Tag: stranded
First Sudan evacuation flight of 40 UK nationals lands as thousands remain stranded
Stranded: Alien Dawn
UK ambassador to Sudan says it’s ‘too dangerous’ to return – but promises huge effort to evacuate stranded Brits
BRITAIN’S ambassador to Sudan wasn’t in the country when the conflict erupted, but promises every effort is being made to rescue stranded Brits.
Ambassador Giles Lever had gone on annual leave and was in the UK before Sudan became an open warzone in a bloody struggle for power.
Sudan is ‘on the edge of abyss’ according to UN chief[/caption]
427 have been killed and over 3,500 injured mostly in the capital (pictured) which is under heavy bombardment by the warring factions[/caption]
As other countries safely evacuate their citizens, Britons trapped in Sudan are feeling ‘abandoned’ by the UK government[/caption]
For 10 days, rivalling Sudan militaries have been violently battling for power and the capital of Khartoum has borne the brunt of the destruction.
At least 427 have been left dead – half of which are civilians – and 3,500 injured as Sudan teeters on the “edge of abyss” according to the UN chief.
Mr Lever confirmed on Monday that he was on annual leave at the time fighting broke out, MailOnline reported.
Outside his south London home he said: “I came back here for a scheduled holiday at Easter and have been unable to return.
“I had been working solidly on the problems in Sudan for three months before I left.”
The decision to extract 30 diplomats and their families using British Special Forces over the weekend caused controversy as more than 4,000 British citizens were left behind in an extraction mission and remain trapped.
They claim they feel “abandoned” by the UK government after other nations managed to rescue their citizens, while they have been left cowering in their homes under bombardment.
Mr Lever responded to the criticism, saying: “But it is incorrect to say that the embassy had been abandoned. There was a very senior diplomat, my deputy, in charge while I took leave.
“It is a war zone there and no way I can return because there isn’t a means to get into Khartoum with the airport being decommissioned.”
He added: “There are people working around the clock to get British people out and to safety.”
The Times reported that officials had believed violence was unlikely during the lead up to Eid, the Muslim festival which marks the end of the month-long fasting period of Ramadan.
Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell confirmed the ambassador was not in Sudan, following questioning from MPs.
He also told MPs that 200 civil servants were working shifts “night and day” in the crisis centre set up in response to the conflict.
Trying to calm anxious ministers, he claimed: “We most certainly have learned lessons from Afghanistan and the position in Sudan is completely different.”
The Government’s emergency committee Cobra has meanwhile “met six times so far” since violence began and five of these meetings had been chaired by Rishi Sunak, he claimed.
Mitchell also told Radio 4 today that he “cannot give any assurances” on getting out the remaining Brits out the war-torn country.
The news comes after a crack SAS team reached Sudan last night as fears grew for the remaining 4,000 Brits still left in the country.
A flight tracking website showed a C-17 transport aircraft heading to Port Sudan on the Red Sea — 500 miles from tinderbox capital Khartoum.
It is believed that two Royal Navy ships — RFA Cardigan Bay in Bahrain, and HMS Lancaster in India, will still help with the rescue mission.
However, this could involve British nationals making a deadly three-day drive through the war-ravaged Sudan to make it to Port Sudan where the Royal Navy ships are understood to be travelling to.
On Monday, Sudanese generals agreed to a three-day ceasefire.
The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “Following intense negotiation over the past 48 hours, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have agreed to implement a nationwide ceasefire starting at midnight on April 24, to last for 72 hours.”
Blinken’s statement came two hours before the truce was to take effect.
Meanwhile, a Brit filmed gunfire inching ever closer to his home as he hid in his home waiting to be rescued today.
Amar, who lives in Edinburgh and was there visiting relatives, told the BBC the situation is “very scary”.
Other desperate British citizens have allegedly had to kill their own pets to save them from starving after food and water were cut.
There are also 71 stranded NHS doctors who are said to have “lost all hope” of being evacuated having urged the UK government to act quickly.
The NHS staff had created a WhatsApp group to stay in touch, however as internet communications went down – the group has reportedly gone silent.
Dr Taha, 35, a junior doctor in South Yorkshire told the Mirror that the medical professionals have been forced to try to escape themselves after the government’s inaction.
“It’s heartbreaking because we can see that they have managed to evacuate the diplomats and you can see other countries have managed to evacuate their citizens,” she said.
