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Cuba’s enormous blaze fuels fears of instability even as flames are doused | Cuba

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A lightning strike, a chain of fireball explosions so huge they could be seen 65 miles away in Havana, and a lingering stench of sulphur.

The five-day blaze at Cuba’s main oil storage facility in Matanzas was sparked by lightning on Friday night. Over the following days, the flames spread “like an Olympic torch” to three more tanks containing hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of fuel, according to the region’s governor, Mario Sabines.

Only on Tuesday was the conflagration finally brought under control. By then, it had killed at least one person and injured 125 others, and dealt a critical blow to Cuba’s energy infrastructure.

And as the smoke clears, speculation is mounting that it – and the blackouts that will inevitably follow – could further destabilise the “Cuban Revolution”, already at one of the most perilous moments in its 63-year history.

Millions of Cubans – especially those in the rural provinces – have for months been living with daily power cuts that last hours. In the August heat, food rots quickly and sleep becomes all but impossible.

The situation is tense: the immediate trigger for last summer’s unprecedented protests was a 12-hour power outage.

In Matanzas, Odalys Medina Peña, 60, said she had long grown used to cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner at the crack of dawn in anticipation of blackouts.

“You’ve got to adapt and see whether the country can resolve the situation. When something like this happens, everyone comes together – because if Cuba has one thing, it’s humanity.”

But with toxic smog blotting out much sunlight in Havana over the weekend, the feeling in the capital was less stoic.

A resident sits on a sea wall as smoke rises in the background from the fire. Photograph: Ismael Francisco/AP

“I’m frightened of this horrible cloud and I’m worried about power cuts,” said Adilen Sardinas, 29, who is eight months pregnant. “How is the state going to handle this?”

Officials have not said how much crude, diesel and fuel oil has been lost in the fire, but Cubans are already bracing for an even more severe energy crisis.

Oil shipments from Venezuela have dwindled as Cuba’s South American ally struggles to refine enough oil for its own needs. The surge in global oil prices caused by the war in Ukraine has also made it harder for Cuba to buy it on the global market.

But analysts say the one-two punch of Covid, which all but shuttered tourism in 2020 and 2021, and US sanctions has been decisive.

Cuba’s “foreign exchange inflows almost halved between 2018 and 2021”, said Emily Morris, a development economist at University College London. “Despite reducing fuel and food supplies to an essential minimum, in 2021 they accounted for more than half of all import spending, with more severe cuts in all other imports, including spare parts, production inputs, capital equipment and consumer goods, so you can see what a devastating effect that was going to have.”

Despite Joe Biden’s campaign promise to reverse the “Trump policies that inflicted harm on Cubans and their families”, the bulk of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against the island remains.

Tankers carrying Venezuelan oil to Cuba still face sanctions. Analysts say this forces the island to pay a premium on freight.

While Venezuela and Mexico sent specialist teams and more than one hundred tonnes of fire extinguishing foam, the U.S. offered technical assistance. “So far the US has offered a phone number to an emergency local authority,” Johana Tablada, the deputy director for U.S. affairs at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, wrote on Twitter.

Fulton Armstrong, who was the US intelligence community’s most senior analyst on Latin America, said there are “fears among supporters of a return to the normalization process launched by President Obama that the [Biden] administration is … privately hopeful that the energy and other problems are a test that ‘the regime’ fails”.

Jorge Piñon, director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Latin America and Caribbean energy and environment Program, said that even before the blaze, his modelling had predicted a “total collapse” of the island’s energy grid this summer.

He also noted that a Russian tanker carrying 115,000 tonnes of petroleum was due to dock in the port of Matanzas later this week. “Where is she going to go?”

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Russia-Ukraine War: Live Updates – The New York Times

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Ukraine claimed responsibility for a rare attack on a Russian air base in the occupied Crimean Peninsula.CreditCredit…Reuters

ODESA, Ukraine — To reach targets deep behind enemy lines, the Ukrainian military is believed to be turning to residents of Russian-occupied territories who are loyal to Ukraine.

