UNITED KINGDOM
Luton suspends flights
London Luton International Airport yesterday suspended all flights until the afternoon and asked passengers not to travel there after a “significant fire” caused the partial collapse of a parking structure. Flames leapt out of the third floor of a parking garage at Terminal 2 of the airport, as firefighters battled to bring the blaze under control. “Our priority remains supporting the emergency services and the safety of our passengers and staff,” the airport said in a statement, adding that it would suspend all flights until 3pm yesterday. Five people, including four firefighters and an airport employee, were admitted to hospital, the local ambulance service said.
UNITED STATES
More sub remains found
The Coast Guard has recovered the remaining debris, including presumed human remains, from a submersible that imploded on its way to explore the wreck of the Titanic, killing all five onboard, deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean’s surface, officials said on Tuesday. The recovery and transfer of remaining parts was completed on Wednesday last week, the Coast Guard said, and a photograph showed the intact aft titanium endcap of the 6.7m vessel. Additional presumed human remains were carefully recovered from within Titan’s debris and transported for analysis by US medical professionals, it said. The salvage mission was a follow-up to initial recovery operations on the ocean floor about 488m away from the Titanic, the Coast Guard said.
UNITED STATES
Voters weigh bears in poll
Alaskan voters were busy addressing weighty issues on Tuesday, casting their ballots for the overall champion of Katmai National Park’s annual Fat Bear Week. The final day of voting saw contestants “128 Grazer” and “32 Chunk” battling it out for the crown of biggest bruin in the park. The contest asks the public to compare before-and-after pictures of brown bears as they stuff themselves full of salmon in preparation for the lean months of hibernation. The champion is the bear who makes it through the series of head-to-head matchups. “Your vote decides who is the fattest of the fat,” organizers said. “128 Grazer’s powerful presence is as thunderous as her thick tree trunk thighs,” they added. “32 Chunk’s gargantuan gut has cast a shadow on his competition and has launched this leviathan to the last round. Can his pudginess propel him to the prize?” The aim is to raise awareness of brown bears and their habitat in Alaska, and the risks they face from human activity. “Fat bears are successful bears,” organizers said. The contest, which had appeared imperiled by the near-shutdown of the US government after a Washington standoff, was rocked last year by a ballot stuffing scandal.
FINLAND
‘Heavy force’ hit gas line
The damage to the Baltic Sea gas pipeline that burst on Sunday was caused by “quite heavy force,” Estonian Minister of Defense Hanno Pevkur said yesterday, a day after Finland said it could have been a deliberate action. The Balticconnector subsea gas pipeline and a telecommunications cable connects Finland and Estonia. On Tuesday, Helsinki said the damage was likely caused by “outside activity” and that the cause was being investigated. “It can clearly be seen that these damages are caused by quite heavy force,” Pevkur said. Henri Vanhanen, research fellow at the Finnish Institute for International Affairs, said the central issue would be how NATO reacts if evidence was gathered that a state actor was behind the pipeline damage.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS