A fishing vessel owned by Greenland’s government will attempt to use a high tide to pull free a Bahamas-flagged luxury cruise ship carrying 206 people that ran aground in the world’s northernmost national park, authorities said.

Capt. Flemming Madsen of the Danish Joint Arctic Command told The Associated Press that the passengers and crew on the ship stranded in northwestern Greenland were doing fine and “all I can say is that they got a lifetime experience.”

The scientific fishing vessel was scheduled to arrive later Wednesday and would attempt, when the conditions were right, to pull the 104.4-meter-long (343 feet) and 18-meter-wide (60 feet) MV Ocean Explorer free.

The cruise ship ran aground above the Arctic Circle on Monday in Alpefjord, which is in the Northeast Greenland National Park. The park covers 972,000 square kilometers (603,973 square miles), almost as much land as France and Spain combined, and approximately 80% is permanently covered by an ice sheet, according to the Visit Greenland tourism board.

Alpefjord sits in a remote corner of Greenland, some 240 kilometers (149 miles) away from the closest settlement, Ittoqqortoormiit, which itself is nearly 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) from the country’s capital, Nuuk.

The Ocean Explorer’s crew made two failed attempts to get the ship to float free on its own during high tide.

In a statement, Australia-based Aurora Expeditions, which operates the ship, said that the passengers and crew members were safe and well and that there was “no immediate danger to themselves, the vessel or the surrounding environment.”

“We are actively engaged in efforts to free the MV Ocean Explorer from its grounding. Our foremost commitment is to ensure the vessel’s recovery without compromising safety,” the statement said.

Dozens of cruise ships sail along Greenland’s coast every year so passengers can admire the picturesque mountainous landscape with fjords, musk oxen, waterways packed with icebergs of different sizes and glaciers jutting out into the sea.

Madsen, of Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command, said the passengers on the Ocean Explorer were “a mix” of tourists from Australia, New Zealand, Britain, the United States and South Korea. Greenland is a semi-independent territory that is part of the Danish realm, as are the Faeroe Islands.

The people onboard “are in a difficult situation, but given the circumstances, the atmosphere on the ship is good, and everyone on board is doing well. There are no signs that the ship was seriously damaged by the grounding,” the Joint Arctic Command said Wednesday.

The weather in the region Wednesday featured sun, a clear blue sky and a temperature around 5 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the Danish Meteorological Institute.

The Ocean Explorer was built in 2021 and is owned by Copenhagen SunStone Ships, which is part of Denmark’s SunStone Group. It has an inverted bow, shaped like the one on a submarine. It has 77 cabins, 151 passenger beds and 99 beds for crew, and several restaurants, according to the Sunstone Group website.

The Joint Arctic Command said there were other ships in the vicinity of the stranded cruise liner and, “if the need arises, personnel from the Sirius Dog Sled Patrol can be at the accident site within an hour and a half.”

On Tuesday, members of the Sirius Dog Sled Patrol, a Danish naval unit that conducts long-range reconnaissance and enforces Danish sovereignty in the Arctic wilderness, visited the passengers and explained the situation, “which calmed them down as some were anxious,” said Madsen, who was the on-duty officer for the Joint Arctic Command.

The command, which was coordinating the operation to free the cruise ship, said the nearest Danish navy ship was about 1,200 nautical miles (more than 2,000 kilometers or 1,380 miles) away. It was heading to the site and could be expected to reach the grounded ship as soon as Friday.

The primary mission of the Joint Arctic Command is to ensure Danish sovereignty by monitoring the area around the Faeroe Islands and Greenland, including the Arctic Ocean in the north.
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A government watchdog agency in France has ordered Apple to withdraw the iPhone 12 from the French market, saying it emits levels of electromagnetic radiation that are too high.

The National Frequency Agency, which oversees radio-electric frequencies as well as public exposure to electromagnetic radiation, called on Apple in a statement Tuesday to “implement all available means to rapidly fix this malfunction” for phones already being used.

Corrective updates to the iPhone 12 will be monitored by the agency, and if they don’t work, “Apple will have to recall” phones that have already been sold, according to the French regulator’s statement.

Apple disputed the findings and said the device complies with all regulations governing radiation.

The agency, which is known by the French acronym ANFR, said it recently checked 141 cellphones, including the iPhone 12, for electromagnetic waves capable of being absorbed by the body.

It said it found a level of electromagnetic energy absorption of 5.74 watts per kilogram during tests of a phone in a hand or a pocket, higher than the European Union standard of 4 watts per kilogram.

The agency said the iPhone 12 met the threshold when radiation levels were assessed for a phone kept in a jacket or in a bag.

