News Burst 30 December 2019

• Chinese scientist He Jiankui, who created the world’s first “gene-edited” babies, has been sentenced to three years in prison and fined 3 million yuan (US$430,000). He, along with two others named Zhang Renli and Qin Jinzhou, was convicted by a Shenzhen court on Monday on charges related to the “illegally carrying out human embryo gene-editing intended for reproduction”, which led to the births of three genetically edited babies.
• Hong Kong will end 2019 with multiple protests planned for New Year’s Eve (Dec 31) and New Year’s Day aimed at disrupting festivities and shopping in the Asian financial hub, which has seen a rise in clashes between police and protesters since Christmas. Events dubbed “Suck the Eve” and “Shop with you” are scheduled for New Year’s Eve on Tuesday around the city, including in the party district of Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong’s picturesque Victoria Harbour, and popular shopping malls, according to notices circulated on social media.
• Pakistan is currently in the grip of severe cold wave, with the mercury on Sunday, Dec 29 plunging to record-breaking -21C (-5.8F) in Skardu, a city located the central valley of Gilgit-Baltistan. According to local reports, the small canals and ponds in Skardu have been frozen due to the severe low temperature, while snowfall has also blocked many main roads and passes.
• With fewer than 2 full-days remaining, India’s capital Delhi is about to register its second-coldest month of December since records began in 1901. Several flights have been diverted and almost three dozen trains are running behind schedule as a thick blanket of fog covers New Delhi amid an unusually severe winter season.
• A group of friends started an IT company in 2013 and for a few years all was going smoothly, with profits steadily growing. However, a major rift then broke out among its leadership, which ended with one of the co-founders being shown the door. The man went to look for a new job outside France, but he didn’t forget the wrong done to him by his former associates. That’s how a businessman became a hacker. An investigation established that between December 2018 and January 2019, he used remote transactions to snatch 182 units of bitcoin, which is around €1.1 million ($1.2 million), from the company’s accounts. Having the inside-out knowledge of how the firm operates, the man never exceeded the withdrawal limit that automatically triggers an alarm.

• At 2:00 pm UTC on 30 December, Tropical Cyclone Sarai (Category 2) was tracking closer to Nuku’alofa, Tonga, than previously forecast. On its current track, Tropical Cyclone Sarai is expected to be located 90km west of Nuku’alofa at 7:00pm. Occasional rain and strong to gale force winds will continue to affect the group this morning. The maximum winds near its center are about 50 knots (100 km/hr) with momentary gusts of up to 60 knots (120km/hr).
• A population of coral reefs is making a remarkable recovery around the newest island on Earth, Hunga Tonga – Hunga Ha’apai (HTHH), after it was formed during a volcanic eruption in 2015. The island is 200m high and connects the neighbouring islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha’apai. The finding was made by a team of scientists recently, who were studying the effects of the eruption on coral reef diversity around the island.
• Merry Christams Pacific Islanders: The Office of the Drug Control under the Australian Government’s Department of Health has announced the amount of kava that can be imported by a traveller for personal use has increased from 2kg to 4kg.
• Report: “Bali, Indonesia’s most-visited island, has suffered the effects of overtourism in the last few years to the point that the government is weighing a tourist tax to help combat some of the more sinister effects on the environment.” According to this report, people are actually being advised to give the Indonesian island a miss next year, in order to give the wildlife and nature a chance to recuperate.
• A volunteer firefighter was killed battling Australian bushfires on Monday as “columns” of flames generating their own dangerous weather systems bore down on a tourist region, prompting the evacuation of tens of thousands of people. Around 100 fires are burning across Australia, with as many as 14 “emergency” warnings in place for Victoria while fires are also threatening homes and infrastructure in South Australia and Tasmania.

Active Weather

• Severe Tropical Storm Calvinia 55kts ↑ 980 hPa ↓ S of Mauritius – Moving SE 5 kts ↓
• Tropical Cyclone Sarai 45 kts ↓ 987 hPa ↑ SW of Tonga – Moving SE 7 kts ↓

Strongest EQ in Europe M3.5 Romania
Strongest EQ in US M3.7 Alaska
Strongest EQ on the Planet M5.3 Southwest of Africa
Deepest EQ M4.4 388 km Kamchatka, RussiaNews Burst 30 December 2019

News Burst 27 December 2019

• A magnitude 6.0 earthquake shook Canada’s western province of British Columbia on Monday, following two slightly weaker quakes that hit just hours before. All were centered just offshore in the Pacific Ocean.
• More than 1,000 protesters, many in surgical masks and balaclavas, filled a harbourside plaza near Hong Kong’s financial district late on Monday to demand greater freedoms and an independent inquiry into alleged police brutality. As Hong Kong gears up for Christmas celebrations, the protesters plan wildcat gatherings in prime shopping malls and a ‘silent night’ rally on Tuesday evening.
• Boeing on Monday replaced its embattled chief executive, Dennis Muilenburg, as it attempts to pivot from a protracted crisis surrounding the grounding of its top-selling 737 MAX after two deadly crashes.
• China has condemned the inauguration of the newest branch of the US military, the Space Force, describing its creation as a threat to peace that endangers global stability. Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters on Monday that Beijing was “deeply concerned” and “resolutely opposed” to the Space Force, which received its first funding after US President Donald Trump signed the annual military budget last week.
• Saudi Arabia on Monday sentenced five people to death and three to jail over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but a U.N. investigator accused it of making a “mockery” of justice by allowing the masterminds of last year’s killing to go free.

