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The killing of a stray cat in Istanbul has triggered petitions, protests and death threats, pushing the president to intervene and the courts to retry the culprit. On January 1, Ibrahim K. was caught on a security camera in the lobby of the building where he lived kicking to death a stray cat named Eros that his neighbours regularly fed. He was sentenced in early February to 18 months in jail but was then released […]
By Juan RESTREPO, Juan BARRETO ON BOARD THE ARC SIMON BOLIVAR , Antarctica, March 15, 2024 (AFP) – In Antarctica, a scientist waits patiently for two frolicking humpback whales to poke their tails out of the icy waters so she can take a photographic “fingerprint” of the unique colors and patterns that allow researchers to identify individuals of the species. Andrea Bonilla, a Colombian scientist at Cornell University in the United States, has been working […]
By Louis GENOT RIO DE JANEIRO, March 13, 2024 (AFP) – Brazil is charging up for a hybrid revolution as global car manufacturers race to pump billions of dollars into the development of green vehicles in Latin America’s biggest economy. Globally, hybrid cars sales are booming, offering consumers fuel savings, sustainability, and the assurance that they won’t find themselves stranded far from a public charging station in a fully electric vehicle. Brazil, with its population […]
By Watsamon Tri-Yasakda and Rose Troup Buchanan BANGKOK, March 13, 2024 (AFP) – Hundreds of Thai children strain to sing the national anthem, reedy voices and fragile lungs competing against eight lanes of belching traffic next to their school’s open atrium in central Bangkok. Pupils at Suan Lumphini School assemble each morning under a coloured flag indicating the day’s air quality — red for worst, yellow for second worst, blue for best. Thailand registers dire […]
By Juan Sebastian SERRANO BOGOTÁ, March 8, 2024 (AFP) – Under a cracked and leaky ceiling, Andres Cuervo works on a colorful, dead hummingbird for the ornithological collection of the National University of Colombia, the country with more bird species than any other. Condors, eagles and even extinct birds receive a “second life” at the table of the biologist, who preserves them for science and posterity. But rather than a pristine setting with regulated temperature […]
By Laura CHUNG SYDNEY, March 8, 2024 (AFP) – A “mass bleaching event” is unfolding on Australia’s famed Great Barrier Reef, authorities said Friday, as warming seas threaten the spectacular home to thousands of marine species. Often dubbed the “world’s largest living structure”, the Great Barrier Reef is a 2,300 kilometre (1,400 mile) expanse of tropical corals that house a stunning array of biodiversity. But repeated mass bleaching events have threatened to rob the tourist […]
PARIS, March 7, 2024 (AFP) – The rapid return of the La Nina weather phenomenon “may actually decrease” the risk that 2024 smashes last year’s record heat, Europe’s climate monitor told AFP, amid enduring historic global temperatures. Although the past nine consecutive months have clocked temperatures previously unseen by humanity, it fell in line with climatologists’ predictions of human-caused climate change which “could have taken more into account”, said Carlo Buontempo of the Copernicus Climate […]
By Benjamin LEGENDRE, Kelly MACNAMARA PARIS, March 7, 2024 (AFP) – Last month was the warmest February on record globally, the ninth straight month of historic high temperatures across the planet as climate change steers the world into “uncharted territory”, Europe’s climate monitor said Thursday. The last year has seen an onslaught of storms, crop-withering drought and devastating fires, as human-caused climate change — intensified by the naturally-occurring El Nino weather phenomenon — stoked warming […]
It may have deadly animals and wild weather, but Palm Cove in Australia’s northeast has been named the world’s best beach, beating rivals in Hawaii, Greece and Fiji. The two-kilometre stretch of pristine white sands backed by rows of palm trees was ranked number one beach in the world by the magazine Conde Nast Traveller. Palm Cove sits well within Australia’s “Croc Country” and its bustling restaurants and high-end hotels were battered by Tropical Cyclone […]
Natural predators like birds, beetles and bugs might be an effective alternative to pesticides, keeping crop-devouring pests populations down while boosting crop yields, researchers said Wednesday. Pests are responsible for around 10 percent — or 21 million tonnes — of crop losses every year, but controlling them has lead to the widespread use of chemical pesticides. Could birds, spiders and beetles among other invertebrate predators do the job as well? Researchers in Brazil, the United […]
By Robin MILLARD GENEVA, March 5, 2024 (AFP) – The warming El Nino weather phenomenon that peaked in December was one of the five strongest ever recorded, the United Nations said Tuesday, predicting that it would produce above-normal temperatures from now to May. Though El Nino is now gradually weakening, its impact will continue over the coming months by fuelling the heat trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) […]
Vietnamese capital Hanoi was blanketed by a thick haze of pollution on Tuesday that obscured high-rise buildings and left the city’s nearly nine million people breathing toxic air. The city topped air monitoring website IQAir’s table of the world’s most polluted cities early Tuesday afternoon. Levels of PM2.5 pollutants — cancer-causing microparticles small enough to enter the bloodstream through the lungs — were classified as “very unhealthy” and hit more than 24 times the World […]
