Earthquake hits Greece: South of the country is shaken by 5.7 magnitude tremors, which is felt as far as Athens

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13251879/greece-earthquake-5-7-magnitude-tremors-athens.html

An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.7 has struck southern Greece, being felt as far away as Athens, Malta and Crete according to initial reports.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, but the quake appeared to be followed by a string of aftershocks.

The quake struck just after 7am on Friday morning and was centred beneath the seabed near the Strofades islands, about 75 miles south-southwest of the western city of Patras, according to the Athens Geodynamic Institute.

A 4.5 magnitude quake subsequently hit the central Mediterranean Sea at 9:15am.

Greece lies in a highly seismically active region and earthquakes are common. The vast majority cause no injuries and little to no damage.The Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (CSEM) reported a number of apparent aftershocks in and around Greece this morning, including a 2.4 magnitude tremor in the region of Crete and a 2.5 magnitude quake in the Aegean Sea.

Three smaller earthquakes were also reported in southern Greece within the space of nine minutes, between 8:21am and 8:30am.

Two had struck just minutes before, recording magnitudes of 3.1 and 2.5 in the Peloponnese. The initial 5.7 magnitude quake was initially reported as 5.9.

The quake originated some 10.5miles below the sea bed, close to the Strofades island. Greece was previously hit by a magnitude 4.8 quake of note some 50 miles (80km) northeast of the capital in January.

Experts said the tremor would have caused light shaking, likely breaking windows and causing objects to fall from shelves.

Pope Francis visits women's prison in Rome to wash the feet of 12 inmates from his wheelchair to mark Maundy Thursday

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13251165/Pope-Francis-visits-womens-prison-Rome-wash-feet-12-inmates-wheelchair-mark-Maundy-Thursday.html

Pope Francis washed the feet of 12 incarcerated women from his wheelchair to mark Maundy Thursday.

The 87-year-old pontiff, who often pleads for compassion to prisoners, visited the Rebibbia women's prison in the northeastern outskirts of Rome, where he performed the same rite in 2015.

Thursday, however, was the first time the Argentinian Jesuit had dedicated his annual ritual during Holy Week solely to women. Seated in a wheelchair, the pope washed the feet of each of the prisoners, some of them in tears, before drying them off with a towel and kissing them.

'We all have small failures, big failures,' said the pope in an impromptu homily during a mass held in the courtyard of the prison that holds some 370 women.

'But the Lord is always waiting for us, with open arms, and he never tires of forgiving,' he added.

The washing of feet is 'a gesture that draws our attention to the vocation of service,' said Francis, who as a priest in Buenos Aires had already begun visiting prisoners.

>Argentinian Jesuit

>dying wish is to kiss feet

>will have a bad May

Conservatives launch new probe into Canada's lab leak scandal: National security failure saw Chinese scientists send Ebola in the mail to Wuhan and spy on top research hub

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13250023/conservative-mp-probe-chinese-microbiologist-canadian-lab-ebola-wuhan.html

• Michael Chong brought new inquiry on revelations about alleged Chinese spies

• Scientists were accused of leaking secrets to Chinese labs, in 600-page report

• Xianggou Qiu and Keding Cheng were fired in 2021, but the report took 3 years

Members of Canada's House of Commons have successfully opened a new investigation into a pair of Chinese scientists who spied for Beijing while they were employed at a microbiology lab in Winnipeg. The scientists were fired after an investigation revealed they had been sharing classified documents and materials from the Winnipeg National Microbiology Laboratory and posed a 'national security threat' to Canada.

>While they worked at the lab, they maintained secret communication with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the facility at the center of the Covid lab-leak theory.

A 600-page report released in February made these revelations public. But the scientists were escorted from the lab in 2019 and fired in 2021. Members of Parliament say they plan to find out why it took so long for the report to come out - and why it took so long for officials to act in the first place. But Liberals and the New Democrats thwarted Conservative MPs' attempt to study its contents more closely, shutting down an emergency House of Commons ethics committee meeting on the matter at the beginning of March. The new investigation finally became official this week, though, led by Conservative MPs on the Canada-China Relations Committee who vowed to study the revelations contained in the report.

Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, were escorted out of the lab in 2019 and fired in 2021. Reports suggest they have since resumed life in China under new names.

Still-secret sources first raised concerns about Dr Qiu in September 2018 when her name appeared on a patent filed in China for a treatment for Ebola - research the lab had not been told about.

Suspicions were then raised about Dr Cheng in October after he was found to have invited students into the lab who later attempted to leave carrying two clear plastic bags containing vials of an unknown substance. Later the same month, Dr Cheng was also caught trying to leave the lab carrying two empty Styrofoam containers, which BSL-4 labs use to transport materials, including viruses. The PHAC, concerned by the reports, launched an investigation into the pair in December 2018 - which revealed numerous security violations, including that the pair had repeatedly allowed restricted visitors to download experimental data from the lab and send it to their email accounts.

>Dr Qiu and Dr Zhengli attended a conference held by the Wuhan lab in 2018. Also present were British doctor Peter Daszak, whose US charity funded animal virus experiments at the lab, and US scientist Ralph Baric, who co-authored a paper on bat viruses with Zhengli in 2015

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