News Burst 6 June 2020 – Live Feed ~ June 6, 2020

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News Burst 6 June 2020

Alleged members of the Gulf Cartel and Jalisco New Generation Cartel distributed aid in Mexico over the weekend. Considered the most powerful cartel in Mexico, Jalisco New Generation Cartel visited eight different towns in the state of San Luis Potosí to provide aid. In recent days, videos and photos were disseminated across social media channels, showing alleged members of the Gulf Cartel and Jalisco New Generation Cartel handing out boxes and plastic bags filled with supplies to residents in low income neighborhoods. The assistance provided by the criminal organizations comes as the poor in a nation of 126 million have clamored for help from government officials tasked with stopping the spread of the contagious virus which has set back the local economy. But now they must said “Thank you mr. El Mencho.” Mexican drug trafficking cartels have made more than 60,000 people have disappeared in Mexico since the start of the country’s war on drugs in 2006, according to authorities. Around 53% of those who disappeared were between the ages of 15 and 35, and 74% were men, officials said.

Louisiana has declared a state of emergency ahead of Tropical Storm Cristobal. The storm system weakened into a Tropical Depression Thursday, but it is expected to gradually strengthen as it moves toward the United States. Once it makes landfall, it will likely become a Tropical Storm. Tropical Storm Cristobal churns in the Caribbean, just off the eastern coast of Mexico. Cristobal is forecast to approach the Louisiana coast by Sunday evening, with winds up to 60 mph. It brought heavy rain and flooding to parts of Mexico and Central America, and now, the same is expected to happen in the U.S. Flood watches have been issued for much of Louisiana, including Baton Rouge and New Orleans, which could see up to 4 inches of rain by the weekend and into early next week.

A giant, sprawling structure almost a mile long has been discovered at the southern tip of Mexico, with researchers saying it may represent the oldest and largest monument of the ancient Maya civilisation ever found. The site, called Aguada Fénix, is located in the state of Tabasco, at the base of the Gulf of Mexico. It’s so vast for its age, the find is making archaeologists recalibrate their timelines on the architectural capabilities of the mysterious Maya. Before now, the Maya site of Ceibal (aka Seibal) was thought to be the oldest ceremonial centre, dating back to around 950 BCE. Aguada Fénix, which measures over 1,400 metres (almost 4,600 ft) in length at its greatest extent, dates to a similar timeframe, with researchers estimating it was built between 1000 and 800 BCE – but its immense size and scope make it unlike anything found before from the period.

As new fiscal year draws near, government’s plan to plant 50million tree saplings in 2019-20 is nowhere near its target. Government officials are confident about meeting the plantation target but they are not willing to bet on the survival of the plants. The plan, made on the occasion of International Forest Day 2019, would be supported by the budgetary backing when the government allocated a budget for a tree plantation programme. Presenting the budget in Parliament, Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada announced, “The coming fiscal year will be declared the Afforestation Year during which a plantation campaign of timber, non-timber and fruit saplings will be undertaken.” The campaign included tree plantation on vacant forest areas, reclaimed river areas, public lands and private forests.
26 Nepalis who were stranded in Myanmar were brought to Nepal on Friday. A Myanmar Air Force aircraft landed at Tribhuvan International Airport at around 11 am with the 26 Nepalis. Of the 26, 17 are from Bagmati Province, four each from Province 1 and Gandaki Province and one from Province 5. “They have been kept in a holding centre at Yeti Party Palace in Basundhara,” said Brigadier General Bigyan Dev Pandey, the spokesperson of the Nepal Army.

Bolivia ordered the closure of its embassies in Nicaragua and Iran while also shuttering three federal ministries in a cost-cutting move to free up money to fight the coronavirus, President Jeanine Anez said Thursday. Former leftist president Evo Morales had established close political and economic ties with the two countries before he resigned last November following days of violent unrest. “We have nothing against those countries, noble people and brothers whom we respect and who are friends,” Anez said in a televised message in which she announced she would “close the Bolivian embassies in Iran and Nicaragua.”

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said his attitude towards “Black Pete”, a figure from the country’s winter holiday celebrations that has been criticized as a racist caricature, had undergone “great changes” in recent years. In a debate in parliament over anti-racism protests in the Netherlands prompted by solidarity with US demonstrations, Rutte said late on Thursday his view had changed since 2013, when he said “Black Pete is just black and I can’t do much about that” and dismissed the discussion. In the Dutch tradition, St. Nicholas brings gifts to kids accompanied by numerous “Petes”, clownish servants usually portrayed by white people in black face paint wearing frizzy wigs and red lipstick.

The lawsuit against President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s decision to cut off the internet in Papua and West Papua during antiracism protests in the two provinces last year was meant to be a call for better policies in the future, the suit’s plaintiffs have said. The plaintiffs, which include the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), the Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network (SAFEnet), the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) and the Legal Aid Institute for the Press (LBH Pers), said they hoped the government would respect the court’s ruling. The Jakarta State Administrative Court (PTUN) ruled on Wednesday that the government had unlawfully shut down the internet in the two provinces during heightened security tensions caused by waves of protests in August and September of last year.

