Myanmar's Suu Kyi to visit China this year: party
Yangon (AFP) Nov 04, 2014 -
Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will make her first official visit to China next month, her party said Tuesday, as the veteran activist reaches out to a powerful ally of the former junta.
The Nobel laureate, who plans to lead her party into elections next year seen as the litmus test of Myanmar's transition towards democracy, will travel to China within weeks, her party said.
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Beijing stamps out funeral fashion fires for APEC: report
Beijing (AFP) Nov 04, 2014 -
Beijing authorities have banned people from burning the clothes of dead relatives - a traditional funerary rite to ensure they can dress in the afterlife - as an anti-pollution measure for an international summit, state-run media said Tuesday.
The move comes days ahead of the opening of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, when Chinese President Xi Jinping will host leaders ...
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Greenpeace accuses 20 European 'monster boats' of overfishing
Brussels (AFP) Nov 04, 2014 -
The environmental group Greenpeace launched a campaign on Tuesday against 20 European "monster boats" it says use a range of tricks to dangerously overfish the world's oceans.
"Our oceans and fish stocks are in deep crisis with too many large and destructive vessels chasing too few fish," Greenpeace said in a summary of its report entitled "Monster Boats; The Scourge of the Oceans".
Amo ...
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Scientists see mechanism for spontaneous HIV 'cure'
Paris (AFP) Nov 04, 2014 -
French scientists claimed Tuesday to have found the genetic mechanism for a "spontaneous cure" in two HIV-infected men, proposing a new strategy for combating AIDS even as other experts urged caution.
The findings were based on a study of two men infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) who never developed AIDS symptoms.
The virus remained in their immune cells but was inact ...
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Brazil scientist blames logging for extreme drought
Rio De Janeiro (AFP) Nov 04, 2014 -
Increased logging and burning in the Amazon rainforest will worsen already disastrous droughts, a leading Brazilian scientist warned in a new report on climate change.
Trees in the Amazon rainforest emit into the atmosphere the equivalent of 20 billion tons of water daily, Antonio Donato Nobre, a researcher at Brazil's National Institute for Space Research, told AFP in an interview Monday. ...
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Fight to save endangered Indus dolphins, turtles
Sukkur, Pakistan (AFP) Nov 04, 2014 -
Local legend has it that Pakistan's Indus River dolphin was once a woman, transformed by a curse from a holy man angry that she forgot to feed him one day.
After thousands of years swimming the mighty river the gentle, blind mammal is under threat from a combination of uncontrolled fishing and damage to its habitat caused by man-made dams.
Conservationists are fighting to save the dolphi ...
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Britain should push China on HK democracy, says ex-governor
London (AFP) Nov 04, 2014 -
Britain must push to see genuine democracy introduced in its former colony Hong Kong, whatever China says, the last UK governor of the territory Chris Patten said Tuesday.
Patten, who oversaw the transfer of Hong Kong from British to Chinese rule in 1997, said Beijing's assertions that the situation in the city was no longer anything to do with London was not the case, due to the binding agr ...
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Perilous year for Philippine typhoon mothers
Tacloban, Philippines (AFP) Nov 04, 2014 -
Emily Sagalis gave birth on a concrete slab after battling storm surges that killed thousands, then like many new mothers in razed communities of the Philippines began another perilous struggle for survival with her baby.
About 250,000 women were pregnant in areas hit by Super Typhoon Haiyan a year ago, and in the weeks that followed babies were born on shattered roads alongside corpses, in ...
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Genetic toolkit finds new maximum for crop yields
Cold Spring Harbor NY (SPX) Nov 05, 2014 -
Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) has announced a new way to dramatically increase crop yields by improving upon Mother Nature's offerings. A team led by Associate Professor Zachary Lippman, in collaboration with Israeli colleagues, has discovered a set of gene variations that can boost fruit production in the tomato plant by as much as 100%.
Plant breeders will be able to ...
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Green spaces don't ensure biodiversity in urban areas
Iowa City IA (SPX) Nov 05, 2014 -
Planting trees and creating green space in cities is good for attracting species, but it may not be enough to ensure biodiversity in built environments, a University of Iowa study has found.
The researchers surveyed two types of tree in an urban area in Iowa, and recorded the abundance of two insects that interact with them.
They found that while there were plenty of the trees, black ...
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New tool could help reshape the limits of synthetic biology
New York NY (SPX) Nov 05, 2014 -
NYU Langone yeast geneticists report they have developed a novel tool - dubbed "the telomerator" - that could redefine the limits of synthetic biology and advance how successfully living things can be engineered or constructed in the laboratory based on an organism's genetic, chemical base-pair structure.
Synthetic biologists aim to use such "designer" microorganisms to produce novel medic ...
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Study reveals startling decline in European birds
Exeter, UK (SPX) Nov 05, 2014 -
Bird populations across Europe have experienced sharp declines over the past 30 years, with the majority of losses from the most common species, say the University of Exeter, the RSPB and the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme (PECBMS) in a new study. However numbers of some less common birds have risen.
The study, published in the journal Ecology Letters, reveals a decrease of 421 ...
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Replicating the tide with two buckets, aquarium tubing, and a pump
Washington DC (SPX) Nov 05, 2014 -
Rachel MacTavish is growing salt marsh plants in microcosms that replicate the tide. She assembled them in an outdoor greenhouse at the Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve in Georgia, USA, with buckets from a hardware store, aquarium tubing, and pumps. Her tidal simulation units could be an important tool for preserving and restoring environmentally important wetlands, because they ...
