Flights canceled, state of emergency declared in nearby communities

REYKJAVIK, Iceland - Authorities evacuated hundreds of people after a volcano erupted beside a glacier in southern Iceland, Iceland’s civil protection agency said Sunday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The eruption occurred around 11:30 p.m. Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET) beside the Eyjafjallajokull glacier, the fifth largest in Iceland. Authorities initially said the eruption was below the glacier, triggering fears that it could lead to flooding from glacier melt, but scientists conducting an aerial survey in daylight located the eruption and said it did not occur below ice.

“The eruption is a small one,” said Agust Gunnar Gylfason, a risk analyst at the Civil Protection Department.

“An eruption in and close to this glacier can be dangerous due to possible flooding if the fissure forms under the glacier,” he said. “That is why we initiated our disaster response plan.”

Scientists can see lava flows in the half-mile long fissure, and authorities are watching for further activity.

Authorities evacuated some 450 people in the area 100 miles southeast of the capital, Reykjavik, as a precaution, said Vidir Reynisson, the department manager for the Icelandic Civil Protection Department.

State of emergency
A state of emergency has been declared in communities near the 100 square mile glacier, and three Red Cross centers were set up for evacuees in the village of Hella.

The Icelandic Civil Aviation Administration has ordered aircraft to stay 120 nautical miles away from the volcano area, essentially closing it off.

Three Icelandair flights from the U.S. — departing from Seattle; Boston; and Orlando, Florida — bound for Keflavik airport in Reykjavik were turned back to Boston. All domestic flights were also canceled until further notice, the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service reported.

British Airways (BA) cabin crew on Saturday began a three-day strike over pay and conditions which will ground hundreds of flights, but the airline said many of its passengers were able to fly.

Some 12,000 members of Britain’s biggest trade union, Unite, walked out at midnight (0000 GMT) Friday, hours after talks between unions and BA chief executive Willie Walsh broke down in acrimony.

More than 1,000 flights are set to be cancelled in the first phase of the action, with a second walkout to follow for four days from March 27, targeted at the busy Easter holiday period.

Unite said early indications were that all its members were solidly supporting the strike.

Reports said the expected chaos at BA’s hubs at London’s Heathrow airport and Gatwick airport outside the capital had failed to materialise because the airline had made contingency plans for about 60 percent of passengers.

A total of 1,100 BA flights out of the approximately 1,950 scheduled to operate during the first strike will be cancelled.

But BA said it was confident of keeping two-thirds of its passengers flying, using staff who are not striking and by offering travellers seats on 22 planes leased from other European airlines.

A BA spokeswoman said the airline had “got off to a good start” at Heathrow and Gatwick.

She said: “We aim to fly as many customers as we can this weekend. At Heathrow and Gatwick we have got off to a good start.

“Cabin crew are reporting as normal at Gatwick and the numbers reporting at Heathrow are above the levels we need to operate our published schedule.

“This is the biggest contingency plan we have ever launched.”

In December, BA won a legal battle to prevent a 12-day strike by cabin crew over Christmas and New Year after a judge ruled that a ballot of staff by Unite was invalid.

Thousands of anti-government protesters in Thailand have boarded motorcycles and trucks for a mass rally in Bangkok in the latest stage of their campaign.

Thousands of anti-government protesters in Thailand have boarded motorcycles and trucks for a mass rally in Bangkok in the latest stage of their campaign.

The “red-shirt” movement, many of them supporters of former PM Thaksin Shinawatra, wants the government to step down and call new elections.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has admitted his country is divided, but has refused to step down.

The numbers of protesters are down since the rallies began last weekend.

But thousands of people dressed in red rode motorbikes or boarded cars and trucks to flood the streets of the Thai capital in a bid to boost support for their cause.

Blood protests

Many of the anti-government protesters are from rural areas of Thailand where Mr Thaksin remains popular.

