By Jake Spring BRASILIA (Reuters) – Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon fell 16 percent in the year to July 2017 compared to the same period a year prior, the first decline in three years, the country’s environment minister said on Tuesday. Reasons for the decline included stepped-up enforcement and refinements in real-time monitoring that allow for […]
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By Stephanie Kelly NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. state and city governments’ planning for natural disasters will become more critical to their credit quality as costs to deal with extreme weather events increase, S&P Global Ratings said in a report on Tuesday. “What we do expect is the severity of. these storms – in terms […]
Read More By Lisa Rapaport (Reuters Health) – Sick or injured men who receive blood transfusions may be more likely to die if their donor was a woman who has been pregnant in the past, a new study suggests. The reasons are unclear, and the study wasn’t focused on explaining them, but senior author Rutger Middelburg of […]
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By Ronnie Cohen (Reuters Health) – When pet owners need to flee from disasters like hurricanes and fires, they often think first of their animals, but a new study suggests a scarcity of pet-friendly emergency shelters could make older evacuees all the more vulnerable. The lack of sufficient emergency shelter to house evacuees along with […]
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By Axel Bugge and Andrei Khalip LISBON (Reuters) – A Portuguese opposition party launched a motion of no-confidence in the Socialist government on Tuesday over its failure to prevent the loss of human lives in this week’s lethal wildfires, the second such disaster in four months. Hundreds of fires have raged across northern and central […]
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By Alister Doyle OSLO (Reuters) – Fiji called on Tuesday for “absolute dedication” to the strictest limits on global warming as it prepares to preside over U.N. talks next month seeking to keep the Paris climate agreement on track despite a U.S. pullout. Fiji is hosting a preparatory meeting of delegates before the Nov. 6-17 […]
Read More By Emily Flitter NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Democratic congressman is asking the U.S. Interior Department to explain what happened to $400,000 officials there said they were withholding from a study about the health impacts of coal mining, according to a letter to the agency from the congressman, Raul Grijalva, released to the public on […]
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By Tommy Wilkes NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The Indian government ordered diesel generators and a power plant in Delhi to be shut down on Tuesday as air quality in the capital deteriorated ahead of the Hindu festival of lights, when a night of firecrackers sends pollution levels rocketing. Under a plan that imposes anti-pollution measures […]
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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Rights group Afriforum said on Tuesday it would privately prosecute Duduzane Zuma, the son of South Africa’s president, on a charge of culpable homicide over an accident in 2014 where one person was killed. The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) decided not to prosecute Duduzane after his Porsche 911 sports car ploughed into […]
Read More By Marc Frank HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuban food output stagnated during the first half of 2017, the government reported this week, and may decline this year because of damage from Hurricane Irma. The non-sugar agricultural sector, which has stagnated for a decade, further suffered through June from a severe drought and less input from the […]
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HANOI (Reuters) – Floods in Vietnam last week killed 83 people and 20 were missing, officials said on Tuesday, with thousands of homes submerged or destroyed and several towns cut off. The floods also damaged more than 22,000 hectares (54,300 acres) of rice but did not hit the coffee belt. The Southeast Asian nation is […]
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By Mayank Bhardwaj GUNTUR, India (Reuters) – One of India’s biggest cotton-growing states has formed a panel to investigate how 15 percent of the state’s cotton acreage has been planted with a non-approved genetically modified strain developed by Monsanto and may bring criminal charges. The three-member panel will investigate the usage of Monsanto’s Bollgard II […]
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