“So far, the British government has been very slow.
“The problem now is communication is becoming more and more difficult. Internet services are poor and international calls are not going through.”
She pleaded: “Act quickly please. Help evacuate these UK citizens and residents and get them home safely.”
4000 British nations are trapped in Sudan and are desperately awaiting rescue[/caption]
Saudi Royal Navy officers help a child onto an evacuation flight as pressure mounts on the UK government to save British nationals[/caption]
Italian citizens were rescued from the capital of Khartoum recently in military aircraft[/caption]
Stranded: Alien Dawn review: a survival sim that nails the crashlanding
As our shuttle hits the ground, the world erupts into smoke, chaos, and confusion. Samantha, one among my ragged band of survivors, breaks down sobbing on the ground and I direct Maki, a veterinarian, to do something about it. She punches Samantha full-on in the face, knocking her unconscious (“Oh, I guess that’s what ‘knock out’ means,” I realize a moment too late). Well, at least I don’t have to worry about her running off into the woods or something. It’s a rough start, but they have no choice but to work together from here on out.
For fans of the survival simulation genre, crashlanding on an alien planet is a familiar premise, but it’s one Stranded: Alien Dawn absolutely smashes. This game has been at the top of my to-be-played list for a while and now that it’s exiting early access for a full release, it’s safe to say that Stranded is the closest thing to my dream human vs nature survival game I’ve seen yet.
Cosmonaut Stranded on Mir in 1991 Now Heads Rescue Mission to ISS
When a Russian spaceship docked as a lifeboat for three stranded men at the International Space Station in February, one may have wondered if Sergei Krikalev, heading the rescue mission, felt any deja vu.
If that name doesn’t ring a bell, he’s also sometimes known as “the last Soviet” for his more than 311 days spent in space as the Soviet Union collapsed 250 miles beneath him in 1991. He was only meant to be at the Mir station for five months. Instead, he remained for close to a year, never abandoning the outpost.
Today, Krikalev, the former cosmonaut, is the executive director of human spaceflight for the Russian space agency. That means it’s on his watch to make sure NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin get back home safely after their ship sprang a leak at the station in December 2022. The three marooned crew members were supposed to return this month. But their mission will now stretch for a year, until a new crew arrives to relieve them on a separate spacecraft in six months.
Krikalev’s story of being stranded in space is now getting a perhaps overdue spotlight with a new podcast series called “The Last Soviet.” And it’s being told by another cosmonaut, Lance Bass….
Few may remember that boy-band member Bass almost made it to space on a Soyuz spacecraft himself. In 2002, he spent about six months, off and on, training in Star City, Russia, and was certified by Russia and NASA to fly a mission to the space station.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
A cosmonaut was stranded in space. Now a pop star tells the story.
When a Russian spaceship docked as a lifeboat for three stranded men at the International Space Station in February, one may have wondered if Sergei Krikalev, heading the rescue mission, felt any deja vu.
If that name doesn’t ring a bell, he’s also sometimes known as “the last Soviet” for his more than 311 days spent in space as the Soviet Union collapsed 250 miles beneath him in 1991. He was only meant to be at the Mir station for five months. Instead, he remained for close to a year, never abandoning the outpost.
Today, Krikalev, the former cosmonaut, is the executive director of human spaceflight for the Russian space agency. That means it’s on his watch to make sure NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin get back home safely after their ship sprang a leak at the station in December 2022. The three marooned crew members were supposed to return this month. But their mission will now stretch for a year, until a new crew arrives to relieve them on a separate spacecraft in six months.
Krikalev’s story of being stranded in space is now getting a perhaps overdue spotlight with a new podcast series called “The Last Soviet.” And it’s being told by another cosmonaut, Lance Bass.
If that name doesn’t ring a bell, he’s also sometimes known as the other blond heartthrob in NSYNC. That’s right: the Lance Bass, who sang “Tearin’ up my heart” with JT, who had a cameo in Zoolander, a satire on the very serious ambitions of beautiful people.
Bass, now 43, might seem an unlikely bard for a podcast about the fall of the Iron Curtain and a space mission gone awry that left Krikalev without a country. Few may remember that boy-band member Bass almost made it to space on a Soyuz spacecraft himself. In 2002, he spent about six months, off and on, training in Star City, Russia, and was certified by Russia and NASA to fly a mission to the space station. At the last moment, Bass lost his seat aboard the ship when his Hollywood financiers failed to pony up $20 million to pay for the trip.
