US robbers who touted crime on Instagram jailed


By AFP
March 31, 2025


A man involved in a Beverly Hills robbery in 2022 posted larget amounts of cash on his Instagram page days later -- adding the text 'Robbery Gang' to the post

 - Copyright AFP 

Yasin AKGUL

Bumbling robbers who left behind a cell phone during a $2.6 million heist and later boasted on Instagram about being part of a criminal gang have been jailed in California, authorities said Monday.

The three men used sledgehammers and crowbars to target an upscale jewelery store in Beverly Hills, making off with a huge haul of necklaces, bracelets and watches in the 2022 raid.

The daylight robbery — which happened in full view of staff and customers — began when Ladell Tharpe, 39, and his two accomplices careered up to the store in a convoy of vehicles, one of which had been stolen days earlier.

The US Department of Justice said during the terrifying attack, a cell phone fell out of a sweatpants pocket worn by one of the robbers — identified as 33-year-old Jimmy Lee Vernon — handing investigators a ready clue.

But the probe was also given a boost by Tharpe’s brazenness.

“Two days after the heist, Tharpe posted images of large amounts of cash on his Instagram with the text ‘Robbery Gang,'” federal prosecutors said.

Vernon and Deshon Bell, 22, admitted one count of robbery in relation to the heist when they appeared in court in February last year.

Bell was jailed for a year, while Vernon was sent to prison for six years and eight months.

Tharpe was sentenced Monday to serve seven years in federal prison, after earlier admitting robbery.

“Brazen criminal action that directly targets our small businesses in Los Angeles County will not be tolerated,” said Acting United States Attorney Joseph McNally.

“The consequences for such action are severe and penalized accordingly.”

US regulators tell 23andMe to protect genetic data

By AFP
March 31, 2025


Anne Wojcicki stepped down as chief executive of 23andMe to pursue a purchase of the genetic testing firm, which filed for reorganization in bankruptcy court in the United States - Copyright AFP Yasin AKGUL

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Monday warned genetic testing firm 23andMe to honor its promise to protect people’s personal information as it navigates bankruptcy.

The pioneering US company, which sells a mail-back saliva test to determine ancestry or certain health-related genetic traits for less than $200, filed for bankruptcy this month and is looking for a buyer two years after hackers gained access to millions of profiles.

“Any bankruptcy-related sale or transfer involving 23andMe users’ personal information and biological samples will be subject to the representations the company has made to users about both privacy and data security,” FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said in a letter to the company’s bankruptcy trustees.

Ferguson noted that 23andMe assures users that the company does not share their personal information with third parties, including police, without user permission or valid court orders.

The FTC has powers to protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent business practices and investigate suspected violations.

The bankruptcy announcement on March 23 prompted warnings for 23andMe customers to ask the company to delete their data to safeguard privacy.

At its height a few years ago, the DNA testing craze saw millions of consumers rushing to discover their ancestry and health information, with tests from 23andMe becoming popular holiday gifts.

The Silicon Valley-based company, which went public in 2021, claims 15 million customers and has seen its sales decline in recent months as the testing craze faded and the company suffered a data breach.

Faced with the difficulties, 23andMe announced the dismissal of 40 percent of its staff in November, about 200 people. It also suspended its research programs.

23andMe has agreed to pay approximately $37.5 million to settle claims related to the 2023 data breach.

The hacking incident saw 6.9 million accounts affected, of which 5.5 million contained information on genetic matches.

Using customers’ old passwords, the hackers compromised data that included names, sex, birth year, location, photos, health information, and genetic ancestry results.

Political support leading to increasing fallout for crypto


By AFP
March 31, 2025


The Bitcoin cryptocurrency has had a rocky ride since launching in 2008, and support from world leaders such as US President Donald Trump could do it more harm than good - Copyright AFP Nicolas TUCAT

Lucie LEQUIER

Support for cryptocurrencies from US President Donald Trump or Argentine leader Javier Milei has seen investors lose billions of dollars and is damaging a sector struggling for credibility, researchers told AFP.

“The entire crypto industry is being tarnished,” said Claire Balva, strategy director for fintech company Deblock.

Argentine prosecutors are reportedly examining whether Milei engaged in fraud or criminal association, or was in breach of his duties, when he praised the $LIBRA cryptocurrency on social media in February.

