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The Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) opened Thursday’s trading session down on almost all indices, with turnover totalling 4.756 million lei (955,925 euros) after 30 minutes of trading, according to Agerpres.The main BET index, which shows the performance of the 20 most liquid companies, was down 0.12 per cent, while the BET-Plus index, which shows the performance of the 43 most liquid shares on the BVB, was also down 0.12 per cent.The broad blue-chip index BET-XT, which shows the 25 most liquid stocks, also lost 0.08 per cent, while the benchmark for investment fund returns, BET-BK, also fell 0.08 per cent.The BET-FI index of SIFs was up 0.77 per cent, while the BET-NG index of 10 energy and utilities companies was down 0.09 per cent.The BET AeRO index, which includes 20 companies representative of the AeRO market, was down 0.23 per cent.According to BVB data, the biggest increases in share value were recorded by Mecanica Fină (+14.74%), Sinteza (+14.71%) and Romcab (+14.59%).On the other hand, Mecanica Ceahlău (-9.73%), Chimcomplex Borzești (-1.83%) and Vrancart (-1.67%) shares were down.

Unlike the geographic North Pole, which has a fixed location, the position of the magnetic North Pole is determined by the Earth’s magnetic field, which is constantly moving. In recent decades, the movement of the North magnetic field has been unprecedented – it has accelerated dramatically, then slowed down rapidly – and scientists cannot explain the cause behind the unusual behaviour of the magnetic field. In any case, the magnetic North Pole is now closer to Siberia than it was five years ago and continues to move towards Russia, CNN reports.Global positioning systems, including those used by planes and ships, find magnetic north using the World Magnetic Model (WMM) , as it was called in 1990. Developed by the British Geological Survey and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this model notes the established position of magnetic north and predicts the future deviation based on the trajectory over the past few years. To maintain the accuracy of GPS measurements, every five years researchers revise the WMM, re-establishing the official position of magnetic north and introducing new predictions for the next five years of drift, writes News.ro.”The longer you wait to update the model, the larger the error becomes,” said Dr Arnaud Chulliat, senior research scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. “The way the model is built, our forecast is largely an extrapolation, given our current knowledge of the Earth’s magnetic field,” the professor explained.Scientists released two models on 17 December: the standard WMM model, with a spatial resolution of about 3,300 kilometres at the equator, and the first high-resolution model, with a spatial resolution of about 300 kilometres at the equator.IMPLICATIONS FOR AVIATION AND ARMYWhile anyone can use the more powerful high-resolution model, most GPS equipment used by the general public incorporates the standard WMM and is not equipped to handle the other – and many users will not benefit from the upgrade, said Dr. Dr William Brown, a geophysicist and geomagnetism researcher at the British Geological Survey.”The major airlines will have to update the navigation software on their entire fleet of aircraft to load the new model, and the NATO militaries will have to update the software on a huge number of complex navigation systems on all types of equipment,” Brown explained to CNN. But for most people, the change is unnecessary. “Think of it like upgrading your smartphone – you don’t necessarily want to buy a new phone just to update an app to a new version that’s more powerful,” he said.The switch to the new model should be a seamless transition for GPS users; with the update, scientists have been checking the accuracy of the previous model’s predictions of where magnetic north will arrive by 2025, Chulliat said. “The predictions were very good,” he said. “And so the new model confirmed that we weren’t very far off.”WHY THE MAGNETIC NORTH DOESN’T STAY IN THE SAME PLACEAt the top of the world, in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, is the geographic North Pole, the point where all the lines of longitude that circle the Earth from top to bottom converge north. Marking the North Pole is a challenge because it is covered by moving sea ice, but its geographic location, also known as the true North Pole, is fixed.By comparison, the magnetic North Pole is the northernmost point of convergence of the Earth’s magnetic field, also known as the magnetosphere. Generated by the mixing of molten metals in the Earth’s core, the magnetosphere protects the planet from harmful solar radiation and prevents solar winds from destroying the Earth’s atmosphere.Because convective stirring in the Earth’s core never stops, the magnetosphere is never static. British explorer Sir James Clark Ross discovered the magnetic North Pole in 1831 in northern Canada, 1,609 kilometres south of the true North Pole. We now know that every day, the magnetic north follows an elliptical path of about 120 kilometres.Since its discovery, the magnetic north has moved away from Canada and towards Russia. By the 1940s, magnetic north had moved northwest from its position in 1831 by about 400 kilometres. In 1948, it reached Prince Wales Island, and in 2000 it left Canadian shores.”Over the last 400 years it has been moving at about 10 kilometres a year or less,” said Brown.UNUSUAL ACTIVITYHowever, the latest WMM update follows a period of highly unusual activity for the magnetic north pole. In 1990, its northward drift accelerated, increasing from 15 kilometres per year to 55 kilometres per year, Chulliat said. The drift “was unprecedented in terms of the records we have,” he added.Around 2015, the drift slowed to 35 kilometres per year. The rapid deceleration was also unprecedented, Chulliat said. By 2019, the fluctuations had deviated so much from the previous pattern that scientists updated the WMM a year earlier.Scientists expect the drift to Russia to continue to slow, although there is some uncertainty about how long the slowdown will persist and whether it will continue at the current pace, according to Brown. “It could change (its pace) or even accelerate again,” Brown said. “We will continue to monitor the field and evaluate the performance of the WMM, but we do not anticipate the need to release a new model before the planned 2030 update,” the scientist said.WHAT HAPPENS WHEN MAGNETIC POLES INVERSE?Earth’s magnetic field has behaved even more dramatically in the past, with the magnetosphere weakening so much that its polarity has reversed. This reverses the north and south magnetic poles, and the change can last tens of thousands of years.Scientists have estimated that this polar reversal, which can last for thousands of years, occurs once every million years, although the time between reversals has varied widely – from 5 000 years to 50 million years.The signs that precede such changes are also not well understood, making them difficult to predict, Brown points out.The last major reversal occurred about 750,000 to 780,000 years ago.During a polar reversal, animals that migrate using the magnetic field to find their way, such as whales, butterflies, sea turtles and many species of migratory birds, could be affected.A reversal would disrupt radio communications and jam navigation systems. Orbiting satellites would be at risk, as a weakened magnetic field would offer less protection against space weather.Although life on Earth has gone through several magnetic reversals over more than 100 million years, “we have never experienced a reversal since modern technology has been around,” Brown points out. “It would certainly be an exciting time for engineers to adapt our technology, but hopefully it will be a time when they would have to prepare slowly, over centuries, rather than a sudden change,” the researcher added.

