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TOKYO, July 7, 2023 (AFP) – Plans to discharge treated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant cleared their last regulatory hurdle in Japan on Friday, as China said it would ban some food imports over the move. South Korea meanwhile said Tokyo’s plan to dilute the treated water and release it into the sea over several decades met or exceeded international standards. Some 1.33 million cubic metres of groundwater, rainwater and water used for cooling […]
Japan’s plan to release treated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant would have “negligible consequences” for South Korea, Seoul said Friday, as it tried to assuage rising public concern. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) this week gave the green light for a decades-long project to discharge accumulated water from the plant, which was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami that hit the eastern coast of Japan in 2011. But the plan has encountered widespread […]
THE HAGUE, July 8, 2023 (AFP) – Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s coalition government collapsed Friday over “insurmountable” differences on how to tackle migration, with elections expected in November. Rutte, 56, the Netherlands’ longest-serving leader and one of Europe’s most experienced politicians, said days of crisis talks between the four parties failed to produce a deal. They fell out over Rutte’s plans to tighten curbs on reuniting families of asylum seekers, a bid to curb […]
BEIJING, July 8, 2023 (AFP) – Washington and Beijing should communicate “directly” on concerns about specific economic practices, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Saturday, urging greater cooperation between the world’s two biggest economies despite fraught ties. Yellen is on a four-day trip to Beijing, as the United States seeks to cool tensions and stress areas of collaboration between the two countries. In a meeting Saturday with Vice Premier He Lifeng, she pointed to record […]
WASHINGTON, July 7, 2023 (AFP) – The United States announced Friday it will provide cluster munitions to Ukraine for the first time as Kyiv’s forces face tough fighting in their counteroffensive against invading Russian troops. The move drew sharp criticism from rights groups due to the danger unexploded bomblets pose, but Washington said it has received assurances from Kyiv that it would minimize risk to civilians, including by not using the munitions in populated areas. […]
ISTANBUL, Turkey (AFP) — President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to hold talks with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday on the latest leg of a tour to push Ukraine’s bid to join NATO and secure more weapons from allies. The talks in Istanbul come on the eve of the 500th day since Russia’s invasion, with Zelensky admitting a long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive was progressing slowly. “But nevertheless, we are advancing, not retreating, like Russians,” Zelensky […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — China’s customs authority on Friday said it would ban food imports from 10 Japanese prefectures over Tokyo’s plan to release treated nuclear wastewater into the ocean. Japan’s planned, decades-long discharge of accumulated water from the devastated Fukushima nuclear facility has been approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as meeting global standards. The release is expected to begin this summer but is opposed by some regional neighbours, with Beijing vocally […]
WASHINGTON, July 7, 2023 (AFP) – Twitter threatened to sue Meta just hours after the Instagram parent company launched Threads, an app it hopes will beat out the struggling site owned by Elon Musk. In a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, published by online news outlet Semafor on Thursday, Musk lawyer Alex Spiro accused the company of “unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.” The letter accused Meta of hiring dozens […]
BRASÍLIA, Brazil (AFP) — Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon fell by one-third in the first six months of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s administration compared to the same period of last year, the government said Thursday. The 33.6 percent drop is based on satellite images captured by the National Institute of Space Research, which said that from January through June a total of 2,649 square kilometers (1,020 square miles) of rainforest were felled. That’s […]
UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — The United Nations chief on Thursday accused Israel of using disproportionate force against Palestinian groups in a recent raid and warned against escalating the violence. A large-scale military operation by Israel in the occupied West Bank earlier this week killed 12 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier. “There was an excessive force used by Israeli forces,” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters in New York. Israel has “legitimate concerns over its […]
By Carlos MANDUJANO Agence France-Presse PUERTO AYORA , Ecuador (AFP) — Unusually warm for this time of year, the waters of the Pacific signal hard times for the reptilian inhabitants of Ecuador’s iconic Galapagos Islands. The balmy temperature is the first symptom of a new cycle of the El Niño weather phenomenon that periodically pronounces a sentence of starvation on the archipelago’s marine iguanas. Experts fear this El Niño could be one of the most […]
THE HAGUE, July 5, 2023 (AFP) – Hundreds of flights were cancelled at one of Europe’s busiest air hubs and roads were blocked on Wednesday as the strongest summer storm on record slammed into the Netherlands. Howling winds of up to 146 kmh (90 mph) battered the country as Storm Poly crashed into the North Sea coast, downing trees and prompting Dutch authorities to warn people to stay at home. Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport said a […]
