Over 200 dead in tunnel accident at NKorea nuclear test site

Agencies
October 31, 2017

Tokyo, Oct 31: More than 200 people are feared to have died when a tunnel caved in at North Korea's nuclear test site after its latest detonation, a Japanese news report said today.

A tunnel collapsed at Punggye-ri in early September, days after North Korea conducted its sixth and largest underground nuclear test on September 3, TV Asahi said, quoting unnamed North Korean sources.

Some 100 workers were involved in an initial collapse. Another cave-in occurred during rescue operations, leaving at least 200 people feared dead in total, the Japanese broadcaster said.

The accident was triggered by the test, TV Asahi added.

Experts have warned that the underground tests could cause the mountain to collapse and leak radiation into the atmosphere near China's border.

The latest test - the sixth at the site since 2006 - triggered landslides in the detonation area and beyond, according to satellite pictures taken the day after.

The images published by the 38 North website showed changes in the surface at Punggye-ri where the ground had been lifted into the air by the tremors. Small landslides followed the course of stream beds.

The blast caused a 6.3-magnitude earthquake, according to the US Geological Survey, followed a few minutes later by another with a magnitude of 4.1.

Japan assessed the yield from the test of what the North said was a hydrogen bomb at 120 kilotons, eight times the size of Hiroshima in 1945.

It is very unusual for North Korea to acknowledge any major accident, especially anything that involves its nuclear programme.
Lee Eugene, a spokeswoman at South Korea's unification ministry, said: "We are aware of the report but do not know anything about it."

The report came ahead of US President Donald Trump's first presidential visit to South Korea next week amid an escalating war of words between him and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.

The reclusive country has made significant strides in its atomic and missile technology under Kim, who took power after the death of his father and longtime ruler Kim Jong-Il in 2011.

Since then he has overseen four of the country's six nuclear tests and hailed atomic weapons as a "treasured sword" to protect the nation from invasion by the United States.

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Agencies
February 26,2020

New Delhi, Feb 26: The death toll in northeast Delhi communal violence over the amended citizenship law rose to 20 on Wednesday, according to GTB Hospital authorities.

On Tuesday, the death toll was 13.

"The death toll has risen to 20 today," Medical Superintendent of GTB Hospital, Sunil Kumar, told PTI.

Earlier, at least four bodies were brought to the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital from the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital, a senior official said.

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Agencies
March 1,2020

Washington, Mar 1: The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed a fine of over $200 million for all major US mobile carriers for selling the location data of customers to some agencies.

The Federal Communications Commission today proposed fines against the nation's four largest wireless carriers for apparently selling access to their customers' location information without taking reasonable measures to protect against unauthorised access to that information. As a result, T-Mobile faces a proposed fine of more than $91 million, AT&T faces a proposed fine of more than $57 million, Verizon faces a proposed fine of more than $48 million, and Sprint faces a proposed fine of more than $12 million, the FCC said in a statement on Friday.

The Enforcement Bureau of FCC opened this investigation after reports surfaced that a Missouri Sheriff, Cory Hutcheson, used a "location-finding service" operated by Securus, a provider of communications services to correctional facilities, to access the location information of the wireless carriers' customers without their consent between 2014 and 2017.

"American consumers take their wireless phones with them wherever they go. And information about a wireless customer's location is highly personal and sensitive. The FCC has long had clear rules on the books requiring all phone companies to protect their customers' personal information. And since 2007, these companies have been on notice that they must take reasonable precautions to safeguard this data and that the FCC will take strong enforcement action if they don't. Today, we do just that," said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

"This FCC will not tolerate phone companies putting Americans' privacy at risk."

The FCC also admonished these carriers for apparently disclosing their customers' location information, without their authorisation, to a third party

The four major US carriers mentioned sold access to their customers' location information to "aggregators," who then resold access to such information to third-party location-based service providers (like Securus).

Although their exact practices varied, each carrier relied heavily on contract-based assurances that the location-based services providers (acting on the carriers' behalf) would obtain consent from the wireless carrier's customer before accessing that customer's location information.

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News Network
March 28,2020

Washington, Mar 27: The United States has seen a record 18,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 345 deaths over the past 24 hours, according to a Johns Hopkins University tracker.

There are now 97,028 declared virus cases in the country and there have been 1,475 deaths, Johns Hopkins said.

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