The token’s value soared from just a few cents to almost $5 and then crashed. Milei deleted his blessing hours later.

He denies all allegations made against him.

“I did not promote it,” Milei told broadcaster TN in February, adding it “is a problem between private parties because the State does not play a role here”.

“I acted in good faith,” he said.

The price collapsed after a handful of early investors decided to sell at a huge profit, causing colossal losses for the majority of those who purchased $LIBRA.

It also dragged down prices of other cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin.

Hayden Davis, who helped launch $LIBRA, said he had been inspired by the initial success of Trump’s memecoin, $TRUMP, that marked the president’s inauguration.

Having reportedly made Trump at least $350 million, according to the Financial Times, about 810,000 buyers went on to lose more than $2 billion combined, stated crypto data group Chainalysis.

A memecoin is a cryptocurrency that rides on the popularity of a viral personality or phenomenon on the internet and is often seen as a purely speculative asset.



– Relying on trust –



Once a fierce critic of cryptocurrencies, Trump has become a fervent defender.

He is offering multiple products linked to digital currencies, notably through his World Liberty Financial exchange, increasing accusations of a conflict of interest.

On paper, his support for crypto projects could boost the sector’s legitimacy.

“But at the same time, it can backfire,” said Larisa Yarovaya, director of the Centre for Digital Finance at Southampton Business School.

“Any conflicts that will emerge from it… any hackers, speculative attacks, any problems in relation to these specific coins or these specific projects” can prove counterproductive, she told AFP.

There is scepticism also over the launch in February of the memecoin $CAR by the Central African Republic.

“The domain name had been reserved only a few days before” launch, noted Balva, which “shows that there was too little preparation”.

The Central African Republic was the second country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, after El Salvador in 2021, which has since reversed course owing to a lack of local popularity.

A precursor to other cryptocurrencies, bitcoin was launched in 2008 as a way to free transactions from traditional financial institutions, notably banks.

Cryptocurrencies are based on blockchain technology, which publicly records transactions between people holding and exchanging them.

In the absence of a centralised authority, the system relies on “trust” in the people “who are endorsing these products”, said Maximilian Brichta, a doctoral student of communication at the University of Southern California.



– Rigged game –



Many traders will use automated programmes to buy a new token as early as possible in the hope of reselling it for maximum profit.

Milei defended himself by likening losses endured by buyers of $LIBRA to someone entering a casino and knowing they may not win.

However with crypto, it is argued by some that the “game” is rigged from the outset.

To avoid price manipulation, “when launching a cryptocurrency, best practice dictates that the first investors… hold a very small share of the offering” and are prevented from selling for “several years”, said Balva.

Except that at the launch of $LIBRA, “more than 80 percent” of the available tokens were in the hands of “a handful of large holders (who) controlled all the liquidity and could liquidate it all at any time”, she added.

According to Balva, this was “either monumental recklessness or outright fraud”.

Swedish journalist jailed in Turkey kept ‘isolated’: employer

By AFP
April 1, 2025


Turkey is gripped by its biggest street demonstrations in 12 years, and authorities have cracked down on protesters and journalists - Copyright AFP SAUL LOEB

A Swedish journalist arrested on arrival in Turkey and detained on terrorism charges is being kept away from other prisoners but is otherwise in “good spirits”, his employer said Tuesday.

Joakim Medin is “well fed, he can exercise” but is being held “isolated” at Siliviri prison, according to his lawyer who met with him, the newspaper he works for, Dagens ETC, said in an article.

It published a photo taken by the lawyer of a piece of paper on which Medin had written: “Journalism is not a crime, in any country.”

Medin was arrested last Thursday when he arrived in Turkey to cover massive street protests sparked by the detention and jailing of Istanbul’s opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu — the main political rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The demonstrations, the biggest to grip the country in 12 years, have been met with a crackdown by authorities, who have arrested journalists and deported a BBC reporter.

The authorities have accused Medin of being a member of a terrorist organisation and “insulting the president” — charges rejected as “absurd” by his newspaper.

Medin’s wife, Sofie Axelsson, told AFP on Sunday that the charges levelled at him are “false”.



– ‘Police used Google Translate’ –



Dagens ETC said Tuesday that, though Medin was not put together with other detainees, he “can still speak to other prisoners through the bars” and he had access to a garden for walks.

