Tag Archives: Scotland

Moscow sends Nuclear Bombers near Scotland after close encounter in Alaska

Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.

Important Takeaways:

  • Russia flies two supersonic nuclear bombers over Norwegian Sea north of Scotland as NATO meets for second day of talks over Ukraine
  • Russia has flown two supersonic nuclear bombers over the Norwegian Sea, to the north of Shetland, in a stark warning to the West.
  • It comes hours after Vladimir Putin deployed his strategic aircraft over the Bering Sea, the body of water separating the US state of Alaska and Russia’s far-east.
  • The moves are seen as a display of military strength to the West as Russia prepares to mark the first anniversary of the disastrous war in Ukraine on February 24.
  • The giant Tu-160 White Swan flights follow ominous warnings from the Putin regime and its propagandists over the use of nuclear weapons if he loses the conventional war.
  • It comes as NATO defense ministers meet in Brussels this week to discuss Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, and their commitment to defense spending.

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Leaving a long legacy Queen Elizabeth II passes at 96

John 11:25 “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live”

Important Takeaways:

  • Queen Elizabeth II, longest-reigning British monarch, dead at 96
  • Queen Elizabeth, a beloved leader who ascended to the throne at age 25 in 1952, died Thursday at her Balmoral Castle estate in Scotland
  • Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch who served as the beloved face of her country and source of strength for seven decades, died Thursday at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. She was 96.
  • Elizabeth’s doctors said earlier Thursday that they were “concerned for Her Majesty’s health” and that she was “resting comfortably” at Balmoral under medical supervision.
  • The royal was preceded in death by her husband, Prince Philip, who spent more than seven decades supporting the queen. The Duke of Edinburgh, Britain’s longest-serving consort, died in April 2021 at age 99. Elizabeth and Philip were married for more than 70 years and had four children: Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward.

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UK Rattles from Nearby Earthquake

Important Takeaways:

  • UK earthquake: 5.1 magnitude tremor shakes parts of Britain causing houses to ‘rattle’
  • It was reported to have happened at 5.23am off the coast of North East of Shetland.
  • It was felt in Shetland, Aberdeen, Ellon, Stonehaven, Helmsdale, Inverurie, Lairg, Huntly, Banff and Fraserburgh, according to The British Geological Survey
  • No damage reported

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Meat-free diet may lower severe disease risk; no serious problems found with AstraZeneca shot in Scotland

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

COVID-19 severity linked with diet

People on meat-free diets had lower odds of contracting moderate to severe COVID-19, according to a six-country study published on Monday in BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health. Plant-based diets were tied to a 73% lower risk of severe disease, researchers found in a survey of 2,884 healthcare providers who cared for COVID-19 patients. Combining those on a plant-based diet and people who also ate fish but no meat, researchers found 59% lower odds of severe disease. The study cannot prove that specific diets protected against severe COVID-19, and diet did not appear to lower the risk of becoming infected. But plant-based diets are rich in nutrients, vitamins and minerals that are important for healthy immune systems, the researchers noted, and fish provide vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids, which have anti-inflammatory properties. Healthy eating, however, has been problematic during the pandemic, according to two presentations this week during a virtual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition. Consumption of healthy foods such as vegetables and whole grains declined, according to researchers who compared the diets of more than 2,000 Americans before and during the pandemic. In a separate study, researchers who collected dietary data in June 2020 for 3,916 U.S. adults found many had increased their consumption of unhealthy snacks, desserts and sugary drinks during the pandemic. “Individuals may need help to avoid making these dietary changes permanent,” said Dr. Sohyun Park of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coauthor of the latter study.

No serious problems with AstraZeneca vaccine in Scotland

A study of side effects from AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine in Scotland found only an association with a largely harmless bleeding condition and no link to the potentially deadly venous clotting in the brain, known as CVST, which has caused concern in Europe and led to pauses in its use. Researchers who tracked 5.4 million people in Scotland found roughly one additional case of idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) per 100,000 people after the first AstraZeneca shot. ITP is a treatable condition of low platelet count and has not caused any deaths among the 1.7 million recipients of the vaccine in the study, the authors reported on Wednesday in Nature Medicine. Due to the rarity of CVST, the Scottish study may have been too small to allow for any conclusions, coauthor Aziz Sheikh of the University of Edinburgh told a media briefing. “The overall message is just the rarity of these outcomes,” said Sheikh. “This is reassuring data.”

