Bleached coral is seen on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef near Port Douglas on February 20, 2017 in this handout image from Greenpeace. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Parts of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef will never recover from the impact of unseasonably warm waters, scientists said on Thursday, as more of the World Heritage Site comes under renewed threat from a recent spike in sea temperatures.
Warm seas around the reef killed some two-thirds of a 700-kilometre (496.4 miles) stretch of coral last year after warm water caused the coral to expel living algae, triggering it to calcify and turn white, a process known as bleaching. That was the worst die-off of coral ever recorded at the reef.
Even the areas that survived will not recover to full health, scientists from ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrated Coral Reef Studies said in a report, as unseasonable hot water becomes more frequent causing more incidents of bleaching.
“Given time, coral can recover from bleaching but the problem comes when you get repeated events. With less time between them, capacity for the coral reef community to recover diminishes rapidly,” Janice Lough, senior principal research scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, revealed in talks with international news agency Reuters.
The conclusion is a major blow for Australia’s tourism industry, with the reef attracting Australian $5.2 billion ($3.9 billion) in spending each year, a 2013 Deloitte Access Economics report estimated.
Repeated damage to the Great Barrier Reef may also see UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee reconsider its decision in 2015 not to put the Great Barrier Reef on its “in danger” list.
Academics said the findings demonstrate the urgency in tackling climate change, which, climate scientists argue, occurs when increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is trapped by heat radiating from earth.
The outlook for the Great Barrier Reef has further darkened with evidence of an unprecedented second consecutive bleaching event this year, researchers at James Cook University said.
Unseasonably warm waters threaten to cause bleaching of the central region of the Great Barrier Reef, which avoided the large-scale damage from the bleaching in 2016.
“We’re hoping that the next two to three weeks will cool off quickly, and this year's bleaching won't be anything like last year,” said Terry Hughes, director of ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.
Several people were injured in a shooting at a high school in the southern French town of Grasse on Thursday, police said.
One person was arrested and another was on the run after the shooting at the Tocqueville high school, a police source told AFP, asking not to be named.
All schools in the town, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Nice, have been locked down, education authorities said.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve cut short a trip to the northern Somme area because of the Grasse shooting, as well as a letter bomb blast at the offices of the International Monetary Fund in Paris on Thursday.
The much awaited trailer of the second instalment of the 2015 blockbuster Bahubali: The Beginning has surfaced over the Internet and is wowing the audience with cinematic elements that are much higher than the prevailing standards in the Indian film industry.
The trailer which runs for a little over a couple of minutes features some brilliantly shot scenes from the movie, teasing the audience with the baffling scene from its first instalment which featured the character Katappa stabbing Bahubali with a sword.
Bahubali 2: The Conclusion stars Prabhas, Rana Daggubati and Anushka Shetty and is ready to hit the theatres on 28th April, 2017.
On account of the spread of 'blasphemous' images online, an Islamabad High Court (IHC) judge has called for a ban on social media sites in Pakistan.
Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui has come up with a suggestion that people found to have posted blasphemous content online must have their names added to the Exit Control List, thereby prohibiting them from leaving the country.
“I will go to every extent to bring this case to its logical end and if needed I will even ban social media in Pakistan,” he is reported to have said.
Claiming to have had lost his sleep since seeing the offensive content, Justice Siddiqui also compared the blasphemers to terrorists.
The blasphemous pages are now being removed with the help of Facebook officials.
It is to be noted that blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad is punishable by death in Pakistan. The country has a number of religious offences listed in its penal code, including “wounding religious feelings”, “derogatory remarks” and “defiling the Quran”.
Justice Siddiqui has also appealed for the support of Pakistan’s Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, asking him to “take some steps in his own supervision to eliminate the evil, even at the cost of blocking the entirety [of] social media.”
The case was filed by Salman Shahid (son-in-law of Maulana Abdul Aziz, of Lal Masjid), who alleged that five bloggers, Salman Haider, Ahmed Waqas Goraya, Asim Saeed, Ahmed Raza Naseer and Samar Abbas, were spreading blasphemous content through pages on social networks.
Over 2,000 people are currently rallying in Islamabad, calling for the government to take stern action.
In February, the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) of India refused to pass a certain film that goes by the title Lipstick Under My Burkha, stating, “The story is lady oriented, their fantasy above life”, “contanious [sic] sexual scenes”, and “audio pornography”.
