New York (AFP) Sept 10, 2023 US grocery delivery startup Instacart is seeking a valuation of under $10 billion as it goes public later this month, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday, substantially less than its $39 billion valuation in 2021. The company is to start pitching its initial public offering to investors at the lower valuation as early as Monday, “in the latest sign … Continue reading Instacart seeks $10 billion valuation amid industry woes: WSJ

Tikht, Morocco (AFP) Sept 11, 2023 It was delicate work for the searchers to remove the woman’s body from the rubble of a village that effectively ceased to exist in Morocco’s deadliest earthquake in over six decades. Her 25-year-old fiance Omar Ait Mbarek watched the digging Sunday with his eyes red and full of tears, and surrounded by onlookers, just kilometres from the quake epicentre … Continue reading ‘Finished here’: A village vanishes in Morocco’s quake

Beijing (AFP) Sept 8, 2023 A gas leak in northern China has killed 10 people and left three injured, state media said on Friday. The incident at around 3:40 pm (0740 GMT) on Thursday occurred at a chemicals company in Ordos in the Inner Mongolia region, state broadcaster CCTV reported. An “ejection of high-pressure gas sprayed many staff working at height and caused them to … Continue reading Ten dead in northern China gas leak

Roca Sales, Brazil (AFP) Sept 8, 2023 Brazil is bracing for new storms just days after a devastating cyclone killed at least 41 people in the country’s south, officials said Thursday. Twenty-five people remain missing after an extratropical cyclone this week hit the state of Rio Grande do Sul, which is also the target of the new weather system. Late Thursday, “a cold front will … Continue reading Cyclone-hit Brazil braces for new storm

Hong Kong (AFP) Sept 8, 2023 Hong Kong was flooded by the heaviest rainfall in nearly 140 years on Friday, leaving the city’s streets and some subway stations under water and forcing its schools to close. Just across the border, authorities in China’s tech hub Shenzhen recorded the heaviest rains since records began in 1952. Climate change has increased the intensity of tropical storms, experts … Continue reading Hong Kong and Shenzhen his by heaviest rainfall in 140 years

Farkad?na, Greece (AFP) Sept 7, 2023 Greek rescue teams used divers, lifeboats and helicopters to reach dozens of villagers in central Greece Thursday, as the death toll from the Storm Daniel rose to six. The fire service announced that they had found the bodies of two elderly women, as well as a shepherd washed away by the flood waters. Emergency services worked alongside the army … Continue reading Greece launches flood rescue effort; Death toll rises to eight in Turkey

Paris (AFP) Sept 7, 2023 An unprecedentedly violent volcanic eruption that triggered a tsunami off the Pacific island nation of Tonga in 2022 unleashed the fastest underwater currents ever recorded, according to a study published on Thursday. The submerged Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai Volcano sent rocks, ash and gas racing across the seafloor at 122 kilometres (76 miles) per hour in January last year, found the … Continue reading Tonga volcano unleashed fastest ever undersea flows: study

Moscow (AFP) Aug 22, 2023 Eight members of a tour group exploring underground tunnels in Moscow’s sewer system Sunday have been found dead after getting caught off-guard by flash flooding, local media said. The victims, who were touring an underground river known as the Neglinka, are believed to have become trapped by rising water levels following a downpour and were unable to escape to the … Continue reading Eight dead after Moscow sewer floods during tour

Paris (AFP) Aug 23, 2023 Temperatures in France hit an all-time high for late summer on Tuesday, the weather authority said, as the country continues to swelter under a punishing heatwave. The nationwide average temperature over 24 hours hit 27.1 degrees Celsius (81 Fahrenheit), Meteo France announced Wednesday – ahead of an expected peak in the August hot spell expected in the second half of … Continue reading French heatwave sets new late-summer record

Kasur, Pakistan (AFP) Aug 23, 2023 Around 100,000 people have been evacuated from flooded villages in Pakistan’s Punjab province, emergency services said on Wednesday. Several hundred villages and thousands of acres of cropland in the central province were inundated when the Sutlej river burst its banks on Sunday. The head of Punjab’s government, Mohsin Naqvi, said that monsoon rains had prompted authorities in India to … Continue reading Around 100,000 people evacuated due to floods in Pakistan