that wildlife officials called “unprecedented”.
The animal was likely abandoned as a pup by his mother in Maine, officials said. A Connecticut rescue centre cared for him, then released him in Rhode Island in early 2019 with an electronic tracking tag.
By that August, he’d settled down on the Hudson near Saugerties Lighthouse, under the watchful eye of the lighthouse keeper, staying for 620 days.
“It is a story like none we have ever heard of… a marine mammal showing such extended affinity and fidelity to freshwater,” said Tom Lake of the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Almanac, The Daily Freeman reported on Tuesday.
But the seal’s life on the river had one interruption.
Harbor Seal No 246 – as he’s known officially – disappeared last April, leaving wildlife officials stumped for months.
Turns out he needed rescuing again, catching an infection and a skin condition called “seal pox” after swimming down to Long Island’s Atlantic Beach.
Thankfully, Seal 246 was picked up by the New York Marine Rescue Centre. Once he recovered, they released him last summer, likely expecting he’d head out to sea.
The critter had other plans.
He journeyed 210 miles, from Hampton Bays all the way back up the Hudson to his old stomping grounds near Saugerties. The lighthouse keeper noticed his return in August.
A harbor seal has left the ocean to live near the Saugerties Lighthouse on the Hudson River. PHOTO: AP
SHANGHAI (AFP) – The chairman of China’s biggest insurer is under investigation by the Communist Party’s anti-corruption commission, the agency said yesterday, as the government pushes a campaign against graft and a clean-up of the country’s chaotic
financial industry.
Wang Bin is being investigated for suspected “serious violations of discipline and law”, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a brief statement, wording that typically indicates impending graft charges.
Wang chairs China Life Insurance, which is listed in Shanghai, Hong Kong and New York. The announcement gave no further details.
Bloomberg financial news agency reported recently that China Life and other major insurers were struggling with a decelerating Chinese economy and shrinking levels of new business, among other woes.
Their shares have also been hit by fears of their exposure to China’s crisis-hit property sector.
In October, China Life posted a 54-per-cent drop in third-quarter profit.
Chinese regulators have struggled for years to clean up massive debt and mismanagement in its corporate sector, a battle that has focussed lately on property giant Evergrande Group.
People on a street seen against the skyline of the Lujiazui financial district in Shanghai. PHOTO: AFP
BEIJING (AP) – A strong overnight earthquake shook a sparsely populated area in western China early yesterday and forced the suspension of high-speed rail service because of tunnel damage, authorities said.
Four people with minor injuries in Menyuan Hui Autonomous County had been treated and released, officials told a news conference.
The magnitude 6.9 quake struck at 1.45am in a mountainous part of Qinghai province that is 3,659 metres above sea level. It was felt 140 kilometres southeast in Xining, the provincial capital, where some people rushed outside of homes and buildings.
Nighttime video posted online by CGTN, the overseas arm of state broadcaster CCTV, showed furniture and ceiling lamps swaying and livestock suddenly standing up and moving in its pen.
Photos from the state-owned China News Service showed scattered damage to homes including a broken window and wall tiles and a large ceiling section that had fallen.
There are five villages within five kilometres of the epicentre, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Service on some sections of a high-speed rail line from Lanzhou in Gansu province to the Xinjiang region was halted because of damage to several tunnels, Xinhua said. Some lines between Qinghai and Tibet were closed and inspectors were sent to check the tracks.
Rescue and firefighting teams in Qinghai and neighbouring Gansu province have sent about 500 rescuers to the epicentre, the Chinese Ministry of Emergency Management said in an online statement. Another 2,260 rescuers from neighbouring provinces were on standby.
The ministry and the China Earthquake Administration dispatched a team to Qinghai to help investigate the situation and resettle any affected residents.
Firefighters check a building in Xitan village in Menyuan Hui Autonomous County in northwestern China’s Qinghai Province. PHOTO: AP
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Three white men convicted of murdering African American jogger Ahmaud Arbery after chasing him in their pickup trucks were sentenced to life in prison on Friday in a case that highlighted United States (US) tensions over racial justice.
Travis McMichael, 35, and his father Gregory McMichael, 66, were sentenced to life without parole, while their neighbour, William ‘Roddie’ Bryan, 52, who had a less-direct role in the murder and cooperated with investigators, was given life with the possibility of parole.
The three were convicted in November of multiple counts of murder, aggravated assault and false imprisonment for chasing down 25-year-old Arbery on February 23, 2020 as he ran through their Satilla Shores neighbourhood near Brunswick, in the southern US state of Georgia.
Pronouncing the sentence, Georgia Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley called the murder “a tragedy on many, many levels”.
Weighing the verdict, Walmsley said he kept thinking of “the terror of the young man running through Satilla Shores”.
A demonstrator holds a sign at the Glynn County Courthouse in the US. PHOTO: AFP
“He left his home apparently to go for a run and he ended up running for his life,” Walmsley said.
“He was killed because individuals here in this courtroom took the law into their own hands.”
The Arbery case had added to a burst of nationwide anger and protests in 2020 over police killings and mistreatment of African Americans, sparked initially by the death in May that year of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Before the sentencing, members of Arbery’s family asked the court to give the three the harshest possible penalty.
“They each have no remorse and do not deserve any leniency,” said Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones. “This wasn’t a case of mistaken identity. They chose to target my son because they didn’t want him in their community.”
His father, Marcus Arbery said, “The man who killed my son has sat in this courtroom every single day next to his father. I’ll never get that chance to sit next to my son ever again, not at a dinner table, not at a holiday and not at a wedding.”
NEW DELHI (CNA) – India’s competition watchdog on Friday ordered an investigation into Alphabet Inc’s Google following allegations from news publishers, saying its initial view was that the tech giant had broken some anti-trust laws.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) said Google dominates certain online search services in the country and may have imposed unfair conditions on news publishers.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The complainant, Digital News Publishers Association, which comprises the digital arms of some of India’s biggest media companies, said Google denied fair advertising revenue to its members. “In a well-functioning democracy, the critical role played by news media cannot be undermined,” the CCI order said.
“It appears that Google is using its dominant position in the relevant markets to enter/protect its position in the market for news aggregation service.”
Employees riding bicycles outside Google headquarters in Mountain View. PHOTO: AP
