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Boeing workers vote overwhelmingly to strike, halting aircraft production

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International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union members march towards the union's hall to vote on a contract offer with Boeing on September 12, 2024 (Aljazeera)

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)



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Search resumes for schoolchildren swept away by South Africa floods

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The heavy rains in South Africa's Eastern Cape province have subsided [BBC]

The search for schoolchildren swept away in floods in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province has resumed after being halted overnight, officials have said.

The children were on their way to school in the town of Mthatha when their bus was carried away in flood waters as it was crossing a bridge on Tuesday morning.

Officials said three students were later rescued, but it was unclear how many pupils were on the bus, which has since been found on a riverbank with no-one inside.

An unconfirmed report by private TV station Newzroom Afrika says the bodies of 10 children and the driver have now been found further downstream.

Public broadcaster SABC reported that the three children who were rescued on Tuesday were found clinging to trees.

On Wednesday morning, Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane visited the scene to witness rescue efforts, and to meet affected communities.

He told Newzroom Afrika that while the situation was a “difficult one”, he was “quite happy” with the response of the emergency services.

South Africa has been hit by heavy snow, rains and gale force winds that have officially claimed the lives of 14 people, nine from the floods and five in a road accident.

Nearly 500,000 homes were left without electricity on Tuesday – and state-owned power provider Eskom says efforts are being made to restore connections.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has offered his condolences to the families of those who died as he urged citizens to “display caution, care and cooperation as the worst impacts of winter weather take effect across the country”.

The Eastern Cape – the birthplace of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela – has been worst-affected by the icy conditions, along with KwaZulu-Natal province.

The bad weather has forced the closure of some major roads in the two provinces to avoid further casualties.

[BBC]

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RFK Jr sacks entire US vaccine committee

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US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr testifying before the Senate in May [BBC]

US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, a vaccine sceptic, has removed all 17 members of a committee that issues official government recommendations on immunisations.

Announcing the move in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, Kennedy said that conflicts of interest on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (Acip) were responsible for undermining trust in vaccinations.

Kennedy said he wanted to “ensure the American people receive the safest vaccines possible.”

Doctors and health experts have criticised Kennedy’s longstanding questioning of the safety and efficacy of a number of vaccines, although in his Senate confirmation hearing he said he is “not going to take them away.”

On Monday he said he was “retiring” all of the Acip panel members. Eight of the 17 panellists were appointed in January 2025, in the last days of President Biden’s term.

Most of the members are practising doctors and experts attached to major university medical centres.

After the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves vaccines based on whether the benefits of the shot outweigh the risks, Acip recommends which groups should be given the shots and when, which also determines insurance coverage of the shots.

Noel Brewer, a professor at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health who served on Acip for a year, called Kennedy’s decision “norm-breaking”.

“I was stunned, but not surprised,” he told the BBC. “It was deeply disappointing and more than a bit upsetting.”

Kennedy noted that if he did not remove the committee members, President Trump would not have been able to appoint a majority on the panel until 2028.

“The committee has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine,” Kennedy wrote.

He claimed that health authorities and drug companies were responsible for a “crisis of public trust” that some try to explain “by blaming misinformation or antiscience attitudes.”

In the editorial, Kennedy cited examples from the 1990s and 2000s and alleged that conflicts of interest persist.

“Most of ACIP’s members have received substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies, including those marketing vaccines,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

Acip members are required to disclose conflicts of interest, which are posted online,  and to recuse themselves from voting on decisions where they may have a conflict.

Dr Brewer said the panel had “one of the most rigorous conflict of interest procedures of any federal committee”.

The members had a wide range of vaccine expertise, and thoroughly reviewed and debated vaccine data to make the best decisions for the public, said Paul Offit, a former Acip member and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

In his editorial, Kennedy said that the “problem isn’t necessarily that ACIP members are corrupt”.

“The problem is their immersion in a system of industry-aligned incentives and paradigms that enforce a narrow pro-industry orthodoxy,” he claimed.

