Nation and world news in brief for December 27

Finland boards oil tanker suspected of causing internet, power cable outages

HELSINKI (Reuters) — Finnish authorities on Thursday seized a ship carrying Russian oil in the Baltic Sea on suspicion it caused the outage of an undersea power cable connecting Finland and Estonia a day earlier, and that it also damaged or broke four internet lines.

The Cook Islands-registered ship, named by authorities as the Eagle S, was boarded by a Finnish coast guard crew that took command and sailed the vessel to Finnish waters, a coast guard official said at a press conference.

“From our side we are investigating grave sabotage,” said Robin Lardot, director of the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation.

“According to our understanding, an anchor of the vessel that is under investigation has caused the damage,” he added.

The Finnish customs service said it had seized the vessel’s cargo and that the Eagle S was believed to belong to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of ageing tankers that seek to evade sanctions on the sale of Russian oil.

Two fiber-optic cables owned by Finnish operator Elisa linking Finland and Estonia were broken, while a third link between the two countries owned by China’s Citic was damaged, Finnish transport and communications agency Traficom said.

A fourth internet cable running between Finland and Germany and belonging to Finnish group Cinia was also believed to have been severed, the agency said.

“We are coordinating closely with our allies and stand ready to support their investigations,” said a spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council, adding that the incident underscored the need for closer international cooperation on safeguarding critical undersea infrastructure.

Baltic Sea nations are on high alert for potential acts of sabotage following a string of outages of power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines since 2022, although subsea equipment is also subject to technical malfunction and accidents.

Bird flu virus shows mutations in first severe human case in US, CDC says

(Reuters) — The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday its analysis of samples from the first severe case of bird flu in the country last week showed mutations not seen in samples from an infected backyard flock on the patient’s property.

The CDC said the patient’s sample showed mutations in the hemagglutinin (HA) gene, the part of the virus that plays a key role in it attaching to host cells.

The health body said the risk to the general public from the outbreak has not changed and remains low.

Last week, the United States reported its first severe case of the virus, in a Louisiana resident above the age of 65, who was suffering from severe respiratory illness.

The patient was infected with the D1.1 genotype of the virus that was recently detected in wild birds and poultry in the United States, and not the B3.13 genotype detected in dairy cows, human cases and some poultry in multiple states.

The mutations seen in the patient are rare but have been reported in some cases in other countries and most often during severe infections. One of the mutations was also seen in another severe case from British Columbia, Canada.

No transmission from the patient in Louisiana to other persons has been identified, said the CDC.