A further 134 projects, 15 of them Italian, have received funding of EUR 150,000 each from the European Research Council to bring their results to market. This brings the total number of projects funded in the period 2024-2025 under the European research and innovation programme Horizon Europe to 245, with a total of EUR 36.75 million allocated. The 134 winners of Proof of Concept funding work in 20 countries. Italy is in first place with Germany and the Netherlands (15 projects each), followed by Spain and the United Kingdom (14), Israel (12), Belgium (11), France (10), Denmark (6), Austria (5), Sweden (4), Ireland (3), Finland and Norway (2), Croatia, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Poland, Portugal and Turkey (1 each).Organoids and micro-robots for precision cancer therapies and quantum technologies are among the topics of the 15 Italian research projects funded. Of these, two are from the Polytechnic of Turin, two from the University of Padua and the same number from the National Research Council. Funds have also been allocated to the Italian Institute of Technology, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Milan Polytechnic, San Raffaele Hospital and the Universities of Milan, Trento, Perugia, Sapienza of Rome and Ca’ Foscari of Venice.Reproduction reserved © Copyright ANSA

GPs couldn’t treat patients, people were stranded as planes couldn’t get off the ground, and small businesses lost much-needed sales.Two months on from the global IT outage on 19 July, its full impact is only now becoming apparent.A rogue software update by the US cybersecurity company CrowdStrike crippled up to eight and half million computers using Microsoft systems around the world.Adam Meyers – a senior executive at CrowdStrike – will testify at the US Congress on Tuesday.He will speak of being “deeply sorry” about what happened, and his company’s determination to “prevent it from happening again.”But what was it like for those on the sharp end of the crisis?Dr David Wrigley, a GP for the past 22 years, told the BBC about cancer referrals being delayed as the online systems doctors like him rely on went dark.”It was a very difficult period of time with very little help and support,” he said.Dr David Wrigley has called on NHS England and the UK government to provide GPs with much more support if this ever happened againFor many GPs, they were unable to use the EMIS system – a digital way of managing appointment bookings and patient records, as well as sending prescriptions to pharmacies.The British Medical Association – the trade union and professional body for doctors and medical students in the UK – said the CrowdStrike outage was “one of the toughest single days in recent times for GPs across England”, with doctors forced to return to pen and paper.At Dr Wrigley’s practice in Carnforth, Lancashire, computer problems continued between Friday and Monday.He said this created a backlog that delayed urgent tasks such as writing referral letters for patients with suspected cancers.In some cases, this would have been delayed by “three or four days”.”You have to prioritise those and send them as soon as possible,” he said.”All the referrals we do are done electronically – that couldn’t happen.”In her 27 years as a GP, Dr Frances O’Hagan says the only disruption similar to the CrowdStrike outage was Covid and a bomb scare outside her practice in Armagh during the TroublesElsewhere, the BMA said there were also major problems in Northern Ireland.Around 75% of GPs in Northern Ireland use the EMIS system according to Dr Frances O’Hagan, the chair of BMA’s Northern Ireland GP committee.”We couldn’t do anything for most people,” she said.”We just had to take it on the chin and get on with it.”She said GPs in Northern Ireland faced similar backlogs to colleagues in England, including a delay to suspected cancer referrals.The Department of Health told the BBC it is in discussion with “external suppliers” to strengthen “continuity arrangements” following the CrowdStrike outage.It says GPs had access to “local copies” of patient data from EMIS during the outage, and all other systems