The shadowy fighters, also known as partisans, have been credited with a series of recent mysterious attacks: the sickening of the Kremlin-installed mayor of the city of Kherson who had to be evacuated to Moscow over the weekend; the deadly shooting of the deputy head of another major town in the region less than 24 hours later; and a series of explosions at a Russian air base on the Kremlin-occupied Crimean Peninsula on Tuesday.

As Russian and occupation officials scrambled to determine the cause of Tuesday’s attack, which killed one person, a senior Ukrainian military official with knowledge of the situation said that Ukrainian forces were behind the blast at the Saki Air Base on the western coast of Crimea.

“This was an air base from which planes regularly took off for attacks against our forces in the southern theater,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters. The official would not disclose the type of weapon used in the attack, saying only that “a device exclusively of Ukrainian manufacture was used.”

A Ukrainian attack on Russian forces in the Crimean Peninsula would represent a significant expansion of Ukraine’s offensive efforts, which until now have been largely limited to pushing Russian troops back from territories occupied after Feb. 24, when the invasion began.

It would also be an embarrassment for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who often speaks of Crimea, which he illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, as if it were hallowed ground.

Ukraine possesses few weapons that can reach the peninsula, aside from aircraft that would risk being shot down immediately by Russia’s heavy air defenses in the region. The air base, which is near the city of Novofederivka, is nearly 200 miles from the nearest Ukrainian military position.

Videos verified and reviewed by The New York Times show that a plume of smoke was rising from the air base just before at least three explosions: two in quick succession and a third a few moments later. It is unclear from the videos what caused the blasts. In addition, a video uploaded to social media shows at least one warplane, an Su-24M, destroyed on the tarmac at the base.

The senior Ukrainian official said the attack involved partisan resistance forces loyal to the government in Kyiv, but he would not disclose whether those forces carried out the attack or assisted regular Ukrainian military units in targeting the base, as has sometimes occurred in other Russian-occupied territories.

To reach targets deep behind enemy lines, Ukraine has increasingly turned to guerrillas in Russian-occupied territories, officials said. Partisans have, for instance, helped Ukrainian forces target Russian bases and ammunition depots in the Kherson Region, Ukrainian officials say.

Publicly, Ukrainian officials on Tuesday would not confirm the involvement of Ukraine’s military. Ukraine’s defense ministry said in a statement that it could not “determine the cause of the explosion” and suggested that personnel at the base adhere to no-smoking regulations.

Other officials did not exactly deny that Ukraine was behind the explosion.

“The future of the Crimea is to be a pearl of the Black Sea, a national park with unique nature and a world resort, not a military base for terrorists,” Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, said in a tweet. “It is just the beginning.”

In his nightly speech, Mr. Zelensky did not address whether Ukraine was behind the Crimea attack, but he did say, “Crimea is Ukrainian, and we will never give it up,” adding as he signed off that the world should “support the Armed Forces of Ukraine, our intelligence and everyone who is fighting to liberate our land and repel the Russian colonial invasion.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the explosion was caused by the detonation of stockpiled ordnance for warplanes at the base. While the ministry offered no speculation about whether Ukrainian forces might have been involved, the decision by Crimea’s Kremlin-installed leader, Sergei Aksyonov, to raise the terrorist threat level to yellow suggested that officials were concerned about security on the peninsula.

“This measure is exclusively prophylactic, because the situation in the region is under full control,” Mr. Aksyonov said in a statement on Telegram.

Christiaan Triebert contributed reporting.

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Japan PM shuffles cabinet as anger deepens over ties to Unification Church

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  • Voter support slumps over party’s ties to church
  • Shake-up comes earlier than analysts had expected
  • Church defends its right to participate in politics
  • Kishida says Unification Church did not influence party policy

TOKYO, Aug 10 (Reuters) – Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reshuffled his cabinet on Wednesday amid growing public anger about the ruling party’s ties to the controversial Unification Church, saying the group had held no sway over party policy.

