News in Brief
DAVOS (AFP) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday assailed environmental "prophets of doom”, delivering an uncompromising message in Davos after Swedish teenage campaigner Greta Thunberg slammed government inaction on the climate crisis. Thunberg was in the audience in the Swiss Alps to hear a typically bullish speech by Trump, delivered just before the start of his Senate impeachment trial in Washington. The 50th meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) got under way in the ski resort with an avowed focus on climate change but with starkly different visions over global warming laid bare. "We must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse,” said Trump, growling that "they want to see us do badly”. He claimed that "alarmists” had been wrong on previous occasions by predicting population crisis, mass starvation and the end of oil. Trump branded those warning of out-of-control global warming and other environmental disasters "the heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune tellers”.
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BEIJING (VOA) -- The death toll in China from the outbreak of a new coronavirus has risen to six people, adding to fears of a global epidemic as reports of new cases spring up across China and beyond its borders. China’s National Health Commission announced Monday that the virus, which causes a type of pneumonia, can be transmitted person-to-person and not just from animals to people. All six fatalities have been reported in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, while health officials say the total number of cases has risen to 291, including 15 medical workers. The majority of cases are in Wuhan, but there have been new cases have confirmed in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong. South Korean health officials said Monday they confirmed a case in a 35-year-old woman who flew from Wuhan to Incheon, South Korea. Thailand and Japan have also confirmed cases.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday let residents of Flint, Michigan pursue a civil rights lawsuit against the city and government officials that accused them of knowingly allowing the city’s water supply to become contaminated with lead. The justices turned away two appeals by the city and the state and local officials of a lower court ruling that allowed the lawsuit to move forward. The lower court rejected a demand for immunity by the officials, finding that they violated the residents’ right to "bodily integrity” under the U.S. Constitution by providing the tainted water after switching water sources in a cost-cutting move in 2014. The justices’ action comes as similar class-action cases are currently on appeal at the Cincinnati, Ohio-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
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MADRID (AP) — Spain’s new government declared a national climate emergency on Tuesday, taking a formal first step toward enacting ambitious measures to fight climate change. The declaration approved by the Cabinet says the left-of-center Socialist government will send to parliament within 100 days its proposed climate legislation. The targets coincide with those of the European Union, including a reduction of net carbon emissions to zero by 2050. Spain’s coalition government wants up to 95% of the Mediterranean country’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2040. The plan also foresees eliminating pollution by buses and trucks and making farming carbon neutral. Details of the plan are to be made public when the proposed legislation is sent to parliament for approval. More than two dozen countries and scores of local and regional authorities have declared a climate emergency in recent years.
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TOKYO (Reuters) -- Fukushima prefecture, home to the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, on Tuesday reassured participants and spectators at the Olympic torch relay this year that they would not need to worry about radiation exposure. The four-month torch relay ahead of the 2020 Olympics will begin on March 26 at J-Village, a soccer training center in Fukushima that served as a frontline operations base for workers who battled the 2011 nuclear crisis. Of more than 24,000 monitoring spots along the relay route in Fukushima, one in Iitate village, 240 km (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo, had the highest reading, at 0.77 microsieverts per hour, the prefecture’s December survey results showed. A four-hour stay there would bring radiation exposure to 3.08 microsieverts, or 0.003 millisieverts, well below the government’s target of keeping the public’s annual exposure arising from the nuclear accident below 1 millisievert.
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ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Regional officials in Ethiopia on Tuesday confirmed 10 deaths and 250 people injured after a wooden platform collapsed during a religious event the day before. Thousands of people attended the colorful Epiphany celebration known as Timkat in the northern city of Gondar. "Ten people have lost their lives,” the Ethiopian Press Agency quoted the city’s police chief, Ayalew Teklu, as saying. "Thirteen people have sustained serious injuries, including four members of the security services.” Ashenafi Tazebew with Gondar University Hospital said more than 250 people had received medical care. Some 80 people remained at the hospital, Ashenafi said. The collapse occurred inside the Emperor Fasilides Bath in the city where several thousand Ethiopians and tourists attended the celebration commemorating the baptism of Jesus. The Ethiopian News Agency reported that more than 15,000 foreigners attended the event in Gondar.
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BEIJING (VOA) -- The death toll in China from the outbreak of a new coronavirus has risen to six people, adding to fears of a global epidemic as reports of new cases spring up across China and beyond its borders. China’s National Health Commission announced Monday that the virus, which causes a type of pneumonia, can be transmitted person-to-person and not just from animals to people. All six fatalities have been reported in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, while health officials say the total number of cases has risen to 291, including 15 medical workers. The majority of cases are in Wuhan, but there have been new cases have confirmed in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong. South Korean health officials said Monday they confirmed a case in a 35-year-old woman who flew from Wuhan to Incheon, South Korea. Thailand and Japan have also confirmed cases.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday let residents of Flint, Michigan pursue a civil rights lawsuit against the city and government officials that accused them of knowingly allowing the city’s water supply to become contaminated with lead. The justices turned away two appeals by the city and the state and local officials of a lower court ruling that allowed the lawsuit to move forward. The lower court rejected a demand for immunity by the officials, finding that they violated the residents’ right to "bodily integrity” under the U.S. Constitution by providing the tainted water after switching water sources in a cost-cutting move in 2014. The justices’ action comes as similar class-action cases are currently on appeal at the Cincinnati, Ohio-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
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MADRID (AP) — Spain’s new government declared a national climate emergency on Tuesday, taking a formal first step toward enacting ambitious measures to fight climate change. The declaration approved by the Cabinet says the left-of-center Socialist government will send to parliament within 100 days its proposed climate legislation. The targets coincide with those of the European Union, including a reduction of net carbon emissions to zero by 2050. Spain’s coalition government wants up to 95% of the Mediterranean country’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2040. The plan also foresees eliminating pollution by buses and trucks and making farming carbon neutral. Details of the plan are to be made public when the proposed legislation is sent to parliament for approval. More than two dozen countries and scores of local and regional authorities have declared a climate emergency in recent years.
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TOKYO (Reuters) -- Fukushima prefecture, home to the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, on Tuesday reassured participants and spectators at the Olympic torch relay this year that they would not need to worry about radiation exposure. The four-month torch relay ahead of the 2020 Olympics will begin on March 26 at J-Village, a soccer training center in Fukushima that served as a frontline operations base for workers who battled the 2011 nuclear crisis. Of more than 24,000 monitoring spots along the relay route in Fukushima, one in Iitate village, 240 km (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo, had the highest reading, at 0.77 microsieverts per hour, the prefecture’s December survey results showed. A four-hour stay there would bring radiation exposure to 3.08 microsieverts, or 0.003 millisieverts, well below the government’s target of keeping the public’s annual exposure arising from the nuclear accident below 1 millisievert.
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ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Regional officials in Ethiopia on Tuesday confirmed 10 deaths and 250 people injured after a wooden platform collapsed during a religious event the day before. Thousands of people attended the colorful Epiphany celebration known as Timkat in the northern city of Gondar. "Ten people have lost their lives,” the Ethiopian Press Agency quoted the city’s police chief, Ayalew Teklu, as saying. "Thirteen people have sustained serious injuries, including four members of the security services.” Ashenafi Tazebew with Gondar University Hospital said more than 250 people had received medical care. Some 80 people remained at the hospital, Ashenafi said. The collapse occurred inside the Emperor Fasilides Bath in the city where several thousand Ethiopians and tourists attended the celebration commemorating the baptism of Jesus. The Ethiopian News Agency reported that more than 15,000 foreigners attended the event in Gondar.