News Burst 17 May 2020
- Nothing paints a better picture of how bad things have gotten for the airline industry – and for its working class – than the fact that United Airlines is barely using over 10% of its flight attendant staff. The airline said this week it only has work for 3,000 of its 25,000 flight attendants in June and said that job losses could be next if demand doesn’t recover by the time the government ends its payroll aid, according to Reuters. United still intends to pay its flight attendants until September 30 thanks to $5 billion in aid the airline got from the government. The CARES Act prohibits layoffs or pay cuts before October.
- President Trump fired State Department Inspector General Steve Linick. In a Friday night letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi required by law, Trump said that he “no longer” has the “fullest confidence” in Linick, whose termination will take effect in 30 days.
- Researchers from the University of Hawaii at Manoa named Puhahonu in the Pacific Ocean the largest and hottest shield volcano on Earth. Their study appears in the new volume of Earth and Planetary Science Letters. Puhahonu, which literally means “turtle rising for breath” in Hawaiian, is twice as big as Mauna Loa, the former record holder, which is located on the Big Island of Hawaii. Mauna Loa was long believed to be the largest on Earth. However, after studying the ocean floor along the Hawaiian volcano chain and conducting a chemical analysis of rocks, the scientists withdrew the title and gave it to nearby Puhahonu.
- The ship that crashed in Magé/Rio de Janeiro, Brazil was a ship from the negative extraterrestrial faction that was trying to escape from Planet Earth and was shot down. There are non-positive races that are hidden in various caves and in Inner Earth environments, alongside negative factions. It is an Orion Star System spacecraft with three crew members. The Earth Protection Grid that is activated by the Forces of Light prevents any escape now. No one of the negative forces leaves the planet, fleeing, no matter how hard they try. It is a measure for all negative forces to be captured. The ship was shot down by the protective magnetic field after several warnings from the Ashtar Command not to attempt an escape. It was not hit by the Brazilian army/aeronautics or any country abroad such as the USA. It was manned by reptilians of the negative faction. The ship suffered a breakdown and was trying to return to the starting point when it crashed. The breakdown rendered the ship inoperative and without the ability to camouflage, becoming denser in this reality. ~ Gabriel RL.
- The Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos has invited the top officials of NASA to visit Russia to discuss a wide range of projects and is looking forward to a positive response, Russia’s space agency said citing its Deputy Director General for International Cooperation Sergey Savelyev. “We formally invited the top officials of NASA to come to our country, but we have received no reply so far. I hope that we will receive it and that it will be positive,” Savelyev said. He recalled that the space agency’s delegation had been invited to visit the United States. However, the invitation from NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine was eventually withdrawn due to senators’ pressure.
- Authorities in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus pandemic was first detected, have ordered fresh Covid-19 tests for all of its residents after a cluster of new community cases. The Wuhan Covid-19 Epidemic Prevention Headquarters ordered all districts in the city to come up with plans for a 10-day barrage of nucleic tests and submit the plans by noon on Tuesday. The city had a population of about 14 million before it went into an unprecedented lockdown in January. The tests should cover both permanent residents and mobile populations, and target residential estates and densely populated areas, the headquarters said in the orders. The unprecedented move came after reports on the weekend of six new coronavirus cases from the same residential compound, known as Sanmin.
- The Research Center of the Iranian parliament (Majles) has estimated that about 190 trillion rials have been spent on setting up the National Information Network (NIN) by last year. The amount quoted is hard to estimate in U.S. dollars since the rial has steadily declined over the years. But if the current official exchange rate is applied the expenditure comes to at least 4.5 billion dollars. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has repeatedly criticized the lack of progress in launching NIN or intranet, asserting, “Unfortunately, there has been a lack of endeavor in launching the National information Network in the country, and what should have been done, has not been done, so far”. Thousands, if not millions of websites are blocked in Iran. While most are deemed morally corruptive, a smaller number are news and political websites, which are the real threat to the political system of the Islamic Republic that partly depends on controlling information and dissent.
