Tag Archives: Environment

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | The UN warned Tuesday of a ticking time bomb of drug-resistant germs brewing in the natural environment, aided by humans dumping antibiotics and chemicals into the water and soil. If this continues, people will be at an even higher risk of contracting diseases, incurable by …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Humans are poisoning their environment and themselves at an alarming rate, with pollution of the oceans, soil and air now the biggest killer, a UN conference heard Monday. Urging rapid and united action from governments, businesses and individual consumers, envoys underlined that nine million people are …

Colombo, Sri Lanka | AFP | Sri Lankan police have arrested five men for allegedly killing a wild elephant, with officers seizing ivory and tusk-cutting tools, officials said Friday. Villagers in the island’s northwest had alerted wildlife authorities after a popular local elephant called “Dala Poottuwa”, or crossed tusker, disappeared. Its …

Why don’t many policymakers recognise loss of healthy, robust, and diverse ecosystems as serious threat? COMMENT | ROBERT WATSON | With the United Nations’ climate change conference underway recently in Bonn, Germany, rising global temperatures were once again at the top of the world’s agenda. But why care about the increase …

Zagtouli, Burkina Faso | AFP | West Africa’s biggest solar power plant goes onstream on Wednesday as Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest countries, inaugurates a novel scheme to boost renewables and cut energy dependence on its neighbours. The 55-hectare (135-acre) plant at Zagtouli on the outskirts of the …

Paris, France | AFP | It’s November 22, 2028 and Sarah, a young mother, gives her two children a kiss goodbye before buckling them into the driverless car that will bring them to school. Sarah doesn’t have a car and has no plans to buy one. Living in a suburb, she …

Washington, United States | AFP | President Donald Trump said Friday he will uphold a ban on importing trophies of elephants hunted and killed in Zimbabwe, pending further review, reversing his own administration’s decision from just a day earlier after a public outcry. “Put big game trophy decision on hold …

Washington, United States | AFP | Animal rights groups on Thursday strongly criticized President Donald Trump’s administration for allowing the import of Zimbabwean elephant hunting trophies. The move reverses a prohibition imposed under former president Barack Obama and is the latest rollback of Obama-era controls on a number of fronts. …

Bonn, Germany | AFP | Climate change imperils one in four natural World Heritage sites, including coral reefs, glaciers, and wetlands — nearly double the number from just three years ago, a report said Monday. The number of sites at risk has grown to 62 from 35 in 2014, when one …

London, United Kingdom | AFP | Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos on Friday hailed his country’s peace deal with the FARC guerrilla group as a chance to preserve his country’s biodiversity after decades of violence. “We need to reconcile also with the environment, which was a big victim of the armed …