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DHAKA, Bangladesh (AFP) – Sam JAHAN Bangladesh’s high court has ordered the shutdown of 231 factories that have contributed to Dhaka’s main river becoming one of the world’s most polluted, a lawyer said Tuesday. The country is crisscrossed by hundreds of rivers, but a recent industrial boom, including the emergence of the world’s second biggest garment industry, has prompted officials to turn a blind eye to the industrial waste they dump into rivers. In a landmark […]
by Beiyi SEOW Agence France-Presse BEIJING, China (AFP) — A new virus that has killed nine people, infected hundreds and already reached the United States could mutate and spread, China warned Wednesday, as authorities scrambled to contain the disease during the Lunar New Year travel season. The coronavirus has caused alarm for its similarity to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which killed nearly 650 people across mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-2003. In Wuhan, […]
by Philippe RATER Agence France-Presse UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — The UN Security Council called Tuesday on Libya’s warring sides to quickly reach a ceasefire that would pave the way for a political process aimed at ending conflict in the oil-rich state. The United Nations meeting followed up on a weekend Libya summit held in Berlin, which saw the formation of a military commission that is supposed to define ways of consolidating a cessation […]
by Hashem Osseiran and Bachir El-Khoury Agence France-Presse BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — Lebanon is facing its worst economic crisis since its civil war, an unprecedented protest movement and mounting international pressure for reform, yet under-fire politicians have yet to form a government. This raises questions about what is holding up the creation of a new cabinet and what comes next for a crumbling country that can ill-afford delays. – What’s the holdup? – Lebanon has […]
DAVOS, Switzerland (AFP) – Sebastian SMITH and Alex PIGMAN President Donald Trump tore into environmental “prophets of doom” at the Davos forum Tuesday, rejecting fiery warnings from teenage campaigner Greta Thunberg and talking up his own record in a counterpoint to impeachment back home. Thunberg was in the audience in the Swiss Alps to hear the typically bullish speech by Trump, delivered just before the US Senate opened the crucial next stage in his trial […]
FRANKFURT AM MAIN, Germany (AFP) – German sportswear giant Adidas said Tuesday more than half of the polyester used in its products this year would come from recycled material, including millions of shoes made from plastic waste. In 2020, the share of recycled polyester in Adidas products will “exceed 50 percent for the first time”, the company said in a statement. By 2024, Adidas “is committed to using only recycled polyester” across its entire range of […]
PARIS, France (AFP) – Patrick GALEY Some of the world’s biggest banks, insurers and pension funds have collectively invested $1.4 trillion in fossil fuel companies since the Paris climate deal, Greenpeace said Tuesday at the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos. With the climate emergency expected to be front and centre at the annual summit of the world’s business elite, the charity accused some institutions in attendance of failing to live up to […]
PARIS, France (AFP) – Marlowe HOOD The world is using up more than 100 billion tonnes of natural resources per year for the first time ever while global recycling of raw materials has fallen, according to a report released Tuesday. The share of minerals, fossil fuels, metals and biomass feeding into the global economy that is reused declined in two years from an already paltry 9.1 percent to 8.6 today, the Circularity Gap Report 2020 […]
by Gabriela COUTINO / with Henry MORALES in Tecun Uman, Guatemala Agence France-Presse Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico (AFP) — Hundreds of Central Americans from a new migrant caravan tried to storm into Mexico Monday by fording the river that divides the country from Guatemala, but National Guardsmen fired tear gas to force them back. The Central Americans, from the so-called “2020 Caravan” of around 3,500 undocumented migrants, gathered on the Guatemalan side of the Suchiate River […]
LONDRES, United Kingdom (AFP) — Prince Harry left the UK to rejoin his wife Meghan and son Archie in Canada Monday, British media reported, as the couple start a new life after their shock exit from the royal fold. “The Duke of Sussex is understood to have left the UK for Canada on Monday evening following one of his final official engagements as a working royal,” Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper reported. Harry boarded a 5.30 […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — President Donald Trump’s lawyers submitted a trial brief Monday calling his impeachment by the House “a dangerous perversion” of the US constitution and demanding his immediate acquittal by the Senate. Almost simultaneously, House impeachment managers responded to an earlier Trump filing, saying the president had engaged in “corrupt conduct… to cheat in the next election” and that the Senate should remove him from office “following a fair trial.” The dueling […]
by Michel COMTE Agence France-Presse Vancouver, Canada (AFP) — A senior Huawei executive whose arrest in Vancouver led to a breakdown in Canada-China relations headed to court on Monday to fight extradition to the United States. Meng Wanzhou, the company’s chief financial officer and eldest daughter of its founder Ren Zhengfei, is wanted by US authorities for alleged fraud. In order to secure her freedom, the “princess of Huawei” must convince a Canadian judge that […]