It added: “He has no books to read, but he will get them.”

The newspaper’s chief editor Andreas Gustavsson said in the article that, according to the lawyer, “there is not much that can be said at this stage about the legal proceedings” against Medin.

“I believe they were over within minutes when he was brought before the prosecutor. There are still many things to work out. But there is a legal team working on his behalf,” the editor said.

A Turkish rights group, MLSA, said its lawyer who spoke with Medin said the reporter had no lawyer nor interpreter with him when he was officially questioned.

“The police used Google Translate” and an officer signed a document in place of Medin, who did not understand it and refused to sign it, MLSA said.

The reporter also denied a Turkish accusation that he took part in a January 2023 demonstration in Stockholm by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), MLSA said.

When he appeared in court via video link on Friday to be formally arraigned, the hearing “lasted three minutes”, the rights group said.

The PKK has led a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state and been designated by Turkey as a banned terrorist group.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Tuesday that he was closely following the reporter’s case, though he had not yet had contact with Erdogan to discuss the matter.

“For now, it’s the foreign ministry that is handling the issue,” Kristersson said.

Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said Sunday that she would discuss the case with her Turkish counterpart on the sidelines of a NATO meeting taking place on Thursday and Friday.

China probes for key target weak spots with ‘paralysing’ Taiwan drills

By AFP
April 2, 2025


The seas around the self-ruled island have this week swarmed with Chinese warships in what Beijing has dubbed its "Strait Thunder" exercises

 - Copyright AFP Hector RETAMAL

Oliver Hotham and Sam Davies, with Joy Chiang in Taipei

China’s military drills around Taiwan this week aim to send a clear message to the island’s leadership, analysts say — in the event of war, Beijing can cut them off from the outside world and grind them into submission.

And while previous drills have sought to test Taipei’s response times to Chinese incursion, Beijing says this week’s exercises are focused on its ability to strike key targets such as ports and energy facilities on the island.

“Taiwan is vulnerable from an energy point of view and China is playing up that vulnerability,” Dylan Loh at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University told AFP.

The air and sea around the self-ruled island have swarmed with Chinese jets and warships in what Beijing has dubbed its “Strait Thunder” exercises — punishment, it said, for the separatist designs of Taiwan’s “parasite” leader Lai Ching-te.

The drills are located in the middle and southern parts of the Taiwan strait — a vital artery for global shipping.

The island also imports nearly all of its energy supply and relies heavily on food imports, meaning in the event of a war, a blockade could paralyse the island — a fact Beijing is keen to press.

“Taiwan’s depth is shallow and has no buffer zone. Taiwan is also short of resources,” Major General Meng Xiangqing, professor at the PLA National Defence University, told state broadcaster CCTV.

“If Taiwan loses its sea supply lines, then the island’s resources will quickly be depleted, social order will fall into chaos, and people’s livelihoods will be affected,” he said.

“In the end, it will be the regular people of the island who suffer.”



– ‘Blockade’ –



One Taipei-based analyst said Beijing’s drills were shifting focus, from practising ways to prevent foreign forces coming to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a war, to asserting full control over the waters around the island.

“The containment and control drills are designed to test the ability to restrict supply routes to Taiwan and deter foreign commercial vessels from docking,” said Su Tzu-yun, a military expert at Taipei’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research.

“The message to international shipping is that all destinations are open — as long as they’re not Taiwan,” he added.

While Tuesday’s exercises were focused on offensive operations against the island, Lin Ying-yu, a military expert and assistant professor at Tamkang University, said Wednesday’s “centre on practising a blockade of Taiwan”.

Such a tactic echoes techniques used in the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which has since February 2022 also launched thousands of strikes against energy infrastructure — to debilitating effect.

A graphic shared by the military made the objective clear: declaring “paralysing strikes” were being prepared and showing missiles raining down on the island’s southern port city of Kaohsiung.

Taiwan’s leaders, it warned, were “heading for a dead end”.

Another touted the army’s skills in “controlling energy channels, cutting off supply arteries,” — and showed graphics of explosions on targets on the island’s east, west and south.



– ‘Deadly surprise attack’ –



The drills are driven by growing fears in Beijing that its long-awaited unification with Taipei is further away than ever.

Bonny Lin, Director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington, told AFP there was “an assessment in Beijing that China needs to do more to step up the process for unification with Taiwan”.

