Boeing will relaunch an uncrewed test flight of its Starliner spaceship, the company said Monday, after an earlier mission failed due to multiple glitches.
The aim of Starliner is to take US astronauts to the International Space Station.  A test run in December was ended early when the spacecraft failed to engage its thrusters on time.
Another problem was intermittent space-to-ground communications, impeding the flight control team's ability to command and control the vehicle.
"We have chosen to refly our Orbital Flight Test to demonstrate the quality of the Starliner system," Boeing said.
"Flying another uncrewed flight will allow us to complete all flight test objectives and evaluate the performance of the second Starliner vehicle at no cost to the taxpayer.
"We will then proceed to the tremendous responsibility and privilege of flying astronauts to the International Space Station." A Boeing spokeswoman was quoted by CBS News as saying the company hopes to fly the mission "in the ...

Boeing to redo test flight of uncrewed Starliner spaceship

PTI Automatic

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday declared a month-long state of emergency in Tokyo and six other parts of the country over a spike in coronavirus cases.
"As I decided that a situation feared to gravely affect people's lives and the economy has occurred... I am declaring a state of emergency," Abe said.
The measure falls short of the strict lockdowns seen in other parts of the world but empowers local governors to urge people to stay inside and to call for businesses to close.

Japan PM Abe declares state of emergency over virus

A deadly cyclone destroyed much of Vanuatu's second-largest town but early warnings appeared to have prevented mass casualties in the Pacific nation, with some residents sheltered in caves to stay safe, aid workers said Tuesday.
Tropical Cyclone Harold, which claimed 27 lives when it swept through the Solomon Islands last week, lashed Vanuatu's northern provinces overnight as a scale-topping category five superstorm.
The town of Luganville, population 16,500, took a direct hit as winds of 235 kilometres per hour (145 miles per hour) brought down buildings and caused flash flooding.
World Vision's Vanuatu director Kendra Gates Derousseau said the charity's local manager told her the damage was comparable to the last category five monster to hit the country, Cyclone Pam in 2015.
"I managed to speak to her on a satellite phone and she estimated about 50 percent of dwellings have been significantly damaged, the World Vision office has lost its roof," she told AFP.
"She mentioned that she .

Monster cyclone tears through Vanuatu town

Human rights groups have called on the energy-rich Gulf states to release peaceful political activists from jail and scale back detention of migrant workers, to limit the spread of coronavirus.
Hundreds of human rights defenders, peaceful activists and opposition members have been in jail for years in the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states.
The region, which takes in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, also detains thousands of expatriate workers for violating strict residency regulations.
"As the coronavirus pandemic rages on, Gulf states should take prompt measures to protect the health and rights of detainees and staff in immigration detention centres, including by releasing people and finding alternatives to detention," Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.
"Many migrant workers in the Gulf, especially those who are undocumented through no fault of their own or have fled unscrupulous employers, are in prolonged pre-deportation detention in ...

Gulf states urged to free activists, migrant workers

Finland announced tougher controls on Tuesday to further reduce arrivals from its neighbours including Sweden, where measures to tackle the coronavirus have been less severe and infection rates  higher.
The two countries' land border in Lapland is usually crossed by thousands of workers and families every day, although traffic across the Swedish and Norwegian borders has fallen by 95 percent since the government banned all but essential traffic on March 14, Finland's Interior Minister Maria Ohisalo told a press conference.
"In addition to extending the measures (for a month until May 13), quarantine requirements for arrivals will be tightened," Ohisalo said.
Under the new measures, workers must now carry a permission slip from their employer stating that the border crossing is essential and must remain under quarantine for 14 days on arrival in Finland.
The measures come after a senior Finnish infection specialist called for an end to work-related travel over the Lapland border, where 

Finland tightens border with Sweden to stem coronavirus

An Italian priest who was kidnapped in Niger in September 2018 has been seen in a jihadist video, according to a newspaper report, in the first proof of life since his abduction.
The report in the Air Info newspaper, which did not release the 23-second video, was illustrated by a screenshot showing 59-year-old Catholic priest Pier Luigi Maccalli wearing grey clothes and with a long white beard.
Thomas Codjovi, communications officer for the Catholic mission in Niger, said that until now they had no evidence that the priest was still alive.
"We recognised Luigi in the photo published by Air Info," he told AFP, adding he had not seen the video.
"If this information is true, it is heartening to know that he is alive," he said.
The priest was seized in September 2018 in the southwest village of Bamoanga, near the border with Burkina Faso, by armed men on motorcycles.
Niger, a large and poor country in West Africa, has become a target for recurring jihadist attacks from neighbouring ...

