Tag: Environment

Climate activists turn landmark Rome fountain black

Climate activists in Italy turned a Baroque-style fountain at the foot of Rome’s Spanish Steps black on Saturday, in a protest they said evoked an “end of the world” scenario. Three activists from the anti-climate change organisation Last Generation poured a vegetable-based carbon liquid into the landmark 17th-century fountain, known to Romans as La Barcaccia, before being escorted away by police. The fountain, in the shape of a boat, was designed by famed Italian sculptor […]

UN’s global disaster alert systems goal faces uphill climb

by Amélie BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS Agence France-Presse UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — How can anyone seek shelter from a natural disaster they don’t even know is coming? Last year the United Nations called for every person on the planet to be covered by early warning systems by 2027 — but months into the effort it is becoming clear that the project will require more data and expertise. With a relatively low price tag of $3.1 billion, […]

Sunken Philippine oil tanker found: officials

A leaking oil tanker that sank in the Philippines three weeks ago has been found, officials said Tuesday, as the slick reached waters known for their rich marine life. The Princess Empress was carrying 800,000 litres (210,000 gallons) of industrial fuel oil when it sank on February 28 off the central island of Mindoro, south of the capital Manila. Diesel fuel and thick oil from the vessel have since contaminated the waters and beaches of […]

Scientists make ‘disturbing’ find on remote island: plastic rocks

by Joshua Howat Berger Agence France-Presse RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AFP) — There are few places on Earth as isolated as Trindade island, a volcanic outcrop a three- to four-day boat trip off the coast of Brazil. So geologist Fernanda Avelar Santos was startled to find an unsettling sign of human impact on the otherwise untouched landscape: rocks formed from the glut of plastic pollution floating in the ocean. Santos first found the plastic rocks […]

Kuwait Oil Company declares ‘state of emergency’ after oil spill on land

Kuwait City, Kuwait | AFP | Monday 3/20/2023 The Kuwait Oil Company declared a “state of emergency” on Monday following an oil spill on land, but said no injuries or disruption to production had been reported. The emergency followed an “oil leak in the west of the country”, the state-owned company said in a statement, as video posted by Kuwaiti media showed a gushing pipe surrounded by a large slick of oil. “No injuries have […]

‘Floating toilets’ help Cambodia’s lake-dwelling poor

by Suy SE Agence France-Presse SIEM REAP, Cambodia (AFP) — Pointing to the murky waters of the Tonle Sap, Si Vorn fights back tears as she recalls her four-year-old daughter dying from diarrhea after playing in the polluted lake. Her family of 12 is among 100,000 people living in floating houses on Cambodia’s vast inland waterway, and while their village has 70 houses and a primary school, it has no sanitation system. Now a local […]

Millions of dead fish clog Australian river

  Millions of dead and rotting fish have clogged a vast stretch of river near a remote town in the Australian outback as a searing heatwave sweeps through the region. Videos posted to social media showed boats ploughing through a blanket of dead fish smothering the water, with the surface barely visible underneath. The New South Wales government said on Friday that “millions” of fish had died in the Darling River near the small town […]

Argentina forests burn amid heat wave, drought

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AFP) — Fires in heat wave- and drought-stricken Argentina have devoured some 6,000 hectares (14,800 acres) of forests in the northern Corrientes province in just days, officials reported Tuesday. Three fires continued to threaten while two others were burning but under control, according to the emergency command center of Corrientes. No injuries have been reported and the fires have not spread to populated areas, with rains expected Tuesday. Since the start of […]

Indonesian farmers fight for their land in nickel mining boom

by Marchio GORBIANO Agence France-Presse WAWONII, Indonesia (AFP) — Three women with machetes stood guard at their farm hilltop on Indonesia’s Wawonii Island, directing their blades towards the nickel miners working in the forest clearing below. “I pointed the machete at their faces. I told them: ‘If you scratch this land, heads will fly, we will defend this land to the death’,” said 42-year-old villager Royani, recounting a recent encounter with some of the miners. […]

Health warnings as Bangkok chokes on pollution

BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — Nearly 200,000 people in Thailand have been admitted to hospital because of air pollution this week, officials have said, with Bangkok shrouded in a harmful haze. The Thai capital, home to an estimated 11 million people and one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations, has been blanketed for days by an unpleasant yellow-grey mix of vehicle fumes, industrial emissions and smoke from agricultural burning. More than 1.3 million people have […]

Rising seas eating away at Honduran fishing village

by Noe LEIVA Agence France-Presse CEDEÑO, Honduras (AFP) — The coastline of Cedeno, a fishing village in southern Honduras, looks like it was hit by an earthquake. Houses, businesses and clubs stand in ruins. Forsaken. But it was not a quake. Nor a tsunami. A much slower, but equally destructive force is at work in Cedeno and other villages on the Pacific Gulf of Fonseca: sea level rise. The creeping ocean has claimed ever more […]

Pincered at sea, lobsters get new hope on land in UK

by Sylvain PEUCHMAURD Agence France-Presse WHITBY, United Kingdom (AFP) — The tiny lobsters are safe from predators — including each other — as they eddy in large white plastic tanks swirling with artificial currents. In a few weeks’ time, as part of a conservation project, they will leave their small shed in the northeastern English port of Whitby for the open sea. Whitby, whose dramatic abbey ruins were an inspiration for “Dracula” author Bram Stoker, […]