Spain, US in new accord on nuclear accident site cleanup
Madrid (AFP) Oct 19, 2015 -
Washington and Madrid have reached a new agreement in principle for the United States to clean up land contaminated by radiation from undetonated nuclear bombs that accidentally fell on a site in southern Spain in 1966, a joint statement said Monday.
The two sides "intend to negotiate a binding agreement for a cooperative effort to conduct further remediation of the Palomares site and arrang ...
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West prepares to end sanctions as Iran deal adopted
Washington (AFP) Oct 19, 2015 -
The United States and Europe began preparing to lift the trade sanctions that have hobbled the Iranian economy on Sunday, as a historic nuclear deal came into effect.
The procedure to lift the embargo began 90 days after the UN Security Council endorsed the accord signed in Vienna in July, a milestone referred to as "Adoption Day."
But foreign firms will not be able to resume ties with I ...
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Syria 2015: Spain 1938 or Sarajevo June 1914?
Washington DC (UPI) Oct 18, 2015 -
Russia's military intervention in Syria has opened a Pandora's box of potential crises and frightening scenarios as well as hinting at the slimmest glimmer of an opportunity.
Backing Bashar al Assad along with Shia Iran, Russian President Vladimir Putin has, knowingly or not, declared a de facto war against the Sunnis. Certainly Saudi Arabia thinks so. Many Saudi clerics have issued fat ...
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India, US hold naval exercise with Japan as ties grow
New Delhi (AFP) Oct 19, 2015 -
India, the United States and Japan on Monday wrapped up six days of naval exercises, reflecting closer military ties that are seen as a counterweight to growing Chinese influence in the region.
It is the second consecutive year Japan's Maritime Self-Defence Force (MSDF) has taken part in the Malabar Exercise, conducted annually by the US and India off the Andamans archipelago in the Bay of B ...
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New Details Emergy About China's Military Space Program
Moscow (Sputnik) Oct 20, 2015 -
New details about China's space-weapons program have been released ahead of a congressional annual report outlining Beijing's plans to destroy or jam US satellites and limit American combat operations.
The final report by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission examining China's programs, dubbed counterspace arms, is due to be published next month.
A late draft of the co ...
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Thousands flee as Typhoon Koppu hits northern Philippines
Manila (AFP) Oct 18, 2015 -
Powerful Typhoon Koppu wrecked houses, tore down trees and unleashed landslides and floods, forcing thousands to flee as it pummelled the northern Philippines Sunday, officials said.
No casualties were reported but more than 15,000 people were evacuated from their homes, with more expected to flee as the slow-moving storm grinds its way northwards across the main island of Luzon before it is ...
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Malaysia again shuts schools due to Indonesia smoke haze
Kuala Lumpur (AFP) Oct 19, 2015 -
Malaysia closed schools in several states and the capital Kuala Lumpur on Monday due to choking smoke from Indonesian slash-and-burn farming that has smothered much of Southeast Asia in smog for weeks.
Malaysia has repeatedly ordered students to stay home as a health precaution as the current smog problem - an annual dry-season occurrence - has become one of the worst in years, exacerbated ...
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Fuel crisis halts aid supplies to quake-hit Nepalis
Kathmandu (AFP) Oct 18, 2015 -
After months in makeshift shelters, earthquake victim Bhim Bahadur Gurung is desperate to start rebuilding his house ahead of Nepal's biting winter, but a fuel blockade has left him unable to obtain vital construction supplies.
Nearly six months after a 7.8-magnitude quake killed almost 8,900 people and destroyed about half a million homes, thousands of survivors are still living in tents an ...
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El Nino brings rain to California but won't end drought
Los Angeles (AFP) Oct 19, 2015 -
The El Nino weather phenomenon is likely to drench California for some time to come and trigger floods, but it still won't end the state's severe drought, experts say.
Torrential rain has triggered chaos in parts of the West Coast region in recent days.
Some 200 vehicles were stuck on highways in central California late last week amid a deluge of water, mud and debris.
The deluge lef ...
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Slovenia to deploy army for migrant 'logistics support'
Petisovci, Slovenia (AFP) Oct 17, 2015 -
Slovenia said Saturday it would deploy soldiers to assist police "with logistics and equipment" at the border with Croatia to help tackle the influx of migrants arriving after Hungary shut its frontier.
"The army's assistance does not mean there is an extraordinary situation in Slovenia, but that the government wants to manage the situation at the border. It will only assist police with log ...
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China Communist Party expels safety chief after Tianjin blasts
Beijing (AFP) Oct 16, 2015 -
The former head of China's work safety authority has been ousted from the ruling Communist Party for corruption, its anti-graft watchdog said Friday, after giant explosions in Tianjin that killed at least 165.
Yang Dongliang, 61, was removed as director of the State Administration of Work Safety two weeks after a series of detonations at a dangerous chemicals storage facility rocked the nort ...
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Ten big energy firms vow to fight climate change
Paris (AFP) Oct 16, 2015 -
Ten of the world's leading oil and gas companies vowed Friday to help fight climate change, notably by shifting towards cleaner natural gas, but their promise was dismissed by Greenpeace as a public relations ploy.
The initiative to limit climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions comes six weeks ahead of a critical summit in Paris to negotiate a global climate rescue pact.
"We are commit ...
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Indonesia launches biggest operation ever to combat fires
Jakarta (AFP) Oct 16, 2015 -
Indonesia launched Friday its biggest operation ever to combat fires blanketing Southeast Asia in haze, an official said, with dozens of planes and thousands of troops battling the widespread blazes.