Italian priest kidnapped in Niger shown in jihadist video: report

The London stock market rallied 3.0 percent in opening deals on Tuesday, despite news that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was battling the coronavirus in an intensive care unit (ICU).
London's benchmark FTSE 100 of major UK companies jumped 3.0 percent to 5,571.09 points, amid Europe-wide gains as some of the world's worst-hit countries reported falling COVID-19 death rates.
Frankfurt's DAX won 3.7 per cent to 10,445.50 points and the Paris CAC 40 leapt 3.2 per cent to 4,485.32 compared with Monday's closing levels.

London stocks jump 3.0% despite PM Johnson in ICU

Deep in the Amazon rainforest in northern Brazil, where rivers are the only highways, the coronavirus pandemic is sharply limiting boat traffic, leaving villages even more cut off from the world than before.
Canoes, motor boats and ferries are the cars, trucks and buses of the Amazon, bringing people and goods to remote communities that can only be reached by river -- sometimes with a journey of more than a week.
But because of the pandemic, authorities in Amazonas state have restricted river traffic to essential travel, seeking to stop the spread of the virus in a region that could be particularly vulnerable to it.
Cargo transport is operating normally, but passenger transport is restricted to exceptional circumstances such as medical emergencies and essential services like paramedics and police, said Jerfeson Caldas, regional coordinator for national health agency Anvisa.
Even those trips are bound by special rules: boats can only operate at 40 percent of their passenger capacity, ..

Coronavirus severs Brazilian Amazon from world

Chinese Super League (CSL) players were under growing pressure Tuesday to take a pay cut in line with the likes of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, as coronavirus hits football hard.
The CSL has some of the best-paid coaches and players in the world with Shanghai SIPG's Brazilian attacking midfielder Oscar reportedly earning nearly USD 30 million a year.
However, while many CSL players have donated masks and other equipment in the fight against the pandemic, which has caused all football to stop, there is no unified response.
The CSL season was supposed to begin on February 22 but was indefinitely postponed because of the outbreak, which began in China in December before spreading worldwide.
The campaign is unlikely to begin before late May at the earliest even though China says that the number of locally transmitted infections and deaths has dwindled.  State-run Xinhua news agency published a lengthy article debating whether CSL clubs should follow Messi's Barcelona and Ronaldo's .

Chinese football agonises over wage cuts in face of coronavirus

Abandoned when Pakistan's largest cities went into lockdown, hundreds of caged cats, dogs and rabbits have been found dead inside pet markets hurriedly shuttered as the coronavirus spread.
Animals still alive in the corner of Karachi's sprawling Empress Market were rescued only after activists appealed to the authorities for access.
Two weeks into the shutdown, Ayesha Chundrigar could hear the cries of the pets from outside the shops, which together housed up to 1,000 animals.
"When we got inside, the majority of them were dead, about 70 percent. Their bodies were lying on the ground," Chundrigar, who runs ACF Animal Rescue, told AFP.
"It was so horrific, I can't tell you."
Starving and locked in cages with no light or ventilation, the surviving pets sat amongst the dead, trembling.
As the virus pandemic grew, Pakistan's major cities were plunged into lockdown, forcing many shops to close. Only stalls selling essential goods such as food and medicine were allowed to continue ...

Hundreds of abandoned animals die at Pakistan pet markets

A vast cathedral in central New York is being converted into a field hospital during the coronavirus pandemic, its dean said Monday, as the US struggles to cope with the mounting crisis.
The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Manhattan will house nine climate-controlled medical tents in its 600-foot-long nave and subterranean crypt, dean Clifton Daniel told the New York Times.
The tents will be able to hold a total of at least 200 patients beneath the stained-glass windows of the building, which describes itself as the largest Gothic cathedral in the world.
"In earlier centuries, cathedrals were always used this way, like during the plague. So this is not outside the experience of being a cathedral, it is just new to us," Daniel said.
Cathedral officials said COVID-19 patients could start arriving within a week.
The field hospital will be staffed with personnel from the Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital, located next door to the cathedral complex.
The US death toll from the ...

