News Burst 6 February 2020

• Saltwater intrusion in the Mekong Delta might reduce between late March and June this year, the prolonged lack of rain associated with the exploitation of water resources in the basin would make drought, water shortage and saltwater intrusion worse than in the historic 2015-2016 dry season.
• A report by the Health Ministry shows that 14 patients are being monitored in Brazil due to suspicions of a coronavirus infection.
• India: In Rampur Attri village, under Lalganj police station, Anchal, 3, had gone to study. Although she is not enrolled in the school, she used to go there to study with her brothers. She fell into a vessel of hot curry that was prepared for mid-day meal. She died during treatment. Six cooks have been arrested.
• Chinese telecom giant Huawei said on Feb 4 it would set up manufacturing hubs in Europe, as it tries to fight off US pressure on EU nations to stop it from operating.
• The more we learn about how the Iowa Democratic Party handled the 2020 Iowa Caucus, the more we suspect that this massive malfunction wasn’t simply an accident. Iowa Democrat insider on pol says there’s nothing wrong with the app, they just didn’t like who was losing so fudged a way to control the narrative.

• An obscure bank set up by Jeffrey Epstein in the United States Virgin Islands has received millions of dollars after his death in August 2019. Epstein’s bank, Southern Country International, was set up in 2014 as an international banking entity, a structure that does business only with offshore investors.
• [Israel for Last] “Kushner took a knife and put it in [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s back. Kushner misled the prime minister. He misled everybody. He knew for a long time that Netanyahu wanted to declare sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and northern Dead Sea — he’s said it many times over the last year. Gentlemen just don’t act this way.” – Elhayani, Netanyahu’s ally.
• Eight people have died after an avalanche hit Bahcesaray, a district of Van Province in eastern Turkey, local media quoted a local hospital as saying. The snowslide fell on a rescue team that was searching for two people who had been buried under an earlier avalanche.
• Hong Kong’s flagship carrier Cathay Pacific is asking its entire workforce to take up to three weeks of unpaid leave, as the airline battles a fall in demand caused by a coronavirus outbreak. Will tey survive the protest and this other calamity?
• Prince Andrew has been facing heightened pressure to speak to the FBI after lawyers for Jeffrey Epstein’s “sex trafficking” victims announced they were joining forces with the family of Harry Dunn, a British teen killed by the wife of a US diplomat in a collision near RAF Croughton in August 2019.

• Russian fish [Export of around 600,000 t of pollock]: “In terms of supplies to China, the situation may result in a certain decline of consumption volumes and, consequently, of supplies volumes. We are keeping a close eye on that situation now. Fish producers are considering the option of redirecting available volumes to other markets.” – Federal Agency for Fishery.
• A Pegasus Airlines passenger Boeing 737-800 plane has skidded off the runway at Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen Airport and broke into pieces. One person died and 157 were injured. It’s the second time in a month that a passenger plane of the same Pegasus Airlines skids off the runway in Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen Airport [None should be suprised if it was the same aircraft not repaired]. The last one was on Jan. 7, which resulted in no casualties. [From the footage – below – seems there was no thrust reversers apllied during the landing roll.]
• Anonymous has apparently hacked into a United Nations (UN) website and created a page that supports Taiwan, a country which was removed from the organization in favor of Communist China in 1971. A Reddit user uploaded a link to a hacked page with the caption “Thanks to Anonymous Taiwan is back at UN again!”. Amazingly, in the 14 hours since the link was posted on Reddit, the UN has failed to take down the Anonymous page.
• The Diamond Princess cruise ship with 3,700 people from more than 50 countries is anchored off Yokohama after a Chinese passenger tested postive to 2019-nCov. Medical officials shortlisted 273 people, out of 31 tested, ten resulted positive for the newly identified virus. They are from Japan, China, the United States, Australia and the Philippines.

Sun Activity

A southern hole in the sun’s atmosphere is spewing solar wind toward Earth. The gaseous stream could graze our planet’s magnetic field today or tomorrow, Feb. 5-6, causing minor geomagnetic unrest. Arctic sky watchers should be alert for an uptick in auroral activity. spaceweather.com

Weekely Asteroid

• 2020 BW5 2020-Feb-09 5.2 Lunar Distance 9 km/s 18 m.
  Lunar Distance = 384,401 km

Active Weather

• Moderate Tropical Storm Francisco – South Indian Ocean – 35 kts 996 hPa Weakening
• A tropical low is expected to develop into a cyclone off the west Kimberley, Australia, coast today. The Pilbara coast can expect gales from later Friday and a severe cyclone impact is probable on Saturday.

Strongest EQ in Europe M2.7 Italy
Strongest EQ in US M3.0 Wyoming
Strongest EQ on the Planet M6.2 Java, Indonesia
Deepest EQ M6.2 592 km Java, Indonesia News Burst 6 February 2020