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Tag: Pacific Ocean

  • Younger Hen Might Have Set Non-Prevent Distance Document Through Flying From Alaska To Australia

    CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A tender bar-tailed godwit seems to have set a continuous distance file for migratory birds through flying a minimum of 13,560 kilometers (8,435 miles) from Alaska to the Australian state of Tasmania, a hen skilled mentioned Friday.

    The hen was once tagged as a hatchling in Alaska right through the Northern Hemisphere summer season with a monitoring GPS chip and tiny sun panel that enabled a global analysis workforce to observe its first annual migration around the Pacific Ocean, Birdlife Tasmania convenor Eric Woehler mentioned. For the reason that hen was once so younger, its gender wasn’t recognized.

    Elderly about 5 months, it left southwest Alaska on the Yuko-Kuskokwim Delta on Oct. 13 and touched down 11 days later at Ansons Bay at the island of Tasmania’s northeastern tip on Oct. 24, in step with information from Germany’s Max Plank Institute for Ornithology. The analysis has but to be revealed or peer reviewed.

    The hen began on a southwestern route towards Japan then became southeast over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, a map revealed through New Zealand’s Pukoro Miranda Shorebird Middle displays.

    The hen was once once more monitoring southwest when it flew over or close to Kiribati and New Caledonia, then previous the Australian mainland ahead of turning without delay west for Tasmania, Australia’s maximum southerly state. The satellite tv for pc path confirmed it coated 13,560 kilometers (8,435 miles) with out preventing.

    “Whether or not that is an coincidence, whether or not this hen were given misplaced or whether or not this is a part of a regular development of migration for the species, we nonetheless don’t know,” mentioned Woehler, who is a part of the analysis challenge.

    Guinness Global Data lists the longest recorded migration through a hen with out preventing for meals or leisure as 12,200 km (7,580 miles) through a satellite-tagged male bar-tailed godwit flying from Alaska to New Zealand.

    That flight was once recorded in 2020 as a part of the similar decade-old analysis challenge, which additionally comes to China’s Fudan College, New Zealand’s Massey College and the World Flyway Community.

    The similar hen broke its personal file with a 13,000-kilometer (8,100-mile) flight on its subsequent migration closing yr, researchers say. However Guinness has but to recognize that feat.

    Woehler mentioned researchers didn’t know whether or not the newest hen, recognized through its satellite tv for pc tag 234684, flew on my own or as a part of a flock.

    “There are so few birds which were tagged, we don’t understand how consultant or in a different way this match is,” Woehler mentioned.

    “It can be that part the birds that do the migration from Alaska come to Tasmania without delay slightly than via New Zealand or it could be 1%, or it could be that that is the primary it’s ever took place,” he added.

    Grownup birds leave Alaska previous than juveniles, so the tagged hen was once not likely to have adopted extra skilled vacationers south, Woehler mentioned.

    Woehler hopes to look the hen as soon as rainy climate clears within the far flung nook of Tasmania, the place it’s going to fatten up having misplaced part its frame weight on its adventure.

  • Actor Fred Ward, Of ‘Tremors,’ ‘The Proper Stuff’ Repute, Useless At 79

    NEW YORK (AP) — Fred Ward, a veteran actor who introduced a gruff tenderness to tough-guy roles in such motion pictures as “The Proper Stuff,” “The Participant” and “Tremors,” has died. He was once 79.

    Ward died Sunday, his publicist Ron Hofmann stated Friday. No motive or position of dying was once disclosed in line with the circle of relatives’s needs.

    Ward earned a Golden Globe and shared the Venice Movie Competition ensemble prize for his efficiency in Robert Altman’s “Quick Cuts,” and performed the identify personality in “Remo Williams: The Journey Starts.” He additionally reached new heights taking part in Mercury 7 astronaut Virgil “Gus” Grissom in 1983′s Academy Award- nominated movie “The Proper Stuff.”

    “Devastated to be informed concerning the passing of my pal, Fred Ward,” tweeted actor Matthew Modine, who co-starred with Ward in “Quick Cuts” and Alan Rudolph’s Equinox.” “A tricky façade masking feelings as deep because the Pacific Ocean. Godspeed amigo.”

    A former boxer, lumberjack in Alaska and short-order prepare dinner who served within the U.S. Air Pressure, Ward was once a San Diego local who was once section Cherokee. One early large position was once along Clint Eastwood in 1979’s “Break out From Alcatraz.”

