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MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AFP) — A Mexican court has ordered the suspension of work on the “Maya Train,” a controversial railroad through Mayan lands in the country’s southeast, after an indigenous community filed an injunction. The $6.2 billion rail link is a pet project of leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who said Wednesday that while the court challenge had “political overtones,” his government would comply with the ruling. “We will comply with the decisions […]
HAVANA, Cuba (AFP) — A massive cloud of Saharan dust darkened much of Cuba on Wednesday and began to affect air quality in Florida, sparking warnings to people with respiratory illnesses to stay home. The dust cloud swept across the Atlantic from Africa over the past week, covering the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico since Sunday and hitting south Florida in the United States on Wednesday, authorities there said. Conditions over the Cuban capital Havana […]
by Patrick GALEY PARIS, France (AFP) — Investment funds managing close to $4 trillion in assets called on Brazil Tuesday to halt deforestation of the Amazon in an open letter warning that biodiversity loss and carbon emissions pose a “systemic risk” to their portfolios. The managers from countries across Europe, Asia and South America expressed their fears that the government in Brasilia was using the COVID-19 crisis to push through environmental deregulation that could “jeopardize […]
KIEV, Ukraine (AFP) — Three people have died and hundreds more have fled their homes in western Ukraine following the worst flooding in a decade, authorities said Wednesday. Floods caused by heavy rains that began this week hit 200 villages, damaging 5,000 homes and forcing the evacuation of 800 people, the interior ministry said. The worst-hit region is Ivano-Frankivsk on the Romanian border. Around 70 percent of monthly rainfall in some areas regions fell over […]
by Kelly MACNAMARA PARIS, France (AFP) — Scientists have found bits of polystyrene in the guts of tiny, soil-dwelling organisms in the Antarctic, raising concern that microplastics pollution has already “deeply” entered the world’s most remote land-based food systems. While the infiltration of microplastics throughout the oceans is well-known, researchers said their findings provided the first evidence of contamination in the Antarctic terrestrial food chain. “Plastics have therefore entered even some of the most remote […]
by Asaad Niyazi with Ali Allaq in Kut Agence France-Presse AL-BADAA, Iraq (AFP) — The broad leaves and delicate purple flowers floating on the Euphrates look breathtaking — but they are suffocating the waterways of Iraq, celebrated as the “land of the two rivers”. The water hyacinth, nicknamed the “Nile flower” in Iraq, is an invasive plant native to South America’s Amazon basin that has ravaged ecosystems across the world, from Sri Lanka to Nigeria. The […]
BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — China was pressed Tuesday to show more transparency over its dam operations on the Mekong River, months after downstream water levels hit record lows and threatened millions of livelihoods. Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam all battled severe drought last year as the tide of the river fell to record lows — exposing rocks, killing fish and threatening millions of livelihoods. But the dams along the waterway in China — where the […]
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — Diego the giant Galapagos tortoise whose tireless efforts are credited with almost single-handedly saving his once-threatened species, was put out to pasture Monday on his native island after decades of breeding in captivity, Ecuador’s environment minister said. Diego was shipped out from the Galapagos National Park’s breeding program on Santa Cruz to remote and uninhabited Espanola. “We are closing an important chapter” in the management of the park, said the minister […]
by Tom BARFIELD Agence France-Presse FRANKFURT AM MAIN, Germany (AFP) — Germany on Wednesday said it aimed to become the world’s “number one” in green hydrogen technology, betting the fuel produced by renewable energy sources can both reduce carbon emissions and stimulate Europe’s top economy. “For reasons related to our competitiveness but above all to reach our ambitious climate goals”, ministers have agreed to pump nine billion euros ($10.2 billion) of government cash into the technology, Economy […]
by Artyom Smirnov with Andrea Palasciano in Moscow Agence France-Presse NORILSK INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT, Russia (AFP) —Russian investigators on Wednesday detained three staff of a power plant over a huge fuel spill in the Arctic, as response teams warned a full clean-up would take years. The spill of over 21,000 tonnes of fuel took place after a fuel reservoir collapsed last month at a power plant operated by a subsidiary of metals giant Norilsk Nickel in […]
BRISBANE, Australia (AFP) — Australian researchers have discovered they were underestimating numbers at the world’s largest sea turtle nesting site after turning to drone technology for the first time. Raine Island, off the northern tip of Australia, plays host to around 60,000 female green turtles who migrate hundreds of kilometers from the Great Barrier Reef to lay their eggs each year. Scientists working to protect the endangered species had struggled with how best to keep […]
SOREL, Canada (AFP) — A young humpback whale that swam up one of Canada’s major rivers, delighting Montrealers who packed the shores for a glimpse of the first of the species in local waters, is believed to have died, wildlife officials said Tuesday. The pilot of a passing commercial ship early in the morning spotted a “whale carcass” near Varennes in the Monteregie region of the Canadian province, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of […]
