Washington (AFP) Nov 17, 2023 A US challenge to raise at least $200 million to tackle global-warming methane gas emissions will be exceeded at the COP28 climate talks in Dubai that begin later this month, a senior State Department official said Friday. Non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gases contribute to more than half of the climate change the planet is currently undergoing, but receive far less attention. … Continue reading Nations will exceed $200 mn methane finance pledge at COP28

Tashkent (AFP) Nov 17, 2023 Uzbekistan on Friday said it would urge the public to save water, as global warming and creaking infrastructure point to a serious crisis in the landlocked arid country. Experts have said streamflows at its two main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, are set to drop by up to 15 percent by 2050. Over 90 percent of Uzbekistan’s water … Continue reading Uzbekistan to urge public to save water as crisis looms

Manila (AFP) Nov 18, 2023 The death toll from a strong earthquake off the southern Philippines rose to seven on Saturday, while rescuers also searched for two people feared buried beneath a landslide. The 6.7-magnitude quake that struck the Mindanao region mid-afternoon on Friday caused part of a shopping mall ceiling to collapse, triggered power cuts and sent people fleeing into the streets. Falling debris … Continue reading Philippine quake death toll rises to seven

Nairobi (AFP) Nov 16, 2023 More than 100 people, including 16 children, have died and over 700,000 been forced out of their homes in the Horn of Africa due to flash flooding, the British charity Save the Children said Thursday. The region, particularly Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, has been lashed by unrelenting downpours since the beginning of the month due to the El Nino weather … Continue reading Flash floods kill 100 in Horn of Africa: charity

Washington (AFP) Nov 16, 2023 Washington said Thursday it was “deeply concerned” about a strike on a Jordanian military hospital in Gaza that wounded seven people, underscoring its opposition to air strikes on health facilities. “We are deeply concerned that they were injured,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, praising the Jordanian government’s “incredible work establishing this field hospital” and sayinghttp://dlvr.it/Syy5y2 Continue reading US concerned over hospital strikes after Jordan’s Gaza facility hit

Copenhagen (AFP) Nov 16, 2023 How was the air breathed by Caesar, the Prophet Mohammed or Christopher Columbus? A giant freezer in Copenhagen holds the answers, storing blocks of ice with atmospheric tales thousands of years old. The Ice Core Archive, housing 25 kilometres (15 miles) of ice collected primarily from Greenland, is helping scientists understand changes in the climate. “What we have in this … Continue reading Frozen library of ancient ice tells tales of climate’s past

Kampala (AFP) Nov 13, 2023 Ugandan prosecutors on Monday charged the commander of a feared militia with terrorism and murder over the killing of two foreign tourists and their driver last month. A commander in the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) militia, Abdul Rashid Kyoto, alias Njovu, was captured earlier this month, and is also accused of leading a horrific massacre at a school in June. … Continue reading Uganda charges militia chief over tourist murders

Goma, Dr Congo (AFP) Nov 12, 2023 At least six people have been killed after a dispute between soldiers and pro-government militants in volatile eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, several sources said on Sunday. The incident occurred on Saturday afternoon in the village of Mugerwa, about 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the city of Goma, in circumstances that remain unclear. One security official, who requested … Continue reading Six killed in east DR Congo after soldiers, pro-state militants clash

Abu Dhabi, UAE (SPX) Oct 31, 2023 A team of scientists, led by Post-Doctoral Associate Marieh Al-Handawi and Professor of Chemistry Pance Naumov from NYU Abu Dhabi’s Smart Materials Lab and NYU Abu Dhabi Institute’s Center for Smart Engineering Materials (CSEM) has revealed the mechanism a desert plant native to the United Arab Emirates uses to capture moisture from the desert air in order to … Continue reading NYU Abu Dhabi researchers reveal how common desert shrub efficiently harvests water from the air

Washington DC (SPX) Oct 31, 2023 It was a hazy August day on Chicago’s South Side, and Nedra Sims Fears was hosting a small gathering to talk about the air. Interstate-94, which bisects her Chatham neighborhood, hummed nearby. “This was the summer I spent watching summer out my window,” Fears said. That’s because asthma runs in her family, and smoke from wildfires in Canada had … Continue reading A Tale of Three Pollutants