That included, she said, “punishing Taiwan for any perceived provocative activities and more firmly countering potential foreign intervention to assist Taiwan”.

Beijing is also seeking to highlight just how unpredictable it can be in attacking the island.

“The opponent won’t know which card we will play, including when we’ll play it,” Fu Zhengnan, an expert at the Chinese military’s Academy of Military Science, told CCTV.

“The PLA is becoming more and more like an unpredictable magician,” he said.

This week’s drills come just days after US defence chief Pete Hegseth vowed the United States would ensure “deterrence” across the Taiwan Strait in the face of China’s “aggressive and coercive” actions.

Wen-Ti Sung, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, said “Straight Thunder” was testing that claim.

“China wants to impose stress test after stress test and create an opportunity where the Trump administration will have to respond,” he said.

The Taiwan Strait: crucial waterway and military flashpoint


By AFP
April 1, 2025


This frame grab from video taken on March 31, 2025 and released by the Taiwan Defence Ministry on April 1, 2025 shows Chinese military vessels in waters off Taiwan 

- Copyright TAIWAN DEFENCE MINISTRY/AFP Handout

China has launched some of its biggest military drills around Taiwan in months, in what it said was a “warning” to separatist forces on the island.

Here, AFP looks at the Taiwan Strait, a critical waterway and growing military flashpoint:

– Where is the Taiwan Strait? –

The strait separates the eastern Chinese province of Fujian from the main island of Taiwan, home to around 23 million people.

At its narrowest point, just 130 kilometres (about 80 miles) of windswept water separates the two major landmasses, and several outlying Taiwanese islands — including Kinmen and Matsu — lie just a few kilometres from the Chinese coastline.

China and Taiwan have been governed separately since Mao Zedong’s communist army won a civil war and sent the opposition nationalist forces fleeing across the strait in 1949.

Beijing has maintained ever since that the island is part of its territory, and has not ruled out using force to bring it under control.

– Why is it important? –

The strait is a critical artery for global shipping through which a huge volume of trade passes every day.

Around $2.45 trillion of goods — more than a fifth of global maritime trade — transited the strait in 2022, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

Taiwan plays an outsized role in the global economy thanks to producing over 90 percent of the world’s most advanced computing chips, used in everything from smartphones to cutting-edge military equipment.

Analysts say a Chinese invasion would deal a catastrophic blow to these supply chains.

More minor disruptions, such as a blockade of the island, would cause costly shipping cancellations and diversions that would impact worldwide consumers.

“In the event of a long conflict over Taiwan, financial markets would tank, trade would shrivel, and supply chains would freeze, plunging the global economy into a tailspin,” Robert A. Manning, a China expert at Washington’s Stimson Center, wrote last year.

A report by the Rhodium Group estimated that a blockade of the island could cost firms dependent on Taiwan’s chips $1.6 trillion in revenue annually.

An invasion would also endanger Taiwan’s way of life, embodied by its democratic freedoms and boisterous elections.

It would also risk a wider conflict because the United States, while not recognising Taiwan diplomatically, has an agreement to help the island defend itself.

– What do we know about the drills? –

China announced the drills early on Tuesday morning, describing them as a “stern warning and forceful deterrent” against alleged separatist forces on the island.

Beijing said the exercises — which unlike previous iterations do not have a formal name — “focus on sea-air combat-readiness patrols, joint seizure of comprehensive superiority” as well as “assault on maritime and ground targets”.

They also, crucially, practice a “blockade of key areas and sea lanes to test the joint operation capabilities of the troops” in the event of war.

Taiwan dispatched its own aircraft and ships, and deployed land-based missile systems, in response to the exercises and accused Beijing of being the world’s “biggest troublemaker”.

– Has this happened before? –

China has ramped up pressure on Taiwan in recent years and has staged four large-scale military exercises around the island since 2022.

In October, Chinese forces deployed fighter jets, bombers and warships in areas to the north, south and east of Taiwan, and simulated a rocket strike in drills called “Joint Sword-2024B”.

The manoeuvres came after Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te gave a speech on Taiwan’s national day that Beijing viewed as a provocative move towards independence.