New York cathedral to be used as field hospital

Controversial tennis star Nick Kyrgios has offered to deliver food to people finding themselves hungry during the coronavirus lockdown, his latest charitable effort after spearheading sporting donations to help Australia's bushfire crisis.
The Canberra-based Kyrgios, infamously outspoken and known for his fiery on-court antics, said he would personally drop food on doorsteps after COVID-19 restrictions closed down entire industries, forcing huge numbers of people out of work across Australia.
"Please don't go to sleep with an empty stomach," Kyrgios, the world number 40, posted on Instagram late Monday.
"Don't be afraid or embarrassed to send me a private message. I will be more than happy to share whatever I have.
"Even just for a box of noodles, a loaf of bread or milk. I will drop it off at your doorstep, no questions asked!" he said in a post which has already attracted more than 90,000 likes.
People queueing for welfare payments around the country have been likened to scenes from 

Kyrgios offers to drop off food to hungry people during lockdown

With the top clubs in the Bundesliga already back in training, envious rivals across Europe are watching to see whether the Germans gain an edge or pay a price when play resumes.
Europe's top leagues are desperate to return to competition to avert financial disaster due to the coronavirus pandemic, but if they move too fast they could risk injuring their players. Moving too slow also comes at a cost.
In addition to the injury worry, when to resume training presents a problem of fairness, if some clubs can resume sooner than others it could distort competition and produce "crazy" results.
The issue has come up in Germany where, in line with an earlier recommendation by the German football league, Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich and second-place Borussia Dortmund and a raft of other clubs resumed training in small groups on Monday. The Bundesliga hopes to return in early May, having ground to a halt in mid-March.
"We have to combine two central goals, namely to keep the players in a ...

As Bundesliga clubs resume training, a debate over fairness and fitness

Honor Blackman, one of the most memorable co-stars of the early James Bond films, has died at the age of 94, her family said.
The actress shot to fame in her late 30s after playing legendary Bond girl Pussy Galore in the 1964 movie "Goldfinger", starring alongside Sean Connery.
It was only the third instalment in the storied spy franchise, and received critical acclaim and box office success.
"It's with great sadness that we have to announce the death of Honor Blackman aged 94," the family said in a statement Monday.
"She died peacefully of natural causes at home in Lewes, Sussex, surrounded by her family.
"As well as being a much adored mother and grandmother, Honor was an actor of hugely prolific creative talent." Her family added she possessed "an extraordinary combination of beauty, brains and physical prowess, along with her unique voice and a dedicated work ethic".
Blackman also became well-known in Britain for playing the character Cathy Gale in the popular 1960s TV spy series .

1960s Bond girl Honor Blackman dead at 94

Athletes are fooling themselves if they think they can use the chaos caused globally by the coronavirus pandemic to cheat, World Anti-Doping Agency president Witold Banka has told AFP.
The Pole said physical testing might be virtually at a standstill but WADA and national anti-doping agencies possessed other weapons they can deploy in the fight against doping.
Canada and Russia have gone public in saying they have suspended their testing programmes while the British anti-doping body has significantly reduced its testing.
"COVID-19 is not a space for the athletes to cheat," Banka said in a phone interview from his home in Poland.
"They should not feel it is a time for cheating. Otherwise, the anti-doping agencies will use their weapons to catch them."
The 35-year-old former Polish sports minister, who only took up his post on January 1 after being elected to replace Craig Reedie, said he hoped it would not take long once the pandemic was over to return testing to its "full power".
In ..

Coronavirus not an opportunity for athletes to dope: WADA president

Two-time Grand Slam champion Simona Halep had good news for her Twitter followers, saying she can run without pain on her injured right foot.
The Romanian star had barely wrapped up a victory at the WTA tournament in Dubai in February when she pulled out of the following tournament in Doha with the injury, which an MRI showed to be tendinitis and inflammation.
She later pulled out of the hard court tournament scheduled for Indian Wells, California, in March -- which eventually became the first tennis casualty of the coronavirus pandemic.
With tennis on indefinite hold -- and Wimbledon, where Halep won in 2019, cancelled this year -- Halep told fans that she was longing to get back to action.
"I miss my team. I miss the players," she said.
"I miss everyone from the tour.
"I know it's a bit tough for everybody, this period," Halep added.
"But if we stay home, if we stay strong and positive ... everything is going to be all right.
"I can't wait to travel again. I can't wait to play ...