Dr Bruce Scott, president of the American Medical Association, a professional organisation for American doctors, said mass sacking “upends a transparent process that has saved countless lives.”

“With an ongoing measles outbreak and routine child vaccination rates declining, this move will further fuel the spread of vaccine-preventable illnesses,” Dr Scott said in a statement.

Kennedy’s move appears contrary to assurances he gave during his confirmation hearings. Bill Cassidy, a Republican senator from Louisiana who is also a doctor, reported that he received commitments from the health secretary that Acip would be maintained “without changes.”

On Monday, Cassidy wrote on X: “Of course, now the fear is that the Acip will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion.

“I’ve just spoken with Secretary Kennedy, and I’ll continue to talk with him to ensure this is not the case.”

Public health experts share Cassidy’s concerns that Kennedy may appoint vaccine-sceptics to the board.

Such replacements would mean some vaccines “won’t be recommended at all” and other effective shots could “no longer be reimbursable by insurance companies”, said Peter Lurie, a former FDA official.

“As a consequence, we will see still further declines in vaccination rates, and then a resurgence of the diseases that they could have prevented,” he said.

Kennedy did not say who he would appoint to replace the board members. The health secretary appears to be calling people himself and asking them to serve on the panel, said Dr Offit, who said he has heard from at least two people Kennedy called.

“His whole notion of radical transparency – this is the opposite of that,” Dr Offit said. “This is one man making a decision behind closed doors.”

Acip has a meeting scheduled starting 25 June, at which members are scheduled to vote on recommendations for vaccines for Covid, flu, meningococcal disease, RSV and other illnesses.

Dr Brewer said Acip had some of the “best scientists in the world”, adding that the secretary would have a hard time finding that calibre of experts again on short-term notice.

The BBC contacted the US Department of Health and Human Services and the Acip chair, Dr Helen Keipp Talbot, for comment.

[BBC]

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Four crew members missing as Singapore-flagged cargo ship burns off India coast

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The Indian Navy and Coast Guard are still trying to contain the fire that broke out on Monday

India’s Coast Guard is continuing efforts to douse a fire on a Singapore-flagged cargo ship in the Arabian Sea near the coast of the southern state of Kerala.

MV Wan Hai 503, which was heading to India’s Mumbai city from Sri Lanka’s Colombo, reported an internal container explosion on Monday, resulting in a major fire on board.

Eighteen crew members have been rescued, while four are still missing. Singapore has sent a team to assist in the rescue efforts.

The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) has issued an alert for the coast of Kerala due to potential oil spill and debris from the ship .

Footage on Tuesday [10] showed MV Wan Hai 503 emitting large plumes of smoke as the Indian Navy and Coast Guard tried to extinguish the fire onboard.

The Coast Guard said fires and explosions continued to be seen on the ship.

In a search and rescue operation carried out on Monday, 18 of the ship’s 22 crew members were rescued and brought ashore where some of them are being treated for injuries.

The crew members had abandoned the ship when the fire broke out and left on a boat after which they were rescued by the Navy, India’s defence ministry said.

The Singapore Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) said four crew members are still missing – two of them are from Taiwan, one from Myanmar and one from Indonesia. The MPA said that it has sent a team to help with the rescue.

Kerala Ports Minister VN Vasavan said that 50 containers from the ship had fallen into the sea.

The ship was carrying 100 tonnes of bunker oil, Mathrubhumi News reported.  Containers that fell from it were drifting along the coast of Kerala, INCOIS told Manorama News, and could drift towards its coastline in the next three days.

This is the second such incident in three weeks near the Kerala coast. Last month, a Liberian-flagged vessel carrying oil and hazardous cargo leaked and sank in the Arabian Sea, sparking fears that harmful substances could endanger the health of residents and marine life.

The state government then banned fishing within a 20-nautical mile radius of the shipwreck and announced compensation for families from fishing communities in four affected districts.

Kerala’s coastal stretch is rich in biodiversity and the state is also an important tourist destination.

[BBC]

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