Beijing launched other drills — “Joint Sword-2024A” — in May following Lai’s inauguration, and encircled Taiwan in April 2023 after his predecessor Tsai Ing-wen met with then-US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Taipei military expert Su Tzu-yun told AFP that Tuesday’s drills appeared to be of similar size to the “Joint Sword” exercises in May and October.

Taiwan in February also said China had staged a combat drill with aircraft and warships in “live-fire exercises” about 40 nautical miles (74 kilometres) off the island’s south. China dismissed the accusations as “hype”.

Several major crises flared across the strait in preceding decades, most recently in 1995 to 1996 when China conducted missile tests around Taiwan.

UK vows £20 million to boost drone and ‘flying taxi’ services

WHILE APPLYING AUSTERITY ON IT'S CITIZENS

By AFP
April 1, 2025


Copyright POOL/AFP/File Steven HIRSCH

The UK government said Tuesday it had pledged £20 million ($25.8 million) to help commercial drone services and “flying taxis” take off in Britain.

The drone delivery market has landed in several countries including the United States, allowing customers to have online shopping dropped at their doors by fleets of flying robots.

There have been several pilot schemes in the UK too — from island postal services to rapid blood sample transport — but commercial drone deliveries have been slower to get off the ground.

Earlier this year Amazon, one of the big companies dominating the field in the United States, said it had chosen a town in northern England for its first UK drone parcel deliveries — though it is still not clear when the scheme in Darlington could start.

Announcing the UK government funding on Tuesday, the transport ministry said the money would help kickstart new technologies and streamline regulations, in a move it said would benefit companies but could also see drones used by firefighters and paramedics.

The ministry added the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority would receive £16.5 million from 2025-26 to work on regulations for drones and electric air taxis — vehicles which resemble a cross between a drone and a small plane, and can take off like helicopters.

The regulations “could see air taxis in use from 2028,” the transport ministry claimed, adding a further £5 million would be used “to support industry to turn these new technologies into profitable business that benefits communities”.

Critics have argued the government should focus its attention elsewhere, and have raised concerns about the use of drones and aerial surveillance by the authorities.

Unions are also worried about the risk to jobs, while earlier this year the UK’s prison watchdog warned gangs were using drones to deliver drugs and drop weapons to inmates inside jails.

Welcoming the new funding, Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said a “regulatory system that keeps pace” was needed for new technologies to succeed.

“This is regulation that will unlock a raft of new commercial and public service opportunities for the use of drones,” he said.

He said drones would have to transmit their location to reduce the risk of crashes and the “highest safety standards” would be maintained.

Aviation minister Mike Kane said he wanted “the UK to have the most advanced aviation technology ecosystem in the world.”

“That means creating a nimble regulatory environment and a culture of innovation, so everyone can benefit from cutting-edge transport,” he said.

The UK has so far seen the deployment of an army of flightless shopping delivery robots in Milton Keynes, post delivered by drone on the Scottish isles of Orkney, and blood samples sent through the skies by a London hospital for urgent testing.

The battle to control assets behind Bosnia crisis


By AFP
April 1, 2025


Wanted man: Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik 

- Copyright AFP ELVIS BARUKCIC

Rusmir SMAJILHODZIC

At the heart of the deepening crisis in Bosnia — where Serb leader Milorad Dodik has been pushing the weak central government to the brink with threats of secession — is a battle over who owns what.

The 1995 Dayton peace deal that put an end to years of bloody war, forced ethnic Serbs — who make up about 31 percent of the population — to accept Bosnia’s independence.

In exchange they got their own statelet of Republika Srpska (RS) with 49 percent of the Balkan nation’s territory.

The Muslim majority and Catholic Croats live together in the country’s other semi-autonomous half.

But the thorny issue of who owned state property — everything from rivers and forests to military installations — was never resolved, putting a break on Bosnia’s already ailing economy.

Bosnian Muslims see the central state as the owner, a view shared by Christian Schmidt, the international envoy tasked with overseeing the Dayton accords and the country’s governance.

But Dodik insists each entity owns the property under its control, saying the issue is a “red line”.

He has accused Schmidt and Western powers of trying to deprive RS of “its assets” in order to weaken it and leave it as an “empty shell”.



– Legal brinkmanship –



The game of legal brinkmanship began in 2022 when the RS parliament passed a law claiming all state property on its territory, but Schmidt annulled it the following year, as did Bosnia’s constitutional court.

