Stories for September 15th 2020

Tuesday, September 15th 2020 - 09:50 UTC
Huge calving at the Arctic ice shelf: the massive chunk is larger than Paris

A massive chunk of ice - larger than the city of Paris - has broken off from the Arctic's largest ice shelf because of warmer temperatures in Greenland, scientists said on Monday. The 113 sq km block broke off the Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden glacier in Northeast Greenland, which the scientists said had been expected given the rising average temperatures.
Tuesday, September 15th 2020 - 09:40 UTC
AstraZeneca Oxford University Covid-19 vaccine trials resume in Brazil

Clinical trials for the coronavirus vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca PLC and Oxford University resumed in Brazil on Monday after the country’s health regulator got confirmation over the weekend that its British equivalent MHRA had approved the restart, a company representative said.
Tuesday, September 15th 2020 - 09:19 UTC
Ecological disaster: fires destroying Brazil's wetlands suffering the worst drought in 47 years

Fires are raging in the wetlands of west-central Brazil, leaving behind a vast swath of charred ruins in a paradise of biodiversity. The enormous fires have destroyed nearly 12% of the world’s largest tropical wetland, partially reducing to ashes one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on the planet.
Tuesday, September 15th 2020 - 09:11 UTC
Lula charged with money laundering bribes from Odebrecht

Prosecutors in Brazil's sprawling Car Wash corruption investigation on Monday charged former President Lula da Silva with money laundering, less than a year after the country's top court ordered him freed from jail while he appealed his conviction in another case.
Tuesday, September 15th 2020 - 09:10 UTC
Trump denies climate change in California; Biden called him a “climate arsonist”

President Donald Trump on Monday suggested global warming will reverse itself and dismissed climate change as a cause of ferocious fires engulfing swaths of the US West, during a briefing in California on the deadly blazes.
Tuesday, September 15th 2020 - 09:09 UTC
Falklands restored peatlands could become a piggy bank, University of Manchester paper

A new study by the UK Center for Ecology and Hydrology suggests that restoring the Falkland Island peatlands could lead to up to £47 million worth of carbon offsets. The findings came in a report co-authored by Jonathan Ritson, a Research Associate at the University of Manchester.
Tuesday, September 15th 2020 - 09:02 UTC
Picardo reiterates ‘not an inch’ of Gibraltar will be given away during Brexit negotiations

The Government of Gibraltar warns over media speculation arising from reports in the Spanish press, as Gibraltar enters the final stages of Brexit negotiations before the December deadline.
Tuesday, September 15th 2020 - 09:00 UTC
Southern Brazil leads in exports of live cattle: US$ 111 million in seven months

The port of Rio Grande in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul is shipping 4,000 head of cattle for Lebanon and 22,000 destined for Turkey, totaling 26,000 animals to be exported.
Tuesday, September 15th 2020 - 08:56 UTC
Pompeo announces US ambassador to Beijing is stepping down

The US ambassador to China, Terry Branstad, is stepping down, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Monday. Thanking Branstad for his service, Pompeo said in a tweet that he had “contributed to rebalancing US-China relations so that it is results-oriented, reciprocal, and fair”.
Tuesday, September 15th 2020 - 08:39 UTC
WHO emphasizes the care of the elderly as a “rights issue”

The World Health Organization's emergencies chief said on Monday that we need to fundamentally rethink our relationship with the elderly after huge losses to COVID-19 in nursing homes across the world “robbed us of a generation of wisdom.”