Argentina extended on Thursday a mandatory lockdown in Buenos Aires, the capital, and some other parts of the country until June 28, as confirmed coronavirus cases continue to rise, surpassing 20,000 earlier in the day. The three-week extension of the lockdown, which had been due to expire June 7, will impact the capital city, the province of Buenos Aires and some other areas that account for the highest concentration of confirmed infections, President Alberto Fernandez said during a press conference. The rest of the country will move to a phase of “mandatory and preventive social distancing.” The next phase will include new permissions, including outdoor exercise during certain hours in the city of Buenos Aires, which has the highest concentration of cases, officials said.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte renewed on Friday a threat to kill drug dealers after police seized 756 kg of methamphetamines, a haul he said proved the Southeast Asian country had become a transhipment point for narcotics. The crystal methamphetamine, with a Philippine market value that police put at 5.1 billion pesos ($102.22 million), was one of the biggest seizures since Duterte unleashed his bloody war on drugs, which has defined his presidency, in 2016. “If you destroy my country distributing 5.1 billion pesos worth of shabu … I will kill you,” Duterte said in recorded address, referring to the drugs.

There are reports from northern Mozambique that 12 people have died, including several children, when a boat sank in the bay of Pemba. Thirty-five people survived after swimming ashore on Wednesday. But they were then apprehended by the police on suspicion that they could be recruits to an Islamist militant group that has been mounting attacks in Cabo Delgado province. A new report by the UN says displacement of Mozambique’s civilian population has risen rapidly in recent months as the jihadists have stepped up their attacks. More than 200,000 people – most of them women and children – have been forced to flee their homes since the insurgency began in 2017.

A team of university researchers has found that the probability of scientists discovering Earth-like planets within their early stages of formation is actually higher than previously presumed. New research published in The Astrophysical Journal from scientists at the UK’s University of Sheffield noted that there are many more stars in space that are comparable to our solar system’s sun than expected in the groups of Milky Way stars the study examined, according to the school’s June 5 news release on the matter. As a result, there is a higher chance of finding “magma ocean planets” – or Earth-like planets still in their early stages of being formed from the collisions of rocks and smaller planets – than previously assumed.

Two crew members of an Iranian cargo ship sank off the Iraqi coast Thursday night have died and two others, including an Indian national, are still missing. According to Iranian news agencies, late on Thursday the ship which was carrying a load of 850 tons capsized and sank in Khawr Abdullah Canal between Iraq and Kuwait. The accident has been attributed to bad weather as well as the age of the ship and the weight of its cargo. The five-decade-old and 500 ton Behbahan was carrying ceramic tiles and other construction materials to Iraq’s Umm Qasr Port.

Sun Activity

Solar Cycle 25 is stirring. The latest sign of life is sunspot AR2765, now turning toward Earth in the sun’s southern hemisphere. The sunspot’s primary dark core is almost twice as wide as Earth, and it is followed by a frothy wake of magnetic turbulence stretching 70,000 miles behind the sunspot. These dimensions make it an easy target for backyard solar telescopes.

The sunspot is crackling with minor solar flares. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded this B3-class eruption at 00:01 UT on June 5th. The explosion hurled a cloud of plasma into space, but not toward Earth. Future explosions could be geoeffective, however, as the sunspot turns toward Earth this weekend. Video Player

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Active Weather

Tropical Storm Cristobal North of Yucatan, Mexico – Maximum Sustained Winds: 35 knots; 40 kts – 1000 hPa Moving N 11 kts Video Player

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Strongest EQ in Europe M5.0 North of Svalbard/North Pole – M4.7 Azores Islands
Strongest EQ in North America M3.8 Idaho
Strongest EQ on the Planet M5.2 Turkey
Deepest EQ M4.4 524 km Fiji News Burst 6 June 2020

News Burst 5 June 2020 ~ June 5, 2020

News Burst 5 June 2020

Britain’s housing market has taken a serious hit during coronavirus lockdowns. Home prices tumbled the most in a decade in May as consumers were severely damaged by one of the worst recessions in centuries. Bloomberg reports nationwide home prices fell 1.7% in May, the largest drop since February 2009. In annual terms, prices increased by 1.8% but down from 3.8% in April, as this suggests home prices will likely slump through year-end.
As for policy response, the Bank of England unleashed vast packages of financial support to cushion the economic blow. In April, mortgage lenders approved the fewest home loans on record, with the number of approvals falling to 15,800, the BOE said.

China has unveiled a package of special policies for Hainan, including scrapping import duties, in an effort to turn the tropical island into the mainland’s answer to Hong Kong or Singapore and dampen the risk of decoupling with the United States. Beijing on Monday outlined its plan to make the 35,000 sq km island a “free trade port” by lowering the income tax rate for selected individuals and companies to 15 per cent, and relaxing visa requirements for tourists and business travellers. The island province of 9.5 million people will also enjoy freedoms in terms of trade, investment, capital flows and the movement of people and data by 2035, as it moves toward becoming a hub of “strong international influence” by the middle of the century. The project to make Hainan, which covers an area 30 times that of Hong Kong, into a regional trade, shopping and shipping centre has been “planned, arranged and promoted by General Secretary Xi Jinping personally”, according to the government statement.

The US Geological Survey says it is monitoring the area near Yellowstone National Park where a swarm of earthquakes has caused renewed concern over the area’s underground supervolcano. Although statistically unlikely, a supervolcano eruption would release the equivalent of 1,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs and wreak unprecedented destruction. The area, West Yellowstone in Montana, reported around eleven earthquakes on Friday and a total of 34 in the last month. Though considered low-magnitude quakes, the tremors extended three miles underground.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered a state of emergency and criticized a subsidiary of metals giant Norilsk Nickel after a massive diesel spill into a Siberian river. The spill of over 20,000 tons of diesel fuel took place on Friday. A fuel reservoir collapsed at a power plant near the city of Norilsk, located above the Arctic Circle, and leaked into a nearby river. The accident is the second largest in modern Russian history in terms of volume, World Wildlife Fund expert Alexei Knizhnikov told AFP.