    “I mourn the lack of Fred Ward, who was once so sort to me after we labored in combination on ‘Remo Williams,’” actor Kate Mulgrew tweeted. “First rate and modest and completely skilled, he disarmed with a grin that was once directly heat and mischievous.”

    Ward’s different roles integrated a rumpled cop chasing a psychotic prison performed via Alec Stanley Baldwin in George Armitage’s “Miami Blues.” He was once a powerful and intimidating father to each Freddie Prinze Jr.’s personality in “Summer season Catch” and David Spade’s identify personality in “Joe Grime.”

    Ward performed President Reagan within the 2009 Chilly Warfare espionage mystery “Farewell” and had a supporting position within the 2013 motion flick “2 Weapons,” starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg.

    Within the horror-comedy “Tremors,” Ward paired with Kevin 1st baron beaverbrook to play a couple of repairmen who finally end up saving a hardscrabble Nevada wasteland neighborhood beset via massive underground snakes.

    With the sexually charged, NC-17 “Henry & June,” Ward confirmed extra than simply grit. In response to the e book via Anais Nin and directed via Philip Kaufman, Ward performed novelist Henry Miller, reverse Nin and his spouse, June. “My rear finish gave the impression to have one thing to do with (that ranking),” he informed The Washington Submit.

    He additionally reteamed with Altman for the a part of a studio safety leader within the director’s 1992 Hollywood satire “The Participant,” and performed a union activist and Meryl Streep’s workmate in Mike Nichols’ “Silkwood” in 1983.

    Ward demonstrated his comedy chops taking part in a terrorist intent on blowing up the Academy Awards in “Bare Gun 33 1/3: The Ultimate Insult” in 1994.

    At the small display, he had ordinary roles on NBC’s “ER” taking part in the daddy of Maura Tierney’s Abby Lockhart in 2006-2007 and visitor starred on such collection as “Gray’s Anatomy,” “Leverage” and “United States of Tara.” Ward maximum not too long ago seemed in the second one season of HBO’s “True Detective” because the retired cop father of Colin Farrell’s Det. Ray Velcoro.

    Ward is survived via his spouse of 27 years, Marie-France Ward and his son, Django Ward.

  • Many Pacific Island countries have stored Covid at bay. However makes an attempt to reopen are fraught with threat

    Folks dressed in face mask at a grocery store in Suva, Fiji, April 23, 2021.

    Xinhua Information Company | Getty Pictures

    International locations far and wide the arena have observed Covid-19 circumstances surge for the reason that emergence of the extremely transmissible omicron variant, with new infections hovering via 20% globally during the last week.

    Within the Pacific Islands, then again, it is been a unique tale.

    Most of the small island states nestled within the Pacific Ocean have had no new circumstances of the virus for months — and a few of the ones international locations have remained nearly Covid-free during the pandemic.

    As of Tuesday, Tonga, Samoa, Wallis and Futuna, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Vanuatu and the Cook dinner Islands had no energetic circumstances of the virus, in step with figures from Our Global in Information.

    Keeping up a long-term state of 0 Covid infections has in large part been accomplished via final the islands off to all non-essential global commute and imposing strict quarantine measures to keep an eye on the unfold of the few circumstances which have been imported.

    Even supposing most of the islands’ borders are nonetheless closed, some have tentatively begun to reopen. The ones international locations that stay remoted now to find themselves in a precarious place as they try to stability public well being with the restoration in their tourism-reliant economies.

    0 Covid a ‘non-starter’ as a long-term coverage

    Andrew Preston, a professor of microbial pathogenesis on the College of Bathtub within the U.Okay., advised CNBC that zero-Covid methods had been unsustainable, partly because of the emergence of omicron.

    “The state of affairs below which 0 Covid had the best credibility was once keeping up it whilst very prime ranges of immunity had been constructed with vaccination,” he stated. “Then again, for many international locations, it has proved very tricky to get a degree of vaccination prime sufficient to forestall any unfold of an imported case, and now with the power of omicron to reinfect and infect the ones vaccinated apparently to be a non-starter as a long-term coverage.”

    0-Covid methods have additionally taken an enormous financial toll on most of the islands, striking power on governments to ramp up vaccination in order that borders may also be reopened safely.