What followed was a series of scathing attacks on CBFC from the country's film fraternity, but the board chose to stay adamant on its decision of cutting down the release of the film.
However, the ban on the film didn't stop it from claiming the audience award at the 2017 Glasgow Film Festival, which, by the way speaks volumes about how those in power are clipping the wings of powerful cinema in India.
Interestingly, yet another accomplishment has graced the film: according to a Times of India report, Lipstick Under My Burkha is all set to open at the prestigious Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA).
The film festival is scheduled for April 5 to April 9 at Regal L.A. LIVE: A Barco Innovation Center in Los Angeles, California. The five-day film festival aims at bridging the gap between the two largest entertainment industries in the world - Hollywood and India.
Lipstick Under My Burkha revolves around four women of different ages and how they explore their sexuality and challenge the sexual and social norms of Indian patriarchy.
The Reserve Bank of India is reportedly on its way to issue Rs. 10 notes with enhanced security features quite soon.
The banknotes in the Mahatma Gandhi series-2005 are to carry inset letter ‘L’ on both number panels, bearing the signature of Governor Urjit Patel.
The year of printing, 2017, will be on the reverse of the note.
Among other features, numerals on both the panels will be in ascending size from left to right. The first three alpha-numeric characters (prefix) will remain constant in size.
“All the banknotes in the denomination of Rs 10 issued by the bank in the past will continue to be legal tender,” the central bank said in a notification.
Google's Women's Day doodle is a celebration of thirteen women who many might not be familiar with, but who were inspirational to the world in the most powerful of ways.
The doodle slideshow begins with a little girl listening to her grandmother reciting "the best bedtime story ever" before the child herself re-imagines the 13 iconic women.
Here are the thirteen women pioneers that Google has put together in its doodle slideshow as a mark of celebration of the International Women's Day: Ida Wells
An African-American journalist and activist born in Mississippi in 1862, she wrote prolifically on the fight for women’s suffrage as well as the struggle for civil rights. She documented the practice of lynching black people in the southern states showing how it was often used as means of controlling or punishing black people who competed with whites rather than as a means of “justice” for crimes.
Lotifa El Nadi
Egypt’s first female pilot born in 1907 in Cairo. Although her father saw no need for her to pursue secondary education, expecting her to marry and have a family, she rebelled and worked as a secretary and telephone operator at a flying school in exchange for lessons as she had no other means to pay for the training. Her achievements made headlines around the world when she flew over the pyramids and competed in international flying races.
Frida Kahlo
A Mexican painter and activist born in Mexico City in 1907, her work has been celebrated internationally as emblematic of Mexican national and indigenous traditions and by feminists for its honest depiction of female experience.
Lina Bo Bardi
A Brazilian architect, born in Italy in 1914, she devoted her life to the promotion of the social and cultural potential of architecture and design. She is also celebrated for her furniture and jewellery designs.
Olga Skorokhodova
A Soviet scientist born into a poor Ukranian peasant family in 1911, she lost her vision and hearing at the age of five. Overcoming these difficulties in a remarkable way, she became a researcher in the field of communication and created a number of scientific works concerning the development of education of deaf-blind children. She was also a teacher, therapist and writer.
Miriam Makeba
A South African singer and civil rights activist born in Johannesburg in 1932, she was forced to work as a child following her father’s death. She became a teenaged mother after a bried and allegedly abusive marriage at 17, before she was discovered as a singer of jazz and African melodies. After becoming hugely successful in the US and winning a Grammy, she became involved in the civil rights struggle stateside as well as in the campaign against apartheid in her home country, writing political songs. Upon her death, South African President Nelson Mandela said that “her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us.”
Sally Ride
An American astronaut and physicist, she was born in Los Angeles in 1951 and joined NASA in 1978 after gaining her PhD. She became the first American woman and the third woman ever to go into space in 1983 at the age of 32. Prior to her first space flight, she attracted attention because of her gender and at press conferences, was asked questions such as, “Will the flight affect your reproductive organs?” She later worked as an academic at the University of California, San Diego.
Halet Cambel
A Turkish archaeologist born in 1916, she became the first Muslim women to compete in the Olympics in the 1936 Berlin games as a fencer. She declined an invitation to meet Adolf Hitler on political grounds, and after the conclusion of the Second World War, she trained as an architect and later worked as an academic in Turkey and Germany.
