Life

Pandemic: what does it mean and does it matter?

PARIS, France (AFP) — When does an epidemic become a pandemic? As the novel coronavirus continues its spread across the globe, what does the designation mean to world healthcare systems as they try to rein in the deadly disease? The World Health Organization has yet to declare the current outbreak, which originated in central China last month, a pandemic. It has indicated however that we should prepare ourselves for one. The WHO defines a pandemic […]

Katherine Johnson, black NASA mathematician, dies at 101

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Katherine Johnson, a ground-breaking black NASA mathematician whose life was portrayed in the movie “Hidden Figures,” died on Monday aged 101, the space agency said. Johnson’s calculations helped put the first man on the Moon in 1969, but she was little known until the Oscar-nominated 2016 movie that told the stories of three black women who worked at NASA. “She was an American hero and her pioneering legacy will never […]

Bangladesh’s biggest zoo calls time on elephant rides

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AFP) — Bangladesh’s biggest zoo has called time on elephant rides following a long-running campaign by activists. The ban was quietly introduced last month, Dhaka zoo curator Nurul Islam told AFP, adding it would never been lifted. “We agree that these rides were not good for the animals,” Islam said, acknowledging the efforts of animal rights groups. “Elephant rides are a kind of animal abuse and cruelty towards the animal.” The zoo in […]

NGOs take Norway to Supreme Court over Arctic oil

OSLO, Norway (AFP) — Two environmental groups said on Monday they were trying to take the Norwegian state to the Supreme Court for granting oil licenses in the Arctic. Greenpeace and Natur og Ungdom (Nature and Youth) say oil drilling licenses granted to companies in 2016 should be cancelled because they violate Norway’s constitution, which includes a right to a healthy environment. They say emissions from oil activities and fossil fuels jeopardize the objectives of […]

Micro-pollution ravaging China and South Asia: study

by Marlowe HOOD PARIS, France (AFP) — Nearly 90 percent of the 200 cities beset by the world’s highest levels of deadly micro-pollution are in China and India, with most of the rest in Pakistan and Indonesia, researchers reported Tuesday. Taking population into account, Bangladesh emerged as the country with the worst so-called PM2.5 pollution, followed by Pakistan, Mongolia, Afghanistan, and India, according to the 2019 World Air Quality Report, jointly released by IQAir Group […]

Trembling Mars gives up more seismic secrets

  PARIS, France (AFP) — Mars is a constantly tremoring “living” body, researchers said Monday as they unveiled measurements of seismic activity on the red planet showing similar tremble rates to Earth or the Moon. For 15 months NASA’s InSight robot craft scoured the surface of Earth’s neighbour, and measured hundreds of so-called “Marsquakes”. These included several tremors that contained the same frequency patterns as tremors caused by the movement of Earth’s own tectonic plates. […]

Tearful Michael Jordan commemorates ‘little brother’ Kobe Bryant

  by Jocelyne ZABLIT Agence France Presse LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — A tearful Michael Jordan on Monday remembered his “little brother” Kobe Bryant at a star-filled memorial in Los Angeles for the basketball great and his daughter Gianna, who died with seven others in a helicopter crash last month. “When Kobe Bryant died, a piece of me died, and as I look in this arena, across the globe, a piece of you died,” […]

China ‘comprehensively’ bans illegal wildlife trade

BEIJING, China (AFP) — China on Monday declared an immediate and “comprehensive” ban on the trade and consumption of wild animals, a practice believed responsible for the deadly coronavirus outbreak. The country’s top legislative committee met on Monday and approved a proposal “on comprehensively prohibiting the illegal wildlife trade, abolishing the bad habit of overconsumption of wildlife, and effectively protecting the lives and health of the people,” state television reported. © Agence France-Presse

After backing HS2 rail, Johnson mulls Heathrow runway

By Ben PERRY Agence France-Presse LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Having backed Britain’s proposed high-speed railway HS2, Boris Johnson is under pressure to keep his pledge to scrap plans for a third runway at London Heathrow airport as climate fears intensify. Prime Minister Johnson, who wants big infrastructure projects to help drive Britain’s post-Brexit economy, said earlier this month that the country would shortly begin full construction work on HS2, dismissing soaring costs. The project, while […]

How climate change reduced the flow of the Colorado River

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The massive Colorado River, which provides water for seven US states, has seen its flow reduced by 20 percent over the course of a century — and more than half of that loss is due to climate change, according to new research published Thursday. Two scientists at the US Geological Survey developed a mathematical model of the water movements — snowfall, rainfall, run-off, evaporation — in the upper Colorado River […]

Mga tauhan ng PNP-Directorate for Police Community Relations at Engineering Service, bumisita sa INC Museum

Ni Mar Gabriel Eagle News Service   (Eagle News) — Personal na binisita ng mga opisyal at tauhan ng Philippine National Police Directorate for Police Community Relations (PNP-DPCR) ang bagong Iglesia Ni Cristo Museum sa Central Avenue sa Quezon City. Pinangunahan ito ni Police Brig. Gen. Bartolome Bustamante na isang kaanib sa Iglesia Ni Cristo. Layon ng kanilang pagbisita nitong Huebes, Pebrero 20, na makakuha ng mga ideya at konsepto sa isang state-of-the-art museum tulad […]

Uganda army fights voracious desert locusts

By Michael O’HAGAN Agence France-Presse OTUKE, Uganda (AFP) — Under a warm morning sun scores of weary soldiers stare as millions of yellow locusts rise into the northern Ugandan sky, despite hours spent spraying vegetation with chemicals in an attempt to kill them. From the tops of shea trees, fields of pea plants and tall grass savanna, the insects rise in a hypnotic murmuration, disappearing quickly to wreak devastation elsewhere. The soldiers and agricultural officers will […]