In a recent interview with Mashable, Bass said he learned about Krikalev’s story while training on a Russian military base for his own mission. From then on, he considered the cosmonaut a personal hero.
Credit: AFP via Getty Images
“I heard it from other people, my professors, after class,” Bass said. “We would always kind of bond, and that’s where you would sometimes go into the sauna and drink vodka and beat each other with branches, and they would very brilliantly tell their stories of their history.”
“The funny thing is,” he continued, “I have no idea if I’ve met him or not.”
The podcast, an iHeartPodcasts production with Kaleidoscope and Samizdat Audio, comes at a poignant time, with the past serving as prologue. The Russia-Ukraine War resurfaces tensions from the Cold War, and, yet again, a crew will spend an unplanned year in space, although this time not for geopolitical reasons. Despite the conflict and strained relations with the United States, the two nations’ space agencies have continued to work collaboratively at the space station.
Credit: NASA screenshot
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“You would sometimes go into the sauna and drink vodka and beat each other with branches, and they would very brilliantly tell their stories of their history.”
Still, that global hostility has made bringing Krikalev’s story to listeners challenging, Bass said.
“Unfortunately, because of the war, Russia is not allowing him to speak, especially to American podcasters,” he said. “But we did get his friends and family and colleagues, and we really get the story of him through their eyes.”
Credit: NASA / Newsmakers via Getty Images
It’s not clear if Krikalev was prevented from participating. He recently joined a NASA news conference and obliged questions from U.S. reporters on the status of the leaky Soyuz spacecraft. He spoke of working “together with our NASA colleagues” to minimize safety risks. Roscosmos, however, did not return a request for comment from Mashable regarding the podcast.
The series, which debuted Feb. 15, weaves in Bass’ own experiences with the Russian space program, an unusual story in its own right. The former pop star was just 23 when he pursued an offer to fly aboard a Soyuz spacecraft on a 10-day mission. Space tourism is all abuzz today, but two decades ago when Bass geared up for the trip, only two billionaires had traveled before him in privately paid seats. Had it gone to plan, he might have become the youngest spacefarer, onboard the space station just three months before the deadly Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.
At the time, NSYNC was on the last leg of its final tour, Justin Timberlake wanted to pursue a solo album, and Bass was figuring out his next career moves. Aside from the singer’s childhood love of space, the idea of becoming a cosmonaut seemed so random to Bass.
Credit: Ethan Miller via Getty Images
“I thought it was a joke at first because it just sounds silly to even say,” he said. “I really did think Ashton Kutcher was ‘punking’ me because that was such a huge show.”
Soon he found himself in a U.S. hospital undergoing a surgical procedure to correct an irregular heartbeat that could have otherwise prevented him from space flight. Then, he was on a plane to a Russian military base, immersed in a new language, and cramming astrophysics lessons.
There were parabolic flights and rides on a centrifuge, like the Gravitron at an amusement park, to simulate the effects of weightlessness in space. Even camping trips to test his wilderness survival instincts.
The preparations ended unceremoniously, two weeks before his rocket launch. Without the payment, Roscosmos gave his seat to another cosmonaut.
Credit: NASA
Now, with so many opportunities for private citizens to fly to space with Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and SpaceX, Bass is interested in finishing what he started. It was the podcast that rekindled his fire, he told Mashable. He hopes it will have the same effect on his listeners, claiming a new audience excited about space.
Meanwhile, as others ponder Krikalev’s space legacy, he’s not done composing it. The recently damaged Soyuz spacecraft will return empty to Earth later this month so Roscosmos can perform a post-flight investigation.
Both the Russian space program and NASA determined in January it was unsafe to bring the crew back. They will oversee the men’s return home later this year on the spacecraft sent to replace it.
“We know that situation is not very good,” Krikalev said then, “but it’s not a situation with deadend where we don’t have any solution.”
MULTIPLE UPRIGHT CANINES Encounter Stranded Driver in Upstate Pennsylvania
A man was driving through upstate Pennsylvania at night when he almost hits an unknown biped. The car slides into a ditch and is stuck. That is when the real nightmare begins!
