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by Matthew KNIGHT SHANGHAI, China (AFP) — The gleaming towers of Shanghai belie the Chinese commercial hub’s vulnerability to climate change, and the city is spending billions to try to protect itself, but experts say the country’s authoritarian system is a hidden weakness. According to a report last year by Climate Central, a US-based research group, the low-lying megacity is, in population terms, the world’s most at risk from rising sea levels. A two degree […]
by Mariette Le Roux and Catherine Hours PARIS, France | AFP | — A worldwide pact to battle global warming entered into force Friday, just a week before nations reassemble to discuss how to make good on their promises to cut planet-warming greenhouse gases. Dubbed the Paris Agreement, it is the first-ever deal binding all the world’s nations, rich and poor, to a commitment to cap global warming caused mainly by the burning of […]
THE giant panda twins born in Shanghai Wildlife Park met each other for the first time on Friday after they were born one month ago. The cubs have grown black fur on their ears as well as the unmistakable “panda eyes”. Upon receiving a physical examination, the baby boy weighed in at 1,350 grams while his younger sister weighed 1,168 grams. They weighed just 131.5 grams and 113.2 grams, roughly equivalent to the weight […]
NANCHANG CITY, JIANGXI PROVINCE, China (CCTV) — A sleeping giant panda wrestled a man who entered his enclosure on Thursday (October 27) in southern China’s Jiangxi province, state media reported. State broadcaster CCTV showed surveillance video of a man sneaking into the enclosure and touching the head of the panda named Meiling in provincial capital, Nanchang. Meiling is a 12-year-old male panda of over 120 kilograms, it added. According to the footage, Meiling got up […]
LORETO, Peru (Reuters) — Thousands of endangered Taricaya turtles have been released in Peru’s Amazon region as part of efforts to conserve the majestic species on the verge of extinction. On Sunday (October 30), staff from Peru’s National Service of Natural Areas Protected by the State (SERNANP) released some 17,000 baby turtles as part of an ongoing program. The Taricaya were once in abundance along the Amazon but due to development and logging in the […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — Stopping the killing of elephants for their tusks could add some $25 million (23 million euros) to Africa’s annual tourism income, more than offsetting the anti-poaching spend, a study said Tuesday. While the figure pales in comparison to the estimated value of the black market ivory trade in China, it represents about a fifth of tourist income for game parks in 14 countries, where half of Africa’s elephants are located, the […]
PACAYA SAMIRIA NATIONAL RESERVE, Peru (AFP) — Peru frees 17,000 yellow-spotted river turtles in the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve. Each year, for a month, the Peruvian wild-life authorities free 500,000 of these turtles in the Loreto region north of Peru in order to maintain the level of this species. https://youtu.be/dGdTbxlDHng
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AFP) — Peasants in southern Nicaragua, whose lands will be expropriated for a project to build an Atlantic-Pacific canal, fear that President Daniel Ortega’s reelection will have a negative impact on their communities because of their opposition to the venture. https://youtu.be/8Xu134jeuuU
Portorož, Slovenia | AFP | by Mariëtte Le Roux — Thirty years into a moratorium on commercial whaling, hundreds of the marine mammals, some endangered, are killed every year — some in open defiance of the ban, others in the name of scientific research. The moratorium, monitored by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) which closed its 66th meeting in Slovenia on Friday is credited with having saved tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of whales. It has […]
GUANGZHOU, China (Reuters) — A new video of a polar bear that has been kept captive in a Chinese shopping mall was released on Tuesday (October 25) at a news conference held by animal rights groups, in order to urge the closure of the aquarium and raise awareness for animal protection. The aquarium, located in Grandview Shopping Mall in southern city of Guangzhou, has been making headlines since it opened in January, after Chinese netizens posted […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia is set to experience more heatwaves, with record-breaking hot weather becoming “normal” across the continent as climate change pushes up land and sea temperatures, a government report warned Thursday. The biannual State of the Climate report from the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) and national science body CSIRO said Australia was already experiencing more extremely hot days and severe fire seasons, and projections showed temperatures would likely keep rising. “Australian temperatures […]
by Marlowe HOOD PARIS, France (AFP) — A large glacier in West Antarctica lost up to half a kilometer in thickness in seven years, thinning more quickly than scientists thought possible, according to a study released Tuesday. The Smith Glacier, spilling into the Amundsen Sea, shed up to 70 meters (230 feet) per year between 2002 and 2009, according to the study, based on NASA data collected during aerial flyovers. “If I had been using […]
