Boeing’s roughly 33,000 factory workers on the West Coast of the United States have voted overwhelmingly to strike in the latest blow for the beleaguered aircraft giant.

Machinists at the company’s factories in Seattle and Portland, Oregon on Thursday voted to walk off the job from midnight after rejecting management’s latest offer for better pay and conditions.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) said that 94.6 percent of its members voted to reject the contract and 96 percent backed a strike.

Boeing’s offer would have raised pay by 25 percent over four years, reduced workers’ share of healthcare costs and increased the company’s retirement contributions.

The aircraft maker’s offer also included a commitment to build its next aircraft at its facilities in greater Seattle after the company angered union members by moving production of the 787 Dreamliner to a non-unionised plant in South Carolina.

Workers had demanded a 40 percent wage rise, the restoration of a pension scheme that was axed a decade ago, and a stronger guarantee that future production would not be moved out of the Seattle region.

Jon Holden, IAM’s lead negotiator in the contract talks, said workers had spoken “loud and clear”.

“This is about respect, this is about addressing the past, and this is about fighting for our future,” Holden said.

“We strike at midnight.”

The strike, the first by Boeing workers since 2008, puts a halt to production of the best-selling 737 MAX and other aircraft as the company grapples with output delays, heavy financial losses and intense scrutiny of its safety record.

It also comes just weeks after new Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg took the helm of the company with a pledge to “reset” the company’s relations with the union.

Ortberg had on Wednesday urged workers to vote against a strike, warning it would “put our shared recovery in jeopardy, further eroding trust with our customers and hurting our ability to determine our future together”.

Boeing did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Adam Smith, a Democratic Party member of the House of Representatives representing Washington State, urged the two sides to return to the negotiating table.

“Across corporate America, so much of the wealth has wound up in the hands of so few people,” Smith said in a statement.

“Large corporations have increasingly prioritised their own profits and shareholders at the expense of workers. It is crucial that Boeing behaves as a responsible steward for its employees, so that every employee at their company is respected with fair wages and working conditions.

(Aljazeera)

A massive landslide in a Greenland fjord triggered a wave that “shook the Earth” for nine days.

The seismic signal last September was picked up by sensors all over the world, leading scientists to investigate where it had come from.

The landslide – a mountainside of rock that collapsed and carried glacial ice with it – triggered a 200m wave.

That wave was then “trapped” in the narrow fjord – moving back and forth for nine days, generating the vibrations.

Tsunamis, usually caused by underground earthquakes, dissipate within hours in the open ocean. But this wave was trapped.

“This landslide happened about 200km inland from the open ocean,” Dr Hicks explained. “And these fjord systems are really complex, so the wave couldn’t dissipate its energy.”

The team created a mould that showed how, instead of dissipating , it sloshed back and forth  for nine days.

“We’ve never seen such a large scale movement of water over such a long period,” said Dr Hicks.

Scientists say the landslide was caused by rising temperatures in Greenland, which have melted the glacier at the base of the mountain.

“That glacier was supporting this mountain, and it got so thin that it just stopped holding it up,” said Dr Hicks. “It shows how climate change is now impacting these areas.”

While this event was in a a remote area, these fjords are visited by some Arctic cruise ships. Fortunately none were in the area where this landslide occurred. But the lead researcher, Dr Kristian Svennevig from the National Geological Surveys for Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), said this was an increasingly common phenomenon in the Arctic.

“We are witnessing a rise in giant, tsunami-causing landslides, particularly in Greenland,” he told BBC News.

“While the Dickson Fjord event alone doesn’t confirm this trend, its unprecedented scale underscores the need to carry out more research.”

The event at Dickson Fjord, Dr Hicks added, “is the perhaps first time a climate change event has impacted the crust beneath our feet all the world over.”

(BBC)

Thousands of people have been evacuated from low-lying areas in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, as the Red River surges to its highest level in two decades, flooding the streets.

By Wednesday, flood waters from the swollen river reached a metre high in parts of the city, forcing some residents to navigate their neighborhoods by boat.

Power has been cut to some districts because of safety concerns, while 10 of Hanoi’s 30 administrative districts are on “flood alert”, state media reported.

Vietnam is suffering the aftermath of Typhoon Yagi, which battered the north, killing at least 179 people. Floods and landslides across northern Vietnam have been the main causes of death, the government said.

“This is the worst flood I have seen,” Hanoi resident Tran Le Quyen told Reuters news agency. “It was dry yesterday morning. Now the entire street is flooded. We couldn’t sleep last night.”

Yagi, which was initially categorised as a super typhoon – the equivalent of a category 5 hurricane – but later downgraded to a tropical depression, has continued to wreak havoc in Vietnam since making landfall on Saturday.

It has been described as Asia’s most powerful typhoon this year.

“My home is now part of the river,” Nguyen Van Hung, who lives in a neighbourhood on the banks of the Red River, told Reuters.

An entire village, Lang Nu in the northern Lao Cai province, was swept away on Tuesday amid flash floods. At least 30 people have been confirmed dead, while hundreds of soldiers have been deployed to the village in search of those still missing.

Hoang Thi Bay, one of 63 survivors in the remote mountain community, told the AFP news agency that she avoided being swept away by holding on to a pillar.  “I looked out of the window and saw a huge amount of land coming towards me,” she said.  “I ran out to our kitchen, and clung tightly to a concrete pole. Our wooden stilt house was destroyed.”

Authorities are also paying careful attention on a hydropower plant in the northwestern Yen Bai province, as a huge inflow of water into the reservoir surrounding the dam raises concerns that it may collapse.

Deputy Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Hoang Hiep said on Wednesday that the hydropower plant is “safe”, but urged residents in the area to stay under shelter, as it may take up to two days for the water to recede to an “allowable level”.

Yagi has left a trail of destruction in the country’s northern region over the past four days. On Monday, it collapsed a busy bridge, plunging ten cars and two scooters into the Red River.  It also tore roofs from buildings, uprooted trees, and left widespread damage to infrastructure and factories in the north.

Before hitting Vietnam, the typhoon left 24 people dead across southern China and the Philippines.

Scientists have warned that as the world warms, typhoons can bring higher wind speeds and more intense rainfall, although the influence of climate change on individual storms is complicated.