Aspirin does not help hospitalized COVID-19 patients

Aspirin did not improve survival or reduce disease severity in a study of nearly 15,000 patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Researchers had hoped that because aspirin helps reduce blood clots in other diseases, it might be helpful in COVID-19 patients who are at a higher risk for clotting issues. Patients randomly assigned to receive 150 milligrams of aspirin once a day did have fewer blood clots, but no lower risk of becoming sicker and requiring mechanical ventilation or better odds of being alive after 28 days. And they had a higher risk of major bleeding complications, a not uncommon issue with aspirin therapy. They did have slightly better odds of getting out of the hospital alive, researchers reported on medRxiv on Tuesday ahead of peer review. But “this does not seem to be sufficient to justify its widespread use for patients hospitalized with COVID-19,” said Peter Horby of the University of Oxford, co-chief investigator of the trial.

COVID-19 control policies still needed in warm weather

In the absence of lockdowns and social distancing, weather and crowding have the biggest impact on COVID-19 spread, a new study found. But even if virus transmission tends to be somewhat lower in warmer conditions, summer weather “cannot be considered a substitute for mitigation policies,” because population density matters more than temperature, according to the report from Imperial College London published on Wednesday in PNAS. Warmer regions should not expect to ease mobility restrictions before colder regions, especially because “warmer regions tend to have higher population densities – for example, the population in Florida is more densely packed than in Minnesota,” coauthor Will Pearse said in a statement. Lockdowns have stronger effects than either temperature or population density, his team reported. Because temperature changes have a much smaller effect on transmission than policy interventions, “while people remain unvaccinated, governments mustn’t drop policies like lockdowns and social distancing just because a seasonal change means the weather is warming up,” said coauthor Dr. Tom Smith. The study also suggests “that lower autumn and winter temperatures may lead to the virus spreading more easily in the absence of policy interventions or behavioral changes.”

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid, Megan Brooks, Ludwig Burger, and Vishwadha Chander; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

UK lowers COVID-19 alert status as pressure on hospitals eases

LONDON (Reuters) – The chief medical officers of the United Kingdom lowered their COVID-19 alert level on Thursday, citing a gradual reduction in pressure on the health service.

“Following advice from the Joint Biosecurity Center and in the light of the most recent data, the four UK Chief Medical Officers and NHS England National Medical Director agree that the UK alert level should move from level 5 to level 4 in all four nations,” Britain’s health ministry said in a statement.

Public health services in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland operate separately in most cases.

“The health services across the four nations remain under significant pressure with a high number of patients in hospital, however thanks to the efforts of public we are now seeing numbers consistently declining,” the medical officers added.

(Reporting by Andy Bruce, editing by David Milliken)

Sturgeon orders Scots to stay at home as new variant advances

By Kate Holton and Guy Faulconbridge

LONDON (Reuters) – Scotland on Monday imposed the most stringent COVID-19 lockdown since last March and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would shortly impose tougher curbs in England to contain a rapidly spreading outbreak of a new variant of the coronavirus.

The United Kingdom has the world’s sixth-highest official coronavirus death toll – 75,024 – and the number of new infections is soaring across the country.

As Johnson mulled tougher measures for England, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the new variant accounted for nearly half of new cases in Scotland and is 70% more transmissible.

Scots, she said, would be legally required to stay at home for January from midnight. Schools will close for all but the children of essential workers.

“I am more concerned about the situation that we face now than I have been at any time since March,” Sturgeon told the Scottish parliament.

“As a result of this new variant, (the virus) has just learned to run much faster, and has most definitely picked up pace in the past couple of weeks,” Sturgeon said.

Visiting a hospital to see the first people receive the vaccine made by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, Johnson said the country faced “tough, tough” weeks to come.

“If you look at the numbers, there’s no question that we’re going to have to take tougher measures and we’ll be announcing those in due course,” Johnson said. “We’ve got the virus really surging.”