Australia will give eligible residents A$25,000 (US$17,323) to build or significantly renovate their homes, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Thursday, as Canberra moves to revive a construction sector badly affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Dubbed HomeBuilder, the package worth A$680 million ($471 million) is Australia’s fourth economic stimulus package as it seeks to repair an economy that is now in its first recession in 29 years. Morrison said the package would support jobs and allow people to build a family home, a long-held dream for many Australians.

A Spain porn star star has been arrested on manslaughter charges following a man’s death during a mystic ritual in which he inhaled psychedelic toad venom, Spanish police said Wednesday. Nacho Vidal was detained last week in the southeastern Valencia region in connection with the death of a man in July 2019. Media identified the victim as fashion photographer Jose Luis Abad. The toad, a rare species which is native to the Sonoran Desert, stretching from northern Mexico into California and Arizona, secretes venom containing a very powerful natural psychedelic substance known as 5-MeO-DMT. Its effects have been compared to ayahuasca, a powerful hallucinogenic concoction from the Amazon consumed as part of a shamanic ritual.

In Pathari’s Musahar indian community, one person has already died of hunger and others are on the verge of starvation. The most vulnerable of families are doubly victimised. They cannot afford to catch Covid-19 but they cannot afford to stay at home and not work either. For these working families, even a day without work can place them in dire straits. Calls have recently grown for the government to lift the lockdown, but they are primarily from the private sector business community given their monetary losses. What is unfolding is a humanitarian crisis, where many families have little to eat and need to depend on the kindness of strangers to survive.

Two lions at Shoalhaven Zoo, Australia, escape death sentence after attacking zookeeper. They will not be euthanised after their attack last week on Jennifer Brown, who is recovering from serious head and neck injuries. Jennifer Brown, 35, was cleaning the cage when the lions, Ariel and Juda, attacked her head and neck at Shoalhaven Zoo, in North Nowra, New South Wales, on Friday. The fate of the lions, who are brothers born and bred at the zoo, was decided as police work with SafeWork NSW to determine the circumstances that lead to her attack.
‘The investigation is ongoing but no decision in consultation with the zoo has been made to have the lions put down,’ Detective Inspector Scott Nelson told The Australian.

Residents of the seven sub-counties of Turkana County, Kenya, are staring at a looming starvation after millions of locusts invaded farms and grazing fields. The gregarious-phase locust nymphs are feeding on both pasture and food crops along their way. The locusts are yellow in colour, wingless and are acting collectively, forming marching bands. On Wednesday the Nation witnessed the destructive pests at Aminatoi Nazarene Irrigation Scheme where they fed on maturing crops that include collard greens, cowpeas, okra, butternut and spinach as farmers watch in disbelief. Loima MP Jeremiah Lomorukai said the county has become a conducive home for locusts with every major town centre like Kainuk, Lokichar, Kerio, Loima, Kakuma, Lokitaung and Kibish and their outskirts all having been invaded. “The government must declare the locusts’ invasion a national disaster because large tracts of pasture and irrigation schemes have been adversely affected. If not well controlled, they will migrate to neighbouring counties,” Mr Lomorukai said.

The Cabildo de Gran Canaria has delivered 5,000 coffee trees to the Association for the Promotion and Agricultural Development of Agaete, the municipality in the Northwest of Gran Canaria, aiming to increase the amount of coffee plantations and continue with the recovery of this historic crop in the municipality. The seedlings distributed are Arabica species, a ‘typical’ variety, ( also known as “coffee shrub of Arabia” or “mountain coffee”) from seeds collected at traditional coffee plantations in the Agaete Valley and which have been grown in the nurseries of the Granja del Cabildo, experimental farm. In addition to delivering the coffee tree, the island’s primary agricultural institution offers farmers advice on growing this crop, especially the best time for planting and the care that these seedlings require during the first year. This coffee species, adapted two centuries ago to the conditions of Gran Canaria, particularly in the Agaete microclimate, grows under the shade of tropical trees, since the plant requires semi-shade, with high temperatures and humidity. For this reason, Agaete farmers combine the cultivation of coffee with mango and avocado.

Ancient Jews used ganja in the temple: discovered use of cannabis for ritual purposes
Israeli archaeologists say they’ve found cannabis residue on artefacts from an ancient temple in southern Israel providing the first evidence of the use of hallucinogenics in the ancient Jewish religion. In a research paper, the authors say the discovery from an eighth-century BC shrine at Tel Arad offers the first proof for the use of mind-altering substances as part of cultic rituals in Judah, including the first Jewish Temple that stood in Jerusalem at the same time. Chemical analysis of the samples conducted at Israel’s Hebrew University and Technion Institute found that one altar contained the psychoactive compounds found in marijuana, and the other had traces of frankincense – one of the ingredients mentioned in the Bible for the incense sacrifice in the ancient Jewish Temples, the authors wrote. The absence of cannabis pollen or seeds from the area in ancient times indicates the cannabis was likely imported over long distance trade routes, possibly in the form of resin.

