Breaking News, Latest Philippines Headlines, World, Entertainment, Politics, Weather & Video News
KATHMANDU, Nepal (AFP) — Nepal is offering farmers cash rewards for catching desert locusts to limit the damage caused by the destructive swarms that have ravaged harvests in India and Pakistan. South Asia is experiencing its worst infestation in decades, with the plague of locusts devastating agricultural heartlands and are now entering Nepal. “Our decision is aimed at encouraging people to catch the insects instead of using pesticides which might be harmful to the environment,” […]
by Mihaela RODINA / Ionut IORDACHESCU Agence France-Presse SFANTU-GHEORGHE, Romania (AFP) — As the “last rower” left in one of the villages dotting Romania’s Danube Delta, Iosif Acsente is all too aware of how the traditions and vistas of the region are slowly disappearing — an issue brought into sharper relief by the coronavirus pandemic. Acsente has been plying the Delta with his wooden boat for more than four decades now from his home village […]
by Emmet LIVINGSTONE Agence France-Presse DAKAR, Senegal (AFP) — It took one morning in late May to cut a large chunk from the side of a seaside volcanic hill in Senegal’s capital Dakar, to make way for a hotel. A man had turned up with permits and diggers got to work, according to Mamadou Mignane Diouf, an official from a local campaign group called Forum Social, who fought against the development. “No one should build here,” […]
by Patrick GALEY PARIS, France (AFP) — The South Pole has warmed three times faster than the rest of the planet in the last 30 years due to warmer tropical ocean temperatures, new research showed Monday. Antarctica’s temperature varies widely according to season and region, and for years it had been thought that the South Pole had stayed cool even as the continent heated up. Researchers in New Zealand, Britain and the United States analysed […]
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AFP) — A giant panda gifted by China to Taiwan has given birth to a second female cub after being artificially inseminated, Taipei Zoo announced Monday. Yuan Yuan and her partner Tuan Tuan have been top attractions since arriving from China in 2008 as a symbol of what were then warm relations between the two sides. The unnamed cub, weighing 186 grams, was born on Sunday after five-hour labor, the zoo said. “We […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — A slice of the Australian outback almost the size of greater London will be turned into a national park to help protect threatened species, authorities said Saturday, in a move welcomed by green groups. Narriearra Station, a 1,534-square kilometre (592-square-mile) property in northwest New South Wales, is the biggest purchase of private land for national parks ever made by the state government, Environment Minister Matt Kean said. It stretches across floodplains, […]
by Béatrice ROMAN-AMAT Agence France-Presse FESSENHEIM, France (AFP) — France’s oldest nuclear power plant will shut down on Tuesday after four decades in operation, to the delight of environmental activists who have long warned of contamination risks, but stoking worry for the local economy. The Fessenheim plant, opened in 1977 and already three years over its projected 40-year life span, became a target for anti-nuclear campaigners after the catastrophic meltdown at Fukushima in Japan in […]
MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — A Russian mining giant behind an enormous Arctic fuel spill last month said Sunday it had suspended workers at a metals plant who were responsible for pumping wastewater into nearby tundra. Norilsk Nickel cited a “flagrant violation of operating rules” in a statement announcing it had suspended employees responsible for dumping wastewater from a dangerously full reservoir into wildlife. The incident occurred at the Talnakh enrichment plant near the Arctic city […]
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AFP) — Zimbabwe on Wednesday announced a 150 percent rise in the price of fuel following the launch of a forex auction system which eroded the value of the local currency. The price of a litre of diesel jumped 152 percent to ZW$62.77 ($1.12) from ZW$24.93 while petrol shot up 147 percent to ZW$71.62, the country’s Energy Regulatory Authority said in a notice. The central bank re-introduced forex auctioning on Tuesday, the first […]
HAVANA, Cuba (AFP) — A massive cloud of Saharan dust darkened much of Cuba on Wednesday and began to affect air quality in Florida, sparking warnings to people with respiratory illnesses to stay home. The dust cloud swept across the Atlantic from Africa over the past week, covering the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico since Sunday and hitting south Florida in the United States on Wednesday, authorities there said. Conditions over the Cuban capital Havana […]
by Patrick GALEY PARIS, France (AFP) — Investment funds managing close to $4 trillion in assets called on Brazil Tuesday to halt deforestation of the Amazon in an open letter warning that biodiversity loss and carbon emissions pose a “systemic risk” to their portfolios. The managers from countries across Europe, Asia and South America expressed their fears that the government in Brasilia was using the COVID-19 crisis to push through environmental deregulation that could “jeopardize […]
by Florian PLAUCHEUR Agence France-Presse CRUZEIRINHO, Brazil (AFP) — Cruzeirinho, a small indigenous village of wooden shacks deep in the Amazon, is nearly empty these days — all but five of its 32 families have fled into the rainforest to escape the coronavirus pandemic. A week’s trip by boat from there, the inhabitants of the Umariacu indigenous reserve are trying a different strategy against the virus. “Attention: indigenous land. Closed for 15 days,” says a […]
