Environment

• Thursday, January 2nd 2014 - 16:00 UTC

  China starts to build its fourth Antarctica base: more planned

  

  Just days after the Chinese rover Jade Rabbit settled down on the moon, China is setting out to bolster its presence in another remote place: Antarctica. Chinese state media said on Thursday that construction workers are en route to the future site of China’s fourth Antarctic research station, after a pit stop at one of its other bases.

• Thursday, January 2nd 2014 - 15:49 UTC

  Chinese helicopter rescues stranded passengers from Russian vessel trapped in Antarctic ice

  

  A Chinese helicopter reached on Thursday a Russian ship stranded in Antarctica for nine days to pick up 52 passengers who spent Christmas and the New Year trapped in ice, the expedition leader has said.

• Friday, December 27th 2013 - 05:28 UTC

  Blackouts continue in Argentina while government keeps threatening power distributors

  

  Blackouts continued in several neighborhoods of Argentina's metropolitan Buenos Aires area while protests increased including pickets in highways, attempts to set on fire power distributors offices or kidnap power companies' officers while the only resource from government has been to blame companies and threaten to take over utilities.

• Friday, December 27th 2013 - 05:01 UTC

  UK Met Office will offer daily forecasts about the weather in space: solar storms the target

  

  The United Kingdom Met Office is to begin offering daily forecasts about the weather in space. The 24 hour service will aim to help businesses and government departments by providing early warnings of solar storms that can disrupt satellites, radio communications and power grids. The first forecast is expected to be available next spring.

• Thursday, December 26th 2013 - 08:43 UTC

  Virus kills over 1.000 migratory bottleneck dolphins in US eastern seaboard

  

  More than 1,000 migratory bottlenose dolphins have died from a measles-like virus along the US Eastern Seaboard in 2013 and the epidemic shows no sign of abating, a marine biologist said. The death toll exceeds the 740 dolphins killed during the last big outbreak of the then-unknown virus in 1987-88.

• Thursday, December 26th 2013 - 07:31 UTC

  Gazprom confirms in has started production at Prirazlomnoye field on the Arctic shelf

  

  Gazprom has started producing oil from the Prirazlomnoye field, which is the first Russian project for developing the Arctic shelf and the commencement of their large-scale activities aimed at creating a large hydrocarbon production center in the region, according to the company.

• Wednesday, December 25th 2013 - 22:03 UTC

  Three icebreakers to the rescue of Antarctica trapped Russia's 'Akademic Shokalskiy'

  

  Seventy four people spent Christmas aboard a cruise ship that has become stuck in the ice in a remote region off the coast of Antarctica and rescue vessels are at least two days away, according to Australian maritime officials. Three icebreakers are sailing to the rescue.

• Friday, December 20th 2013 - 06:20 UTC

  November, warmest month since modern temperature record keeping began in 1880

  

  Last month was the warmest November since modern temperature record keeping began in 1880, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced in its latest State of the Climate Report, which summarizes climate-related news from around the world.

• Wednesday, December 18th 2013 - 07:15 UTC

  Heat wave in Argentina collapses power grid: thousands with no energy or water

  

  People out in the streets banging pots and pans, or protesting burning tires and garbage containers in powerless neighborhoods, while an estimated 30.000 businesses in Buenos Aires City and metropolitan area are organizing demanding compensation for losses suffered because of the collapse of the power distribution system overwhelmed by an extraordinary heat wave with temperatures in the high thirties and low forties.

• Wednesday, December 18th 2013 - 07:05 UTC

  Kimberlite rocks found in Antarctica could mean the territory is rich in diamonds

  

  The prospect that Antarctica could be rich in diamonds was published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, following the discovery by a team of a telltale rock called kimberlite in the Prince Charles Mountains in East Antarctica.