International

• Thursday, April 2nd 2020 - 07:55 UTC

  Antarctica some 90 million years ago was a temperate, swampy rainforest

  

  Antarctica is now a harsh land of ice and snow but has not always been that way. Earth's southernmost continent long ago was home to temperate, swampy rainforests teeming with life, scientists said on Wednesday based on pristinely preserved forest soil they retrieved by drilling under the seafloor off Antarctica's coast.

• Thursday, April 2nd 2020 - 07:51 UTC

  Carnival Cruises raises US$ 6,25bn in new debt and equity but at very high cost

  

  Carnival Corp, the world's largest cruise operator, said it has raised US$6.25 billion by issuing new debt and equity on Wednesday, borrowing at a high cost to weather the economic storm of the coronavirus pandemic.

• Thursday, April 2nd 2020 - 07:49 UTC

  Two US babies coronavirus deaths surprise the medical community

  

  A six-week-old infant has died of complications relating to COVID-19, the governor of the US state of Connecticut said on Wednesday, in one of the youngest recorded deaths from the virus. Governor Ned Lamont tweeted that the newborn was “brought unresponsive to a hospital late last week and could not be revived”.

• Thursday, April 2nd 2020 - 07:36 UTC

  Mitigating impacts of Covid-19 on food trade and markets

  

  The following is the statement by FAO's chief Qu Donguy, WHO's Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyseus and WTO's director-general Roberto Azevedo.

• Thursday, April 2nd 2020 - 07:16 UTC

  Australia to check some 9.000 crew in cruise ships stranded near Sydney

  

  Australian police and military will soon begin flying doctors to several cruise ships stranded near Sydney to assess nearly 9,000 crew for COVID-19, officials said on Thursday.

• Wednesday, April 1st 2020 - 18:23 UTC

  Guatemala/Belize dispute, a potential second front during the Falklands conflict?

  

  The Falklands War, a 10-week undeclared conflict between Argentina and the United Kingdom, broke out in April 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic. However, it appears, the Argentine threat was not the only one that Downing Street had to counter at the time.

• Wednesday, April 1st 2020 - 07:58 UTC

  UN Guterres rates coronavirus pandemic the worst global crisis since WWII

  

  The coronavirus pandemic is the worst global crisis since World War II, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday, expressing concern that it could trigger conflicts around the world.

• Wednesday, April 1st 2020 - 07:54 UTC

  Trump calls on Florida to allow Zaandam to dock: “They are dying on the ship”

  

  U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged Florida officials to open an Atlantic Coast port to a Dutch cruise ship stuck at sea with a deadly coronavirus outbreak onboard, urging the governor to drop his opposition.

• Wednesday, April 1st 2020 - 07:45 UTC

  Brazilian meat exports to China on hold because of coronavirus social distancing measures

  

  China has not approved any new Brazilian meat plants for export this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, an official at Brazil’s Agriculture Ministry said, adding that all approvals were on hold until the crisis eases.

• Wednesday, April 1st 2020 - 07:45 UTC

  Wall Street markets tumbled on Tuesday: Dow with its biggest quarterly decline since 1987

  

  Wall Street’s three major indexes tumbled on Tuesday, with the Dow registering its biggest quarterly decline since 1987 and the S&P 500 suffering its deepest quarterly drop since the financial crisis on growing evidence of massive economic damage from the coronavirus pandemic.