China said on Thursday it will allow more foreign carriers to fly into the mainland, shortly after Washington barred Chinese passenger carriers from flying to the United States citing Beijing’s restrictions on American airlines. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said in a statement that qualifying foreign carriers currently barred from operating flights to mainland China will be allowed once-per-week flights into a city of their choosing starting on June 8. Hong Kong and Macau, though part of China, have their own aviation authorities and set their own rules. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has barred Chinese passenger carriers from flying into America starting June 16 as it pressures Beijing to let U.S. airlines to resume flights to the country.

Sun Activity

All space weather is calm but there is Another active region cresting into view over the limb of the Sun. We are monitoring it for larger flares and CMEs. Video Player

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Active Weather

Cyclonic Storm Nisarga, Arabian Sea off the Coast of Mumbai, India – Moving N 7 kts – w/v 40 kts 998 hPa Intensifying.

Strongest EQ in Europe M4.1 Romania
Strongest EQ in North America M3.9 Nelson Lagoon, Alaska
Strongest EQ on the Planet M5.0 South sandwich Islands
Deepest EQ M4.3 497 km Tonga News Burst 5 June 2020

News Burst 3 June 2020 – Live Feed ~ June 3, 2020

News Burst 2 June 2020

With over 1 million downloads, the Remove China Apps application developed by Jaipur-based startup OneTouchAppLabs has become the top free app on Google Play Store in just 10 days. As the name suggests, the app allows users to delete all applications developed in China. It scans the user’s phone and lists the apps developed in China. After this, the user can decide which app to keep and which to remove. Satyajit Sinha, cyber security researcher at Counterpoint, explains that the Remove China Apps app just identifies the app developer’s country of origin by comparing it with the repository database of apps developed in China. Sinha says the app is safe to use and one shouldn’t worry about downloading it on their Android smartphone. “The app scan focused on the installed android application package (APK) only. Hence, it doesn’t affect any change in stored personal data.”

China has unveiled a package of special policies for Hainan, including scrapping import duties, in an effort to turn the tropical island into the mainland’s answer to Hong Kong or Singapore and dampen the risk of decoupling with the United States. Beijing on Monday outlined its plan to make the 35,000 sq km island a “free trade port” by lowering the income tax rate for selected individuals and companies to 15 per cent, and relaxing visa requirements for tourists and business travellers. The island province of 9.5 million people will also enjoy freedoms in terms of trade, investment, capital flows and the movement of people and data by 2035, as it moves toward becoming a hub of “strong international influence” by the middle of the century. The project to make Hainan, which covers an area 30 times that of Hong Kong, into a regional trade, shopping and shipping centre has been “planned, arranged and promoted by General Secretary Xi Jinping personally”, according to the government statement.

Frustrated Civil Rights Leaders Say Mark Zuckerberg ‘Lacks The Ability To Understand’ Race Issues. Now, the Facebook CEO is taking heat from civil rights leaders after spending nearly an hour on the phone to discuss ‘ongoing issues around his company’s policies as they relate to race, elections and other topics,’ according to Bloomberg, who said that participants were left disappointed. Rashad Robinson, president of civil rights group Color of Change, told the outlet that Zuckerberg is clueless when it comes to racial issues. In an interview with Bloomberg News immediately after the call, Robinson said that “the problem with my ongoing conversations with Mark, is that I feel like I spent a lot of time, and my colleagues spent a lot of time, explaining to him why these things are a problem, and I think he just very much lacks the ability to understand it.”
“His employees are outraged,” said Robinson. “I’ve got outreach from some of them. Saying Black Lives Matter, saying I’m going to give money, but having your policies actually hurt black people, people will know the difference.” Some of the company’s senior staff have taken to Twitter to make their discontent public.

Between low demand, soaring inventories, depressed prices, a global pandemic, and now, hurricane season, it seems a perfect storm is forming around the offshore oil industry. The world’s offshore oil market, responsible for 30 percent of all the world’s oil production, is facing an impossible set of challenges. The crisis has pushed much of the world’s oil production onshore in favor of more flexible rigs and lower operational costs. Many new offshore projects have even been put on hold as the new reality of the oil market sets in. Companies are now scrambling to suspend federal lease deadlines as the near-term looks increasingly uncertain. The industry’s growing troubles come just as Royal Dutch Shell was forced to airlift a number of coronavirus-infected employees from one of its offshore platforms, highlighting the risks associated with confining workers on offshore rigs during a pandemic. And Shell isn’t the only company grappling with outbreaks. In recent weeks, hundreds of workers at offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea, Mozambique, Canada, and Kazakhstan have been infected with COVID-19. The outbreaks add to the growing list of trials and tribulations the offshore industry is grappling with.

Nine people sent to police custody after they were caught gambling in Kathmandu hotel. “Majority of the arrestees are business persons,” said DSP Raj Kumar KC, spokesperson for the Kathmandu Metropolitan Police Range. A police team had arrested the group on Monday evening from Gangaur Regency Boutique Hotel in Kamaladi. “Police have confiscated Rs 277,000 cash and 171 gambling chips from the suspects,” said KC. “The majority of complaints related to gambling are received either from the family members or acquaintances of the gamblers,” said SSP Sushil Kumar Yadav, spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Office, Ranipokhari. “The money seized by police from the gamblers goes to the government’s funds.”

A bird may have caused a plane from an elite Canadian air force aerobatics team to crash, resulting in the death of one team member and injury to another, the defense department said Monday. The aircraft — part of the team known as the Snowbirds — crashed into the front yard of a house in British Columbia shortly after taking off from Kamloops Airport late morning on May 18. In a preliminary report, the Department of National Defence’s Airworthiness Investigative Authority said it had obtained video footage that revealed “one bird in very close proximity to the aircraft right engine intake during the critical post take-off phase.

