Four crew jump off stern as Dutch ship listed dangerously, while remaining eight airlifted off deck
A Dutch cargo ship is adrift in the Norwegian Sea after all of its crew members were airlifted, with some having to jump into the rough waters to be rescued.
The Eemslift Hendrika, which was carrying several smaller boats from Bremerhaven in Germany to Kolvereid in Norway, made a distress call Monday, reporting a heavy list after stormy weather displaced some of its cargo.
Continue reading...Footage posted by the Norwegian Coast Guard shows the rescue of 12 crew members of a stricken vessel in the North Sea.
Crew onboard the Eemslift Hendrika made a distress call on Monday, reporting a heavy list after stormy weather displaced some of its cargo. Some of the crew had to jump into the water because the vessel was leaning so much. All of the 12 were brought to safety.
The 111 metre (366 feet) Netherlands-registered ship, which was transporting smaller yachts, had lost power in its main engine and was now drifting towards land.
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– Joan E Greve and Maanvi Singh
Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican congressman who is being investigated over child sex trafficking charges, and who reportedly shared nude pictures of women with colleagues, is speaking at former president Donald Trump’s resort in Doral, at a rally for a pro-Trump women’s group.
Politico reports:
Women for America First announced late Tuesday that Gaetz would be a speaker at the three-day “Save America Summit.” This is the same group that helped organize the “March for Trump” rally in Washington that took place just hours before the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol that left five people dead.
The organization praised Gaetz as one of the “few members of Congress” willing to “stand up & fight on behalf of President Trump & his America First agenda.” Women For America First says on its website that “We won’t be pushed around by bullies who tell us who we are ‘supposed’ to like. And we’re not going to keep quiet just because the Washington, D.C. power elites and mainstream media want us to!”
Related: Katie Hill: Matt Gaetz backed me but he must quit if nude-photo reports are true
Continue reading...Lucy Maino faced intense online harassment over clip in incident that critics say highlights misogyny in PNG
Miss Papua New Guinea has been stripped of her crown after sharing a video of herself twerking on TikTok, with critics saying the incident reveals a deep-seated culture of misogyny in the country.
Lucy Maino, 25, who has also served as co-captain of Papua New Guinea’s women’s football team, faced intense online harassment after she shared a video of herself twerking on the video-sharing app TikTok.
Continue reading...Nation’s mass rollout begins on Wednesday, while Scotland will administer first doses later this week
Patients in Wales will from Wednesday become the first in the UK to receive the Moderna vaccine as part of a mass vaccination programme, with the first doses in Scotland set to come later this week.
The initial jabs would be given at the West Wales general hospital in Carmarthen, the Welsh government said.
Continue reading...Alessandro Bazzoni’s bank account was closed after he faced sanctions in a case of mistaken identity
A small business owner in Italy is preparing to sue the US Treasury after accidentally being put on a sanctions blacklist before Donald Trump left the presidency.
Alessandro Bazzoni, who owns a graphic design company in Sardinia, has been unable to trade since 19 January, when his business was slapped with sanctions as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on blacklisted Venezuelan crude oil.
Continue reading...President calls for his country to be put on pathway to membership of western military alliance
Ukraine’s president has called on Nato and key member states to hasten his country’s membership of the western military alliance in response to a growing buildup of Russian forces on his country’s borders.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke to Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, on Tuesday, and urged for Ukraine to be put on a pathway to future membership to halt the long-running conflict in the eastern Donbas region.
Continue reading...Exam once again draws attention to province’s notoriously difficult language requirements to gain permanent residency
Language exams have long struck fear in unprepared students as they nervously stumble over verb conjugation and struggle to get their tenses right.
Yohan Flaman, a long-haul truck driver from Limoges, France, however, was confident that proficiency in his native tongue would be enough to satisfy officials in the Canadian province of Quebec.
Continue reading...Analysis: it is incredibly challenging to scrutinise the system because data on movement is so opaque
The official response to coronavirus at the UK border has been problematic from the start. It was not until February this year that the government introduced mandatory hotel quarantine – some 11 months after coronavirus was first recorded the UK – despite it being used in countries such as New Zealand from the off.
Even now with stricter requirements for arrivals in place, critics say the current border policy is seriously lacking. Reports claiming as many as 8,000 tourists a day are arriving in the UK have significantly fueled those concerns.
Continue reading...Analysis: contrasting national outcomes highlight how easily UK could blow its chances
As mass vaccination programmes take hold around the world, some countries have begun to get on top of the virus while others have continued to struggle. Two countries that have streaked ahead with immunisations are Israel and Chile, but as Israel edges back to a new normal, Chile has been plunged back into lockdown. Can the UK and other countries repeat Israel’s success and avoid the setbacks of Chile?
Continue reading...Communities call for protection after string of killings linked to rush for land to grow coca, under cover of the pandemic
“We’re looking for you, dead or alive,” is one of the daily threats that Herlín Odicio receives on his mobile phone.
