Former Chinese presidential top aide charged with bribery
Beijing (AFP) May 13, 2016 -
An ex-aide of former Chinese president Hu Jintao has been charged with accepting bribes and illegally obtaining state secrets, prosecutors said on Friday, suggesting he will face jail after a trial.
The ruling Communist Party last year accused Ling Jihua - once Hu's chief of staff - of bribery and "trading power for sex", after expelling him the previous year.
Ling's son died in a noto ...
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DR Congo denies getting pistols from North Korea
Kinshasa (AFP) May 14, 2016 -
The Congolese government on Saturday denounced as an "outright lie" claims in a UN confidential report its soldiers and police have been equipped with pistols from North Korea in violation of international sanctions.
"It's an outright lie. There hasn't been any cooperation with North Korea since the death (in 2001) of (Laurent) Kabila," referring to the father and predecessor of the Democrat ...
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Why do tomatoes smell 'grassy'
Kobe, Japan (SPX) May 16, 2016 -
A Japanese research group has identified the enzymes that change the grassy odor of plants into a sweeter "green" fragrance. This discovery can potentially be used to grow sweet tomatoes with less of a grassy odor. These findings were published on April 29 in The Journal of Biological Chemistry.
This research was carried out by a team from the Kobe University Graduate School of Agricultura ...
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Northern Galapagos Islands home to world's largest shark biomass
Washington DC (SPX) May 16, 2016 -
In a study published in the journal PeerJ, scientists from the Charles Darwin Research Station (CDRS) and the National Geographic Society revealed that the northern Galapagos islands of Darwin and Wolf are home to the largest shark biomass reported to date (12.4 tons per hectare).
Worldwide, overfishing has reduced the biomass of most sharks and other large predatory fishes by more than 90 ...
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Nation's beekeepers lost 44 percent of bees in 2015-16
College Park, MD (SPX) May 16, 2016 -
Beekeepers across the United States lost 44 percent of their honey bee colonies during the year spanning April 2015 to April 2016, according to the latest preliminary results of an annual nationwide survey. Rates of both winter loss and summer loss - and consequently, total annual losses - worsened compared with last year. This marks the second consecutive survey year that summer loss rates riva ...
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Residents near Madrid return home as toxic tyre blaze under control
Madrid (AFP) May 14, 2016 -
Spanish authorities allowed residents near a giant tyre dump blaze to return home Saturday, saying that toxic fumes billowing from the rubber heap posed less of a risk although the fire has yet to be extinguished.
The news came as it emerged that the European Commission had contacted Madrid over the illegal dump, the first step in a procedure which it can launch when it suspects a member sta ...
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Brazil's new rulers: rich, white, conservative, and in legal trouble
Brasilia (AFP) May 14, 2016 -
The two dozen ministers in Brazil's new government have a lot in common: they're white, male, conservative, often wealthy and in numerous cases face legal problems.
The question - after coming to power through the suspension of leftist president Dilma Rousseff rather than a presidential election - is whether they have enough in common with their country of 204 million.
Interim Presiden ...
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Shrinking shorebird pays the bill for rapid Arctic warming while wintering in the tropics
Amsterdam, Netherlands (SPX) May 16, 2016 -
Red knots migrate between their breeding grounds in the Arctic and their wintering grounds in West Africa. Chicks currently born under rapidly warming conditions attain smaller sizes before migration starts, because they miss the insect peak. If they reach their wintering grounds in the tropics, they are faced with a second disadvantage: their shorter bills cannot reach their favourite shellfish ...
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Five years on, Spain's Indignados have shaken up politics
Madrid (AFP) May 14, 2016 -
Five years ago, a small group of angry activists launched Spain's anti-austerity Indignados movement, likely never imagining it would grow so big, spreading beyond the country and shaking the very core of politics.
In the spring of 2011, as an economic crisis tore through Spain leaving countless jobless and homeless in its wake, a dozen bloggers and online activists decided to write a manife ...
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Birth of rare Sumatran rhino hailed as major boost
Jakarta (AFP) May 14, 2016 -
The rare birth of a Sumatran rhino in Indonesia has been hailed a victory for the critically endangered species, which has been almost wiped out in the wild by poaching and habitat destruction.
Conservationists wept in joy as the healthy female calf was born on western Sumatra island on Thursday, just the fifth rhino of its kind born in a breeding facility.
The newborn was walking within ...
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World's smallest porpoise nearer extinction in Mexico
Mexico City (AFP) May 14, 2016 -
Environmentalists warned Friday that Mexico's vaquita marina, the world's smallest porpoise, was close to extinction as the government reported that only 60 were now left.
The population has dramatically dropped despite the arrival of navy reinforcements in the upper Gulf of California in April 2015 to enforce a ban on fishing gillnets blamed for the vaquita's death.
The porpoise's popul ...
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Acidification and low oxygen put fish in double jeopardy
Washington DC (SPX) May 16, 2016 -
Severe oxygen drops in the water can leave trails of fish kills in their wakes, but scientists thought adult fish would be more resilient to the second major threat in coastal waters: acidification. A new study published Tuesday from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) shows that is not entirely true - where fish are concerned, acidification can make low oxygen even more deadly. ...
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Wildfires to increase in Alaska with future climate change
Missoula MT (SPX) May 16, 2016 -
Climate change is melting glaciers, reducing sea-ice cover and increasing wildlife activity - with some of the most dramatic impacts occurring in the northern high latitudes.
New research by University of Montana affiliate scientist Adam Young and UM fire ecology Associate Professor Philip Higuera projects an increased probability of fires occurring in Alaskan boreal forest and tundra unde ...
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