People
New Zealand to Begin Risky Mission to Recover Bodies on White Island
Matthew and Berend Hollander, aged 13 and 16, died in hospital on Wednesday, the headmaster of the Sydney grammar school they attended announced, calling it "a devastating loss for our community". Royal Caribbean cruise lines has said that passengers from its ship "Ovation of the Seas" were on the island at the time. Six bodies could be seen and there would be "very limited" opportunity to searc... [Full Article...]
White Island eruption - day 5
Authorities said the first priority of the operation is to recover those accounted for. A geologist will be on hand sifting data in realtime to determine whether another eruption is imminent and whether the mission needs to be aborted. In the event of another eruption, anybody on the island could be "pummelled to death" by flying rocks or overcome by ash and gases in temperatures exceeding hundr... [Full Article...]
Facebook tells United States govt it won’t remove encryption
The statement follows Senate hearings in the U.S. where executives from Facebook and Apple defended their privacy practices. In a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg , they insisted that precluding access by law enforcement could hinder efforts to prevent or investigate crimes. [Full Article...]
Protestors clash with police over pension reform
Defying freezing temperatures, an estimated 250,000 demonstrators took to the streets in Paris and 35,000 in Lyon, according to the CGT trade union. On Friday, the Paris police stand in tear gas during a rally against the pension overhauls on December 5. [Full Article...]
France braces for fresh travel woes amid strikes over pension reforms
The protest dwarfed the weekly Yellow Vests demonstrations that have been happening every Saturday for over a year now. The lack of official data and differences in the methods used by countries to record levels of industrial action makes it hard to determine whether the French lead the way. [Full Article...]
Fire on Russia's only aircraft carrier wounds two
Fire erupted in No.1 Power Compartment of Soviet-Russian aircraft carrier ADMIRAL KUZNETSOV at 1015 Moscow time Dec 12. Authorities in Murmansk said 11 people were injured and 10 of them were hospitalized in intensive care units. The press service of the Zvyozdochka ship fix center said the specialists working onboard the vessel have been evacuated, TASS reported. According to the latest r... [Full Article...]
Turkey says US sanctions bill disrespects sovereign decisions on security
Turkey , which has not hesitated in its plans to buy the Russian missile defense system despite President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's recent visit to the White House promised to retaliate against United States sanctions for the purchase of the S-400 and said economic sanctions would not affect the deployment. [Full Article...]
Trump's anti-Semitism order is much ado about not much
The order is generating concern that it will stifle free speech by those who oppose Israel's policy toward the Palestinians. In addition to these incidents, college campuses have seen movements like BDS, which encourage worldwide boycotts and sanctions against the state of Israel, emerge in the last decade. [Full Article...]