Rideau has not turned into world’s long ice rink as usual, laying bare unpredictable realities of climate crisis
Every winter for more than two decades, Chris Macknie has laced up boots, clipped on skis or slipped on running shoes to compete in Ottawa’s Winterlude triathlon.
The event, held in dead of winter, has hundreds skate along the frozen Rideau canal, swapping out their blades for nordic skis and then finish with a run.
Continue reading...Bolivian man says it helped that he knew survival techniques after becoming separated from friends on hunting trip in January
A Bolivian man who claimed to have been missing in the Amazon alone for a month has recounted eating insects and worms, collecting water in his boots and drinking his own urine to stay alive.
If confirmed, this could make Jhonatan Acosta, 30, one of the longest-ever lone Amazon survivors.
Continue reading...The 1.6-metre statue has been described as ‘full-bodied with recognisable features but no clear definition’
A new moai – one of Easter Island’s iconic monolithic statues – has been found in the bed of a dry lake in a volcano crater, the Indigenous community that administers the site on the Chilean island has said.
The statue was found on 21 February by a team of scientific volunteers from three Chilean universities who were collaborating on a project to restore the marshland in the crater inside the Rano Raraku volcano.
Continue reading...The involvement of overseas foes in ‘anomalous health incidents’ suffered by US diplomats and spies was deemed ‘very unlikely’
The mysterious set of symptoms known as “Havana syndrome” was not caused by an energy weapon or foreign adversary, US intelligence has concluded.
The assessment concludes a multi-year investigation into approximately 1,000 “anomalous health incidents” (AHIs) among US diplomats, spies and other employees in US embassies and missions around the world.
Continue reading...Study adds to fears Amazon is approaching tipping point after which it will not be able to generate its own rainfall
For the first time researchers have proven a clear correlation between deforestation and regional precipitation. Scientists hope it may encourage agricultural companies and governments in the Amazon and Congo basin regions and south-east Asia to invest more in protecting trees and other vegetation.
The study found that the more rainforests are cleared in tropical countries, the less local farmers will be able to depend on rain for their crops and pastures.
Continue reading...Patients in New Brunswick with array of symptoms ‘show signs of exposure to glyphosate’, says neurologist
A neurologist who believes his patients are suffering from a suspicious illness has pleaded with the Canadian government to carry out environmental testing he thinks will show the involvement of the herbicide glyphosate.
For more than two years, dozens of people in the Canadian province of New Brunswick have experienced a distressing array of neurological symptoms, initially prompting speculation that they had developed an unknown degenerative illness – and that figure is believed to be far higher than official reports.
Continue reading...EU and parts of US already block access to Chinese-owned app amid concerns over data privacy and security
Canada has joined the US and EU in enacting a sweeping ban preventing TikTok from being installed on all government-issued mobile devices, as western officials take action over the Chinese-owned video-sharing app.
Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, did not rule out further action. “I suspect that as government takes the significant step of telling all federal employees that they can no longer use TikTok on their work phones, many Canadians from business to private individuals will reflect on the security of their own data and perhaps make choices,” he said.
Continue reading...An elite unit is on a mission to expel the illegal miners who devastated Yanomami territory during Bolsonaro’s presidency
For the last four years Brazil’s rainforests bled. “They bled like never before,” said Felipe Finger as he prepared to venture into the jungle with his assault rifle to staunch the environmental carnage inflicted on the Amazon under the former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.
Moments later Finger, a mettlesome special forces commander for Brazil’s environmental protection agency, Ibama, was airborne in a single-engine helicopter, hurtling over the forest canopy towards the frontline of a ferocious war on nature and the Indigenous peoples who lived here long before Portuguese explorers arrived more than 500 years ago.
Continue reading...Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the photo appeared to show an alux, a creature from Yucatán folklore
Mexico’s president posted a photo on his social media accounts on Saturday showing what he said appeared to be a mythological woodland spirit similar to an elf.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador did not seem to be joking when he posted the photo of an alux, a mischievous woodland spirit in Maya folklore.
Continue reading...Alessandra Sampaio preparing to visit remote area where husband and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira were murdered last year
The widow of British journalist Dom Phillips has spoken of her desire to raise awareness of the urgent and complex crisis facing the Amazon as she prepared to visit the remote jungle region where he was murdered last year with the Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira.
Alessandra Sampaio will travel to the Javari valley region on Monday with a delegation of Brazilian ministers, officials and activists as well as the British ambassador Stephanie Al-Qaq.
Continue reading...Around 2,000 inmates transferred on Friday as part of president’s crime crackdown
El Salvador’s government has moved thousands of suspected gang members to a newly opened “megaprison”, the latest step in a controversial crackdown on crime that has caused the Central American nation’s prison population to soar.
“This will be their new home, where they won’t be able to do any more harm to the population,” the president, Nayib Bukele, wrote on Twitter.
Continue reading...Steven Guilbeault wants to block logging of critical old-growth forest to prevent owls from going extinct in British Columbia
Canada’s environment minister plans to use a rare emergency order to protect the last of an endangered owl species in an area where critical old-growth forest is slated for further clearcutting.
