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| MALDIVES CABINET GOES UNDERWATER President of Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, and his cabinet ministers held an underwater meeting on October 17 to grab the global attention that the low-lying nation would submerge by 2100 due to rising sea levels linked to greenhouse gas emissions. They signed a resolution calling for emission cuts worldwide. During the 30-minute meeting, they used hand signals and white boards to communicate. |
Kenya faces a nation-wide shortage of anti-retroviral drugs following of a
court case. The countrys high court barred the health ministry from procuring the medication after a consortium of drug suppliers challenged the
tender process. Uganda lifted a decades-old ban on big game hunting saying it wants to
boost tourism revenue and contain the population of elephants, buffalos and zebras. Activists said the countrys wildlife population is yet to
recover from years of war. While Zimbawes broke government is yet to fix dilapidated sanitation and
water infrastructure, cholera has again struck the country, killing five and infecting hundreds. An earlier outbreak that began in August 2008
lasted for a year and killed 4,000 people. Two weeks after a tsunami in the Pacific Ocean hit Samoa, American
Samoa, Tonga and Sumatra, 18 Indian Ocean countries held a mass drill as part of a UN-backed exercise to test their early warning systems.
About 100,000 people in northern Iraq have abandoned their homes since 2005
because of drought, said unesco. Russia signed a US $3.5-billion deal to supply 70 billion cubic metres of gas a year
to China. Trade between the countries has risen from US $10 billion to US $50 billion over six years, primarily due to Beijings rising
energy demand. French authorities arrested a physicist who worked for years at cern, a nuclear research centre in Switzer-land, on suspicion of links to the militant group al-Qaeda. The 32-year-old
Frenchman of Algerian origin was one of 7,000 scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider. Germans new coalition government plans to reverse an earlier decision to abandon
nuclear power by 2020. Belgium also said it would keep its nuclear power plants running for another decade instead of phasing them
out by 2015. Cyanide-laced waste water poisoned UKs river Tent killing tens of thousands of fish.
Environment agency officials who are cleaning the 30-mile stretch of the river and pumping oxygen into it blamed a metal producing plant for the
cyanide leak. Scientists have found 32 new planets orbiting stars outside our solar
system. The planets range in size from five times the size of Earth to five times the size of Jupiter. This brings the number of total known
exoplanets to 400, said Geneva Observatory in Switzerland. | HEAT EXCHANGE | |
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Bolivia said it will not partner with foreign companies to produce lithium
carbonate, the main component of batteries for cell phones to cars. It is building a pilot plant at the Salar de Uyuni salt flats, believed to be the
worlds largest lithium reserve. The US Senate finance committee approved a bill to reform the countrys
healthcare system. It is a key step in President Barack Obamas attempt to push the bill through Congress. The bill aims to cut
healthcare costs and provide health insurance to all Americans. 
Researchers from Yale University in usa have developed a cocaine vaccine that can reduce the use of the drugs among
addicts. The vaccine raises anti-cocaine antibody levels in the body thereby inactivating the drugs effect. Canadian health officials reported the first case of turkeys catching swine
flu. It is the human swine flu virus, they said, and urged farm workers to get vaccinated. A second attempt to plug an oil spill from the West Atlas drilling rig, 200km
off West Australia, failed. Rig operators said capping the 25cm breach beneath the seabed is a complex task. Up to 400 barrels of oil are
flowing into Timor Sea every day since an accident caused the breach in August. International Air Transport Association has pledged to cut its carbon
emissions to half by 2050 compared to 2005 levels. It also pledged to improve fuel efficiency by 1.5 per cent annually till 2020. We are a voice to you; you have been a support to us. Together we build journalism that is independent, credible and fearless. You can further help us by making a donation. This will mean a lot for our ability to bring you news, perspectives and analysis from the ground so that we can make change together.
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