Thirty-two planes and helicopters - including six aircraft from Singapore, Malaysia and Australia - were dispatched to back up the more than 22,000 personnel on the ground who have been fighti ...
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Typhoon kills at least 16 in Philippines, strands thousands
Santa Rosa, Philippines (AFP) Oct 19, 2015 -
Residents of flooded farming villages in the Philippines were trapped on their rooftops on Monday and animals floated down fast-rising rivers, as the death toll from Typhoon Koppu climbed to 16.
Koppu, the second strongest storm to hit the disaster-plagued Southeast Asian archipelago this year, had also forced more than 60,000 people from their homes, authorities said.
After making landf ...
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Swiss parliament shifts to right in vote dominated by migrant fears
Geneva (AFP) Oct 19, 2015 -
Swiss voters swung to the right in parliamentary elections on Sunday dominated by concerns over Europe's migrant crisis, with the country's largest party winning a record number of seats.
The populist Swiss People's Party (SVP), known for its virulent campaigns against immigration, the European Union and Islam, won 65 of the 200 seats in the lower house, up from the current 54, and saw its s ...
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Syria's Arctic seed vault relocated to Morocco, Lebanon
Rabat, Morocco (UPI) Oct 19, 2015 -
Nearly 40,000 seeds originally from Syria have been safely transferred from a so-called seed vault, located on Norway's Svalbard archipelago, inside the Arctic Circle, to Morocco and Lebanon.
The Global Seed Vault, sometimes called the "doomsday vault," holds the seeds of some 860,000 crop and plant varieties. The International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas - which ...
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SE Asia haze 'could last until year-end'
Kuala Lumpur (AFP) Oct 19, 2015 -
The haze suffocating Southeast Asia could last for another month, Malaysia's environment minister warned Monday, while a forestry expert said it could even take until year-end to clear the air.
Indonesia earlier this month agreed to accept international help after failing for weeks to douse fires from slash-and-burn farming that have shrouded angry neighbours Malaysia and Singapore in smoke. ...
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Calais mayor raises prospect of army intervention in migrant slum
Lille, France (AFP) Oct 19, 2015 -
The mayor of Calais on Monday raised the prospect of bringing in the army to watch over a slum where some 6,000 migrants and refugees are camped out in dire conditions.
The so-called "New Jungle" camp, which is around an hour away on foot from the centre of the northern French port city, has swelled in size over recent months as more and more migrants arrive, wanting to cross over to Britain ...
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Third ancient spearhead found on N.J. shore
Trenton, N.J. (UPI) Oct 17, 2015 -
Another spearhead believed to be handmade by Native Americans at least 10,000 years ago has been found along the New Jersey coastline.
New Jersey native Audrey Stanick discovered a dark, pointed object while gathering sea glass early this month in Seaside Heights. The find, according to state museum scientists, is a projectile point thought to have donned Paleoindian spears thousands of ...
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Vast Antarctic marine reserves in focus at Australia talks
Sydney (AFP) Oct 19, 2015 -
Campaigners Monday urged global leaders to put aside differences and create two vast Antarctic marine sanctuaries to protect one of the world's last untouched wildernesses and a unique array of species including whales and giant squid.
The fate of the plans to shield critical areas of ocean around the frozen continent is in the hands of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine ...
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Climate talks teeter as developing nations cry foul
Bonn (AFP) Oct 19, 2015 -
Developing nations accused rich ones Monday of sidelining their interests at crunch climate talks, as the UN chief and France's president beat the drum for an ambitious global deal.
A South Africa negotiator for a developing country bloc complained of "apartheid" treatment at the hands of developed nations at a meeting in Bonn, while UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described the process as ...
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Alaskan boreal forest fires release more carbon than the trees can absorb
Champaign IL (SPX) Oct 20, 2015 -
A new analysis of fire activity in Alaska's Yukon Flats finds that so many forest fires are occurring there that the area has become a net exporter of carbon to the atmosphere. This is worrisome, the researchers say, because arctic and subarctic boreal forests like those of the Yukon Flats contain roughly one-third of the Earth's terrestrial carbon stores.
The research is reported in the j ...
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Plant sugar transporter involved in carbon sequestration
Stanford CA (SPX) Oct 20, 2015 -
Like humans, plants are surrounded by and closely associated with microbes. The majority of these microbes are beneficial, but some can cause devastating disease. Maintaining the balance between them is critical. Plants feed these microbes, and it's thought that they do so just enough to allow the good ones to grow and to prevent the bad ones from gaining strength. This system of microbe feeding ...
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Carbon sequestration in soil: The potential underfoot
Vienna, Austria (SPX) Oct 20, 2015 -
A new study published in the journal Global Environmental Change projects that carbon sequestration in European cropland could store between 9 and 38 megatons of carbon dioxide (MtCO2) per year in the soil, or as much as 7% of the annual greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture in the European Union, at a price of carbon of 100 $/tCO2.
"However, if strict emission reduction targets are on ...
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New crystal captures carbon from humid gas
Stockholm, Sweden (SPX) Oct 16, 2015 -
A new material with micropores might be a way to fight climate change. Scientists have created crystals that capture carbon dioxide much more efficiently than previously known materials, even in the presence of water.
One way to mitigate climate change could be to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air. So far this has been difficult, since the presence of water prevents the adsorption ...
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