Forest fires supercharged by climate change are burning twice as much global tree cover as 20 years ago, according to a data Wednesday showing the equivalent of 16 football pitches are now lost every minute.. The data showed 2021 to be one of the worst years for forest fires since the turn of the century, causing 9.3 million hectares of tree cover loss globally.
Afghanistan's Olympic flag-bearer Kimia Yousofi has resettled in Australia after fleeing Taliban persecution, Games officials in Sydney said Wednesday, and the sprinter has already set her sights on Paris 2024.. Earlier this year Afghanistan's women's football team played their first match since fleeing to Australia. jl/arb/axn
Their campaign began in northern Mali a decade ago, advanced into the country's powder-keg centre and from there into neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.. - Recruitment - "The deteriorating security situation in Burkina Faso and Mali has made the north of the coastal countries the new front line against armed groups operating in the Sahel," the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a German think tank, said in a report in April.
In a town in northeastern Scotland, Debbie Banks looks for clues to track down criminals as she clicks through a database of tiger skins.. "We have a database of images of tigers that have been offered for sale or have been seized," Banks said.
Republican rebel Liz Cheney lost her seat in Congress Tuesday to an election conspiracy theorist, US media projected, in the latest sign of her party's break with traditional conservatism to embrace Donald Trump's hardline "America First" agenda.. She even avoided the traditional election day photo op Tuesday, eschewing media at her local polling station to instead cast her ballot in nearby Jackson.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed into law a big climate change and health care spending bill, giving Democrats another boost ahead of midterm elections in which Republicans are suddenly less certain of their predicted crushing victory.. While the sprawling bill is a fraction of a gargantuan package Biden originally tried and failed to get through Congress, the fact he was able to sign even the new version was something of a political resurrection -- a surprise success that Democrats are now hoping might fuel a comeback at the ballot box in November.
German director Wolfgang Petersen, who achieved international fame with films "Das Boot," "Outbreak" and "Air Force One," has died from pancreatic cancer, a spokeswoman said.. Glenn Close, who starred alongside Ford in Petersen's "Air Force One," said in a statement to AFP that being directed by the German "remains a special memory."
Sri Lanka will not extend a state of emergency imposed to control anti-government protests as the situation in the impoverished nation has "stabilised", the president's office said Tuesday.. "The situation in the country has stabilised, there is no need to reimpose the state of emergency when it lapses this week," Wickremesinghe's office quoted him as saying.
Russia said Tuesday that massive explosions at a military facility on the Kremlin-controlled Crimean peninsula in Ukraine that also damaged electrical power infrastructure were the result of "sabotage". . "As a result of an act of sabotage, a military storage facility near the village of Dzhankoi was damaged," the defence ministry said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies.
Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh on Tuesday implored the United Nations rights chief for protection after recent murders that have again left members of the stateless minority fearful for their safety.. Bachelet is on a four-day visit to Bangladesh before her term as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights ends later this month.