Bosnian Serb lawmakers hit back passing laws saying rulings by the high representative and the constitutional court no longer apply in RS.

Schmidt again suspended the laws and amended Bosnia’s penal code to allow the courts to prosecute politicians who rejected decisions of the high representative and the constitutional court.

Dodik ignored the threat and signed the suspended laws.

As a result, he was charged with defying the decision of the high representative in August 2023.

The 66-year-old Serb leader has repeatedly attacked Schmidt’s actions as “illegal”, arguing that his appointment was not approved by the UN Security Council.

But in February Dodik was found guilty by the Sarajevo-based state court and sentenced to a year in prison and banned from office for six years.

Dodik rejected the verdict, saying he would no longer attend the court, with the RS parliament upping the stakes further by banning Bosnia’s judiciary and police from the statelet.



– Cat and mouse game –



In a further “provocation”, he floated a new constitution for the statelet, as well as a breakaway army, border police, and possible confederation with neighbouring Serbia.

That prompted Bosnia’s state prosecutors to investigate Dodik, RS Prime Minister Radovan Viskovic and parliamentary speaker Nenad Stevandic for flouting the constitution.

All three have refused to be questioned and last month Bosnia issued warrants for them.

But their arrest was deemed too risky by the authorities, and Dodik travelled to Serbia on March 24 and then to Israel.

Three days later Bosnia’s state court issued an international arrest warrant for him.

Despite being a wanted man, Dodik travelled to Moscow, from where he sent a video message late Monday praising Vladimir Putin. The Russian president said he was “very happy” to receive the Bosnian Serb leader when the two met in the Kremlin Tuesday.

As of Tuesday evening, Interpol had yet to issue a “red notice” for Dodik’s arrest on its website.

While Bosnia has gone from one crisis to another, many analysts see this one — with Dodik making open secessionist threats — as the most serious since the end of the 1992-1995 war.

Dodik’s aim has been to slowly chip away at Bosnia’s central institutions, said Veldin Kadic, a professor at the Sarajevo University Faculty of Political Science.

He said he wanted to create a “state of legal anarchy… that could politically make Bosnia senseless as a state”.

“It’s either Dodik or Bosnia and Herzegovina,” he told AFP.

Boeing chief to acknowledge ‘serious missteps’ at US Senate hearing

By AFP
April 1, 2025


Boeing has suffered for several years from production quality problems and labor issues - Copyright AFP Philip FONG

The head of US aerospace giant Boeing will on Wednesday tell senators that the company has made “serious missteps in recent years” and commit to restoring consumer and investor confidence, according to an advance copy of his remarks.

On the eve of the hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Kelly Ortberg sent a message to the company’s 160,000 employees saying his testimony would be key “to restore trust” in the crisis-plagued manufacturer.

“Boeing has made serious missteps in recent years — and it is unacceptable,” Ortberg will say, according to the prepared remarks, which the company made public Tuesday.

Boeing has suffered for several years from production quality problems, with the latest major incident in January last year involving an Alaska Airlines 737 seeing a door plug fly off mid-flight.

In January, it reported a loss of $3.9 billion as the company continued to experience a hit from a more than seven-week labor strike that shuttered two major assembly plants.

Ortberg took over in August, and will testify on Boeing’s restructuring efforts.

“We have made sweeping changes to the people, processes, and overall structure of our company,” he will say. “While there is still work ahead of us, these profound changes are underpinned by the deep commitment from all of us to the safety of our products and services.”

In his message to employees, he said “we are starting to turn the corner in our recovery,” although he added that turning the company around would take “time and action.”

Ortberg will acknowledge two 737 MAX 8 crashes in October 2018 and March 2019, which killed a total of 346 people — some of whose relatives are expected at the committee hearing on Wednesday.

He will offer a “pledge to make the necessary changes so this never happens again.”

Boeing has acknowledged that the design of its MCAS stall protection software contributed to the accidents, which occurred on new aircraft shortly after takeoff.

Ortberg will testify that the aircraft manufacturer is implementing a new Safety Management System (SMS) that is “a framework built on proven aviation industry best practices, to proactively identify and manage safety risks that may impact our commercial and defense products.”