worked.Professor Kamila Hawthorne, Chair of the Royal College of GPs, told the BBC it was “crucial” that there should be “safeguards in place” in the future.In Surrey, 50 patients who were due to receive radiotherapy treatment on the day of the outage were forced to reschedule.A spokesperson from NHS Royal Surrey Trust said all urgent cases were seen within 24 hours.NHS England did not comment.The UK government told BBC News contingency plans were quickly enacted, and said it is working with NHS England to help prevent similar incidents.On the west coast of the United States, meanwhile, Providence healthcare operates 53 hospitals and over 1,000 clinics.Adam Zoller is in charge of cyber security for the company.He describes the first few hours as “a catastrophe” for hospital IT systems, but 80% were fixed in 48 hours.The hospitals did cancel non-emergency procedures, but Adam said “in large parts patient care was unaffected”.”CrowdStrike could have handled this in a lot of different ways, and I think they handled it as well as they could have.EPAThese passengers at Eindhoven Airport in the Netherlands were among the many travellers disrupted by the CrowdStrike outageMelanie Cree and her husband Alan, from Bangor in Northern Ireland, were due to fly home from Corfu Airport on the day of the outage.Travel operators were forced to cancel thousands of flights across the world – and Melanie and Alan’s flight was axed.After being taken to and from the airport several times in the next few days, they managed to fly home on Monday.Melanie and Alan had been on a two-week holiday on the Greek island with friends to enjoy their 40th wedding anniversaryMelanie said passengers were given no food, and some ran out of medication.”It totally ruined what should have been our dream holiday,” she said.”We have lovely memories, but we came back absolutely shattered. It was complete chaos.”Their provider Tui gave them a £400 voucher.Laura Jones, pictured with her family on their holiday in Rhodes, said the whole experience has put her off foreign travel for a whileAs Melanie and Alan struggled in Corfu, another UK family were caught up in the delays just over 500 miles (804km) away.Laura and Malcolm Jones were struggling to return home to Pontypool, in south Wales, after a holiday in Rhodes with their children.When they were on the tarmac, the flight was cancelled. Laura told the BBC there was no information, no return of bags, and no plan.They spent 16 hours at the airport before they were taken to a conference centre, where frustrated travellers used tablecloths as blankets.The family paid £560 out of their own pockets to fly back to the UK a few days later.Tui has given them a £600 voucher.”I was looking forward to travelling abroad again after Covid, but I think I might just stick going to west Wales for a few years,” Laura joked.In a statement, Tui apologised to its customers.The CrowdStrike outage had an impact at airports around the world, with these weary passengers pictured in Detroit, MichiganBut the travel company was not the only one with problems. Delta Airlines in the United States faced a huge impact.It cancelled around 7,000 flights over five days, faces an investigation from the US authorities and is involved in several legal actions.Back in the UK, small business owner Dawn Watts from Market Drayton, Staffordshire was caught up in the outages in a different way – her website, which provides supplies to cleaning companies and hotels, was out of action.She estimates to have lost about £600 in sales.”It is extremely worrying,” she said.”I am a sole trader – I can’t have this happening again.”Dawn Watts was particularly worried by the CrowdStrike outage, as she didn’t have the support of a big company behind her.Hannah Al-Khaldi, who runs a boutique fitness studio in London, faced similar issues with a non-functional website.She estimates the outage cost her £1,000.”It showed how many systems worldwide had put their eggs in one basket,” she said.”When one link in the chain fails, everything else goes down.”Is there enough choice out there for providers, or was CrowdStrike the only option?”