• George Papadopolous responded to the reports that Italian prosecutors in Agrigento, Sicily believe the Maltese Professor Joseph Mifsud is dead. “Lil Joey Mifsud is not sleeping with the fishes,” Tweeted Papadopolous. “More to come.” It is the biggest mystery surrounding the man that allegedly began the FBI’s probe into President Donald Trump’s campaign and the now debunked theory that campaign officials conspired with Russia in the 2016 election.
• At least 11 people have been killed and more than 300 treated in hospital after drinking coconut wine in the Philippines. The poisoning occurred in Laguna and Quezon, two provinces south of Manila, and all had consumed lambanog, a drink popular in provinces and consumed widely during holidays and celebrations.
• Hundreds of people joined a protest on Monday (Dec 23) against Myanmar’s police after the force broke the law by revealing the name of the child victim of a high profile rape case following the acquittal of a suspect. The case of the three-year-old girl – known to the public by the nickname ‘Victoria’ – has become a focus for accusations of police misconduct in Myanmar, where the force remains under the control of the army under a transition to democracy.
• A man has been sentenced to more than 15 years in prison for burning an LGBTQ flag that was flying at a church in central Iowa. Adolfo Martinez, 30, of Ames, was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years for the hate crime of arson, as well as a year for the reckless use of explosives or fire, and 30 days for harassment. The sentences are to be served consecutively, Story County court records show.
• Ari Behn, a former member of Norway’s royal family who was one of Kevin Spacey’s sexual assault accusers, died by suicide on Wednesday. So, Spacey threatened someone in the Cult (with exposure?) for abandoning him, so that they would make his “problems” go away?

• A standard test of Stockholm’s wastewater was carried out under the EMCDDA rules, the European Organisation for Drugs and Drug Addiction. The tests yielded an average of about 675 milligrams of amphetamine per 1,000 inhabitants per day, which places Stockholmers at the top of the European list in terms of total amphetamines consumed. No other cities of Stockholm’s calibre had ever measured higher than an average level of 450 milligrams of amphetamine per 1,000 inhabitants per day since the measurements began in 2011.
• US space scientists selected a site on the distant asteroid Bennu for the OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft to swoop down, grab a sample from the orbit’s boulder-strewn surface and return to Earth.
• The Bek Air airline’s Fokker 100 plane, heading from Almaty to the Kazakh capital of Nur-Sultan with almost 100 people on board, crashed earlier in the day soon after take-off. It lost altitude, broke through a concrete fence and hit a two-story building. 12 fatalties and 49 injured.
• In a fascinating find, archaeologists in Mexico have uncovered the ruins of a large palace at a dig on the site of the ancient city of Kulubá in Yucatán state, which they believe dates back to the height of the Mayan civilisation 1,000 years ago. According to a statement by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), the structure was supposedly used over two periods of Mayan history as far back as 600 AD: the Late Classic (600-900 AD) and the Terminal Classic (850-1050 AD). The building was estimated to have been six metres (20ft) high, 55 metres long and 15 metres wide.
• Conspiracy theorist and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow has been called out by Washington Post columnist Erik Wemple for breathlessly peddling the Steele Dossier – becoming a “clearinghouse” for the largely debunked opposition research funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC in 2016 (and fed to the MSM six weeks before the 2016 US election by the former British spy who wrote it).
• Former chairman of struggling Chinese lender Hengfeng Bank sentenced to death with a two-year delay by a Chinese court. Jiang Xiyun was convicted for moving 754 million yuan ($108 million) worth of Hangfeng shares to his personal account between 2008 and 2013, according to the Yantai Intermediate People’s Court. He also took bribes of more than 60 million yuan together with another bank executive, according to the Thursday ruling. A reprieved death sentence may be commuted to a life sentence if the person shows good behavior within the allotted period.

Active Weather

• Tropical Storm Phanfone 55/80 kts ↓ 998 hPa ↑ E of Vietnam – Moving W 14 kts
• Tropical Cyclone Sarai 50 kts ↑ 985 hPa ↓ E of Fiji – Moving S 15 kts

Strongest EQ in Europe M4.9 Azores (25/12)
Strongest EQ in US M4.0 California (25/12)
Strongest EQ on the Planet M6.3 Canada (25/12)
Deepest EQ M6.0 560 km Argentina (24/12)

Notable Resignations Worldwide

• Dec. 26 2019 Barham Salih President Government of Iraq Resigned
• Dec. 25 2019 Jun Seki Vice COO Nissan Motor Co. Japan Resigned
• Dec. 24 2019 Napp Nazworth Editor Christian Post USA Resigned
• Dec. 24 2019 Mitsuhiko Uehira President Japan Post Insurance Co. Scandal Resigned
• Dec. 24 2019 Kunio Yokoyama President Japan Post Co. Japan Scandal Resigned
• Dec. 24 2019 Masatsugu Nagato President President Japan Post Co. Japan Scandal Resigned
• Dec. 24 2019 Tim Clark President Emirates UAE Retired
• Dec. 24 2019 Travis Kalanick Board Member Uber Technologies Inc. USA Resigned
• Dec. 23 2019 Ricardo Valero Ambassador to Argentina Mexico Caught shoplifting Resigned
• Dec. 23 2019 Bert Bruggeman VP Tesla Inc. USA Resigned

News Burst 27 December 2019