November 1, 2021

Great Acronym

Germany's vaccination authority, STIKO.

Actual group name is:

The Standing Committee on Vaccination at the Robert Koch Institute, or STIKO, is a scientific committee comprising 18 members at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, Germany that provides official recommendations for the vaccination schedules used by the individual German states.

Who says the Germans don't have a sense of humor.

November 1, 2021

Who had pumice clogging harbours

On their 2021 Bingo Cards...

Vast amounts of pumice pebbles, spewed out months ago by an undersea volcano, have clogged dozens of ports and damaged fishing boats along Japan’s southernmost coastlines.

Deputy chief cabinet secretary Yoshihiko Isozaki said on Friday that the pumice had so far affected 11 ports on Okinawa and 19 others in the Kagoshima prefecture, on Japan’s southernmost island of Kyushu, and forced the central government to establish a disaster recovery task force.

The Pacific pumice raft
What became of the great Pacific pumice raft?
Read more
About 40 fishing boats have been damaged, including six that were unable to move, and ferry services connecting remote islands in Okinawa and Kagoshima have been temporarily suspended.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/30/japan-ports-swamped-by-pumice-spewed-from-undersea-volcano?utm_term=43f982769b103233b06303fcaa441f42&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUK&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUK_email