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Vietnamese police have arrested a bear owner for the first time after netting a record haul of hundreds of bile bottles in Hanoi, a wildlife protection organisation said Friday. The communist country is a major hub for the illegal trade in wild animals and bears are kept to drain the bile from their gallbladders for use in traditional medicine. Authorities outlawed bile extraction in Vietnam in 2005, but bear farms were allowed to keep the animals […]
by Paola Lopez Agence France-Presse JUNIN, Ecuador (AFP) — On the banks of a crystalline waterfall, biologist Andrea Teran lets out a yelp. She holds in the palm of her hand one of two frog species at the center of a legal battle against Ecuador’s mining industry. Teran, 37, is a specialist in the fragile existence of a creature called the Resistance Rocket Frog, which does not yet have a scientific name, and the […]
by Anne Chaon Agence France-Presse HALFETI, Turkey (AFP) — To the naked eye, the delicate velvet roses in southeastern Turkey appear black and overwhelm the senses with their irresistible sweet smell. The rosebuds are just as dark, and when fully developed, the flower takes on the color of an intensely rich red wine. These black roses, known as “Karagul” in Turkish and thornier than others, can only grow in the town of Halfeti with soil […]
by Pierre-Henry Deshayes © Agence France-Presse Longyearbyen, NORWAY (AFP) — Home to polar bears, the midnight sun and the northern lights, a Norwegian archipelago perched high in the Arctic is trying to find a way to profit from its pristine wilderness without ruining it. The Svalbard archipelago, located 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) from the North Pole and reachable by commercial airline flights, offers visitors vast expanses of untouched nature, with majestic mountains, glaciers and […]
Sao Paulo, BRAZIL (AFP) — Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is set to meet with billionaire Elon Musk on Friday, according to a government source. The meeting will be held in Sao Paulo, a source with the Brazilian president’s office told AFP, without giving any details on what will be on the agenda. Earlier, Bolsonaro said that he had planned a private meeting in Sao Paulo “with a very important person who is recognized throughout […]
by Haitham EL-TABEI with AFP correspondents in the Middle East Sandstorms across the Middle East have delayed flights, closed schools and hospitalised thousands — a phenomenon experts say could worsen as climate change warps regional weather patterns. Saudi Arabia on Tuesday became the latest country blanketed with dust that slowed traffic and made iconic towers in the capital difficult to see from more than a few hundred metres (yards) away. Electronic signs along Riyadh’s […]
by Kelly MACNAMARA Food is fundamental to the efforts to tackle climate change, according to a scientist who has spent decades tracing the interactions between global warming and what we eat. Cynthia Rosenzweig, head of the Climate Impacts Group at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, was Thursday awarded the prestigious World Food Prize for her research. That includes stark warnings about the potential effect climate change will have on food. Her comments to AFP […]
by Daniella Cheslow © Agence France-Presse RAVID, Israel (AFP) — Israel, a leader in making seawater drinkable, plans to pump excess output from its desalination plants into the Sea of Galilee, depleted by overuse and threatened by climate change. Irregular rainfall, rising temperatures and intensive pumping have overtaxed the world’s lowest freshwater lake, which for decades has served as the Jewish state’s main sweetwater reservoir. Israel now plans to tackle the challenge by reversing the […]
OTTAWA, Canada (AFP) – More electric vehicles and green energy were among the measures Prime Minister Justin Trudeau laid out Tuesday under a multibillion-dollar plan for how Canada will meet its carbon emissions target. In a speech in Vancouver announcing Can$9.1 billion (US$7.3 billion) in climate actions, the prime minister linked Europe’s desire to wean itself off Russian oil and gas after the invasion of Ukraine to a broader global push toward renewable energy. “The […]
by Laurent Lozano Agence France-Presse DAKAR, Senegal (AFP) – Many residents of the Senegalese metropolis Dakar get up in the middle of the night hoping to collect water from their taps, which mostly run dry. “We wake up at 4 or 5 am to get water, says Sidy Fall, 44, in her kitchen in a working-class neighbourhood, filled with large bottles of stored water. If she doesn’t get up in time, the water often runs […]
by Nick Perry Agence France-Presse NAIROBI, Kenya (AFP) – “Plastic still has value,” said Nzambi Matee of the mountains of discarded oil drums, laundry buckets, yoghurt tubs and other trash being shredded into colourful flakes at her Nairobi factory. “I believe that plastic is one of the misunderstood materials.” The 30-year-old Kenyan engineer and inventor would know: her start-up recycles tonnes of plastic destined for landfill into eco-friendly bricks that are stronger, cheaper and lighter […]
by Joshua Howat Berger Agence France-Presse RIO DE JANERIRO, Brazil (AFP) – Cold beer in hand, the sun shining, Edson Rocha seems to have everything for a beautiful day at the beach. In front of him, emerald hills cascade into Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay; to the right is the Brazilian seaside city’s majestic Sugarloaf Mountain; above, the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue outstretches his arms, as if to embrace the perfect beauty of it […]
