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| MINE BECOMES LAKE, SWALLOWS BUILDING A residential building and a road on the shoreline of a lake in a German village, Nachterstedt, collapsed on July 19. Three people are missing. Officials said the area had received some rain, but it is more likely that opencast coal mining in the past had made the land unstable. The lake was formed after the mine closed in 1991. |
The governor of Egypt's port city Suez ordered the prosecution of bird flu patients
on the charges of raising the birds and harming themselves as well as others. If children are infected, their family will be prosecuted, he
said. who has launched clinical trials for moxidectin drug
that could halve the treatment period for river blindness. Existing treatment for the disease, which threatens 100 million people mostly in Africa,
goes on for 14 years. Benin declared a state of emergency after heavy rains displaced thousands of
people in the country. Heavy rains also pounded Namibia, which has appealed for international food aid. China's health ministry banned the use of electric shock therapy for treating Internet
addiction, after a study raised doubts about the therapy's efficacy. Ten per cent of the 40 million Chinese children using the Internet are hooked
to it. Russian mini-submarines studying Siberia's Baikal Lake have discovered a reserve
of gas hydrates-- possible alternative to oil and gas. Scientists said it is the largest deposit found yet. A Kuwaiti company plans to buy up farmland in Cambodia. Unlike the wealthy Gulf
states that are acquiring land in poor countries to produce food at a low cost for their own people, the company said it would sell produce to
anyone who can pay for it. Vietnam police seized a frozen young tiger from a taxi in the capital Hanoi. They
also seized 11 kg of limb bones believed to be from two tigers. This is the third such seizure this year. Mongolia suspended licences of several foreign companies, mostly from Canada,
for violating environmental laws. The prime minister said he wanted countries like Japan to invest as their technologies do not harm the
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Authorities of Killarney national park in Ireland banned horse-drawn carts after their
owners refused to use diapers to deal with the dung fouling park roads. Ten mobile phone manufacturers of the EU, including Apple, LG, Nokia, Samsung
and Sony Ericsson, agreed to make phones that can be charged using a standard charger. The effort, they said, is to be environment
friendly. Twelve European blue chip firms formed a consortium, Desertec, to set up a giant
solar thermal power plant in Africa's Sahara desert and transport the electricity to Europe. The US $570 billion project would meet 15 per cent
of the EU's power needs. Critics say the project is not cost effective. Venezuela's education ministry opened 1,104 classrooms to provide education to
18,000 disabled citizens. This is the first time the government doled out funds for special education. About 336,000 people in the country are
disabled. Thirty of the 33 mummies discovered in Peru in 2007 are those of girls, said Utah
Valley University professor Haagen Klaus who has been examining the remains.
The girls were most likely killed 600 years ago in the belief to
bring fertility to the farmlands, Klaus said. The US Department of Agriculture received 17,000 public comments rejecting a plan
to conduct field trials of genetically engineered eucalyptus trees across seven states. Opponents said the government must carry out an
environmental impact study of the plan. About 17,000 people in Canada's British Columbia province fled homes after
wildfires engulfed the city of Kelowna on July 19. An amateur Australian astronomer discovered that a rare comet or asteroid had
crashed into Jupiter, leaving a crater as large as Earth. nasa has confirmed it. People in Asia witnessed the longest solar eclipse of this century on July 22. It was
visible along a 250 km-wide corridor from India to China. It lasted a maximum of 6 minutes, 39 seconds over the Pacific, said nasa.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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