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Suspected methanol poisoning from tainted drinks has reportedly killed six tourists in a Laos holiday town in the past fortnight.A British woman, two Australian women, a US man and two Danish nationals have died. The deaths remain under police investigation, but reports suggest they may have consumed drinks tainted with methanol, a deadly substance often found in bootleg alcohol.Methanol poisoning has long been a well-known issue across South East Asia, particularly in the poorer countries along the Mekong river.But despite foreign governments posting warnings about alcohol consumption in these places, there is still little awareness among the backpacker party scene.Flavourless and colourless, methanol is hard to detect in drinks and victims typically don’t see symptoms of poisoning straight away.And in countries like Laos – one of the poorest and least developed in Asia – the problem arises from alcohol suppliers exploiting an environment where there is low law enforcement and almost no regulation in food and hospitality industries.What is methanol poisoning?Methanol is a toxic alcohol used in industrial and household products like paint thinners, antifreeze, varnish and photocopier fluid.It is colourless and has a similar smell to ethyl alcohol – the chemical substance found in alcoholic drinks.But methanol is dangerous for humans and drinking just 25ml or half a shot can be lethal.It can take up to 24 hours for victims to start showing signs of illness which include: nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain which can escalate into hyperventilation and breathing problems.If not treated, fatality rates are often reported to be 20% to 40%, depending on the concentration of methanol and the amount taken, says international medical charity Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) which tracks the number of global outbreaks.But if a poisoning is diagnosed quickly enough, ideally within the first 30 hours, treatment can reduce some of the worse effects.How common is the problem in South East Asia?Asia has the highest prevalence of methanol poisoning worldwide, according to MSF’s database.It mainly affects poorer countries- outbreaks are common in Indonesia, India, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines.Indonesia is regarded as the hotspot – it has reported the highest number of incidents in the past two decades, according to MSF, largely down to the widespread production and consumption of bootleg liquor.Towns like Vang Vieng in Laos, where the fatal poisonings took place, are known stops on the backpacking trail through South East Asia. The town’s economy is built on tourism, with streets of bars, restaurants and hostels that cater to visitors.But in Laos, law enforcement is under-resourced and there are few regulations around food and alcohol standards. There is also an industry of home-brewed alcohol, which can lead to accidental poisonings.Producers also make counterfeit drinks with methanol instead of ethanol because it is cheaper, say local observers.”You have the unscrupulous producer adding methanol to their drinks because it’s cheaper – it’s used to create a stronger-seeming drink or make lower-quality alcohol drinks seem more potent,” one Western diplomat in the region told the BBC.They said methanol poisonings were frequently reported to consulates across the region.However, a lack of data means it is hard to quantify the scale of the contamination, and where tainted drinks enter the supply chain.”I don’t think it’s nefarious bar owners going out of their way to poison tourists – that’s not good for them or their industry either,” the diplomat said.”It’s more about the production side – there being being low education, low regulation, people cutting corners.”What can be done about it?Some campaigners have sought to raise attention to the dangers before. Australian man Colin Ahearn runs a Facebook page called ‘Don’t Drink Spirits in Bali’ where he warns against mixed drinks like cocktails or drinks made from opened bottles of spirits.He told Australian media earlier this week that his page used to receive a submission a week about methanol poisoning across South East Asia.The diplomat said the risks of bootleg alcohol are well known among tourism operators and embassies, but a high-profile campaign is needed to inform tourists.”This horrific event will probably help educate people, but not solve the cause of the problem,” they added.Several Western governments updated their advice about alcohol dangers in South East Asia on their consulate and travel pages this week.They advise that contaminated drinks could include local home-brewed spirits, spirit-based drinks such as cocktails and even brand name alcohol.Sixth foreign tourist dies of suspected methanol poisoning in LaosBriton Simone White dies after suspected mass poisoning in LaosA dodgy holiday drink made me go blindDeath by ignorance, taboo and methanol