The Liberal Democratic Party’s longstanding links to the Unification Church, which critics call a cult, has become a major liability for Kishida in the month following the killing of former premier Shinzo Abe, helping send Kishida’s approval ratings to the lowest since he took office in October.

Abe’s suspected killer has said his mother, a member of the church, was bankrupted by it and blamed the politician for supporting it. Founded in South Korea in the 1950s and known for its mass weddings, the group has come under criticism for its fundraising and other issues.

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Since then, a dozen or so politicians from the conservative LDP have disclosed links to the church or affiliated organisations – such as speaking at events – highlighting a relationship with the fiercely anti-communist church that stretches back to the Cold War. read more

“We need to respect freedom of religion but it’s only natural that these groups need to obey laws and be dealt with if they veer from them,” Kishida told a news conference, adding he did not believe he had any connection with the church.

“I don’t think the Unification Church’s policies have unjustly influenced party policies,” he said.

Key cabinet members, such as the foreign and finance ministers, retained their posts, but some seven ministers who had disclosed links to the church were moved out of the cabinet.

Among those was Abe’s younger brother, Nobuo Kishi, who had been defence minister, although many had expected him to leave for health reasons.

The cabinet shake-up came earlier than analysts had expected, underscoring how quickly the issue has spun into a crisis for Kishida. read more

“Criticism over the Unification Church caused a big drop in public support for the administration and stopping that decline was a big reason for bringing forward the reshuffle of the cabinet and major party positions,” said Shigenobu Tamura, a political commentator who previously worked for the LDP.

DAMAGE CONTROL

Kishida’s support had fallen to 46% from 59% just three weeks ago, public broadcaster NHK said on Monday, his lowest rating since becoming prime minister in October.

“He’s basically doing damage control,” said political commentator Atsuo Ito.

Even as the LDP has sought to distance itself from the church, with a top party official recently saying it would sever ties, the church defended its right to participate in politics, and highlighted its relationship with LDP lawmakers in a rare news conference. read more

Tomihiro Tanaka, head of the Unification Church in Japan, said it was “extremely unfortunate” if Kishida was directing lawmakers to break ties with the group.

It was the duty and right of religious organisations to be involved in political activity, he said, noting his church and its affiliates had more interaction with LDP lawmakers than those from other parties.

DELICATE BALANCE

Kishida said he chose experienced ministers to deal with crises he termed some of the toughest in decades, including surging tensions with China over Taiwan, but only those who had agreed to “review” their ties with the church.

Analysts said that while Kishida sought to limit fall-out from the controversy, he also had to keep a delicate balance in appeasing powerful factions within the LDP, particularly the largest, to which Abe had belonged.

For example, Kishida removed industry minister Koichi Hagiuda, giving him a key party position instead. Hagiuda is a member of Abe’s faction and was close to the former premier.

Abe’s brother Kishi was replaced as defence minister by Yasukazu Hamada, reprising his former role, and likely to help push for the increased defence budget and stronger defence posture Kishida has promised, a vow the premier repeated on Wednesday.

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Reporting by Elaine Lies, Yoshifumi Takemoto, Sakura Murakami, Tetsushi Kajimoto and Tim Kelly; Writing by Elaine Lies; Editing by David Dolan, Clarence Fernandez and Nick Macfie

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Beluga whale rescued from Seine River euthanized in transit, French authorities say

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The cetacean had been stuck in the freshwater lock at St.-Pierre-La-Garenne, some 45 miles northwest of Paris, since August 2. Its health deteriorated after it refused food, according to wildlife protection associations monitoring the situation.

It took more than 80 rescue workers six hours to extract the animal from the lock, Reuters reported, after which it was placed on a barge, where it underwent medical checks.

However, scientists had been concerned about the animal’s “alarming” weight loss and had to euthanize it soon afterward. Its death was confirmed by officials from the Essonne Department Fire and Rescue Service in a video message.

