03 January 2022

Cathy Pacific cargo flight delays

The Hong Kong Airline has planned to suspend cargo flights for a week after it had been confirmed that 87 Omicron infections had developed. This has affected crew members and has a wider impact on supply chains, as products aren’t being delivered on time. It is also believed that a crew member had contracted the virus and infected others, resulting in the staff isolating.

What are the isolation regulations for Hong Kong Airlines?

Crew members on cargo flights are now obliged to isolate 7 days in a hotel. However, the crew on passenger flights must stay in quarantine for up to 2 weeks.

Santander Christmas blunder

Roughly 75,000 people and businesses have discovered to find £130m deposited into their bank accounts by Santander on Christmas day. This issue has resulted from a scheduling error and is now trying to undo this mistake.

Under the Theft Act 1968, it is a criminal offence of failure to report an overpayment. This means that customers who’ve made use of this payment or have not reported this to Santander may face being charged with ‘retaining wrongful credit’.

Will Santander be able to claim their money back?

Although efforts are being made to retrieve the immense payments, there are other problems that have arisen from this. For example, Santander may face difficulty as customers may have already spent some of their money and reclaiming this, may lead to an increased risk of overdrafts. The bank has come to the conclusion that customers may need to be contacted individually to return the funds. Though this is a useful solution to resolve the matter, this will without a doubt cost a lot of time and effort.

Elon Musk receives criticism over hogging satellite space

China has filed a complaint to the UN, having been told that its space station was forced to avoid collisions with Starlink satellites. The reason for their complaint was that they felt Musk’s had been using up too much space for his satellite internet project, which increases competition in the satellite industry.

How has Musk responded to these allegations?

In an interview, he had stated that there is room for other competitors to get involved as “Space is just extremely enormous, and satellites are very tiny”. He had further made a reference to this example compared to cars, suggesting that competition still exists amongst many car manufacturers.

Amazon’s Alexa advised children to take part in a dangerous challenge

After having asked Alexa a “challenge to do”, a mother of a child witnessed that her 10-year-old child had been suggested to take on the “penny challenge”. This challenge had been circulating on Tiktok, last year, where users plug in a charger halfway into a wall outlet and slide a penny between the gap. The result of this challenge leads to a person getting an electric shock, igniting a fire and suffering third-degree burns.

What are the next steps for Amazon?

After having received scrutiny for this incident, they have taken “swift action” to fix this matter. In another statement, Amazon has said that they will be updating Alexa to prevent recommending dangerous activities to users.