    In step with an IMF document printed in October, GDP around the Pacific Islands reduced in size via 3.7% in 2020, with tourism-dependent international locations — Fiji, Palau, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu — anticipated to have observed a 6.5% decline in actual GDP in 2021.

    The Cook dinner Islands, which has political ties to New Zealand, recently has no circumstances of the virus. Its Covid reaction technique is related to the placement in New Zealand, the place 80 new circumstances had been recorded on Monday.

    Some restrictions are in position, together with limits of 100 other people at social gatherings and the enforcement of social distancing in eating places and bars. Face coverings are inspired however no longer mandated.

    Closing week, the Cook dinner Islands took steps to reopen its borders. All incoming guests should commute by the use of New Zealand, the place they’re required to spend 10 complete days sooner than departing for the Cook dinner Islands. Guests should additionally supply proof of Covid vaccination in addition to a destructive PCR take a look at.

    In a observation on Dec. 16, Cook dinner Islands Top Minister Mark Brown stated the “easiest guns” the rustic had had during the pandemic were “isolation and closed borders, and now mass vaccination.”

    “We have now labored very, very exhausting within the remaining two years to handle our Covid-free standing, and those [travel] rules and our power force to get all our eligible other people vaccinated, is a continuation of that,” he added.

    In step with respectable knowledge, 96% p.c of the eligible inhabitants — the ones over the age of 12 — within the Cook dinner Islands has been absolutely vaccinated towards Covid. Round 70% of the inhabitants has won a booster dose.

    Through reopening to the arena, the Cook dinner Islands govt shall be hoping to recoup one of the really extensive financial losses the rustic has suffered on account of the pandemic. The Asian Building Financial institution estimates that the Cook dinner Islands’ GDP loss during the disaster might be as heavy as 32%.

    ‘Dire’ Covid possibilities

    For different Pacific Island international locations, borders stay closed as government paintings to meet up with the Cook dinner Islands’ vaccination luck. Reopening too quickly generally is a large public well being possibility, for the reason that populations most probably have very little immunity received via an infection — in particular to the omicron variant.

    Samoa and Tonga have absolutely vaccinated round 60% in their populations, in step with Our Global in Information, whilst simply over part of other people dwelling in Wallis and Futuna have won two doses. In the meantime, in Kiribati, kind of one-third of the inhabitants is absolutely vaccinated.

    In some Pacific Island international locations, wider well being issues additionally upload to the chance. In Samoa, as an example, Covid poses an important possibility to a lot of the inhabitants because of prime charges of non-communicable illnesses that the WHO says account for roughly 68% of the rustic’s untimely deaths.

    Berlin Kafoa, director of the general public well being department on the Pacific Group, advised CNBC there was once “large worry” over the opportunity of serious Covid epidemics as Pacific Island international locations reopen their borders.

    “The effects are dire, as Covid-19 outbreaks will weigh down fragile well being programs if [these countries] aren’t assisted now,” he stated in an e-mail, including that the WHO and different U.N. businesses had been operating with Pacific Island governments to arrange every nation.

    Particular person international locations and territories around the area are recently operating to set vaccination objectives at which they really feel they may be able to safely reopen their borders. Then again, Kafoa stated that each one Pacific Island international locations confronted demanding situations in the case of having access to Covid vaccines, vaccine hesitancy and incorrect information.  

    Reputable knowledge from Vanuatu — which has stored circumstances close to or at 0 during the pandemic — presentations simply 37% of the inhabitants has been absolutely vaccinated.

    Being closely reliant on tourism method the speed of Vanuatu’s financial restoration is pinned on having the ability to safely reopen its borders. Tourism accounted for 31.7% of nationwide GDP in 2018, a 2020 document from the U.N. stated. The business was once chargeable for greater than one-third of jobs national previous to the pandemic.

    Olivier Ponti, vp of insights at commute research company ForwardKeys, advised CNBC that as of Jan 8., first-quarter global bookings to the Pacific Islands stood at 12% of pre-pandemic ranges.

    French Polynesia, which reopened remaining Might, was once seeing the most powerful restoration, Ponti stated, with bookings to the rustic recently at 75% of the degrees observed the similar time two years in the past.

    Flights to Fiji and New Caledonia had been as much as 51% and 38% respectively of the degrees observed in Jan. 2020. Vanuatu, in the meantime, “isn’t anticipating any global guests,” Ponti stated.