The following account was forwarded to me by a colleague:
“I was driving home on an isolated road through a mountainous area. It was late and dark and I honestly couldn’t have told you exactly where I was. All I knew was that I was in Tioga County, Pennsylvania and that I needed to stay on the road I was on until I finally left the state and hit my home territory in New York.
I was in and out of a daydream state. You know how it is when you’re exhausted and trying to push on. I was so exhausted that even the caffeine wasn’t giving me what I needed and I was too cheap to spend the money on a hotel. However, when I was approaching a curve, this is where my story occurs.
My headlights lit up something that looked like a person except almost double if not triple in size. I had to swerve to avoid it and I sure as hell woke up from that. I wasn’t sure if I had clipped him or her but my car started sliding and went into a ditch. The first thing I did was get out to make sure that I hadn’t just hit somebody. I was thinking ‘why would there be somebody out here in the middle of nowhere wearing all black?’ There was no one around and was pretty sure that there had been somebody on the road, I was certain of it.
My car was good and stuck. The tires wouldn’t grip the mud. I didn’t want to call for a tow truck but it was looking like my only option. I sat in my car and tried phoning out when I was sure I had seen movement. I was hoping it was someone willing to help me, but then thought it was just my exhaustion playing tricks on me. I shook my head wondering if it would be a good idea just to sleep right there in the ditch and wait for the tow truck. Then it started to rain, heavily. I was really tired and the sound of the rain wasn’t helping me stay awake.
Then the thoughts of sleep were suddenly gone when the driver’s side window was blocked by the drenched furry body of something very large. It was walking on two legs but there was no way that this was a human. It stopped, then peered into the window. It was so ugly and evil-looking that it’s the only description that I feel is even appropriate! It was pointing its long wolf-like snout right at me and baring its teeth in a menacing grin like it was smiling at me as if it was happy that I was trapped in this little metal enclosure. Those long yellow fangs. The worst part was its eyes. There was no soul in them, but they had a supernatural glow. It then ran its claw on my window which made a scratching sound. It was so sadistic, so evil. It maintained a stare and a grin like it was letting me know that there was no way I can run.
I then noticed another wolf-like creature come out from the downpour and then another. I don’t know how many there were, but I was paralyzed with fear. It seemed like forever, though it was only a matter of seconds. But then they instantly disappeared. I looked around hoping that they were gone and then I wondered why they took off. I soon found out.
A pickup truck pulled up behind me. The old man stepped out, walked up to my driver’s side window, and volunteered to pull me out of the ditch. He looked at me and asked if I was alright. I didn’t tell him what I had seen. He hooked a chain to my car and quickly pulled it out of the ditch. I thanked him profusely and offered to pay him for his trouble. He refused any payment.
I then felt comfortable enough to tell him what had happened to me and that I had never seen anything like it before. After I described what I had seen he got a strange look on his face, almost like he had heard this before. I asked him questions, but he was very dismissive. I was positive that he was aware of the beasts.
That was in November 2020. I’ll never forget it. I can only imagine what may have happened to me if that old man had not come to my rescue.” HH
NOTE: I contacted ‘HH’ in order to get the location of the incident. He wasn’t exactly sure where it occurred but did give me a good idea of where the road was located. I’m going to refer this account to the team for further investigation. Lon
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Have you had a sighting of a winged humanoid or huge bat-like creature in the Chicago, Illinois metro area / Lake Michigan region? The entity has also been referred to as the ‘Chicago Mothman’, ‘Chicago Owlman’ & ‘O’Hare Mothman’ or ‘O’Hare Batman.’ – Chicago / Lake Michigan Winged Humanoid Regional Interactive Map – Please feel free to contact me at lonstrickler@phantomsandmonsters.com – your anonymity is guaranteed. Our investigative group is conducting a serious examination of his phenomenon. We are merely seeking the truth and wish to determine what eyewitnesses have been encountering. Your cooperation is truly appreciated.
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Here are 7 Fitness ‘Trends’ That Need To Remain Stranded in 2022
Stranded Deep has been released on Game Pass
Open world island survival game Stranded Deep has arrived on Game Pass, while five other games have been announced as leaving the service on January 15th. The leavers are The Anucrusis, Nobody Saves The World, Trigger Happy Havoc, Windjammers 2, and Pupperazi.