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Groundwater patches play important role in forest health, water quality
Blacksburg, Virginia (SPX) Nov 05, 2014 -
Even during summer dry spells, some isolated patches of soil in forested watersheds remain waterlogged. These patches act as hot spots of microbial activity that remove nitrogen from groundwater and return it to the atmosphere, researchers from several institutions, including Virginia Tech, report in a leading scientific journal.
The discovery provides insight into the health of a forest. ...
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Forests lose essential nitrogen in surprising way
Ithaca NY (SPX) Nov 05, 2014 -
Even during summer dry spells, some patches of soil in forested watersheds remain waterlogged. Researchers have discovered that these patches act as hot spots of microbial activity that remove nitrogen from groundwater and return it to the atmosphere, as reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Nitrogen is a critically important nutrient for plant growth in the forest. ...
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India pulls warships from Kolkata as city on 'terror' alert
Kolkata (AFP) Nov 04, 2014 -
India's navy on Tuesday withdrew two warships from Kolkata's port, a spokesman said, as the eastern city was placed on high alert for a possible "terror" attack.
The navy said the ships had withdrawn for "prior operational reasons", although a port official indicated they had been due to take part in an exhibition on Wednesday.
"They had come there as part of preparations for the navy we ...
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Sediment supply drives floodplain evolution in Amazon Basin
Cardiff, UK (SPX) Nov 05, 2014 -
A new study of the Amazon River basin shows lowland rivers that carry large volumes of sediment meander more across floodplains and create more oxbow lakes than rivers that carry less sediment.
The findings have implication for the Amazonian river system, which may be significantly altered by proposed mega-dams that would disrupt sediment supplies.
Researchers from Cardiff University ...
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Chinese court upholds death sentences in Kunming attack: Xinhua
Beijing (AFP) Oct 31, 2014 -
A Chinese appeals court on Friday upheld death sentences for three people convicted over a mass stabbing that killed 31 people earlier this year, state media reported.
"The Higher People's Court of Yunnan Province rejected Hasayn Muhammad's appeal and upheld the penalty meted out by the Kunming Municipal Intermediate People's Court last month," Xinhua said in a brief dispatch from Kunming. ...
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Chile earthquake points to rock structures that affect ruptures
Liverpool, UK (SPX) Nov 05, 2014 -
Researchers from the University of Liverpool have found an unusual mass of rock deep in the active fault line beneath Chile which influenced the rupture size of a massive earthquake that struck the region in 2010.
The geological structure, which was not previously known about, is unusually dense and large for this depth in the Earth's crust.
The body was revealed using 3-D seismic im ...
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International meeting on Afghanistan pledges programmes: China
Beijing (AFP) Oct 31, 2014 -
China on Friday hailed an international conference on Afghanistan that it said agreed to launch dozens of programmes to boost development and help the country maintain peace as foreign forces draw down.
Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said that under a "Beijing Declaration" the meeting agreed to start 64 programmes covering issues such as trade, investment, infrastructure, disaster manageme ...
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New step towards eradication of H5N1 bird flu
Adelaide, Australia (SPX) Nov 05, 2014 -
A University of Adelaide-led project has developed a new test that can distinguish between birds that have been vaccinated against the H5N1 strain of avian influenza virus or "bird flu" with those that have been naturally infected.
This is a significant step in the fight against this often fatal strain of avian influenza which is widespread in the poultry populations of South East Asia, pa ...
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First Afghanistan foreign fighter in US for trial
Washington (AFP) Nov 04, 2014 -
A Russian was brought before a US court Tuesday to face terrorism-related charges after being held for years in Afghanistan as a suspected foreign fighter.
Irek Ilgiz Hamidullin, who was flown out of Afghanistan on Monday, was the first foreign detainee to be brought from there to the United States for trial.
US authorities unsealed an indictment charging Hamidullin with 12 counts of ter ...
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New aircraft for Royal New Zealand Air Force
Wellington, New Zealand (UPI) Nov 3, 2014 -
The Royal New Zealand Air Force reports it has officially accepted the fifth of 11 Beechcraft T-6C Texan II pilot training aircraft.
Four planes were accepted from Beechcraft Defense Systems earlier this year and seven others are scheduled for delivery by the middle of next year.
"The T-6C Texans are specialist military aircraft built for the purpose of training military pilots h ...
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France urges anti-IS coalition to help Aleppo rebels
Paris (AFP) Nov 04, 2014 -
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called Tuesday for the US-led coalition against the Islamic State group to help rebels in Syria's second city Aleppo hold out against the Damascus regime.
Fabius said the coalition should not battle IS to the exclusion of supporting rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad's regime, which he said had deliberately fuelled the jihadists' rise.
"After ...
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Russia lays keels for new submarines
St. Petersburg, Russia (UPI) Nov 3, 2014 -
The keels of two submarines destined to join Russia's Black Sea fleet have been laid in a special ceremony attended by the deputy commander of the Russian Navy.
JSC Admiralty Shipyards identified the vessels as the Veliky Novgorod and Kolpino, diesel-electric boats featuring acoustic stealth and an enhanced target detection range.
Other features include an inertial navigation sys ...
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