England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland implement their own COVID-19 responses though they are trying to coordinate more across the United Kingdom.

SCHOOLS

England is currently divided into four tiers of restrictions, depending on the prevalence of the virus, with the vast majority of the country in Tiers 3 and 4 where social mixing is restricted and restaurants and pubs are closed.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said earlier that the rules in Tier 3 were clearly not working.

With England moving back towards the strict lockdown of the first wave in March, Johnson was also asked if schools would have to close once again and return to online learning.

He said that would remain a last resort for primary schools given the social and educational damage that can be done to isolated children.

But he indicated they may need to rethink a plan to reopen secondary schools for pupils aged between 11 and 18.

“It looks as though secondary schools probably play more of a role in the spread of the epidemic than primary schools, so we’ll have to look very hard at what we do with secondary schools later in the month,” he said.

The government has spent the year trying to balance the need to shut down the country to contain the virus without hammering the economy.

The first national coronavirus lockdown in May last year prompted a 25% drop in economic output – unprecedented in modern records – leaving Britain’s economy harder hit by the pandemic than most others.

While the economy recovered partially in the third quarter, renewed lockdown measures threaten to cause a double-dip recession at the start of 2021.

(Reporting by Kate Holton and Guy Faulconbridge, Andy Bruce; Editing by Sarah Young and Hugh Lawson)

U.S. charges Libyan man in 1988 Pam Am Flight 103 bombing

By Mark Hosenball and David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Monday unsealed criminal charges against a third alleged conspirator in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland that killed 270 people.

The Boeing 747 exploded and killed 190 Americans. “No amount of time or distance will stop the United States and our Scottish partners from pursuing justice in this case,” U.S. Attorney General William Barr told a news conference Monday.

The suspect, Abu Agila Mohammad Masud Kheir Al-Marimi, a former senior Libyan intelligence official, is charged with two criminal counts related to the bombing. He is in Libyan custody, Barr said Monday, and U.S. officials are hopeful that Libya will allow Masud to be tried in the United States.

The Justice Department said Masud worked in various capacities for Libyan intelligence, including as a technical expert in building explosive devices from approximately 1973 to 2011. It also alleged Masud was involved in the 1986 bombing of the LaBelle Discotheque in West Berlin, Germany that killed two U.S. service members.

In 1991, two other Libyan intelligence operatives were charged in the bombing: Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah.

Megrahi was found guilty in Scotland of the Lockerbie bombing in 2001 and freed in 2009 on compassionate release grounds before dying of cancer in 2012.

Barr said the breakthrough that led to Masud’s charges came after law enforcement learned in 2016 that the third alleged conspirator “had been arrested after the collapse of the Qaddafi regime and interviewed by a Libyan law enforcement officer in September 2012.”

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball and David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Alistair Bell)

Northern Ireland prepares for momentous abortion, same-sex marriage changes

Northern Ireland prepares for momentous abortion, same-sex marriage changes
By Amanda Ferguson

BELFAST (Reuters) – Campaigners who fought for decades to end Northern Ireland’s same sex-marriage ban and restrictions on abortion prepared on Monday for a momentous change to the laws on both at the stroke of midnight.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that does not allow same-sex marriage. Also, unlike England, Scotland and Wales, laws in Northern Ireland forbid abortion except where a mother’s life is at risk, bans that have been upheld by the region’s block of conservative politicians.

But an overwhelming vote by British lawmakers in July to compel the government in London to overhaul the laws if Belfast’s devolved executive had not been restored by Oct. 21 is set to kick in with little or no hope of politicians ending the local parliament’s near three-year hiatus.

Advocacy groups have planned a number of events on Monday to usher in the changes.

“We are not going to stick with the guilt and the shame any longer. Tomorrow the law changes in this place, and for the first time in Northern Ireland, women will be free,” Pro-choice campaigner Dawn Purvis told a public meeting in Belfast

“Free to choose if, when and how many children they will have in the care of health-care professionals. This is a very emotional day for many here.”

Abortion rights were long opposed in Northern Ireland by religious conservatives in both the Protestant community that supports continued British rule and the Catholic community that favours union with the traditionally Catholic Irish Republic.

