2024-06-23 15:41
ZURICH, June 23 (Reuters) - Emergency services found a dead body and kept up a search for two other people missing on Sunday after flooding and landslides in southern Switzerland, police said. Some 200 people, drones, helicopters and rescue dogs were drafted in to the rescue and clean-up effort after heavy rains on Friday caused flooding in the Misox valley in the canton of Grisons, police said. Three people had been reported missing. The body of one person was found in a river, local police commander William Kloter told reporters. Some 124 mm (4.88 inches) of rain fell in the valley on Friday, with 63 mm (2.48 inches) falling in a one-hour period. Several rivers burst their banks in the valley, covering roads, fields and villages with rubble, earth and wood. Three houses were buried. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/one-person-found-dead-after-swiss-floods-2024-06-23/
2024-06-23 15:35
June 23 (Reuters) - Britain's Manchester Airport was resuming operations and expected flights to restart on Sunday afternoon and evening, airport authorities said, after a power outage caused widespread disruption at Terminals 1 and 2 earlier in the day. It was not clear what led to the power outage but Manchester Airport said in a statement that it was working with airlines to reschedule cancelled flights in the coming days, adding that flights scheduled for Monday would be unaffected. The airport said in an earlier post on social media platform X that passengers due to fly from Terminal 3 should go to the airport as normal, unless advised otherwise by their airline, but they could be affected by delays. The disruption was first reported by Sky News, which said an issue with the power supply had affected the airport and a number of other buildings. Power has been restored but services will be affected throughout the day, the report added. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks-manchester-airport-faces-cancellations-after-power-cut-sky-news-reports-2024-06-23/
2024-06-23 13:00
CAIRO, June 23 (Reuters) - United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said on Sunday that the captain and crew of a vessel 96 nautical miles southeast of Yemen's Nishtun were forced to abandon ship after it suffered flooding that could not be contained. The crew has been recovered by an assisting ship while the abandoned ship remains adrift, it added. UKMTO earlier reported that it had received a report of a distress call from the vessel and that it was investigating the incident. Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group has been launching drone and missile strikes in shipping lanes since November, saying that it acts in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel's war in Gaza. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/ukmto-says-crew-forced-abandon-vessel-southeast-yemens-nishtun-2024-06-23/
2024-06-23 12:47
CAIRO/RIYADH, June 23 (Reuters) - More than 1,000 people died during haj this year, according to a Reuters tally, as extreme heat hammered the nearly two million who took part in the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. Most of dead were Egyptians. Security and medical sources told Reuters on Sunday that the Egyptian death toll had risen to 672 and another 25 were missing. A total of 236 Indonesians died, according to Indonesian government data, while India's External Affairs agency said 98 Indian citizens died during haj. Further deaths were reported by Tunisia, Jordan, Iran, and Senegal, making this year's total toll at least 1,114 people, according to a Reuters tally. An Egyptian crisis unit tasked with investigating the situation said on Saturday it has suspended licences of 16 tourism companies and referred them to the public prosecutor, accusing them of being responsible for deaths it said were mainly among pilgrims not registered under the official system. The unit said 31 deaths were confirmed as a result of chronic illness among officially registered pilgrims. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/egyptian-haj-death-toll-rises-672-2024-06-23/
2024-06-23 11:52
DOHA, June 23 (Reuters) - Nvidia has signed a deal to deploy its artificial intelligence technology at data centres owned by Qatari telecoms group Ooredoo in five Middle Eastern countries, Ooredoo's CEO told Reuters. The agreement marks Nvidia's first large-scale launch in a region to which Washington has curbed the export of sophisticated U.S. chips to stop Chinese firms from using Middle Eastern countries as a back door to access the newest AI technology. It will make Ooredoo the first company in the region able to give clients of its data centers in Qatar, Algeria, Tunisia, Oman, Kuwait and the Maldives direct access to Nvidia's AI and graphics processing technology, Ooredoo said in a statement. Providing the technology will allow Ooredoo to better help its customers deploy generative AI applications, Nvidia's senior vice president of telecom Ronnie Vasishta said. "Our b2b clients, thanks to this agreement, will have access to services that probably their competitors (won't) for another 18 to 24 months," Ooredoo's CEO Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo told Reuters in an interview. The companies did not disclose the value of the deal, which was signed on the sidelines of the TM Forum in Copenhagen on June 19. Ooredoo also would not disclose exactly what type of Nvidia technology it will be installing in its data centres, saying that it depends on availability and customer demand. Washington allows the export of some Nvidia technology to the Middle East, but curbs exports of the company's most sophisticated chips. Ooredoo is investing $1 billion to boost its regional data centre capacity by 20-25 additional megawatts on top of the 40 megawatts it currently has, and plans to almost triple that by the end of the decade, Fakhroo said. The company has carved out its data centers into a separate company following a similar move last year to create the Middle East's largest tower company in a deal with Kuwait's Zain and Dubai's TASC Towers Holding. Ooredoo also has plans to carve out its undersea cables and fiber network into a separate entity, Fakhroo said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/technology/nvidia-launch-middle-east-amid-us-curbs-ai-exports-region-ooredoo-ceo-says-2024-06-23/
2024-06-23 07:25
HANGZHOU, China, June 23 (Reuters) - German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said on Sunday that China was indispensable to achieving global climate goals and must find a safe alternative to coal, which accounted for nearly 60% of China's electricity supply in 2023. Officials told Habeck that China was expanding coal production for security reasons, the minister told reporters in the southern city of Hangzhou, the day after meeting Chinese officials in Beijing. "China also imports large amounts of gas and oil and China has already seen what has happened in Europe and Germany in the last two years," he added, referring to the energy crisis triggered by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He said cooperation with China must be strengthened, adding: "Without China it would not be possible to meet the climate targets globally". "You don't have to teach them that CO2 emissions are bad for the climate. They've got that," Habeck said, adding that it should be possible to achieve the same level of security with fewer coal-fired power plants. Later, Habeck told students at the university of Zhejiang that the difficulty lay in integrating variable forms of energy such as wind and solar into a system built to work on more predictable fuels, adding: "That is basically my work." He said that doubling capacities was "the old way" of doing it, but not the most efficient. China is expanding its coal production but also installed almost 350 gigawatts (GW) of new renewable energy capacity in 2023, more than half the global total. Habeck said extension of the power grid and use of batteries to store energy could reduce the number of traditionally fuelled power plants needed to meet China's needs, adding that economic growth and climate action were not opposites. "Transforming the economy to a climate-neutral one is not only good for the climate but creates new opportunities for wealth and growth," Habeck said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/german-minister-says-china-indispensable-achieve-climate-goals-2024-06-23/