Ada Lovelace
An English mathematician and writer born in 1815, she became the world’s first computer programmer. The daughter of poet George Byron, she is chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine, and was the first to recognise the machine had applications beyond pure calculation, creating the first algorithm intended to be carried out by such a machine.
Rukmini Devi
An Indian dancer and choreographer credited with reviving Indian classical dance, she was born in 1904 and presented her form of dance on stage even though it was considered “low” and “vulgar” in the 1920s. She features in India Today’s list of “100 people who shaped India” having also worked to re-establish traditional Indian arts and crafts and as an animal rights activist.
Cecilia Grierson
An Argentine physician, reformer born in Buenes Aires in 1859, she became the first woman in Argentina to receive a medical degree having previously worked as a teacher. Women were barred from entering medical school at the time, so she first volunteered as an unpaid lab assistant before she was allowed to train as a doctor. She was acclaimed for her work during a cholera epidemic before going on to found the first nursing school in Argentina. The harassment she experienced at mediacl school helped make her a militant advocate for women’s rights in Argentina.
Lee Tai-young
Korea’s first female lawyer and judge born in 1914 in what is now North Korea, she was also an activist who founded the country’s first legal aid centre and fought for women’s rights throughout her career. Her often mentioned refrain was, “No society can or will prosper without the cooperation of women.” She worked as a teacher, married and had four children before she was able to begin her legal career after the Second World War, becoming the first woman to enter Seoul National University. She also fought for civil rights in the country and was arrested in 1977 for her beliefs, receiving a three-year suspended sentence and a ten year disbarment.
Suzanne Lenglen
A French tennis champion born in 1899, she popularised the sport winning 31 championships and dominating the women’s sport for over a decade. She was the first female tennis celebrity and one of the first international women sports stars, overcoming a childhood plagued with ill health including chronic asthma – which continued to plague her in her adult life. At 15, she became the youngest ever winner of a major championship and lost only seven matches during her entire career. She received widespread criticism for her decision to turn professional, but defended her right to make a decent living in the days when the grand slam tournaments paid a relative pittance to the winners.
The Bhopal-Ujjain passenger train was rocked by a blast today near Jabdi station, a railway official has confirmed.
The blast occurred in a coach of the train between 9.30 a.m. and 10 a.m. when it was on its way to Ujjain from Bhopal, Railway PRO, Indore, Jitendra Kumar Jayant said.
A bomb disposal squad has reached the accident site, which is around 80 km from Bhopal, and is trying to ascertain the cause and the nature of the blast.
In a statement to PTI, GRP Indore SP Krishnaveni Desavatu has said that “the ceiling of the coach was damaged in the blast but so far we have not found any explosive device or its remains from the spot.”
"However, a suitcase was found in the coach and the bomb disposal squad is examining it,” he further stated.
The PRO said that two coaches were damaged in the blast.
They were separated from the train which later left for its onward journey.
The two seriously injured persons were referred to a hospital in Bhopal. The others were undergoing treatment at a hospital in Kalapipal town, which is close to the accident site.
Ujjain range ADGP V. Madhu Kumar and senior officials of Ratlam railway division have rushed to the accident site.
The exact cause of the blast will be known after examination of the affected coach, Mr. Kumar said.
The glass panes of the windows in the general coach were shattered in the blast, which occurred when the train was about to reach Jabdi station.
The Jabdi station falls between Kalapipal and Sehore railway stations. Following the blast, the train came to a halt.
Smoke engulfed the general coach, causing panic among the passengers who rushed out to save themselves.
A relief train has been rushed to the mishap site, the PRO said.
Here are the helpline numbers that have been made available for those seeking information about their relatives in the train.
The numbers are — Ujjain 0734-1072 and 0734-60906, Indore 0731-1072, 0731-2521044, 0731-2521045 and 0731-2521046, Ratlam 07412-1072, Nagda 07366-1072, Bhopal 0755-4001606 and 0755-56508 and Habibganj 0755-4001603 and 0755-55551.
The injured passengers were identified as — Bharti Yadav (18), Athar Hussain (55), Jiya Kushwaha (27), Pushpa Kushwaha (39), Neha Yadav (17), Babulal Malviya (45), Wasim (25) and Amrit Sahu (40), the PRO said.
Ms. Bharti Yadav and Mr. Hussain were seriously injured the blast and referred to a hospital in Bhopal.
