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NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — India’s environmental watchdog has slapped New Delhi’s government with a $3.5 million fine for failing to enforce rules to reduce smog in the world’s most polluted major city, officials said Tuesday. The National Green Tribunal penalized the capital administration for its lack of oversight after it emerged some polluting industries were still burning harmful waste in the open. The tribunal, a national body tasked with ruling on environmental matters, […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — The end of the pager era is nigh in Japan after five decades as the country’s last provider announced on Monday it would be scrapping its service next year. Tokyo Telemessage, the only pager service provider left standing, said it had decided to terminate its service to Tokyo and three neighboring regions in September 2019 — describing the development as “very regrettable.” “Pagers were once a huge hit… but the number […]
by Kerry SHERIDAN Agence France Presse TAMPA, United States (AFP) — NASA’s first-ever mission designed to visit an asteroid and return a sample of its dust back to Earth arrived Monday at its destination, Bennu, two years after launching from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The $800 million unmanned mission, known as OSIRIS-REx, made a rendez-vous with the asteroid at around 12:10 pm (1710 GMT), firing its engines a final time. “We have arrived,” said Javier Cerna, […]
OTTAWA, Canada (AFP) — A committee of wildlife experts warned Monday that Canada’s largest land predator, the polar bear, was at risk of disappearing from its vast Arctic landscape as melting Arctic sea ice makes hunting prey a challenge. “It is clear we will need to keep a close eye on this species,” Graham Forbes, co-chair of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) said in a statement. “Significant change is […]
by Haydar Indhar Agence France Presse NAJAF, Iraq (AFP) — Adel al-Kawwaz expertly spins the potter’s wheel, shaping the wet clay into a smooth jug. His family is famous for this millennia-old Iraqi craft, but Kawwaz is struggling to keep it alive. For thousands of years, clay utensils for storing food and cooking were found in virtually every home in Sumer, the earliest known civilization in modern-day southern Iraq. Kawwaz’s own family drew their name […]
by Amélie BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS Agence France Presse KATOWICE, Poland (AFP) — The World Bank on Monday unveiled $200 billion in climate action investment for 2021-25, adding this amounts to a doubling of its current five-year funding. The World Bank said the move, coinciding with a UN climate summit meeting of some 200 nations in Poland, represented a “significantly ramped up ambition” to tackle climate change, “sending an important signal to the wider global community to do […]
by Andrei BORODOULINE Agence France Presse BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AFP) — Astronauts of the first manned space mission since an unprecedented accident in October on Sunday brushed aside concerns about Russia’s Soyuz rocket, saying risks were part of the job. Oleg Kononenko of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Anne McClain of NASA and David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency will launch to the International Space Station (ISS) from Baikonur in Kazakhstan aboard a Soviet-designed Soyuz […]
by Sonia LOGRE and Charles ONIANS Agence France Presse PISA, Italy (AFP) — “It’s still straightening,” said engineer Roberto Cela, gazing at the Leaning Tower of Pisa gleaming in the autumn sunshine of northern Italy. “And many years will have to pass before it stops.” The gravitationally-challenged landmark is leaning less after years of ambitious engineering work. Fortunately for the millions of tourists who come here every year, the 57-metre (186-feet) tower remains beautifully […]
GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — Global temperatures in 2018 are set to be the fourth highest on record, the UN said Thursday, stressing the urgent need for action to rein in runaway warming of the planet. In a report released ahead of the COP 24 climate summit in Poland, the World Meteorological Organization pointed out that the 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22 years, and that “2018 is on course to […]
SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — Google said Wednesday it was expanding its “virtual” telecommunication service that was limited to select Android-powered smartphones to a wider range of devices, including iPhones. Freshly renamed “Google Fi” service aims to take on traditional carriers by letting people pay based on how much data they use and roam internationally. Fi was limited to newer Pixel handsets made by Google and a few Android-powered smartphones made by other companies […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia’s unique platypus population is shrinking under pressure from agriculture and pollution, putting the egg-laying mammals’ future in doubt, researchers said in a report published Thursday. A three-year survey of the duck-billed animal suggested its numbers had fallen by 30 percent, to around 200,000, since Europeans settled the continent two centuries ago. “We have great concerns about the future survival of this unique species,” said Richard Kingsford, director of the University […]
PORT LOUIS, Mauritius (AFP) — Reggae music, whose chill, lilting grooves found international fame thanks to artists like Bob Marley, on Thursday won a spot on the United Nations’ list of global cultural treasures. UNESCO, the world body’s cultural and scientific agency, added the genre that originated in Jamaica to its collection of “intangible cultural heritage” deemed worthy of protection and promotion. Reggae music’s “contribution to international discourse on issues of injustice, resistance, love […]