“During the trip, the veterinarians noted a deterioration in its condition, particularly in its respiratory activity, and we were able to see that the animal was in anoxia — ie, insufficiently ventilated — so this animal was obviously suffering and we decided that it was pointless to release it and so we had to proceed with its euthanasia,” said Florence Ollivet-Courtois, veterinarian at the fire and rescue service.

Vets had earlier hoped the whale could be transported to the Normandy region and ultimately released into the sea.

According to Reuters, it weighed around 800 kilograms (1,764 pounds) but should have been about 1,200 kilograms (2,646 pounds).

The beluga’s natural habitat is in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. Although the best-known population is found in the St. Lawrence estuary in Quebec, Canada, the closest to the French coast is in Svalbard, an archipelago in northern Norway, some 1,900 miles from the Seine.

No one knows how the beluga lost its way, but sea ice loss in Arctic waters is opening the area up to more shipping, fishing and other human activities, affecting the whales’ ability to communicate and navigate, according to WWF. Finding food and searching for mates is becoming much more difficult for the species, as well.

In recent years, many species of marine mammals have been reported in France, far from their primary habitat. Possible reasons could include health status, age, social isolation and environmental conditions, among others, according to France’s Pelagis Observatory, which specializes in the study of sea mammals.

CNN’s Angela Dewan contributed to this story.

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Ukraine says 11 killed overnight, Britain flags new Russian force

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  • Ukraine says 11 killed in central Dnipropetrovsk region
  • Britain says almost certain of new Russian ground force
  • Explosions at Russian army base in Crimea
  • Fears over shelling near Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant
  • Mass burial victims shot, tortured, says Ukraine

Aug 10 (Reuters) – Russian shelling killed 11 people in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region overnight, governor Valentyn Reznychenko said on Wednesday, as Britain said Russia had “almost certainly” established a major new ground force to support its war.

The new Russian force, called the 3rd Army Corps, is based in the city of Mulino, east of Russia’s capital, Moscow, the British Defence Ministry said in a daily intelligence bulletin.

The ministry also said Russian commanders were facing “competing operational priorities” of reinforcing their offensive in the Donbas region in the east, as well as strengthening defences against Ukrainian counterattacks in the south.

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After failing to capture the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv early in the war, Russian forces have focused on the east and south, where pro-Moscow separatists have controlled territory since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

A senior Ukrainian official suggested a series of explosions at a Russian air base in Crimea on Tuesday could have been the work of partisan saboteurs, as Ukraine denied responsibility for the incident deep in Russian-occupied territory.

Huge plumes of smoke could be seen in videos posted on social media from Crimea, a holiday destination for many Russians. Russia used Crimea as one of the launch pads for its Feb. 24 invasion.

Russia said the explosions, at least 12 according to witnesses, were detonations of stored ammunition, not the result of an attack.

Zelenskiy did not directly mention the blasts in his daily video address on Tuesday but said it was right that people were focusing on Crimea.

“We will never give it up … the Black Sea region cannot be safe while Crimea is occupied,” he said, repeating his government’s position that Crimea would have to be returned to Ukraine.

HIGH RISK

Ukraine’s general staff reported widespread Russian shelling across several regions on Wednesday.

The head of Ukraine’s state nuclear power firm has warned of the “very high” risk of shelling at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the Russian-occupied south and said it was vital Kyiv regained control of the facility in time for winter.

Shelling last week by Russian forces had damaged three lines that connect the plant to the Ukrainian grid, he said. Russia wanted to connect the facility to its grid, Kotin said.

An interior view shows a school building damaged by a Russian military strike, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in location given as Marhanets town, in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine August 10, 2022. Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Handout via REUTERS

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“The risk is very high” of shelling hitting containers storing radioactive material, he said.

Both Ukraine and Russia have said they want technicians from the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to visit Zaporizhzhia, the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe.

Russia has asked for IAEA chief Rafael Grossi to brief the U.N. Security Council on Thursday on Russia’s accusation of attacks by “the Ukrainian armed forces on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and their potential catastrophic consequences”, diplomats said.

Ukraine has denied the Russian assertion that its forces attacked the plant.