Pressure has mounted, however, to change the Victorian-era laws in recent years, particularly after the neighbouring Irish Republic voted overwhelmingly last year to repeal a similarly restrictive ban, demonstrating a stark change in attitudes on an island once known for its religious conservatism.

If a new devolved government is not formed by midnight, abortion will be decriminalised, beginning a consultation on what the framework for services should look like, which is due to be finalised and approved by March 2020.

“This is a bad law being implemented through a bad process leading to bad consequences for both women and unborn children,” said Dawn McAvoy from the anti-abortion Both Lives Matter group.

Opinion has also changed on same-sex marriage. But despite opinion polls showing most in the region in favour, previous attempts to follow the Irish Republic in legalising it have been blocked by the socially conservative Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), using a special veto intended to prevent discrimination towards one community over another.

It will take the British parliament until mid-January to bring in the new legislation, setting up Feb. 14, 2020 – Valentine’s Day – as the first opportunity for same-sex couples to marry once they give the required 28-days’ notice.

(Reporting by Amanda Ferguson; Editing by Padraic Halpin, Peter Cooney and Giles Elgood)

Wildfires rage across Britain after hottest winter day on record

A fire is seen burning on Saddleworth Moor near the town of Diggle, Britain, February 27, 2019. REUTERS/Jon Super

By Jon Super

DIGGLE, England (Reuters) – Firefighters battled a series of wildfires in Britain on Wednesday, including a large moorland blaze outside the northern English city of Manchester, as the country experienced its warmest winter weather on record.

A fire started on Tuesday evening on Saddleworth Moor, an expanse of hills that is popular with hikers. It has since spread to an area about one-and-a-half square kilometers.

Large flames could be seen rising from the hillside as witnesses described “apocalyptic” scenes.

Laura Boocock, West Yorkshire Fire Service’s incident commander, told the BBC it was “one of the biggest moorland fires we’ve ever had to deal with”.

Five crews and two specialist moorland firefighting units were trying to contain the blaze. There have been no reports of any injuries.

The fire comes after Britain recorded its warmest winter day with a temperature of 21.2 Celsius in Kew Gardens in London.

Fire officials have not yet commented on what may have caused the blaze.

Last summer a fire on Saddleworth Moor, which required army assistance to tackle, took more than three weeks to extinguish.

Separately, on Tuesday a wildfire started in woodland made famous in AA Milne’s Winnie the Pooh stories. Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, the inspiration for Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood, suffered two fires that began within an hour of each other. The local fire service said that “unusual warm weather this week” meant that the ground was drier than usual and could lead to a greater risk of outdoor fires.

In Scotland, firefighters battled through the night to extinguish a large gorse fire on Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh.

(Writing by Andrew MacAskill; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Prayers, tributes in Lockerbie mark 30 years since Pan Am bombing

People gather for the service and wreath-laying at the Memorial Garden in Dryfesdale Cemetery, on the morning of the 30th anniversary of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 which exploded over the Scottish town on December 21, 1988, killing 259 passengers and crew and 11 residents on the ground, in Lockerbie, Scotland, Britain, December 21, 2018. Jane Barlow/Pool via REUTERS

LOCKERBIE, Scotland (Reuters) – A simple wreath-laying and prayer service in Lockerbie on Friday marked 30 years since a jumbo jet was blown up over the small Scottish town, killing 270 people.

Pan Am flight 103 exploded on its way from London to New York a few days before Christmas in 1988, killing all 259 people on board and another 11 on the ground. It is the deadliest ever militant attack in Britain.

Lockerbie, near the English border, with a population of just 4,000 people, has been synonymous with the tragedy ever since.

“Let us find hope and peace for all those who lost loved ones and who still carry the scars of this atrocity,” Jeff Brown, who directed the religious service, told those assembled.

The memorial service at Dryfesdale Cemetery was attended by Lord Lieutenant Fiona Armstrong, who conveyed a personal message from Queen Elizabeth.

“I send my prayers and good wishes to all those who will be marking this solemn anniversary,” she said.

Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was found guilty of the bombing, along with others who were never identified, and was jailed for life in 2001.

Megrahi was later released because he was suffering from cancer. He died in 2012.

(Writing by Elisabeth O’Leary; editing by Stephen Addison)