The leader of the indigenous Cacataibo people in Peru’s central Amazon has been forced into hiding for standing up to drug traffickers trying to steal his land. “We’ve reported coca plantations on our land so many times and nothing has been done,” Odicio said.
Continue reading...Possible fourth wave in Japan; North Korea pulls out of Games to ‘protect athletes’; Indian states seek widening of vaccinations
Germany’s general practitioners are due to start vaccinating people today, although a shortage of supplies means that initially the 35,000 practices involved are only due to get around 20 doses a week each. Germany’s health minister, Jens Spahn, has promised that many more doses will be available by the end of the month, enabling GPs to become a more significant part of the programme.
Amid concerns that not enough Germans are embracing the vaccine programme, mainly due to scepticism over safety, the GP route is seen as an important way of increasing people’s trust. It won’t immediately make much of an impact on the overall vaccine rate. Confidence in the AstraZeneca vaccine has been rocked by the national vaccine commission body STIKO’s decision to initially ban it for use in the over-65s, and later in anyone under 60, over health concerns.
Here’s a little more detail from AFP on the situation in India, where Delhi has imposed an immediate night curfew a day after the nation posted a record coronavirus surge. Financial hub Mumbai is also introducing similar restrictions.
Alarm has grown since India passed more than 100,000 new cases in a single day for the first time on Monday. New Delhi, which is home to 25 million people, and other major cities have all ordered a clampdown on public movement.
Continue reading...Russian opposition figure has fever, cough and has lost weight, according to legal team member who visited him
Alexei Navalny’s lawyer has said confirmed that the opposition leader is “seriously ill” after reports emerged that he had been transferred to a prison sick ward for a respiratory illness and had been tested for coronavirus.
The Kremlin critic said in a note published on Monday that he was coughing and had a temperature of 38.1C (100.6F). Several prisoners from his ward had already been hospitalised for tuberculosis, Navalny wrote. Hours later, the pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia reported he had been moved to a sick ward and tested for coronavirus, among other diseases.
Continue reading...Ownership of the Ogopogo legend has renewed discussions over the appropriation of traditions and the challenges Indigenous nations face to reclaim their culture
People living on the shores of Okanagan Lake have long said that dark, curling waves signal the presence of Ogopogo, a monstrous serpent lurking beneath the surface.
A handful claim to have seen the long green body and horse-like head of Canada’s own Loch Ness monster. They tell stories of a creature that once nearly killed a settler when it dragged his horse into the depths. And every few years, new video footage renews excitement that Ogopogo has been found.
Continue reading...A correspondent's live weather report was interrupted by a dog who snatched her microphone and ran off with it. Nadezhda Serezhkina, who works for the Russian-language broadcaster Mir TV, could then be seen running after the dog who still had the colourful microphone in its mouth. The dog, and the damaged microphone, later joined Serezhkina for the end of her live broadcast
Continue reading...Information clampdown to keep investigation into king’s half-brother ‘secret’, says prosecutor general
The prosecutor general in Jordan’s capital, Amman, has banned the publication of any information about an alleged plot said to involve the king’s half-brother, Prince Hamzah, state television said.
“In order to keep the security services’ investigation into Prince Hamzah and the others secret, [it is decided] to ban the publication of anything related to this inquiry at this stage,” the prosecutor Hassan al-Abdallat said.
Continue reading...Celebrities targeted over support for anti-coup protesters
Wanted lists featuring the names and photographs of dozens of prominent figures, from actors to musicians, have been published in Myanmar’s military-controlled media, as the junta escalates its threats against anyone voicing support for anti-coup protesters.
The military has killed 570 people, including at least 43 children, and detained 2,728 since it ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government and seized power on 1 February. A domestic advocacy group that tracks detentions has been unable to confirm the whereabouts of the vast majority of people taken by the military.
Continue reading...Hopes rise of lifting Trump sanctions and bringing Iran and US to compliance in two months
A broad roadmap designed to rescue the Iran nuclear deal undermined by Donald Trump has been agreed in talks in Vienna, with the aim of bringing Iran and the US back into compliance in as little as two months.
Two working groups have been set up to examine the economic sanctions on Iran that the US will need to lift to come back into compliance with UN security council resolutions, and the steps Iran will need to take to bring its nuclear programme in line with the terms set out in the 2015 deal.
Continue reading...New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern warns that further Covid-19 outbreaks could mean border closures return
After nearly a year shut off from the world, New Zealand is cracking open its borders, with a trans-Tasman travel bubble allowing two-way quarantine-free travel with Australia.
The NZ prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, announced on Tuesday the bubble would open from 19 April, allowing quarantine-free travel between the two nations. Travellers from New Zealand have been able to enter selected Australian states without quarantining since October but the arrangements did not apply in the other direction.
Continue reading...Researchers at the University of the Philippines Los Baños aim to catch thousands of bats to develop a Japanese-funded simulation model over the next three years that they believe could help avert potential pandemics. They hope the bats will help in predicting the dynamics of a coronavirus outbreak by analysing factors such as climate, temperature and ease of spread
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