MASS BURIALS

In the northern town of Bucha, 15 bodies were buried on Tuesday after they were found four months after Russian forces withdrew from the area.

“All the people who were shot and exhumed from a mass grave have torture marks,” Bucha Deputy Mayor Mykhailyna Skoryk told reporters.

Ukraine and its allies accuse Russian forces of committing atrocities in Bucha, a satellite town of the capital Kyiv, after beginning its invasion on Feb. 24.

Russia denied the accusation and denies targeting civilians in what it calls its “special military operation” in its southern neighbour. read more

Ukraine and its allies say Russia is responsible for an unprovoked imperial-style war of aggression that has ignited the biggest conflict in Europe since World War Two.

Supported with weapons by its Western allies, Ukraine is banking on sophisticated rocket and artillery systems to degrade Russian supply lines and logistics.

The U.S. State Department has approved $89 million worth of assistance to help Ukraine equip and train 100 teams to clear landmines and unexploded ordnance for a year.

Ukraine’s president has called on the West to impose a blanket travel ban on Russians, an idea that has found support among some EU member states, but angered Russia, which dismissed it as irrational. read more

President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed documents of U.S. support for Finland and Sweden joining NATO, the most significant expansion of the military alliance since the 1990s and prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. read more

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Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Michael Perry; Editing by Robert Birsel

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Large explosions rock Russian military air base in Crimea

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Powerful explosions rocked a Russian air base in Crimea and sent towering clouds of smoke over the landscape Tuesday in what may mark an escalation of the war in Ukraine. At least one person was killed and several others were wounded, authorities said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry denied the Saki base on the Black Sea had been shelled and said instead that munitions had blown up there. But Ukrainian social networks were abuzz with speculation that it was hit by Ukrainian-fired long-range missiles.

Videos posted on social networks showed sunbathers on nearby beaches fleeing as huge flames and pillars of smoke rose over the horizon from multiple points, accompanied by loud booms. Crimea Today News said on Telegram that witnesses reported fire on a runway and damage to nearby homes as a result of what it said were dozens of blasts.

Russia’s state news agency Tass quoted an unidentified ministry source as saying the explosions’ primary cause appeared to be a “violation of fire safety requirements.” The ministry said no warplanes were damaged.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said sarcastically on Facebook: “The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine cannot establish the cause of the fire, but once again recalls the rules of fire safety and the prohibition of smoking in unspecified places.”

A presidential adviser, Oleksiy Arestovych, said cryptically in his regular online interview that the blasts were caused either by a Ukrainian-made long-range weapon or were the work of partisans operating in Crimea.

During the war, Russia has reported numerous fires and explosions at munitions storage sites on its territory near the Ukrainian border, blaming some of them on Ukrainian strikes. Ukrainian authorities have mostly remained mum about the incidents.

If Ukrainian forces were, in fact, responsible for the blasts at the air base, it would be the first known major attack on a Russian military site on the Crimean Peninsula, which the Kremlin annexed in 2014. A smaller explosion last month at the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in the Crimean port of Sevastopol was blamed on Ukrainian saboteurs using a makeshift drone.

Russian warplanes have used the Saki base to strike areas in Ukraine’s south on short notice.

One person was killed, said Crimea’s regional leader, Sergei Aksyonov. Crimean health authorities said nine people were wounded, one of whom remained hospitalized. Others were treated for cuts from shards of glass and released.

Officials in Moscow have long warned Ukraine that any attack on Crimea would trigger massive retaliation, including strikes on “decision-making centers” in Kyiv.

For his part, Ukraine’s president vowed to retake Crimea from Russia.

“This Russian war against Ukraine and against all of free Europe began with Crimea and must end with Crimea — its liberation,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday in his nightly video address. “Today it is impossible to say when this will happen. But we are constantly adding the necessary components to the formula for the liberation of Crimea.”