‘Heartbreaking’ floods swamp Australia’s cattle country


By AFP
April 1, 2025


Homes inubdated by floodwaters in the town of Windorah in central-west Queensland, Australia

 - Copyright QUEENSLAND FIRE DEPARTMENT/AFP Handout

Whole herds of cattle have drowned in vast inland floods seeping across the Australian outback, officials said Tuesday as the muddy tide drenched an area the size of France.

Swollen rivers burst their banks after unusually heavy downpours last week over outback Queensland, an arid region home to some of the country’s largest cattle ranches.

Officials said more than 100,000 livestock — cattle, sheep, goats and horses — had been swept away, were missing, or had drowned.

“These are only early indications of the magnitude of this disaster and while these preliminary numbers are shocking, we are expecting them to continue to climb as flood waters recede,” said state agriculture minister Tony Perrett.

“It’s heartbreaking to consider what western Queenslanders will be going through over the weeks and months as they discover the full extent of losses and damage — and start the long slog to start again.”

Researchers have repeatedly warned that climate change amplifies the risk of natural disasters such as bushfires, floods and cyclones.



— Fodder drop —



Flood waters stretched some 500,000 square kilometres (190,000 square miles) across sparsely populated western Queensland, Perrett said, a landmass roughly equivalent to France.

Industry body AgForce told local media some cattle ranches may have lost almost 100 percent of their herd.

The government Bureau of Meteorology said some towns had recorded as much as 500mm (20 inches) of rain in the space of a week — their typical yearly total.

Muddy livestock survived by crowding together on the few small hills cresting above the flood waters, photos posted to social media showed.

Queensland’s fire department used helicopters to drop bales of fodder near surviving animals cut off from food.

The state’s primary industries department said some 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles) of road had been flooded — a distance greater than the famed Route 66 connecting Chicago to Los Angeles.

Rising waters on Tuesday morning encircled the remote outpost of Thargomindah, which describes itself as Australia’s farthest town from the sea.

A makeshift dirt flood levy was dug around the town to protect its 200 residents.



– Cattle country –



“Preparations are well underway, including securing food deliveries, ensuring the airport has enough aircraft fuel and if need be an evacuation point and accommodation,” the shire council said.

“Our shire’s isolated properties are stocked with food and supplies and doing okay under the circumstances.”

Australia’s so-called “channel country” is one of the country’s biggest cattle fattening grounds.

Most of the time its sweeping plains are dry and inhospitable.

But cattle gorge themselves on the pastures that sprout whenever wet season rains fill the dry creek beds — or channels — that snake through the region.

Spain coal mine blast kills five

By AFP
March 31, 2025


Miners leave the Cerredo coal mine in Asturias in northern Spain, where a blast claimed five lives - Copyright AFP CESAR MANSO

Cesar Manso

Five people died and another four were seriously injured in a blast Monday at a coal mine in northern Spain’s Asturias region, the nation’s deadliest mining accident in decades.

Two other workers at the Cerredo mine in Degana, some 450 kilometres (280 miles) northwest of Madrid, were unharmed in the accident, local emergency services said.

This is the deadliest mining accident in Spain since 1995 when 14 people died following an explosion at a mine in Asturias near the town of Mieres.

Initial indications were that the blast was caused by firedamp, a term referring to methane forming an explosive mixture in coal mines, the central government’s representative in Asturias, Adriana Lastra, told reporters at the scene.

“Police are already investigating what happened, they are already at the scene,” she added.

The explosion occurred underground in the mine at around 9:30 am (0730 GMT) and as news of the blast spread, workers’ families flocked to the site, which was surrounded by police and emergency services vehicles.

“It’s scandalous. Companies used to guarantee safety, but they are doing it less and less,” Jose Antonio Alvarez, a relative of one the miners who died, told regional newspaper El Comercio.

The five people who died were between the ages of 32 and 54, the regional government of Asturias said on X.

The injured were taken to hospitals in nearby cities, two of them by helicopter. They had suffered burns and, in one case, a head injury.

The mine is owned by a recently created local company called Blue Solving, which was trying to repurpose the site for the extraction of “high-performance minerals” for industrial use, according to local daily newspaper La Voz de Asturias.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez sent his “sincere condolences” to the families of the victims and wished a “speedy recovery” to the injured, in a message posted on X.

The head of the regional government of Asturias, Adrian Barbon, declared two days of mourning “as a sign of respect for the deceased”.

Mining has for centuries been a major industry in Asturias, a densely forested mountainous region.