Twitter said it is “actively investigating” the #dcblackout hashtag after online accounts pushed false and misleading tweets during a night of unrest in Washington over the death in police custody of George Floyd. Twitter said it has “suspended hundreds of spammy accounts” under its platform manipulation policy. A spokesman for the company also said, “We’re taking action proactively on any coordinated attempts to disrupt the public conversation around this issue.” Many of the accounts tweeted about a supposed communication blackout that occurred between 1:00 and 6:00 am. However, Alaina Gertz, spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police Department said, “This appears to be misinformation. We have no confirmation of a cellphone blackout.” Other tweets shared an image of a major fire next to the Washington Monument, but a reverse image search revealed that the picture was a scene from the American television program “Designated Survivor” which was set in Washington.

Emergency workers were searching for seven people still missing Monday as El Salvador and its Central American neighbors picked through the destruction after the first named Pacific storm of the year left at least 18 people dead. Rescue teams were trying to locate the missing in floodwaters caused by torrential rain and high winds after Storm Amanda swept in from the Pacific on Sunday, El Salvador’s Interior Minister Mario Duran said. “We have 15 people dead and seven missing,” Duran told reporters. Some 7,225 people were evacuated from high-risk areas, soldiers and civil protection workers transferring them to 154 shelters set up throughout the country. The environment ministry said the rains had left up to 500 millimeters of water, almost a third of the yearly average of 1,800 mm. Many areas were left without power or drinking water and vulnerable to landslides.

Ten Colima state police officers went missing after escorting a group of businessmen to the municipality of La Huerta in the neighboring state of Jalisco, Mexico. Authorities in Colima on Monday found a vehicle containing the dismembered remains of seven bodies believed to be those of a group of officers who disappeared in neighboring Jalisco last week. Ten Colima state police officers were ambushed and kidnapped in Jalisco on Thursday after escorting a group of mining executives to the municipality of La Huerta. The bodies were found in a white Chrysler Pacifica near a soccer field in the community of Cedros, north of Manzanillo, the capital of Colima, after police received a 911 call about an abandoned vehicle with a strong odor coming from it.

Archeologists have now found a skeleton in the suspected Viking-era tomb a Norwegian couple discovered last week under their house — but the bones have been broken into pieces. Mariann Kristiansen from Seivåg near Bodø was pulling up the floor of her house with her husband to install insulation last week when they couple found a glass bead, and then a Viking axe. “We have found several bones, and bones from a human,” archaeologist Jørn Erik Henriksen from Tromsø University told Norway’s state TV station NRK. “We do not know when the grave was given this treatment, but everything indicates that it must have happened long before the house was built in 1914.”

Fahrudin Radoncic, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Minister of Security who has taken a tough line on deporting illegal migrants, announced his resignation today, at a meeting of Bosnia’s Council of Ministers today. He cited “political differences on strategic issues” with his colleagues in the government, including in relation to his intended deportations of migrants, as one reason for his departure, according to a report by Balkan Insight. Radoncic had announced in April that he intended to deport all of the approximately 10,000 illegal migrants Bosnia is currently hosting in its camps, apart from actual Syrian war refugees, as previously reported by Voice of Europe. He declared that his country would not be “a parking lot of migrants for Europe.” Migrants end up in Bosnia as they follow the Balkan migration route from the European countries along the Mediterranean, where they cross illegally from Africa and Turkey. They end up in camps along the Croatian border, looking to eventually be able to find a way to cross it and thus end up in the European Union, where they hope to make their way to richer pickings in the nations of northwestern Europe. Radoncic had accused Pakistan’s ambassador of blocking efforts to establish the identities of Pakistani migrants in Bosnia, which is a necessary part of the deportation procedures. He had even threatened to declare the ambassador “persona non grata” if he did not cooperate more fully. “I think that Radoncic did his job extremely well and bravely,” said Vjekoslav Bevanda, the country’s Minister of Finance. “He was one of the few people who adhered to principles.”

Wildlife authorities in Botswana have reported at least 110 mysterious elephant deaths in the northwest part of the country – a jump from the 56 carcasses discovered as of an earlier announcement in May. However, anthrax and poisoning were recently ruled out as causes behind the animals’ deaths. “I would say 90% of the new cases we have found are old carcasses we previously did not locate,” Dimakatso Ntshebe, a regional wildlife director, said in a recent interview with Bloomberg. “However, a few are indeed new deaths. All recovered carcasses do not show signs of poaching.” Last year, Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi lifted a hunting ban to prevent the 135,000 elephants in the country from damaging crops and sometimes trampling residents.
Carcass samples are also being sent to a laboratory in Zimbabwe to determine the cause of the deaths. However, the COVID-19 pandemic could cause delays in receiving testing results. Ntshebe also warned that more elephant deaths could occur. “We are still experiencing elephants dying in the Okavango Panhandle,” the wildlife official said, also noting that tusks have been removed from the dead elephants.
“We have started removing the tusks in the dead elephants, and we have started burning the carcasses,” Ntshebe said, reported Big News Network.”We have started with those [carcasses], which are close to the villages, and those that are lying in the water. The idea is to burn as many carcasses as possible. However, we have a challenge since some of the carcasses are in areas which are difficult to reach.” The majority of the world’s African elephants live in Southern Africa, where Botswana is located.

