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WASHINGTON D.C., United States (AFP) — The US state of Michigan has agreed to pay some $600 million to victims of the Flint water crisis, a health scandal that became a symbol of social injustice in America, officials said Thursday. The settlement could see payments to tens of thousands of people, children and adults alike, who may have ingested lead-tainted drinking water after the city of Flint changed the source for its water system in […]
NOVO PROGRESSO, Brazil (AFP) — Armed with spears and bows, dozens of indigenous protesters in Brazil vowed Thursday to maintain a roadblock on a key highway until the authorities listen to their demands for help fighting COVID-19 and deforestation. Members of the Kayapo Mekranoti ethnic group have been blocking highway BR-163 through the Amazon since Monday outside the northern town of Novo Progresso. But they vowed that they would no longer lift their blockade periodically to […]
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AFP) — Chinese hackers infiltrated at least 10 Taiwan government agencies and gained access to around 6,000 email accounts in an attempt to steal data, officials said Wednesday. The damage done was “not small”, according to a top Taiwan cyber official, who said the full impact was still being assessed. Taipei has accused Beijing of stepping up a cyber campaign since 2016 when Taiwan elected President Tsai Ing-wen, who refuses to acknowledge […]
MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Russia said on Thursday it would start clinical trials of its controversial coronavirus vaccine next week, involving tens of thousands of people. President Vladimir Putin said earlier this month that Russia had become the first country to register a coronavirus vaccine, though the announcement was met with caution from scientists and the World Health Organization who said it still needed a rigorous safety review. Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, which finances the […]
by Sara HUSSEIN TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — A new method to create insulin-producing pancreatic cells from stem cells and protect them from the body’s immune system could pave the way for improving experimental diabetes treatment. In type-1 diabetes, the body turns on itself and attacks the so-called beta cells inside clusters in the pancreas called “islets”. These beta cells are responsible for gauging sugar levels in the blood and releasing insulin to keep them stable. […]
by Amélie BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS PARIS, France (AFP) — For half a century scientists feared that the Somali elephant shrew had vanished from the face of the Earth. No one had seen so much as a whisker. But the tiny mammal with its probing trunk-like nose was quietly thriving in the arid, rocky landscape of the Horn of Africa, researchers said Tuesday. The elusive, insect-eating creature is neither an elephant nor a shrew. It is a sengi […]
NARITA, Japan (AFP) — A new team of experts left Japan for Mauritius on Wednesday with special oil-absorbent materials to help the clean-up of tonnes of oil that leaked from a Japanese-owned ship. “The oil leak from the stranded ship has caused severe damage to the people of Mauritius, the economy of which largely relies on tourism and the beautiful ocean,” environment ministry official Yukihiro Haisa told reporters before the departure. “I am terribly distressed.” […]
NOVO PROGRESSO, Brazil (AFP) — Indigenous protesters in Brazil defied a court order Tuesday and resumed a roadblock of a key highway through the Amazon rainforest, demanding help against the new coronavirus and an end to illegal mining and deforestation. Brandishing bows and wearing traditional feather headdresses and body paint, dozens of protesters from the Kayapo Mekranoti ethnic group have been blocking highway BR-163 through the Amazon rainforest since Monday morning. They briefly lifted their […]
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AFP) — The Arctic sea ice is melting faster than climate models had predicted, researchers at the University of Copenhagen warned on Tuesday. Until now, climate models have predicted a slow and steady increase of Arctic temperatures, but a new study shows that warming is occurring at a more rapid pace. “We have been clearly underestimating the rate of temperature increases in the atmosphere nearest to the sea level, which has ultimately caused […]
by Patrick GALEY PARIS, France (AFP) — There may be more plastic floating just beneath the surface of the Atlantic ocean today than the estimated total weight of plastic waste dumped in it since 1950, new research showed Tuesday. The findings, based on analysis of samples of the three most common plastic materials and computer modelling, highlight the unseen scale of the pollution clogging the world’s second-largest ocean. Earth’s oceans contain an estimated 150 million […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — An asteroid the size of an SUV passed 1,830 miles (2,950 kilometers) above Earth, the closest asteroid ever observed passing by our planet, NASA said Tuesday. If it had been on a collision course with Earth, the asteroid — named 2020 QG — would likely not have caused any damage, instead of disintegrating in the atmosphere, creating a fireball in the sky, or a meteor, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) […]
by Marlowe HOOD PARIS, France (AFP) — Testing for COVID-19 and tracing the prior contacts of those found to be infected are crucial measures for slowing the disease’s spread, but inadequate unless combined with other measures, researchers said Wednesday. By itself, the test-and-trace approach can reduce the virus’ reproduction rate, or R number, by 26 percent, they reported in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, using mathematical models to examine data from previously published studies. The reproduction […]
