News Burst 29 April 2020 – Live Feed

News Burst 29 April 2020

• Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) said on Tuesday it would reduce its workforce by as many as 5,000 full-time positions, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on air traffic in the form of travel restrictions and cancelled fights. The dismissals will be distributed as follows: 1,900 full-time employees in Sweden, 1,300 in Norway and 1,700 in Denmark. “COVID-19 has forced SAS to face a new and unprecedented reality that will reverberate not only in the coming months, but also during the coming years,” SAS CEO Rickard Gustafson said in a press release.

• US intelligence officials believe that the true scale of China’s coronavirus outbreak is at least FIFTY times worse than the communist state is admitting to, and that 60,000 dead bodies per month could have been processed by the funeral homes in Wuhan.

• Senior officials say President Trump “complains almost daily” that the US still has troops in Afghanistan, and that they are at risk for the spread of coronavirus. “His renewed push to withdraw all of them has been spurred by the convergence of his concern that coronavirus poses a force protection issue for thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and his impatience with the halting progress of his peace deal with the Taliban,” the officials said.

• Laos. The Vientiane People’s Court has sentenced a former director of Lao Logistics State Enterprise to life imprisonment on charges of corruption. Director of the Lao Logistics State Enterprise, Mr. Khampheng, 62, was found guilty of abusing his position in the form of embezzlement and bribery.

• Air Tanzania is expecting to start flying cargo in the passenger cabin with effect from next week to keep business afloat amidst travel bans and decline in passenger demand due to the Chinese Virsus pandemic outbreak.

• Amazon “abuses its position as an online platform and collects detailed data about merchandise so Amazon can create copycat products under an Amazon brand,” Senator Josh Hawley wrote in a letter he sent to US Attorney General William Barr on Tuesday. The senator demanded a criminal probe of the e-commerce giant, accusing it of engaging in “predatory and exclusionary data practices to build and maintain a monopoly” – a textbook violation of antitrust law.

• Google and Apple have grown so large and powerful they can not only compete with governments, but bend them to their will. Germany was forced on Sunday to scrap its plans for an open-source privacy-prioritizing contact-tracing system (the so-called Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing platform) after Apple refused to make changes to its iOS operating system that would have allowed public health apps built on the platform to access Bluetooth data from a central server.

• The Pentagon’s decision to officially declassify three ‘UFO’ videos that have been circulating for years has triggered feverish speculation about what the famously secretive department is trying to distract Americans from. Three short videos depicting US Navy planes’ encounters with “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAPs) – more commonly called UFOs – were officially declassified by the Pentagon on Monday, thrilling alien enthusiasts and igniting a firestorm of speculation on social media. [It’s only the Soft Disclosure]

• The agencies have shared data from the seized server with law enforcement around the world to assist in identifying and prosecuting customers of the site of child porn. This has resulted in leads sent to 38 countries and yielded arrests of 337 subjects around the world. The operation has resulted in searches of residences and businesses of approximately 92 individuals in the United States. Notably, the operation is responsible for the rescue of at least 23 minor victims residing in the United States, Spain and the United Kingdom, who were being actively abused by the users of the site. In the Washington, D.C.-metropolitan area, the operation has led to the execution of five search warrants and eight arrests of individuals who both conspired with the administrator of the site and were themselves, users of the website. Two users of the Darknet market committed suicide subsequent to the execution of search warrants.

• The Brazilian Supreme Court Monday approved an investigation into whether controversial President Jair Bolsonaro tried to interfere with the country’s federal police. Justice Minister Sergio Moro accused Bolsonaro Friday of trying to replace the head of federal police, the equivalent to the FBI, with someone more willing to share intelligence and police business with him.

• German politicians are divided over the direction a bailout package for the ailing national carrier Lufthansa should take. Some believe the government should be represented on the board of the company if it is to provide billions of euros in state aid. Others believe the government should have equity, while some say the airline should be free of political interference so it can compete on the international stage. A consensus will need to form quickly as options for the airline are fast running out. Lufthansa is seeking a bailout of up to 10 billion euros, which it says it needs to carry on. The airline is seeking government aid from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium.

• The Spanish Embassy in Morocco has announced a new flight to repatriate Spanish citizens and residents stranded in Morocco. Spanish consulates will evaluate the applications and make a passenger list, prioritizing people with medical, familial, and professional motives. Applicants should also send the proper documentation to justify their motives for wanting to fly back to Spain. Tickets will cost approximately €200 and travelers must cover the expenses of both the airline ticket and their travel to the Mohammed V Airport. The tickets can only be purchased online via credit card payment.

• Survivors of last year’s New Zealand volcano eruption are planning to sue cruise ship company Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd for failing to warn of the risks involved in touring the area, lawyers said Monday. There were 47 people, mainly Australian tourists, on White Island when it erupted on December 9 last year, killing 21 people. Many were carried off with horrific injuries, including extensive external and internal burns from the explosion that sent steam, ash and gases hurtling from the caldera.

Sun Activity

You don’t see this every day. There are two sunspots on the sun, and each one comes from a different 11-year solar cycle. This rare event is actually a normal part of the transition between solar cycles, and it suggests that new Solar Cycle 25 is gaining strength. See the Video below.

Strongest EQ in Europe M3.1 Italy
Strongest EQ in North America M3.4 Alaska
Strongest EQ on the Planet 5.2 Tonga
Deepest EQ M4.8 199 km Afghanistan