Sun Activity

All space weather is calm but there is Another active region cresting into view over the limb of the Sun. We are monitoring it for larger flares and CMEs. Video Player

Media error: Format(s) not supported or source(s) not foundDownload File: https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1267914522595131402/pu/vid/732×526/2wuG_2oMrhSQTFvh.mp4?_=100:0000:00

Active Weather

Cyclonic Storm Nisarga, Arabian Sea off the Coast of Mumbai, India – Moving N 7 kts – w/v 40 kts 998 hPa Intensifying.

Strongest EQ in Europe M4.1 Romania
Strongest EQ in North America M3.9 Nelson Lagoon, Alaska
Strongest EQ on the Planet M5.0 South sandwich Islands
Deepest EQ M4.3 497 km Tonga News Burst 2 June 2020

News Burst 1 June 2020 – Live Feed ~ June 1, 2020

News Burst 1 June 2020

Elon Musk, whose SpaceX company has just performed its first manned flight into orbit, replied to greetings from Roscosmos saying he was ready to work with Russia to explore space further. And, surprisingly, he did it in Russian. “Thank you, sir, ha ha. We’re hoping for a mutually beneficial and prosperous long-term cooperation,” the tech billionaire wrote. The message came in response to Roscosmos boss Dmitry Rogozin’s tweet in which – in English – he congratulated his NASA counterpart, Jim Bridenstine, on a successful launch, and asked him to convey his “sincere greetings” to Elon Musk.

The Global Africa Latina Foundation has called for an end to the Polisario Front’s “military stranglehold” on the Tindouf camps in Algeria. The Sahrawi population held captive in the camps are living in “panic and despair,” the April 23 statement said. The foundation, a collective of Latin American NGOs, denounced “the manipulation of international humanitarian aid” and the Polisario armed forces for “keeping the population in permanent captivity.” The foundation called on the United Nations, including High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet “to investigate the plight of the vulnerable population of Tindouf, who suffer from the iron grip and the tyranny of the Polisario and its mentors.” As conditions in the camps worsen and the COVID-19 pandemic spreads through Algeria, the foundation explained Sahrawi residents are living in fear and “”only want to survive for the next day.”

Wildfires have been raging across five Iranian provinces in the western and southern parts of the country for several days causing extensive damage to the environment and wildlife. The fire which initially ran across a part of the Zagros mountain range spanning from north to south in the Iranian plateau started from the forests in Kohkiloyeh and Boyer Ahmad Province but later affected highlands in four other provinces of Ilam, Kurdistan, Khuzestan and Bushehr. According to reports coming from Iran, the government has not been able to help because of lack of coordination among its various parts and due to the scarcity of fire extinguishing equipment.

TikTok is a social media platform that allows users to upload short videos, setting them to music or adding augmented reality flairs. It has proven extremely popular with Millennials and Generation Z. At the time of writing, TikTok was the #2 free app in both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, trailing only Zoom – another Chinese security threat. Tens of millions of Americans have downloaded and installed TikTok since it became available in the United States in August 2018, with millions more downloads worldwide. The app fills the void left by Vine, a short video app that was gobbled up and eventually discontinued by Twitter. In late 2019, a class action lawsuit claimed TikTok “clandestinely… vacuumed up and transferred to servers in China vast quantities of [U.S.] private and personally-identifiable user data”. TikTok is the brainchild of Chinese entrepreneur Zhang Yiming, who founded a company called ByteDance in 2012. At first, ByteDance built a popular news app powered by AI-driven recommendations, but Zhang saw the potential of using the same engine for social media content as well. To that end, ByteDance launched a video sharing app called Douyin in China in September of 2016. In August of 2018, they purchased Shanghai-based Music.ly, which already had a presence in the United States. By merging the two apps, the company created TikTok, and it became an immediate worldwide hit. Today, it’s the most popular social media app in the world, which has made ByteDance the most valuable startup in the world. Zhang Yiming himself is now worth over $16 billion. TikTok is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. While Chinese CEOs such as Zhang consider themselves independent, an event a few years back shows who holds real power in this arena. In April 2018, the Chinese government forced ByteDance to remove a joke app for what it called “vulgar content”. The Chinese Communist Party also compelled Zhang to issue a letter of apology, in which he admitted that the app was “incommensurate with socialist core values.” He was made to adjust the algorithm in order to promote more “authoritative media content”.

President of Tanzania John Magufuli yesterday issued a food security alert, cautioning that Africa and the whole world faced a hunger threat due to disruptions of agriculture following Covid-19 outbreak lockdowns.

Patpong, BKK Thailand went dark. Residents say the decline had already begun for a red-light district that flourished in the 1970s as a rest stop for U.S. forces in Indochina. “This COVID-19 is an accelerant of change,” said Michael Ernst, an Austrian 25-year veteran of the district and former bar owner who opened the Patpong Museum weeks before the new coronavirus reached Thailand. “The go-go bar and its very one-dimensional concept of a stage and ladies dancing on it with a number. I think that’s already over, they just don’t know that yet.” The number of go-go bars in Patpong district has waned in recent years as business has moved to other parts of Bangkok or online and as sex tourism has become a smaller part of the overall tourism industry for Thailand. For decades, tourism figures were skewed towards men. But the growing importance of Chinese visitors in particular changed that. In 2018, more than 53 percent of tourists were women. Nonetheless, Patpong’s nightlife district employed thousands of people, mostly young women. Most are now among the 2 million Thais the state planning agency believes may be made unemployed this year because of the impact of the virus.