Apple said the iPhone 12, which was released in late 2020, has been certified by multiple international bodies and complies with all applicable regulations and standards for radiation around the world.

The U.S. tech company said it has provided the French agency with multiple lab results carried out both by the company and third-party labs proving the phone’s compliance.

Jean-Noël Barrot, France’s minister in charge of digital issues, told France Info radio that the National Frequency Agency “is in charge of controlling our phones which, as there are software updates, may emit a little more or a little less electromagnetic waves.”

He said that the iPhone 12 radiation levels are “slightly higher” than the standards but “significantly lower than levels where scientific studies consider there may be consequences for users. But the rule is the rule.”

Cellphones have been labeled as “possible” carcinogens by the World Health Organization’s cancer research arm, putting them in the same category as coffee, diesel fumes and the pesticide DDT. The radiation produced by cellphones cannot directly damage DNA and is different from stronger types of radiation like X-rays or ultraviolet light.

In 2018, two U.S. government studies that bombarded mice and rats with cellphone radiation found a weak link to some heart tumors, but federal regulators and scientists said it was still safe to use the devices. Scientists said those findings didn’t reflect how most people use their cellphones and that the animal findings didn’t translate into a similar concern for humans.

Among the largest studies on potential dangers of cellphone use, a 2010 analysis in 13 countries found little or no risk of brain tumors.

People’s mobile phone habits also have changed substantially since the first studies began and it’s unclear if the results of previous research would still apply today.

Since many tumors take years to develop, experts say it’s difficult to conclude that cellphones have no long-term health risks. Experts have recommended that people concerned about their cellphone radiation exposure use earphones or switch to texting.
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Two U.K.-based activists have described troubling interactions with a researcher in the British parliament who was arrested on suspicion of spying for Beijing.

The 28-year-old suspect, whose name has been withheld by British police because he has not been formally charged, worked in the China Research Group in Westminster as a researcher and had a parliamentary pass. He has insisted on his innocence and is currently free on bail.

Finn Lau, a Hong Kong human rights activist currently in the U.K. and wanted by the Hong Kong authorities, told VOA Mandarin he had an unusual coffee meeting with the suspect, who initially expressed support for Lau’s work.

But when Lau mentioned plans to counter the Chinese Communist Party’s influence in British politics and raised objections to a sister-city partnership between cities in the two countries, the man suddenly said that he was busy and left in a hurry, Lau recounted.

Lau said he made repeated attempts to continue communication with the man but received no response to his emails. “I was very shocked when I saw his name in the newspaper,” Lau said.

The suspect also left a strongly negative impression on Luke de Pulford, the founder and executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), an international cross-party group of legislators that urges their governments to take a tougher approach to China.

Writing on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, de Pulford said the suspect “had an impact upon the China debate in the U.K. Parliament. He made my job harder. He hated @ipacglobal and worked to cleave people away from the IPAC network.”

De Pulford wrote in a series of posts that the suspect “briefed very strongly against some politicians in our network, and against me personally. … Privately, he was vicious – telling journalists that I was ‘dangerous’ and ‘not to be trusted on China.'”

De Pulford described the suspect as “an authoritative and knowledgeable voice” and incredibly clever.

“He hid behind a visage of ‘reasoned hawkishness,'” de Pulford wrote, describing the treatment of Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang province as “terrible” but then seeking to minimize the horror.

“Using this kind of argument he blunted the unity of the parliamentary campaign,” de Pulford wrote. “You could go as far as to say that he divided the China hawks. He was rhetorically very sophisticated. Never pushed it too far. Used his credentials deftly and reasonably.”

Reports of the researcher’s arrest have prompted questions about the level of security in the British Parliament and whether individuals are adequately vetted before being hired into sensitive positions.

David Moore, a policy researcher in the House of Commons, told VOA Mandarin the vetting process for obtaining a parliamentary pass is “relatively thorough. They ask for your previous addresses, charges and convictions. In theory, it’s quite a strong system. But the question is, how far do they delve into that? My concern is they might just be rubber-stamping applications without a genuine review.”

Moore pointed out potential security threats. “Anyone can walk into the Parliament and go to a committee room. One can easily sneak off, or even worse, personnel can let in visitors, posing national security risks. Anyone with a parliamentary pass has quite a bit of power.”

David Alton, a member of the House of Lords, called it “deeply disturbing” that parliamentary passes had been issued to an alleged Chinese Communist Party spy, enabling him to have full access to the parliamentary estate.

He told VOA Mandarin in an email, “This, in turn, gives them access to confidential information, provides an opportunity to influence Members and staff, and to subvert the workings of Parliament.”

