The world is hottest it has been since the end of the ice age - and the temperature's still rising
Report claims that by the year 2100 the earth will see temperatures not seen since the dawn of civilisation
The world is now warmer than at almost any time since the end of the last ice age and, on present trends, will continue to reach a record high for the entire period since the dawn of civilisation, a study has found.
A reconstruction of global temperatures going back 11,300 years, which covers the historical period from the founding of the first ancient cities to the space age, has concluded the biggest and most rapid change in the climate has occurred in the past century.
Australian uranium discovery threatens ancient indigenous cave art
A significant deposit has been found in a remote Australian mountain range near some of the oldest rock art on the plane
• Aboriginal rock art at risk from mining – interactive map
One of the world's biggest uranium producers has found a significant deposit in a remote tropical Australian mountain range near sandstone galleries holding some of the oldest and most spectacular rock art on the planet.
After years of drilling, Canadian-based mining company Cameco has reported the find in the Wellington Range, where the thousands of Aboriginal artworks adorning cliffs and caves include a painting of the extinct dog-like creature, the thylacine, made in a style that is at least 15,000 years old.
SOUTH AMERICA
Where does Venezuela stand without Chavez?
Latin America's leftists have lost an icon - and their sponsor. Cuba, Nicaragua and other nations fear dramatic economic repercussions. The US hopes for a new beginning.
Venezuela has lost its head of state and Latin America's left-wing bemoans the loss of an icon that forged a common identity. Chavez was also an existentially important financial ally for quite a few Central American and Caribbean states.
Hugo Chavez became an "enormously influential actor in the region, with a claim to supremacy in Latin America," Bettina Schorr of Berlin's Free University told Deutsche Welle. "That is something he actively promoted by granting oil shipments at reduced prices to Cuba and other Central American states," the expert said.
China pushes for Arctic foothold, from a thousand miles away
As global warming pushes back the Arctic Sea ice, uncovering new natural-resource deposits, China is looking to establish its presence in the north.
By Mike Eckel, Contributor / March 7, 2013
Way up above 66th parallel north, the jousting and jostling for the mother lode of oil, gas, mineral, fish, and other resources being exposed by the rapidly receding Arctic sea ice is well under way.
Russia is building a new class of nuclear icebreakers.Norway is charting fish-migration patterns for potential new fisheries. Canada is setting up a new Arctic training base and constructing a fleet of new patrol ships. US oil giants are angling to drill exploratory oil and gas wells. And China is sending its flagship icebreaker along the Northern Route.
Wait. China?
Not surprisingly, the eight nations that ring the planet’s northern cap – the United States, Canada, Russia,Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, and Denmark – are the ones who have largely driven the discussion about access in the Arctic. With the exception of periodic saber-rattling or polar tub-thumping (Exhibit A: Russia’s 2007 ocean-floor flag-planting stunt), the discussions have been amicable. That’s due in large part to the 17-year-old intergovernmental agency known as the Arctic Council, which has helped soften the edges of growing competition.
Japan
Mar 8, '13
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By Daniel Leussink
OKUMA, Japan - Two years after an accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant triggered the worlds' worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, decommissioning is set to begin. The threat of extremely hazardous radioactive contamination from the plant - which suffered a triple meltdown and hydrogen explosions - forced tens of thousands of farmers, families and elderly to evacuate from their homes.
The greatest danger has passed since those dark days. In December 2011, the Japanese government declared that the plant had reached a safe state of "cold shutdown". That was nine months after the March 11 magnitude 9 earthquake set the
accident in motion at this nuclear plant 250 kilometers north of Tokyo.
Radioactive contamination levels on site remain extremely high, making the decommissioning of the plant a Herculean task for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco). The conditions at reactors 1, 2 and 3 remain too severe for workers to enter. Decommissioning is going to take more than a quarter of a century, says Tepco.
Tensions rise in Kenyan election
By ,
NAIROBI — Kenya’s presidential election, beset by technical glitches and vote-tallying delays, was thrown into more disarray Thursday after the party of one of the top contenders alleged that preliminary results were fraudulent and called for the vote count to be halted.
The allegations by Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s party come as his main rival, Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, is leading the race by 53 percent to 41 percent, with about half of the votes counted.
“We have evidence that results we have been receiving have actually been doctored,” Kalonzo Musyoka, Odinga’s running mate, told reporters Thursday in the capital, Nairobi. “The national vote tallying process lacks integrity and has to be stopped.”
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