The prime minister has offered to talk to the protest leaders, but only after their campaign in Bangkok is called off.

The red-shirt leaders say they will remain encamped in Bangkok but will scale back their protests in order, as they put it, to conserve energy and resources, reports the BBC’s Rachel Harvey in Bangkok.

Earlier in the week, the protestors spattered their own blood outside the government headquarters and the prime minister’s private residence.

The protesters have sought to distance themselves from Mr Thaksin, - who lives abroad having fled a two-year jail sentence for a conflict of interest case - painting themselves as fighters for democracy against entrenched elites.

They say Mr Abhisit came to power illegitimately in a parliamentary vote after a pro-Thaksin government was forced to step down.

Mr Thaksin was ousted as prime minister in a military coup in 2006.

They are normally transmitters of the disease, but mosquitoes could one day be used to tackle malaria after scientists developed a genetically engineered version of the species that can deliver a vaccine.

Researchers altered the salivary glands of the Anopheles stephensi mosquito, dubbed a “flying vaccinator,” so that it carried the Leishmania vaccine within its saliva.

This mosquito, the main spreaders of human malaria, was shown in tests to transmit this vaccine when it bit its host, in this case laboratory mice, making it a transmitter of the vaccine.

Bites from the insect succeeded in raising antibodies in the mice, indicating successful immunization with the vaccine, according to research published in Insect Molecular Biology, a British scientific journal.

The study, led by Associate Professor Shigeto Yoshida from the Jichi Medical University in Japan, could be used to formulate a new strategy in the global fight against malaria.

“The lack of an effective [malaria] vaccine means control of the carrier has become a crucial objective to combating the disease. Following bites, protective immune responses are induced, just like a conventional vaccination but with no pain and no cost,” said Yoshida.

“What’s more, continuous exposure to bites will maintain high levels of protective immunity, through natural boosting, for a lifetime. So the insect shifts from being a pest to being beneficial.”

About 60 species of the Anopheles mosquito are vectors of the malaria parasite, which are transmitted to humans when the female feeds on blood.

Every year about 250 million people are infected with malaria and nearly one million die, according to the World Health Organization.

In Africa one in every five childhood deaths is caused by malaria, says the WHO.

However, the researchers admit that there are barriers to using this form of vaccination in the wild, including issues of controlling dosage, “medical safety issues” and the “issues of public acceptance to [the] release of transgenic mosquitoes.”

Former Nepal Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala died today at the age of 87. His condition had deteriorated in the morning after a bout of diarrhea, three days after he was discharged from a city hospital in Kathmandu.

Koirala was the President of the Nepali Congress which is a key constituent of the ruling coalition, and had been “unconscious since this morning,” said Chiranjivi Nepal, an advisor to Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Sujata Koirala, daughter of the veteran politician.

Koirala had been on ventilator round-the-clock and a team of doctors were attending to him at Sujata’s house in Mandikhatar area.

The veteran leader had a low hemoglobin level and was suffering from bronchitis and lungs problem.

Koirala was discharged on Wednesday from the Marty Ganga Lal Heart Centre at Bansbari in Kathmandu on Wednesday and since then he had been staying at his daughter’s house.

His condition worsened following a bout of diarrhea on Friday morning.

Top leaders of major political parties, including Maoist chairman Prachanda and CPN-UML’s Jhalanath Khanal, visited Sujata’s residence to enquire about Koirala’s health.

Meanwhile, the Nepali Congress has called an emergency meeting of the party’s Central Working Committee to discuss the situation in the wake of Koirala’s death.

The party also asked its senior leaders, who are outside Kathmandu, to return to the capital at the earliest.

Five-time Prime Minister Koirala had been instrumental in leading the peace process and bringing the Maoists to mainstream politics, ending a decade-long armed conflict that claimed 16,000 lives.

Koirala also played a crucial role in turning Nepal into a Republic through abolition of 240-year-old monarchy two years ago.

With PTI inputs