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- The US State Department recommended that Americans who decided to ignore its urge not to travel to Ukraine over the insecure situation there, should draft their wills and take DNA tests, among other points. “Draft a will and designate appropriate insurance beneficiaries and/or power of attorney…Share important documents, login information, and points of contact with loved ones so that they can manage your affairs if you are unable to return as planned to the United States. Leave DNA samples with your medical provider in case it is necessary for your family to access them,” the department said in a travel advisory for Ukraine. The Americans are also invited to discuss funeral arrangements, issues of children care and custody, as well as property ones, with their relatives.
- “It is not an exaggeration to say that this energy crisis, this energy shock of 2022 is comparable in intensity, in brutality to the oil shock of 1973,” French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire told the Conference on Energy Independence on Wednesday morning in Bercy, France. He added that a second massive plan of public support, made in a “whatever the costs” model established during the Covid-19 crisis, will only “fuel the increase in prices,” and stated that France should not “repeat the mistakes made in 1973 in 2022.”
- The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has revealed that the organization is no longer receiving data from the Chernobyl power plant, needed to remotely monitor nuclear materials left at the site. On February 25, Russian troops took over the defunct power plant that saw a major nuclear accident back in 1986. On Tuesday, Rafael Grossi, the Director General of the IAEA, said that “remote data transmission from safeguards monitoring systems installed at the Chornobyl NPP had been lost.”
- Ukraine informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Wednesday of “power loss” at the Russian-occupied Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The atomic agency said, “the heat load of the spent fuel storage pool and volume of cooling water at Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant sufficient for effective heat removal without the need for electrical supply.”
- Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the UAE declined US requests to speak to Joe Biden in recent weeks, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing US officials. “There was some expectation of a phone call, but it didn’t happen,” a US official told the paper. “It was part of turning on the spigot [of Saudi oil].” According to the report, Riyadh “signaled” to Biden that the Saudis wanted more support in several sensitive issues, including their civilian nuclear program and intervention in the Yemeni civil war, and the Emiratis shared their concerns.
- China’s foreign ministry has called on the US to disclose information on the Pentagon’s alleged biological laboratories in Ukraine “as soon as possible”. Moscow claimed that 30 US-financed Ukrainian biolabs have been actively cooperating with the American military. Kiev has denied developing bioweapons. According to the website of the US embassy in Kiev, the US Department of Defense’s Biological Threat Reduction Program only “collaborates with partner countries to counter the threat of outbreaks” of infectious diseases. In 2020, the embassy called such theories about US-funded biolabs in Ukraine “disinformation.” Speaking at a press briefing on Tuesday, however, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian claimed that, according to his country’s information, the laboratories in Ukraine are just “a tip of an iceberg” and that the US Department of Defense “controls 336 biological laboratories in 30 countries around the world.”
- French President Emmanuel Macron has said that dialogue with Russia should always be based on respect for it “as a country”. Speaking on Monday during his first engagement as a presidential candidate, Macron dedicated a part of his speech to the Russian attack on Ukraine, which he called a “historic mistake.” It is important to “always respect Russia as a country and Russian people,” Macron added, arguing that the paramount goal of the international community is now “to avoid the escalation and expansion of the war.”
- Japanese payment system JCB is suspending operations in Russia amid economic sanctions placed on Russia amid Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, Japan’s Jiji news agency reported on Tuesday. According to the publication, JCB cards issued in Russia will become unavailable for use abroad from March 14. From the same day, cards of the Japanese payment system issued abroad will become unavailable for use in Russia. Mir-JCB cards in Russia used to be issued by Gazprombank, Dalnevostochny Bank, Rosselkhozbank, and Almazergienbank.
- The US ban all Russian energy (except uranium), which the White House had kept resisting until the last minute. The EU announce it will diversify from Russian energy as soon as possible, which will apparently take around a year, and will involve rejuggling global energy supply chains. Italy considering possible energy rationing – indeed, the serious discussion of the inevitability of some form of Western rationing other than just by price underway in serious circles. China announce it is considering buying into the Russian energy and commodity sector, with firms like Gazprom and Rusal likely targets, which will infuriate the West.
- The United Kingdom has recently witnessed an influx of rat mobs venturing into town centres as the rodents have apparently grown bolder amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the Daily Star reports. While rats were previously reluctant to openly move through “high streets,” they became more brazen as those areas became deserted due to lockdowns imposed to curb the spread of the disease.
- Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, researchers at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands have for the first time detected the precursors of prebiotic molecules such as amino acids and sugars, which are some of the basic building blocks of life. The molecule, dimethyl ether with nine atoms, the largest molecule identified in such a disc to date, was detected in the planet-forming disc around the young star Oph-IRS 48.
- Researchers at the American Museum of Natural History recently stumbled upon a fossilised body of the torpedo-shaped creature, which was dubbed Syllipsimopodi bideni and was added to the list of species named in honour of US presidents. This is a very rare fossil of a creature that used to inhabit the tropical waters that surrounded North America more than 320 million years ago, scientists say. Christopher Whalen and his colleague Neil Landman found the creature on a museum shelf where it had been stored following its discovery in the Bear Gulch Lagerstätte formation in Montana more than thirty years ago. According to them, the discovered creature swam in the tropical waters of North America some 328 million years ago.
- The wreckage of “Endurance”, a three-masted sailing ship used by famous Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, has been discovered on the ocean floor where it remained for over a century after being crushed by ice and sinking in 1915. While previous attempts to locate the 144-foot long vessel proved unsuccessful, the Endurance22 mission organised by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust finally managed to locate the ship by using advanced underwater vehicles outfitted with high-definition cameras and scanners, according to Reuters. “This is by far the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen. It is upright, well proud of the seabed, intact, and in a brilliant state of preservation,” he remarked. The ship’s remains were found about six kilometers away from the position recorded by its captain Frank Worsley.
News Burst 10 March 2022
Rose Rambles... 