- President Trump enacted into law the most powerful Executive Order ever seen in modern American history called the “EO on the Establishment of the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force Under Section 741 of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement Implementation Act”—that upon being executed by President Trump, put into immediate full legal force 19 U.S. Code § 1307.Convict-Made Goods; Importation Prohibited that makes it illegal to bring into the United States: “All goods, wares, articles, and merchandise mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part in any foreign country by convict labor or/and forced labor or/and indentured labor under penal sanctions shall not be entitled to entry at any of the ports of the United States, “Forced labor”, as herein used, shall mean all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty for its nonperformance and for which the worker does not offer himself voluntarily. For purposes of this section, the term “forced labor or/and indentured labor” includes forced or indentured child labor”.
- No-fishing areas established around Tonga are showing they are helping coral reef ecosystems to recover, according to the Special Management Area Report 2020, compiled by the Ministry of Fisheries in partnership with Australia’s James Cook University over four years. It showed around half of the Fish Habitat Reserves were recovering with an abundance of fish and diversity, while there was not much improvement was found within the SMAs, where the communities managing them are allowed to fish. The two best performing FHRs were at ‘Atata and Nomuka where adult food fish and reef fish diversity had recovered. The poorest performing FHRs were at ‘Eueiki, Ha’afeva, and O’ua showing little evidence of any recovery.According to the report, coral reefs and reef fish fishery in Vava’u is in noticeably worse condition than elsewhere in the country, with extensive evidence of damage to reefs from coral bleaching in Vava’u and northern Ha’apai. There is also extensive evidence of cyclone damage in southern Vava’u and northern Ha’apai. The report also highlighted that poor water quality appeared to have damaged many of the reefs around the lagoonal areas in Tongatapu and Vava’u.
- Not being able to use his position for kickbacks any longer is putting a crimp on the lifestyle of the sex assaulting royal who also turned a blind eye when a family member was paid for involving yet another family member. Our royal won’t ever go bankrupt, but he will need to get money from mom. ~ Prince Andrew/Sarah Ferguson (one of her daughters)/Queen Elizabeth.
- Thailand has extended its ban on passenger flights for another month to June 30, citing the need to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease. The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand issued the announcement on its website on Saturday to extend the ban from May 31.
- Ramathibodi Hospital on Friday paraded a company of new robots, designed and built with the assistance of Toyota Motor Thailand, that it hopes will reduce contact between Covid-19 patients and medical staff. A prototype was developed in March, “but it too bulky and slow so we turned to Toyota Motor Thailand for help. Within 10 days of working together, we overcame the problems”, Dr Sorayouth Chumnanvej, a neurosurgeon at the hospital and head of the team that came up with the idea, told the media on Friday. Dr Sorayouth said each robot weighs only 40 kilogrammes and can carry up to 10kg. They cost 100,000 baht to make and are operated via remote control over the hospital’s wi-fi network. Two of the robots have already been put to work on a ward for male Covid-19 patients where they are used for simple tasks such as delivering meals and medicine or providing a video conference link between patients and doctors.
Sun Activity
A magnetic active region is about to rotate into view over the sun’s northeastern limb. Based on its high latitude, it is probably a sunspot from new Solar Cycle 25.
Active Weather
The deep depression over southeast Bay of Bengal and neighbourhood has rapidly intensified into a cyclonic storm ‘Amphan’. The cyclone is very likely to intensify further into a severe cyclonic storm during next 12 hours and into a very severe cyclonic storm by 18th morning. It is very likely to move north-northwestwards initially till 17th May and then re-curve north-northeastwards across northwest Bay of Bengal towards West Bengal and adjoining North Odisha coasts during May 18 to 20.
Strongest EQ in Europe M4.4 Ionian Islands, Greece
Strongest EQ in North America M4.6 Nevada
Strongest EQ on the Planet M5.9 Vanuatu
Deepest EQ M4.6 165 km Colombia News Burst 17 May 2020