The National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) is considering not accepting smaller denominated US dollar banknotes – $1, $2 and $5 – from banks and microfinance institutions (MFIs) which it said are flooding its stockpile as the demand for those notes is low. While some banking insiders welcomed the move as an effort to enhance monetary policy by promoting local currency, the NBC stressed that the measure is not aimed at stopping the banknotes’ circulation in the market. “The NBC is flooded with US banknotes of $1, $2 and $5, which means there is little demand. We will give banks [and MFIs] three months starting June 1 until August 31 to take all those notes to the NBC for transport abroad without a service fee. Financial institutions will be charged if they take the notes to the NBC after the deadline,” it said in a statement.

The son of Minnesota’s Attorney General Keith Ellison just declared his allegiance to the terrorist organization Antifa… is this grounds for federal arrest under Trump’s new order?

AG Barr Has instructed all 56 Regional Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) to search our and apprehend ANTIFA leaders across the country.

The Chinese regime’s acts of aggression on the disputed border with India have drawn concern, leaving analysts to question the timing of skirmishes between the patrols of the Asian neighbors at two locations in the past few weeks. Multiple violent clashes have occurred recently along the 2,167 miles of a disputed border known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the eastern Himalayan Indian territory of Ladakh and the central Himalayan Indian territory of Sikkim, which also shares a border with Bhutan. The recent conflict started on May 5 and May 6, between Chinese and Indian patrols in the area of the lake of Pangong Tso, where Ladakh meets the region of Tibet. The Chinese regime’s act of building bunkers along the disputed territory with India in Ladakh is a tactic it has used with other countries it shares borders with, Aparna Pande, a research fellow and director of Hudson Institute’s Initiative on the Future of India and South Asia in Washington said. “This is their tactic: Argue over territory, keep pushing and pushing and testing the other side, then when you can build permanent bunkers and then sit there. Then again, after a little while, creep forward,” said Pande, who added that the Chinese regime has been similarly aggressive with Japan, Russia, Myanmar, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

Sun Activity

Sunspot number: 0
Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 29 days
2020 total: 120 days (79%)
2019 total: 281 days (77%)

Strongest EQ in Europe M3.3 SE of Crete, Greece
Strongest EQ in North America M4.0 Idaho
Strongest EQ on the Planet M5.3 Japan
Deepest EQ M4.3 262 km N od New Zealand News Burst 1 June 2020

News Burst 31 May – Live Feed ~ May 31, 2020

News Burst 31 May 2020

A law enforcement task force that includes the Environment and Forestry Ministry and the West Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency (Indonesia), has taken two men into custody for allegedly selling protected plants. The men, 23-year-old RB and 32-year-old MT, were apprehended in Sekadau Hilir district, Sekadau regency, West Kalimantan, on Wednesday. RB and MT were allegedly selling the plants to AC, a nursery owner in Taiwan who sells tropical plants from Southeast Asian countries. The plants sold reportedly included 25 tropical pitcher plants, locally known as kantong semar, as well as silver Komalomena, Vilodendrum boceri, turtle back Labisia and silver Alocasia.

US President Donald Trump said he is severing ties with the World Health Organization over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, as the death toll from the disease spiked again in the United States and Brazil. Trump’s move signals an end to hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to the United Nations agency just when it needs it most, with outbreaks in many parts of the world yet to reach their peak. Trump initially suspended funding to the WHO last month, accusing it of not doing enough to curb the early spread of the virus and being too lenient with China, where the virus emerged late last year. On Friday he made that decision permanent in a major blow for the UN agency’s finances, as the United States is by far its biggest contributor, pumping in $400 million last year. “Because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms, we will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization,” Trump told reporters.

A collective of mothers searching for their disappeared children had its drone shot out of the sky while using it to examine a rugged area of Sinaloa (Mexico) on Wednesday. Deeming their work an essential activity, the Sabuesos Guerreras (Warrior Sleuths) have continued to look for their loved ones during the quarantine period. The group denounced the action on Thursday morning, saying “at least they didn’t shoot at us.” “It wasn’t too high, about the height of a house, and they shot it down. We just kept exploring the area to continue our search, without caring if we bothered anyone,” said the group. They also said they would not file an official report of the incident as they haven’t received any help from police during any of their search efforts so far. Wednesday’s incident was not the first time the group has been attacked. Their “Sabuesomóvil,” a vehicle used to carry out searches, was stolen, and many members report having been threatened in attempts to intimidate them into giving up their efforts.

The European Commission on Wednesday published its highly anticipated proposal for a stimulus package designed to help member states to get back on their feet after the blow delivered by the coronavirus pandemic. Two-thirds of the massive, 750-billion-euro recovery fund would be disbursed in direct financial support and one-third in loans. A finnish Member of the European Parliament claimed that the recovery fund, along with other financial mechanisms, is an attempt to tighten the grip on Finland and other EU member states. “The EU elite is increasing its control over member states unscrupulously under the guise of the coronavirus crisis so that no other country can make a Brexit-like divorce from the federation that is the EU,” he slammed. The recovery fund, he said, is obviously not in the best interests of North European Coutries. “The EU is violating its own rules and making other countries pay for the poor economic management of Italy and Spain.”