MNova ContentAPI Indian full-service carrier Vistara will operate its last flight on Monday, after nine years in existence.

A joint venture between Singapore Airlines and the Tata Sons, Vistara will merge with Tata-owned Air India to form a single entity with an expanded network and broader fleet.
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This means that all Vistara operations will be transferred to and managed by Air India, including helpdesk kiosks and ticketing offices. The process of migrating passengers with existing Vistara bookings and loyalty programmes to Air India has been under way over the past few months.

“As part of the merger process, meals, service ware and other soft elements have been upgraded and incorporates aspects of both Vistara and Air India,” an Air India spokesperson said in an email response.

Amid concerns that the merger could impact service standards, the Tatas have assured that Vistara’s in-flight experience will remain unchanged.

Known for its high ratings in food, service, and cabin quality, Vistara has built a loyal customer base and the decision to retire the Vistara brand has been criticised by fans, branding experts, and aviation analysts.

The consolidation was effectively done to clean up Vistara’s books and wipe out its losses, said Mark Martin, an aviation analyst.

Air India has essentially been “suckered into taking a loss-making airline” in a desperate move, he added.

“Mergers are meant to make airlines powerful. Never to wipe out losses or cover them.”

To be sure, both Air India and Vistara’s annual losses have reduced by more than half over the past year, and other operating metrics have improved too. But the merger process so far has been turbulent.

The exercise has been riddled with problems – from pilot shortages that have led to massive flight cancellations, to Vistara crew going on mass sick leave over plans to align their salary structures with Air India.

There have also been repeated complaints about poor service standards on Air India, including viral videos of broken seats and non-functioning inflight entertainment systems.

MNova ContentAPI Indian full-service carrier Vistara will operate its last flight on Monday, after nine years in existence.

A joint venture between Singapore Airlines and the Tata Sons, Vistara will merge with Tata-owned Air India to form a single entity with an expanded network and broader fleet.

This means that all Vistara operations will be transferred to and managed by Air India, including helpdesk kiosks and ticketing offices. The process of migrating passengers with existing Vistara bookings and loyalty programmes to Air India has been under way over the past few months.

“As part of the merger process, meals, service ware and other soft elements have been upgraded and incorporates aspects of both Vistara and Air India,” an Air India spokesperson said in an email response.

Amid concerns that the merger could impact service standards, the Tatas have assured that Vistara’s in-flight experience will remain unchanged.

Known for its high ratings in food, service, and cabin quality, Vistara has built a loyal customer base and the decision to retire the Vistara brand has been criticised by fans, branding experts, and aviation analysts.

The consolidation was effectively done to clean up Vistara’s books and wipe out its losses, said Mark Martin, an aviation analyst.

Air India has essentially been “suckered into taking a loss-making airline” in a desperate move, he added.

“Mergers are meant to make airlines powerful. Never to wipe out losses or cover them.”

To be sure, both Air India and Vistara’s annual losses have reduced by more than half over the past year, and other operating metrics have improved too. But the merger process so far has been turbulent.

The exercise has been riddled with problems – from pilot shortages that have led to massive flight cancellations, to Vistara crew going on mass sick leave over plans to align their salary structures with Air India.

There have also been repeated complaints about poor service standards on Air India, including viral videos of broken seats and non-functioning inflight entertainment systems.