All passengers rescued from icebound Antarctic ship

January 2, 2014

Antarctic_ship

Sydney, Jan 2: All 52 passengers were airlifted on Thursday from a Russian research vessel icebound in Antarctica and are safe on board an Australian supply ship, rescuers said.

"Aurora Australis has advised AMSA that the 52 passengers from the Akademik Shokalskiy are now on board," the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said.

Passengers were flown to the Australian ship in groups of 12 by a helicopter from a Chinese icebreaker.

The Akademik Shokalsky has been stuck in ice since December 24 100 nautical miles east of the French base Dumont d'Urville, with several icebreaking attempts failing to reach it.

After a number of false starts a helicopter evacuation of the research vessel's passengers began on Thursday evening, with official confirmation that it was underway reaching AMSA at 6.15pm Australian time (0715 GMT).

The Australian agency, which is coordinating the rescue mission, reported all passengers were safey on board the Aurora Australis - an Australian government supply ship - at 10.15pm, some four hours later.

Passengers were airlifted from a makeshift landing pad on the ice beside the Russian ship to an ice floe near the Australis.

Expedition leader Chris Turney expressed relief that the wait was finally over.

"We've made it to the Aurora Australis safe and sound. A huge thanks to the Chinese and the (government's) Australian Antarctic Division for all their hard work," Turney tweeted.

Earlier:

Antarctic helicopter rescue of trapped ship passengers delayed due to sea ice

Trapped_ship

Moscow, Jan 2: A planned helicopter rescue of 52 passengers on a Russian ship stranded in Antarctic ice since Christmas Eve was delayed on Thursday due to unfavourable sea ice conditions in the area.

The helicopter on the Chinese icebreaker Snow Dragon had planned to lift passengers from the trapped Akademik Shokalskiy on Thursday and then use a barge to transport them to the nearby Aurora Australis, Australia's Antarctic supply ship. "Current sea ice conditions prevent the barge from Aurora Australis from reaching the Chinese vessel Xue Long (Snow Dragon) and a rescue may not be possible today," the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), which is coordinating the rescue, said in a statement. It was not safe for the helicopter to land either on the Aurora Australis or next to the vessel, the agency added. "It is now likely the rescue will not go ahead today. The preferred option is to wait for conditions that will allow the rescue to be completed in a single operation to reduce unnecessary risk," AMSA said.

The Russian ship left New Zealand on November 28 on a private expedition to commemorate the 100th anniversary of an Antarctic journey led by famed Australian explorer Douglas Mawson. It became trapped on December 24, 100 nautical miles east of French Antarctic station Dumont D'Urville and about 1,500 nautical miles south of Australia's southern island state of Tasmania. The Chinese ship got within sight of the Akademik Shokalskiy on Saturday, but turned back after failing to break the ice, which was more than 3 metres (10 feet) deep in places. Two other vessels, Australia's Aurora Australis and a French flagged ship, also tried to help but failed to reach the ship due to high wind and heavy snow.

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News Network
April 26,2020

Washington/Seoul, Apr 26: A special train possibly belonging to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was spotted this week at a resort town in the country, according to satellite images reviewed by a Washington-based North Korea monitoring project, amid conflicting reports about Mr. Kim's health and whereabouts.

The monitoring project, 38 North, said in its report on Saturday that the train was parked at the “leadership station” in Wonsan on April 21 and April 23. The station is reserved for the use of the Kim family, it said.

Though the group said it was probably Kim Jong Un's train, Reuters has not been able to confirm that independently, or whether he was in Wonsan.

“The train's presence does not prove the whereabouts of the North Korean leader or indicate anything about his health but it does lend weight to reports that Kim is staying at an elite area on the country's eastern coast,” the report said.

Speculation about Mr. Kim's health first arose due to his absence from the anniversary of the birthday of North Korea's founding father and Mr. Kim's grandfather, Kim Il Sung, on April 15.

North Korea's state media last reported on Mr. Kim's whereabouts when he presided over a meeting on April 11.

China has dispatched a team to North Korea including medical experts to advise on Kim Jong Un, according to three people familiar with the situation.

A third-generation hereditary leader who came to power after his father's death in 2011, Kim has no clear successor in a nuclear-armed country, which could present major international risk.

On Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump downplayed reports that Mr. Kim was ill. “I think the report was incorrect,” Mr. Trump told reporters, but he declined to say if he had been in touch with North Korean officials.

Mr. Trump has met Mr. Kim three times in an attempt to persuade him to give up a nuclear weapons program that threatens the United States as well as its Asian neighbors. While talks have stalled, Mr. Trump has continued to hail Mr. Kim as a friend.

Reporting from inside North Korea is notoriously difficult because of tight controls on information.

A Trump administration official said continuing days of North Korean media silence on Mr. Kim's whereabouts had heightened concerns about his condition, and that information remained scant from a country U.S. intelligence has long regarded as a ”black box.”

The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to questions about the situation on Saturday.

Daily NK, a Seoul-based website that reports on North Korea, cited one unnamed source in North Korea on Monday as saying that Kim had undergone medical treatment in the resort county of Hyangsan north of the capital Pyongyang.

It said that Mr. Kim was recovering after undergoing a cardiovascular procedure on April 12.

Since then, multiple South Korean media reports have cited unnamed sources this week saying that Mr. Kim might be staying in the Wonsan area.

On Friday, local news agency Newsis cited South Korean intelligence sources as reporting that a special train for Mr. Kim's use had been seen in Wonsan, while Mr. Kim's private plane remained in Pyongyang.

Newsis reported Mr. Kim may be sheltering from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Mr. Kim, believed to be 36, has disappeared from coverage in North Korean state media before. In 2014, he vanished for more than a month and North Korean state TV later showed him walking with a limp.

Speculation about his health has been fanned by his heavy smoking, apparent weight gain since taking power and family history of cardiovascular problems.

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News Network
February 27,2020

Dubai, Feb 27: Twenty two people have died so far from the new coronavirus in Iran, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported in a chart it published on Thursday.

The number of people diagnosed with the disease is 141, the chart showed. It did not specify whether those who have died were included in the tally of those infected.

Iranian officials on Wednesday reported a total of 139 cases of coronavirus and 19 deaths.

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Agencies
June 24,2020

Washington, Jun 24: Twitter has once again flagged a tweet from US President Donald Trump which promoted violence by saying if protesters tried to set up an "autonomous zone" in Washington, DC they would be met with "serious force".

This is the fourth time Twitter has red flagged Trump's tweet for glorifying violence or violating its policies.

Trump has been critical of the "autonomous zone" in Seattle, an area occupied by protestors for much of this month.

"We've placed a public interest notice on this Tweet for violating our policy against abusive behaviour, specifically, the presence of a threat of harm against an identifiable group," Twitter's safety team tweeted late Tuesday.

Trump had tweeted: "There will never be an ‘Autonomous Zone' in Washington, D.C., as long as I'm your President. If they try they will be met with serious force!"

Twitter earlier labeled a video tweeted by him which mocked CNN as manipulated media.

According to Twitter, "this Tweet has been labeled per our synthetic and manipulated media policy to give people more context".

In May, Twitter labeled two Trump tweets that made false claims about mail-in ballots in California.

Twitter later labeled another Trump tweet glorifying violence in which he said, "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."

Facebook also removed a Trump campaign ad featuring a symbol used by Nazis for political dissenters, saying the ad violated its policies.

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