Earlier Tuesday, Ukrainian officials reported at least three Ukrainian civilians were killed and 23 wounded by Russian shelling in 24 hours, including an attack not far from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

The Russians fired over 120 rockets at the town of Nikopol, across the Dnieper River from the plant, Dnipropetrovsk Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said. Several apartment buildings and industrial sites were damaged, he said.

Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling the power station, Europe’s biggest nuclear plant, stoking international fears of a catastrophe.

The governor of the region where the plant is situated, Oleksandr Starukh, said Tuesday that radiation levels were normal. But he warned that an accident could spread radiation whichever way the wind blows, carrying it to Moscow and other Russian cities.

A Russian-installed official in the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region said an air defense system at the plant would be reinforced in the aftermath of last week’s shelling. Evgeny Balitsky, head of the Kremlin-backed administration, told Russian state TV that power lines and other damaged portions of the plant were restored.

The Ukrainians in recent weeks have been mounting counterattacks in Russian-occupied areas of southern Ukraine while trying to hold off the Kremlin’s forces in the industrial Donbas region in the east.

Also Tuesday, a U.S. official said Iran has agreed to supply Russia with drones for use in the war in Ukraine. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information, said “during the last several weeks, Russian officials conducted training in Iran as part of the agreement for UAV transfers from Iran to Russia.”

The White House released satellite images in mid-July indicating that Russians had visited an Iranian airbase to see weapons-capable drones. But U.S. officials said later that month that they had seen no evidence yet of Iran supplying Russia with the drones.

Ukrainian officials this month said Iran has transferred drones to Russia and some have been used in combat.

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Associated Press writer Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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Rise in Night Temperatures Due to Climate Change May Disrupt Sleep Patterns and Increase Mortality Rate Six-Fold by 2100

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Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

(IANS)

As night-time temperature climbs owing to climate change, so does your risk of death — nearly six-fold in the future — due to excessive heat that disrupts normal sleeping patterns, a new global study has warned.

Excessively hot nights caused by climate change are predicted to increase the mortality rate around the world by up to 60 per cent by the end of the century, according to researchers from China, South Korea, Japan, Germany and the US.

Ambient heat during the night may interrupt the normal physiology of sleep, and less sleep can lead to immune system damage and a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, chronic illnesses, inflammation and mental health conditions, said the study published in The Lancet Planetary Health.

“The risks of increasing temperature at night were frequently neglected,” said study co-author Yuqiang Zhang, a climate scientist from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the US.

“The frequency and mean intensity of hot nights would increase more than 30 per cent and 60 per cent by the 2100s, respectively, compared with less than 20 per cent increase for the daily mean temperature,” said Zhang from the department of environmental sciences and Engineering at the Gillings School.

Results show that the average intensity of hot night events will nearly double by 2090, from 20.4 degrees celsius to 39.7 degrees celsius across 28 cities in east Asia, increasing the burden of disease due to excessive heat disrupts normal sleeping patterns.

This is the first study to estimate the impact of hotter nights on climate change-related mortality risk.

The findings showed that the burden of mortality could be significantly higher than estimated by the average daily temperature increase, suggesting that warming from climate change could have a troubling impact, even under restrictions from the Paris Climate Agreement.

The team estimated the mortality due to excess heat in 28 cities in China, South Korea and Japan between 1980 and 2015 and applied it to two climate change modelling scenarios that aligned with carbon-reduction scenarios adapted by the respective national governments.

Through this model, the team was able to estimate that between 2016 and 2100, the risk of death from sweltering nights would increase nearly six-fold.

This prediction is much higher than the mortality risk from daily average warming suggested by climate change models.

“From our study, we highlight that, in assessing the disease burden due to non-optimum temperature, governments and local policymakers should consider the extra health impacts of the disproportional intra-day temperature variations,” said Haidong Kan, a professor at Fudan University in China.

Since the study only included 28 cities from three countries, Zhang said that “extrapolation of these results to the whole East Asia region or other regions should be cautious”

**

The above article has been published from a wire agency with minimal modifications to the headline and text.

