News Burst 28 May 2020
- A waterfront mansion in Tulum, Yucatan – Mexico, allegedly built in national park, protected area. Owner claims to have the necessary permits, but no agency is authorized to grant them. A beautiful park that surrounds ancient Mayan ruins is classified as Natural Protected Area since 1981.
- The Finnish National Bureau of Investigation has expanded its pre-trial investigation into an unusual case linked to a human rights ruling issued against Finland by the European Court of Human Rights. The ECHR on 14 November ruled that Finland had violated human rights laws by expelling an unsuccessful asylum seeker who had reportedly been shot dead three weeks after his return to Baghdad, Iraq in December 2017. KRP launched an inquiry into the case after it began to suspect that some of documents presented for the deliberations were forged. It has since discovered evidence that the documents presented by the daughter of the unsuccessful asylum seeker were forged and that the man was alive.
- A new temperature record was set for this spring for the second time in as many days as the mercury climbed to 21.9°C in Oulu, Finland, on Sunday. Juha Tuomala, a meteorologist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) told that the warm weather is expected to continue in most parts of the country in the coming days, with the temperature record again under threat in Southern and Central Finland. “It’s possible we get the same readings if not higher,” he said.
- A Canadian judge has ruled that the US extradition case against a senior Chinese Huawei executive can continue to the next stage. Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, at Vancouver’s airport in late 2018. The US wants her extradited to face fraud charges. Her arrest infuriated Beijing, which sees her case as a political move designed to prevent China’s rise. The US accuses Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company to sell equipment to Iran in violation of US sanctions. It says Meng, 48, committed fraud by misleading the HSBC bank about the company’s business dealings in Iran.
- On Wednesday, a paedophile was jailed in Queanbeyan District Court, Australia for a maximum of 17 years with a non-parole period of 10 years. He received a discount on his sentence for pleading guilty. Michael James Buckmaster, 48, who pretended to be a nudist to get young children to undress around him has been jailed for 17 years for the persistent sexual abuse of a girl starting when she was 10 years old. Judge Wells said that “It would seem to me that he well knew the harm that he was inflicting, but was incapable of controlling himself.”
- The travel industry group working on a “Trans-Tasman bubble” says it will present plans to open travel between Australia and New Zealand to both governments early next month, with flights set to resume as early as September. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Wednesday she spoke to her Australian counterpart Scott Morrison on Tuesday and both were keen to move forward with the idea “as quickly as we can”. In a new warning to Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, the Morrison government said it would not allow state border bans to create an “obstacle” to allowing flights to and from New Zealand. New Zealand was the most popular outbound travel destination for Australians prior to COVID-19, with 1.5 million arrivals in 2019 accounting for 40 per cent of all visitors. After China, New Zealand was the second largest source of visitors to Australia in 2019, with 1.4 million visitors accounting for 15 per cent of the arrivals into the country.
- The family of one of two bushwalkers, missing in Kahurangi National Park in New Zealand’s South Island for 19 days, say they are “absolutely over the moon” the pair have been found alive. Jessica O’Connor and Dion Reynolds, both 23, had not been seen after entering the Anatori Valley on a bushwalking trip on May 9. There were “smiles and relief” when they were found in “very rugged bush”, police said. They were found about 12.49pm on Wednesday after a search helicopter spotted smoke and saw two people waving at them, Tasman Police Search and Rescue officer Sergeant Malcolm York said. The pair were picked up by an Air Force NH90 helicopter, and had “excellent equipment” that kept them alive, he said.
- The US president has threatened to heavily regulate, or even shut down, social media platforms that “silence conservative voices” after Twitter marked his posts with a fact-check notice implying they contained misinformation. “Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservative voices,” Donald Trump tweeted on Wednesday. “We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen. We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016. We can’t let a more sophisticated version of that happen again.”
- The NASA and SpaceX launch, which was scheduled to take place from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, has been postponed due to bad weather.The launch was scrubbed around 20 minutes before liftoff. The next launch opportunity will be Saturday, May 30 at 3:22 p.m. ET (21:22 UTC), NASA announced Wednesday afternoon.
- Boeing has been reeling from a drop in demand for aircraft, as travel plunges amid the pandemic and worsens the pressure on the company, which was already in crisis following two fatal crashes of its 737 Max and the global grounding of the plane last year. More than 12,000 Boeing workers in the US are set to lose their jobs in the coming weeks, as cuts at the American aerospace giant take effect, the firm has announced. Boeing announced plans to lay off almost 7,000 workers this week. The reductions had been expected since Boeing revealed plans last month to cut its global workforce by 10% – or roughly 16,000 jobs.
- Kenya: GMO cassava to feed poor people. It is a very nutritious and resilient tuber and Kenya will have to rely on this resource to feed that large slice of its population that will suffer extreme hunger as the pandemic emergency progresses. Last year Kenya produced 973,000 tons of cassava, all sold and consumed in the country in the form of flour or even used as potatoes, boiled, roasted or fried. More resistant than maize and millet, cassava develops a greater tolerance to extreme environmental conditions and the roots, once ripe, can survive in the soil without receiving water for long periods of time, preserving their nutritional properties.If approved, GMO cassava will be included in the list of GMO crops currently awaiting legalization.
- After the days of surprise, different reactions, indignation, hatred and compassion, accusations and few excuses, there are those who move the viewfinder from Silvia Romano guilty of unconscious genuineness in Africa to the Onlus Africa Milele which has accepted her requests, proposing her to stay in a village in the hinterland of Malindi without any kind of coverage: health, legal, work. The Onlus for its modus operandi naive (let’s say so) has earned in the last year and a half a bad reputation and yesterday was confirmed the news that the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Rome in the investigation on the kidnapping of their referent in Chakama had the ROS search the registered office and questioned the founder Lilian Sora. The hope is that this investigation can shed light on who really does things right, as well as doing good, as the President of Karibuni Onlus Gianfranco Ranieri preaches. Karibuni is the only Italian NGO operating in the hinterland of Malindi, a stone’s throw from Chakama, and has announced that it will no longer accept volunteers on its farms, even though it has long since activated above-average security measures. If after the dramas, the joy, the polemics, the behind-the-scenes and the mysteries of this story, a more managerial and less touristic management was achieved, without taking anything away from humanity and the transport of feelings, we could say that even from the manure of the last year and a half and from certain habits of “Italian-style” solidarity in Malindi and Kenya, a flower was born.
Sun Activity
Solar wind flowing from this southern coronal hole could brush Earth’s magnetic field on May 29th or 30th. Video Player00:0000:13
Sunspot number: 0
Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 25 days
2020 total: 116 days (78%)
2019 total: 281 days (77%)
Strongest EQ in Europe M3.8 S of Crete, Greece
Strongest EQ in North America M4.2 Nevada
Strongest EQ on the Planet M5.4 Mid-Indian Ridge
Deepest EQ M4.3 596 km Fiji News Burst 28 May 2020