Halep says foot injury improving as tennis remains on hold

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver says he thinks it will be at least May before any decision can be made about resumption of the 2019-20 season that was shut down amid the coronavirus pandemic.
"Essentially, what I've told my folks over the last week is that we just should just accept that, at least for the month of April, we won't be in a position to make any decisions," Silver said Monday in an interview that was live streamed on the NBA's Twitter account.
"And I don't think that necessarily means on May 1 we will be," he added.  The NBA was the first major US pro sports league to halt games, shutting down the season on the night of March 11 after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert became the first NBA player to test positive for the virus.
The NBA regular season was set to end on April 15, with the playoffs due to start on April 18 heading toward the June NBA Finals.
With continuing uncertainty over how the virus will continue to spread and when it might be contained Silver said no decision ..

Silver says no NBA decisions likely until May

Cardinal George Pell was released from prison on Tuesday, hours after Australia's High Court quashed his conviction for child sex abuse, bringing to an abrupt end the most high-profile paedophilia case faced by the Catholic Church.
The 78-year-old left Barwon Prison near Melbourne after the court overturned five counts of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in the 1990s.
Pell, who had steadfastly maintained his innocence throughout a lengthy court process, exited the jail where he has been held for the last year and issued a statement saying that a "serious injustice" had been remedied by the decision.
A jury had convicted Pell of the offences in December 2018 and that decision was upheld by a three-judge panel in Victoria state's Court of Appeal last August, in a split 2-1 verdict.
But Australia's High Court found there was "a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted because the evidence did not establish guilt to the requisite standard of proof".
The 

Cardinal Pell freed after winning appeal over child sex abuse

Two former executives with US media giant Fox were charged with corruption, bank fraud and money-laundering as US federal prosecutors shed fresh light on the scandal-tainted bidding war for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
Former 21st Century Fox employees Hernan Lopez, 49, and Carlos Martinez, 41, face charges along with 65-year-old Gerard Romy, who worked for Spanish media conglomerate Imagina.
The three men are accused of paying millions in bribes to officials from CONMEBOL and CONCACAF, the governing bodies for football in South America and North America, Central America and the Caribbean.
The charges allege the bribes were paid in exchange for lucrative television rights contracts for regional competitions, the Copa America and qualifying games for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
The case forms part of the wide-ranging 2015 corruption scandal that left world governing body FIFA in turmoil and led to the downfall of president Sepp Blatter.
An unsealed superseding indictment released on 

New bribe details on 2018, 2022 World Cup votes as execs charged

The Taliban will no longer participate in "fruitless" discussions with the Afghan government over a prisoner swap that had formed a key part of a deal with the US, the insurgents said.
In a tweet first sent in Pashto around midnight Tuesday Afghanistan time (1930 GMT Monday), the Taliban's political spokesman Suhail Shaheen blamed the administration of President Ashraf Ghani for delaying the prisoner release "under one pretext or another".
"Therefore, our technical team will not participate in fruitless meetings with relevant sides starting from tomorrow," Shaheen, who is based in Doha, said in a subsequent tweet in English.
The two foes have been holding talks in Kabul since last week to try to finalise the prisoner swap that was originally supposed to have happened by March 10.
Matin Bek, a member of the government's negotiating team, said the release had been delayed because the Taliban are demanding the release of 15 "top commanders".
"We cannot release the killers of our people," 

Taliban to end 'fruitless' meetings over prisoner swap

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will on Tuesday declare a state of emergency in parts of the country, including Tokyo, over a spike in coronavirus infections.
Abe announced the plan on Monday, citing "rapid increases of new infections, particularly in urban areas like Tokyo and Osaka".
His government secured approval for the move Tuesday morning from a taskforce convened to oversee the declaration, which will empower governors of seven regions to ask people to stay inside and businesses to close their doors.
Abe is expected to formally declare the state of emergency later in the day and it will take effect from midnight.
The measure stops far short of the sort of lockdown seen in parts of Europe and the United States, with no enforcement mechanism to keep people inside or shutter business, nor penalties for those who fail to comply.
But experts and local leaders have pushed for the declaration, and 80 percent of people polled by public broadcaster TBS over the weekend said they ...

AFP

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