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China battles Covid outbreaks in tourism hubs of Tibet and Hainan | Tibet

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China is racing to stamp out Covid-19 outbreaks in the tourist hubs of Tibet and Hainan, with the authorities launching more rounds of mass testing and closing venues to contain the highly transmissible Omicron variant as Beijing presses ahead with its Covid zero strategy.

Mainland China reported 828 new domestically transmitted cases across more than a dozen provinces and regions for 8 August, with more than half of them in Hainan, a highly popular tourist destination, official data showed on Tuesday.

Tibet, which until now had reported only one symptomatic case since the pandemic started more than two years ago, has also reported cases.

Parts of Tibet were running mass Covid-19 testing on Tuesday, including its two largest cities, Lhasa and Shigatse, where local authorities suspended large events, closed entertainment and religious venues, and shut some tourist sites including the Potala Palace.

Tibetan authorities reported one local patient with confirmed symptoms and 21 local asymptomatic infections on 8 August. While the case load was very small compared with elsewhere in China and globally, the rare infections struck a nerve among some residents.

“Although my life and work aren’t affected much and Lhasa took actions very quickly, I was still quite shocked, as Tibet had been Covid-free for about 920 days,” said Yungchen, a 26-year-old Lhasa resident, who was told by her employer to work from home.

“I was a bit worried, because we don’t know when and where the infected people contracted the virus,” she told Reuters, preferring not to give her full name.

Yungchen said she doesn’t expect a Shanghai-style months-long lockdown in Lhasa, but still bought rice and cooking oil. She bought enough to last four to five days in case she is unable to dine out if Covid restrictions are tightened.

Shigatse, gateway city to the Everest region in Tibet, has scheduled a “silent period” lasting three days during which people are banned from entering or leaving, with many businesses suspended.

Both Lhasa and Shigatse were conducting a fresh round of mass testing, and the second round begins on Wednesday, state television said on Tuesday.

In Tibet’s western Ngari prefecture, a sparsely populated region that has attracted many pilgrims to Mount Kailash, three towns have started three rounds of mass testing, while the rest have started on their first, state television said.

Subvariants of Omicron are challenging China’s strategy of swiftly blocking the spread of each nascent cluster.

Tibet and Hainan, which have seen relatively few cases for more than two years, are now facing risks of persistent tight restrictions as the economy weakens. Their tourism-reliant economies could be particularly vulnerable if the outbreaks are prolonged.

A courier stands on an electric bike to make a delivery over a barricade in Sanya, Hainan province Photograph: China Daily/Reuters

In tropical Hainan, millions of residents are under lockdown across several cities and towns, allowed out only for necessary reasons such as Covid tests, grocery shopping and essential job roles.

Dongfang, a city of over 400,000 residents, entered a three-day lockdown starting on Tuesday. The provincial capital, Haikou, has lifted its lockdown that lasted hours on Monday.

About 178,000 tourists are also stranded on the island, according to state media reports. Hainan said on Tuesday certain tourists are allowed to leave if they can show negative test results.

Provincial authorities must adopt all measures to achieve by Friday “Covid zero at the community level” where no new cases emerge in communities outside quarantined areas, Hainan’s government said in a statement late on Monday.

Hainan’s success in containing smaller clusters in April and July has resulted in complacency among officials and residents, one provincial health official said.

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Chile seeks to sanction those responsible for sinkhole near copper mine

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The mysterious hole of 36.5 meters (120 feet) in diameter that emerged in late July has provoked the mobilization of local authorities and led the mining regulator Sernageomin to suspend operations of a nearby mine owned by Canada’s Lundin in the northern district of Candelaria.

“We are going to go all the way with consequences, to sanction, not just fine,” mining minister Marcela Hernando said in a press release, adding that fines tend to be insignificant and the ruling must be “exemplary” to mining companies.

Chilean authorities have not provided details of the investigation into causes of the sinkhole.

Local and foreign media showed various aerial images of the huge hole in a field near the Lundin Mining operation, about 665 kilometers (413 miles) north of the Chilean capital. Initially, the hole, near the town of Tierra Amarilla, measured about 25 meters (82 feet) across, with water visible at the bottom.