The Finnish path to happiness relies on ‘kalsarikänni’, a term that literally means ‘drinking at home, alone, in your underwear’. It’s about letting go and being yourself, no affectation and no performance. Find your most comfortable underwear – the really holey ones where you’ve forgotten their original colour. Perhaps invest in some wool socks, too. ‘Kalsarikänni’ does not require expensive furniture and artisanal hot chocolate in the house – just your drink of choice, a comfy sofa and a TV show you’re happy to binge watch.

The region outside Moscow where the famous Russian saint St. Sergius of Radonezh once lived attracts not only Orthodox believers, but also those on a quest to seek out mysterious anomalies and ancient pagan treasures. Archeologists ventured into the area only at the beginning of the 20th century, but found little worth their efforts. In Soviet times, the place was investigated using aerial photography, and this revealed a layout similar to the famous Stonehenge in the UK.

Daesh, aka IS/ISIS/Islamic State, has published a new tape praising the COVID-19 pandemic as God’s “punishment” for its foes. The authenticity of the 39-minute speech has yet to be verified, although it came from the Sunni terrorist group’s main media arm, which publishes its propaganda, including video messages. The voice on the time is purportedly of Daesh spokesperson Abu Hamzah Al-Qurashi, who last spoke on 27 January.

The eastern Syrian provinces of al-Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor remain a major source of tensions between Damascus and Washington amid the ongoing tense standoff between Syrian forces, local civilians and US troops and their allies. Children and teens in the villages of al-Qahira and al-Dushaisha in the al-Hasakah countryside have intercepted a convoy of US military vehicles, pelting it with stones. Video of the incident provided by the Syrian Arab News Agency shows more than a dozen children, some as young as 5-6 years old, picking up stones and throwing them at the tan trucks, one of them flying an American flag.

Researchers with the Sanmenxia Archaeology Institute in Central China’s Henan Province have dug out a 2,000-year-old swan-shaped bronze vessel which they say contains more than 3 litres of a mysterious liquid – now the subject of testing. What was initially deemed as some early type of grain alcohol came out of a delicate object – a swan head-shaped pot with “lifelike” features. Along with a slew of other burial objects, the bronzeware pot was spotted inside an intact grave from around 221 BC that was discovered by accident, when an urban development project was carried out in the area. According to researcher Yan Fei, more than 3 litres of brownish liquid poured out from a small hole.

Scores of dead fishes were found floating in India’s Kommaghatta lake in Bengaluru on Friday. Locals allege that the lake has become a dumping ground for nearby factories. Amid reports of an improved environment due to the COVID-19 lockdown, Friday saw the results of government apathy over the state of rivers around the city of Bengaluru, known as India’s IT hub. Bengaluru witnessed the sight and stench of tonnes of dead fishes floating on the Kommaghatta Lake. In a video, a local fisherman can be seen clearing a heap of fish on the water through a raft.

Deaths of a large number of bats with no physical signs of trauma were reported from Belghat area of Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh on 26 May. The locals stated that as many as 52 bats dropped dead within an hour in one area sending the villagers into panic. The death of hundreds of bats in several states of India, including Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, is haunting villagers, who think of it as an ominous sign of the onset of something dreadful. In a similar incident on 26 May, the same day as the incident happened in Uttar Pradesh, the animal husbandry department of Bihar confirmed the death of around 200 bats near Ara in Bhojpur district. A team of doctors visited the area and collected the samples of the dead nocturnal creatures for testing. “We have experienced heatwaves earlier too and deaths on such a large scale have never taken place earlier. There is something wrong about this though the officials are trying to downplay the issue. How can 52 bats drop dead within an hour?” a local Ashok Varma told the media.

Researchers from Schmidt Ocean Institute who have been observing Moore Reef, next to Australia’s Queensland, discovered something resembling an “underwater tornado” during a live streamed expedition on May. According to the conversation between researchers that was captured on the VIDEO and later shared by the institute on YouTube, they were no less surprised by the mysterious occurrence than their viewers, believing at first that it was their own equipment that was creating the swirl. But then the scientist comes to the conclusion that the vortex was naturally occurring.

At least 13 members of Joe Biden’s campaign staff have made donations to a group that helps Minneapolis protesters get out of jail on bail, according to a report. The staffers posted on Twitter that they contributed money to a group called the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which opposes the practice of making people who are arrested pay money to avoid pre-trial imprisonment, Reuters reported.

The world’s largest all-electric-powered utility aircraft conducted its maiden flight on Thursday. The electric-powered Cessna 208B Caravan is a utility aircraft produced by Cessna Aircraft Company, has been traditionally used for flight training to recreation, commuter airlines to VIP transport, cargo carriers, humanitarian missions, and Special Forces operations. Propulsion company Magnix and AeroTEC, an engineering and flight test specialist, swapped out the plane’s Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 turboprop engine with an all-electric propulsion system, that can produce 750hp. After the successful test flight, the plane is now considered the largest all-electric passenger aircraft ever to fly.

Sun Activity

A new-cycle sunpot that unleashed a flurry of solar flares on May 29th has disintegrated–so quickly that it didn’t even have time to be officially numbered. Solar Minimum is back. But the episode shows that it might not last much longer.

Sunspot number: 0
Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 29 days
2020 total: 120 days (79%)
2019 total: 281 days (77%)

Strongest EQ in Europe M4.6 SE of Crete, Greece
Strongest EQ in North America M4.3 California
Strongest EQ on the Planet M6.0 Peru
Deepest EQ M4.7 611 km Fiji News Burst 31 May 2020