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MAJURO, Marshall Islands (AFP) — Island nations in the South Pacific were cleaning up Wednesday after storms and tidal surges triggered widespread flooding, with rising seas caused by climate change blamed for the inundation. The Marshall Islands, Solomon Islands and Federated States of Micronesia all reported flooding, with reports that remote parts of Vanuatu were also hit by rising waters. “(The) government of the Federated States of Micronesia has been made aware of extensive saltwater […]
by Nick Perry Agence France-Presse NAIROBI, Kenya (AFP) – Rising sea temperatures and overfishing threaten coral reefs in the western Indian Ocean with complete collapse in the next 50 years, according to a groundbreaking study of these marine ecosystems. The findings, published in the journal Nature Sustainability on Monday, warned that reefs along the eastern coast of Africa and island nations like Mauritius and Seychelles faced a high risk of extinction unless urgent action was […]
BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AFP) – Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said Tuesday he was feeling “excited” ahead of his mission to the International Space Station, which marks Russia’s return to space tourism. Maezawa, a space enthusiast who made his wealth in online fashion, and his production assistant, Yozo Hirano, will spend 12 days on the ISS. Their Soyuz rocket operated by Russia’s Roscosmos space agency will blast off from the Moscow-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday. “I […]
by Ali BEKHTAOUI Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — The share of global wealth of the world’s richest people soared at a record pace during the Covid pandemic, a report on inequality showed Tuesday. Since 1995, the slice held by billionaires has risen from one percent to three percent, according to the World Inequality Report. “This increase was exacerbated during the Covid pandemic. In fact, 2020 marked the steepest increase in global billionaires’ […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Early indications of the severity of the Omicron Covid-19 variant are “a bit encouraging,” top US pandemic advisor Anthony Fauci said Sunday, while cautioning more information was still needed. “Omicron has a transmission advantage” in South Africa, where the variant was first reported, Fauci said in a CNN interview, noting the country had a low level of cases before it saw “almost a vertical spike upwards, which is almost […]
PARIS, France (AFP) – Only 14 companies are making top-grade efforts on the climate, the organisation that scores environmental efforts by companies for investors said Tuesday. The NGO Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) said only 14 out of nearly 12,000 firms that it scores received A marks in all the three areas of climate change, forests and water security in 2021. Among those were consumer goods firm Unilever, food group Danone, cosmetics maker L’Oreal and tobacco […]
HOUSTON, United States (AFP) — NASA announced Monday its 10 latest trainee astronauts, who include a firefighter turned Harvard professor, a former member of the national cycle team, and a pilot who led the first-ever all-woman F-22 formation in combat. The 2021 class was whittled down from a field of more than 12,000 applicants and will now report for duty in January at the Johnson Space Center in Texas, where they will undergo two years […]
SAN JUAN DEL SUR, Nicaragua (AFP) — Thousands of sea turtles laid their eggs on Nicaragua’s coast over the weekend under the watchful eye of the army, which protects the nests from possible predators — including humans. The olive ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) migrate for long distances to spawn between July and January in the Pacific coast wildlife refuges of La Flor and Chacocente, areas where the endangered species is protected against predators that […]
by Sophie Deviller and Thanaporn Promyamyai KHO PHI PHI LEY, Thailand (AFP) — While travel stopped and the world locked down, in the dazzling blue waters of Thailand’s idyllic Phi Phi islands, a gentle renaissance was under way. Mass tourism had brought the archipelago, immortalised in Leonardo DiCaprio movie “The Beach”, to the brink of ecological catastrophe. Now Thailand hopes to make Phi Phi the standard-bearer for a new, more sustainable model of tourism as […]
GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — Pandemic-related disruptions caused tens of thousands more malaria deaths in 2020, the World Health Organization said Monday, but added that urgent action had averted a far worse scenario. In a fresh report, the UN health agency found that Covid-19 had reversed progress against the mosquito-borne disease, which was already plateauing before the pandemic struck. There were an estimated 241 million malaria cases worldwide in 2020 — 14 million more than a […]
by Anna MALPAS Agence France-Presse SEALAND (AFP) – It’s a hulking metal-and-concrete platform in the North Sea that has been run as an independent micronation in defiance of the UK government for the last 54 years. But even on Sealand, some seven miles (11 kilometres) off the coast of southeast England, visitors have to show a negative Covid-19 test before being winched up onto the deck. “We have zero Covid cases,” Liam Bates, one of […]
by Sean CHANG Agence France-Presse NANTOU COUNTY, Taiwan (AFP) – Toads are a symbol of prosperity and good fortune in Taiwan, but the unexpected discovery of an invasive species has officials and environmentalists scrambling to contain their spread. With flashlights in hand and shielded by protective gloves, dozens of volunteers from the Taiwan Amphibian Conservation Society worked through the night searching rice fields and vegetable plots for their quarry — the cane toad. There should be […]
