Breaking News, Latest Philippines Headlines, World, Entertainment, Politics, Weather & Video News
by Sandra FERRER Agence France-Presse BREST, France (AFP) — Fancy a job at the North or South Pole? A French research institute is looking for you. The Paul-Emile Victor Polar Institute in northwest France has launched a public appeal to recruit around 40 French-speaking people for a wide variety of jobs at its six bases in the Arctic and Antarctica. From chemists and carpenters to bakers and pastry chefs, the institute is stepping up its efforts […]
by Joe Freeman Agence France Presse BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — The rescue in Laos of three endangered red pandas trafficked from China has raised fears the rare animals are increasingly being coveted by exotic pet owners. Landlocked Laos, which borders China and Vietnam, is a key transit hub in the global trade in illegal wildlife, but experts say the discovery of red pandas there is virtually unheard of. Six of the cat-sized bears were found […]
by Mariëtte Le Roux Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Ants naturally produce powerful germicides against bacteria and fungi, said a study Wednesday that targeted the industrious insects as possible drug factories for humans. The discovery of ants’ pharmaceutical prowess comes as the armoury of effective antibiotics developed by humans over the last 100 years dwindles in the face of growing germ resistance. Experiments with 20 ant species found antimicrobials on 12 of them, […]
TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) — Primary schools will be closed on Monday in Tehran as thick fog caused by pollution smothers the Iranian capital and most of the surrounding province, local authorities said. They also announced Sunday they would impose traffic restrictions in Tehran, home to 8.5 million inhabitants, allowing cars onto the streets in alternating shifts, depending on their number plates. Similar measures were taken in December when primary schools in Tehran and most of […]
MAJURO, Marshall Islands (AFP) — Emergency services were put on standby Saturday in Majuro, as rising king tides threatened to flood the capital of the low-lying Marshall Islands. The national weather service warned “major inundation” was possible from Saturday evening through to Tuesday at peak tide periods in the Pacific island nation, highlighting its vulnerability to rising sea levels. “We’re on stand-by through Tuesday,” Public Works Minister Tony Muller said Saturday as the 30,000 population of Majuro […]
“On January 8, Landsat 8 captured data for these natural-color images of the snow in the Sahara,” said a release from NASA that showed this image. “For the second time in three years, snow has accumulated in the desert near the northern Algerian town of Aïn Séfra,” it said. The town is sometimes called the “gateway to the desert.” Aïn Séfra is a town of 35,000 people which sits between the Sahara and the […]
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — A plan to use satellite imagery and aerial mapping to protect Indonesia’s peatlands — a vast carbon sink and source of much of the country’s greenhouse emissions — was awarded a $1 million prize on Friday. The cutting-edge technology will be used by authorities to clamp down on illegal clearance of the land for plantations, helping to prevent a repeat of annual forest fires that plague the region while also […]
MIAMI, United States (AFP) — Polar bears are struggling to find enough seals to eat, and the problem will get worse as the planet warms because their metabolisms are much faster than previously thought, researchers said Thursday. The report in the journal Science tracked nine female polar bears in the Arctic’s Beaufort Sea during the spring, which is usually prime feeding season. They found that polar bear metabolism is 1.6 times higher than prior estimates. […]
Filipinos sheltering from the erupting Mayon volcano gasped in delight as an orange full-moon eclipse shone above the mountain’s smouldering crater Wednesday in what was both a once-in-a-lifetime double spectacle and a rare moment of relief. Mount Mayon — the country’s most active volcano — has been spewing spectacular but potentially lethal ash and lava for the last fortnight, forcing some 90,000 people into cramped safe zones where sanitation conditions are dire. But the “super […]
MIAMI, United States (AFP) — US marine investigators are probing an unusual die-off of minke whales along the US east coast, marking the third such population of large whales in the past two years, officials said Wednesday. A total of 28 minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) have died since January 2017 in the Atlantic Ocean from Maine to South Carolina, said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The deaths, most of which were in the […]
by Kerry SHERIDAN Agence France Presse MIAMI, United States (AFP) — Many parts of the globe may catch a glimpse Wednesday of a giant crimson moon, thanks to a rare lunar trifecta that combines a blue moon, a super moon and a total eclipse. The spectacle, which NASA has coined a “super blue blood moon,” will grace the pre-dawn skies in the western United States, as the moon crosses into the shadow of the Earth […]