He said, historically, the failure to detect the penetration of spies from hostile states resulted in a dilution of trust by Britain’s allies and deterred them from talking to senior members of Parliament.

However, Isabel Hilton, a Scottish journalist and founder of the China Dialogue Trust, told VOA Mandarin in an email: “We do not have much evidence about the alleged breach, but given that the suspect was arrested in March, then released on police bail, I conclude that he was not regarded either as a flight risk or a national security risk.”

“This researcher had no access to classified information,” Hilton continued. “If he was reporting to Beijing, it would have been information about how [members of Parliament] were thinking about China and what they were doing.

“At best, he could have reported on internal conversations. Clearly all pass-holders should be vetted, as I believe they are, and if these allegations are substantiated, there should perhaps be closer coordination between different branches of the security services.”
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The British government has rejected calls to officially label China as a threat to its interests. Several lawmakers have called for a tougher line after it was revealed that a researcher in the British Parliament was arrested on suspicion of spying for Beijing. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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From zero to 100 kph in less than a second: A racing car built by students has broken the world record for electric vehicle acceleration, a Swiss university said Tuesday. 

Students from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences designed and built the “Mythen” vehicle that achieved the feat, ETHZ said in a statement. 

“Now, Guinness World Records has confirmed that Mythen broke the previous world acceleration record for electric vehicles,” it said. 

Covering a distance of 12.3 meters (40.4 feet) at the Switzerland Innovation Park in Dübendorf, opposite the students’ workshop, the car was powered from zero to 100 kilometers per hour (zero to 62.15 miles per hour) in 0.956 seconds. 

“This beats the previous world record of 1.461 seconds, set in September 2022 by a team from the University of Stuttgart by more than a third,” ETHZ said. 

According to the statement, around 30 student members of the Academic Motorsports Club Zurich (AMZ) had spent the better part of a year on the project. 

All the components, “from the printed circuit boards (PCBs) to chassis and the battery, were developed by the students themselves and optimized for their function,” it said. 

The vehicle weighs just 140 kilograms (309 pounds) and boasts 240 kilowatts of power, or around 326 horsepower.  

The vehicle’s driver was named as Kate Maggetti, a friend of students involved in the project, who was selected “due to her light body weight” and “willingness to take on the challenge,” Yann Bernard, head of motor at AMZ, told AFP. 

“Working on the project in addition to my studies was very intense,” Bernard added in the statement.  

“But even so, it was a lot of fun working with other students to continually produce new solutions and put into practice what we learned in class,” he said. 

“And, of course, it is an absolutely unique experience to be involved in a world record.” 
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Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Western deliveries of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine will only prolong the conflict.

Speaking at an economic forum in Vladivostok, Putin also said 1,000 to 1,500 Russians are volunteering for the Russian military each day and that 270,000 had signed up during the past six months.

Putin also said Ukraine’s counteroffensive, launched in June to try to reclaim territory from invading Russian forces, had failed.

Ukrainian forces have recaptured some villages in eastern and southern Ukraine as they try to break through Russian defensive lines and mine fields.

The United States announced its latest military aid package for Ukraine last week as Secretary of State Antony Blinken led a delegation to Kyiv to consult with Ukrainian leaders.  Blinken described the progress of the counteroffensive as “very encouraging.”

The United States continues to assess the progress Ukrainian forces are making on the ground, and Russia’s overall strategic goals have failed in Ukraine, said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller during a news briefing Monday.

“Their goals were to take Kyiv, to take the majority, if not all of the country, to overthrow the democratically elected government of Ukraine. In all of those things they have failed,” he said.

Miller noted that the Ukrainians have taken back around 50% of the territory that Russia occupied at the height of its full-scale invasion.

The State Department spokesman said that one indication of Russia’s difficulties in sustaining its military effort is [Russian President Vladimir] Putin “traveling across his own country, hat in hand, to beg [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un for military assistance.”

The Biden administration is reportedly considering supplying Ukraine with longer-range missiles that are packed with cluster bombs and that could cause significant damage deeper within Russian-occupied territory, according to four U.S. officials.

After seeing the success of cluster munitions delivered in 155 mm artillery rounds in recent months, the U.S. is considering shipping Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) that can fly up to 306 kilometers and Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) missiles that have a 72-kilometer range and are packed with cluster bombs, according to Reuters news agency. The GMLRS rocket system would be able to disperse up to 404 cluster munitions. Ukraine has had a version of the GMLRS system in its arsenal for months,

The Biden administration has for months been mulling over the supply of ATACMS, fearing their shipment to Ukraine would be perceived as an overly aggressive move against Russia.

Some information was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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