Beijing (AFP) Nov 17, 2021 Strict new Covid-19 restrictions come into force in Beijing on Wednesday for visitors to the Chinese capital, requiring negative tests and dramatically cutting domestic flights as the city raises the drawbridge against the coronavirus ahead of the Winter Olympics. With less than 100 days to go to the games in February, China is bracing for a challenge to its zero-Covid … Continue reading Beijing tightens Covid-19 entry rules ahead of Olympics

Washington DC (UPI) Nov 17, 2021 Toddlers can learn how to regulate their emotions by observing strangers, not just parents or other family members, a study published Wednesday by the journal Child Development found. They also tend to increase their use of “distraction” as a mechanism to calm themselves in stressful situations after they watched others use the same approach, the data showed. “It was … Continue reading Toddlers regulate emotions better after watching adults calm themselves

Bras?lia (AFP) Nov 17, 2021 SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is in talks with Brazilian officials on a potential deal for the company to provide satellite internet in the Amazon rainforest and help detect illegal deforestation, Brazil said Wednesday. Brazilian Communications Minister Fabio Faria met with the billionaire tech titan in Austin, Texas on Monday over a possible tie-up in which SpaceX would provide its satellite … Continue reading Musk eyes Amazon watch; EU plans food import bans from deforested areas

New Delhi (AFP) Nov 17, 2021 Delhi shut down schools until further notice, urged people to work from home and banned non-essential trucks from entering the Indian capital due to dangerous levels of air pollution. One of the world’s most polluted cities and home to some 20 million people, Delhi is cloaked every winter in a thick blanket of smog. On Saturday, the Delhi government … Continue reading Delhi schools shut indefinitely as smog worsens

Menlo Park CA (SPX) Nov 16, 2021 Far below you lies a sphere of solid iron and nickel about as wide as the broadest part of Texas: the Earth’s inner core. The metal at the inner core is under pressure about 360 million times higher than we experience in our everyday lives and temperatures approximately as hot as the Sun’s surface. Earth’s planetary core is … Continue reading Researchers recreate deep-Earth conditions to see how iron copes with extreme stress

Bogota (AFP) Nov 14, 2021 A volcano that destroyed an entire town in Colombia with the death of some 25,000 people spewed ash and gas this weekend on the 36th anniversary of that devastating eruption. The Nevado del Ruiz volcano showed “noticeable” activity starting Saturday, the Colombian Geological Service said. The Nevado del Ruiz in western Colombia is one of the many volcanoes on the … Continue reading Volcano that wiped out town in Colombia is active again

Rome (AFP) Nov 14, 2021 A man was killed on Sunday on the Italian island of Sardinia after strong rains, with an agriculture group saying the weather had caused more that two billion euros of damage this year. The body of the elderly man, who abandoned his car when it got stuck in floods of water, was found on Sunday afternoon after firefighters carried out … Continue reading Man dies in Italy rains as 2021 climate losses top 2 bn euros

Ouagadougou (AFP) Nov 14, 2021 Suspected jihadists killed at least 19 gendarmes and a civilian in an attack early Sunday in northern Burkina Faso, officials said. The pre-dawn attack, one of the deadliest to hit Burkinabe defence and security forces since jihadist violence erupted six years ago, targeted a “detachment of the Inata gendarmerie”, the army chief of staff said in a statement. The attack … Continue reading Suspected jihadists kill at least 20 in Burkina Faso

Saidia, Morocco (AFP) Nov 15, 2021 Moroccan environmentalist Mohamed Benata stood taking photos of what should be the mouth of the Moulouya river – but after years of drought and over-pumping, it comes to a halt just short of the sea. One of the longest rivers in the North African kingdom and a vital lifeline for farmers in the area near the Algerian border, the … Continue reading Drought, overpumping cut Morocco river link to sea

Wellington (AFP) Nov 15, 2021 The Pacific nation of Kiribati on Monday defended a plan to open one of the world’s largest marine reserves to commercial fishing, labelling suggestions China was behind the move as “neo-colonial”. The proposal would threaten the World Heritage listing of the Phoenix Islands Protected Area, a marine park the size of Greenland that sits about halfway between New Zealand and … Continue reading Pacific’s Kiribati to allow fishing in vast marine park