Steven Guilbeault advised the environmental groups Ecojustice and the Wilderness Committee that he believed the spotted owl was facing “imminent threats to its survival” and he would use the powers to block further destruction of its habitat in British Columbia, the groups announced on Thursday afternoon.
Continue reading...Australia swelters while in Brazil there have been record downpours
Southern Australia has recorded significant heat over the past week with maximum temperatures widely reaching in excess of 35C (95F), as well as more than 10C above the climatological average. Many stations in the south, across Western Australia and South Australia, recorded temperatures in excess of 40C with Eucla and Red Rock Points recording their highest February temperature of 46.8C on 22 February. Two large blocking high pressure systems south and west of Australia have allowed heat to stall across western and southern parts. This will be pushed further eastwards through this week, although lessening in severity.
In addition to this, many parts of the west coast have had high sea surface temperature anomalies throughout February, about 1-2C above normal. Because of this there is a chance that further cyclogenesis off the north-west coast may take place in the coming weeks – bringing further tropical storms.
Continue reading...Dozens missing in south-eastern São Paulo state as rescue crews search for bodies in the rubble of homes
Search and rescue teams raced to find dozens of people that remained missing after heavy rains devastated coastal areas of Brazil’s south-eastern São Paulo state, as the official death toll rose to 48.
“We are currently working with a tally of at least 38 missing people,” the São Paulo governor, Tarcísio de Freitas, told reporters on Wednesday, as weather forecasters cautioned more rain was on its way.
Continue reading...Garcia Luna took millions in bribes from Sinaloa gang, Brooklyn corruption trial told
A former Mexican law enforcement official once in charge of the fight against drug traffickers has been convicted at a US corruption trial over his ties to the Sinaloa cartel.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said Genaro Garcia Luna accepted millions of dollars in bribes from the cartel once run by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman in exchange for protection from arrest, safe passage for cocaine shipments and tipoffs about forthcoming law enforcement operations.
Continue reading...Cities cancel carnival festivities as rescue workers search for victims and clear roads
At least 36 people have died and dozens are missing after torrential rain brought flooding and landslides to coastal areas of south-east Brazil over the weekend as the country geared up for its annual carnival celebrations.
Rescue efforts continued in São Paulo state on Monday as more than 500 workers searched for victims, cleared roads and tried to reconnect isolated communities.
Continue reading...Authorities have blamed the growing of coca – the base ingredient of cocaine – for clearcutting, but a recent study shows otherwise
Cattle-ranching, not cocaine, has driven the destruction of the Colombian Amazon over the last four decades, a new study has found.
Successive recent governments have used environmental concerns to justify ramping up their war on the green shrub, but the research shows that in 2018 the amount of forest cleared to cultivate coca, the base ingredient of cocaine, was only 1/60th of that used for cattle.
Continue reading...Victims – among them environmental defender Edwin Chota – were tortured before their deaths in Peruvian Amazon in 2014
Five illegal loggers in Peru have been given 28-year jail sentences for the murder of four Indigenous leaders, among them the prominent anti-logging campaigner Edwin Chota, in a rare win for environmental justice.
Nearly eight years after the 2014 quadruple murder, a court in Pucallpa in the Peruvian Amazon found the loggers, Eurico Mapes Gómez and the brothers Segundo and Josimar Atachi Félix, guilty of aggravated homicide against the leaders, and sentenced them on Thursday to 28 years and three months in prison.
Continue reading...SSW phenomenon is linked to polar vortex, an area of low pressure across the North Pole
There has been keen interest over recent weeks in the much-anticipated sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) event, which only began this week but is now well under way. The SSW phenomenon is linked to the polar vortex, an area of low pressure across the North Pole that forms within the stratosphere during autumn, as temperatures plummet in the absence of solar radiation.
SSW events are very common and occur two in every three winters. It remains unclear how climate change will affect these events in the future. As the vortex develops during autumn and into winter, westerly stratospheric winds increase in strength. But in the event of a SSW episode, stratospheric temperatures rise rapidly in the space of only a few days, leading to the weakening or even reversal of these winds. The zonal mean winds at 10hPa pressure – about 30km high – turned to an easterly direction on 15 Wednesday February, significantly displacing the polar vortex away from the North Pole. The vortex and zonal winds are forecast to stay much weaker than normal for the remainder of February and into the first half of March.
Continue reading...In a damning report, human rights group says state permitted ‘excessive and lethal use of force’ against Indigenous groups
Peru used “excessive and lethal force” driven by “marked racist bias” against a largely indigenous and campesino population, Amnesty International has concluded, following an investigation into more than two months of anti-government protests which have claimed at least 60 lives.
An Amnesty International fact-finding mission investigated 46 possible cases of human rights violations and documented 12 cases of deaths from the use of firearms – all the victims appeared to have been shot in the chest, torso or head – following visits to the capital Lima and the southern cities of Chincheros, Ayacucho and Andahuaylas.
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