The Canadian firm owns 80% of the property, while the remaining 20% is in the hands of Japan’s Sumitomo Metal Mining Co Ltd and Sumitomo Corp.

The minister added that although the country’s mining regulator had carried out an inspection in the area in July, it was not able to detect the “over-exploitation.”

“That also makes us think that we have to reformulate what our inspection processes are,” she said.

In a statement, Lundin said the over-exploitation referred to by the minister had been duly reported.

“We want to be emphatic that, to date, this hypothesis as reported by Sernageomin has not been determined as the direct cause of the sinkhole. The hydrogeological and mining studies will provide the answers we are looking for today,” Lundin said.

“Different events that could have caused the sinkhole are being investigated, including the abnormal rainfall recorded during the month of July, which is relevant,” added Lundin.

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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 168 of the invasion | Ukraine

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  • A Russian airbase deep behind the frontline in Crimea has been damaged by several large explosions, killing at least one person. It was not immediately clear whether it had been targeted by a long-range Ukrainian missile strike. In his nightly address, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, did not discuss who was behind the attacks but vowed to “liberate” Crimea, saying: “This Russian war against Ukraine and against the entire free Europe began with Crimea and must end with Crimea – with its liberation.” An adviser to the president, Mikhail Podolyak, said Ukraine was not taking responsibility for the explosions, suggesting partisans might have been involved.

  • The head of Ukraine’s state nuclear power firm warned of the “very high” risks from shelling at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the Russian-occupied south and said it was vital Kyiv regains control over the facility in time for winter. Energoatom’s chief, Petro Kotin, told Reuters in an interview that last week’s Russian shelling had damaged three lines that connect the Zaporizhzhia plant to the Ukrainian grid and that Russia wanted to connect the facility to its grid.

  • Russian forces occupying the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant are reorienting the plant’s electricity production to connect to Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, according to Ukrainian operator Energoatom. “To do this, you must first damage the power lines of the plant connected to the Ukrainian energy system. From August 7 to 9, the Russians have already damaged three power lines. At the moment, the plant is operating with only one production line, which is an extremely dangerous way of working,” Energoatom president Petro Kotin told Ukrainian television. The plant, located not far from the Crimean peninsula, has six of Ukraine’s 15 reactors, and is capable of supplying power for four million homes.

  • The leaders of Estonia and Finland want fellow European countries to stop issuing tourist visas to Russian citizens, saying they should not be able to take holidays in Europe while the Russian government carries out a war in Ukraine. The Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas, wrote on Tuesday on Twitter that “visiting Europe is a privilege, not a human right” and that it was “time to end tourism from Russia now”, the Associated Press reported.

  • US president Joe Biden on Tuesday signed documents endorsing Finland and Sweden’s accession to Nato, the most significant expansion of the military alliance since the 1990s as it responds to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reports.

  • The US state department has approved $89m worth of assistance to help Ukraine equip and train 100 teams to clear landmines and unexploded ordnance for a year, Reuters reported.

  • The total number of grain-carrying ships to leave Ukrainian ports under a UN brokered deal to ease the global food crisis has now reached 12, with the two latest ships which left on Tuesday headed for Istanbul and Turkey.

  • Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad has been struggling with quotas imposed by the EU for sanctioned goods that it can import across Lithuania from mainland Russia or Belarus, the region’s governor admitted. Lithuania infuriated Moscow in June by banning the land transit of goods such as concrete and steel to Kaliningrad after EU sanctions on them came into force, Reuters reported.

  • Russia has launched an Iranian satellite from Kazakhstan amid concerns it could be used for battlefield surveillance in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Iran has denied that the Khayyam satellite, which was delivered into orbit onboard a Soyuz rocket launched from Baikonur cosmodrome, would ever be under Russian control. But the Washington Post previously reported that Moscow told Tehran it “plans to use the satellite for several months, or longer, to enhance its surveillance of military targets” in Ukraine, according to two US officials.

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