Human activity churns out up to 100 times more planet-warming carbon each year as all the volcanoes on Earth, says a decade-long study released Tuesday.
The Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO), a 500-strong international team of scientists, released a series of papers outlining how carbon is stored, emitted and reabsorbed by natural and manmade processes.
They found that manmade carbon dioxide emissions drastically outstrip the contribution of volcanoes -- which belch out gas and are often fingered as a major climate change contributor -- to current warming rates.
The findings, published in the journal Elements, showed just two-tenths of 1 percent of Earth's total carbon -- around 43,500 gigatonnes -- is above the surface in oceans, the land, and in our atmosphere.
The rest -- a staggering 1.85 billion gigatonnes -- is stored in our planet's crust, mantle and core, providing scientists with clues as to how Earth formed billions of years ago.
One gigatonne is equivalent to around 3 million ..

Humanity's emissions '100-times greater' than volcanoes

PTI Automatic

Britain on Tuesday criticised police tactics against pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, warning that the use of live rounds could heighten long-running tensions.
"Whilst there is no excuse for violence, the use of live ammunition is disproportionate, and only risks inflaming the situation," Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in a statement.
Hong Kong, a former British colony which was handed back to China in 1997, has been gripped by a wave of protests over the last four months.
Increasingly violent confrontations between demonstrators and the police saw a young protester shot on Tuesday, just hours after China marked 70 years of Communist Party rule.
Raab said the shooting again showed the need for "constructive dialogue" between both sides.
"We need to see restraint and a de-escalation from both protesters and the Hong Kong authorities," he added.

Use of live rounds in HK protests 'disproportionate': UK

European stocks slipped Tuesday as investment managers recalibrated portfolios at the start of the final quarter of the year, but the downside was limited by mild optimism on trade and central bank action, analysts said.
While equities started on the "backfoot", said Fawad Razaqzada at Forex.com, "the stock market bulls are happy to keep buying every dip - for now, anyway".
Wall Street managed some modest gains at the opening, encouraged by resuming US-China trade talks this month.
"Traders are seemingly a little more relaxed about the current situation, with the Fed having cut interest rates at each of the last two meetings and talks between the US and China ongoing," said Craig Erlam, senior analyst at Oanda.
"I don't think traders are fully satisfied in either case but minimum expectations are just about being met," he said.
Earlier, Asian stocks performed well, while oil rebounded after Monday's heavy losses.
Investors are now looking to a US jobs report on Friday for clues to the 

European stocks ease as investors rejig portfolios

Manchester City midfielder Kevin de Bruyne will miss Tuesday's Champions League clash with Dinamo Zagreb with a groin injury that could also see him miss Sunday's Premier League meeting with Wolves.
The Belgian has been in sensational form for the English champions, scoring twice and providing nine assists in just nine appearances this season.
"Kevin De Bruyne suffered a groin injury in the win over Everton and will miss tonight's game against Dinamo Zagreb," City said in a statement on Tuesday.
"The extent of his layoff depends on how well he responds to the rehabilitation programme overseen by the Club's medical staff."
De Bruyne missed the majority of last season due to two serious knee injuries.
However, this latest setback is not expected to keep him out for long.
After Wolves' visit to the Etihad on Sunday, City have a two-week layoff for an international break before travelling to Crystal Palace on October 19.

De Bruyne sidelined by groin injury

Security forces Tuesday used water cannons and tear gas to disperse more than 1,000 Iraqis protesting in central Baghdad against state corruption and poor public services, an AFP reporter said.
"Those thieves robbed us!" demonstrators cried out in a reference to Iraq's political class, just weeks before the fragile government turns one year old.
Iraq is considered the 12th most corrupt country in the world, according to Transparency International. Power cuts are rampant, water shortages common and unemployment is high, particularly among youth.
The demonstrators, almost entirely men, descended on the main Tahrir Square with Iraqi flags draped over their shoulders or wrapped around their foreheads like headbands.
Others carried portraits of Staff Lieutenant General Abdulwahab al-Saadi, who was removed from his post in Iraq's Counter-Terrorism Service in a shock move this week.
Riot police cleared the square a first time but the demonstrators regrouped, making their way to a bridge into 

Over 1,000 protest for work, services in Iraq capital

Britain on Tuesday criticised police tactics against pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, warning that the use of live rounds could heighten long-running tensions.
"Whilst there is no excuse for violence, the use of live ammunition is disproportionate, and only risks inflaming the situation," Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in a statement.

Use of live ammunition in HK protests 'disproportionate': Britain

Australia has released an unusual commemorative set of 1 dollar coins featuring an A-Z of Aussie imagery -- including a meat pie, the popular television soap "Neighbours" and the word "G'day".
The partnership between the Royal Australian Mint and Australia Post will see a mere flip of a coin separating the country's monarch Queen Elizabeth II from a quokka, a diminutive marsupial native to Rottnest Island off Western Australia.
Other designs include an image of a yowie (a mythical creature said to inhabit the Outback), a lamington (a square sponge cake coated in chocolate and desiccated coconut) and a pair of thongs, or flip-flops.
An indigenous hunting weapon, the boomerang, and the musical instrument didgeridoo are also featured.
Nicole Sheffield, an Australia Post executive, said the postal service hoped collecting the coins would prove popular and serve as a talking point between friends and family.
"Each and every coin opens up the opportunity for wonderful conversations about ...

Boomerangs, meat pies and Vegemite on new Aussie 1 dollar coins

Just over a year after the Genoa motorway bridge collapse that killed 43 people, workers Tuesday raised the first 50-metre (54 yards) stretch of a replacement designed by famed architect Renzo Piano.
A siren blared as the vast section of deck was hoisted by cranes some 45 metres up to sit across two concrete piles, the first of 18 that will support a streamlined and luminous white bridge conceived to resemble the hull of a ship.
"This morning is special. This is not the laying of the first stone, but a launch. Just like for a ship, except that this time we are not setting out to sea, but going upwards," Piano said as he arrived on site.
The Genoa native, whose has designed buildings including the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and The Shard in London, told the construction workers to "be careful" as they performed the "acrobatic" job of elevating the mammoth deck.
Part of the so-called Morandi highway in the northern Italian city collapsed during heavy rain on August 14, 2018, ...

First stretch of new Genoa bridge goes up after deadly 2018 collapse

Two British climbers were rescued from a Pakistani mountain after one fell down a crevasse and received a head injury, an offical from the Alpine Club told AFP Tuesday.
The climbers -- Alastair Swinton and Thomas Livingstone -- were trying to scale Koyo Zom, a 6,872 metre (23,000 foot) peak which is the highest in the Hindu Raj, just one of the mountain ranges criss-crossing Pakistan's north.
They were descending from the summit earlier this week when "Swinton fell down around 30m (roughly 100 feet) in a crevasse", the rescue team said in a statement.
"Livingstone managed to miraculously pull Alastair out of the crevasse but reported a serious head injury."
Two other team members, William Sim and John Crook, had reached base camp before the accident; while a fifth member, Uisdean Robertson, was also in base camp, the statement added.
Karrar Haidri, secretary of the Alpine Club of Pakistan, told AFP Tuesday that Swinton had sustained a head injury but was now stable.
A spokesman from ..

Rescuers save injured British climbers on Pakistani mountain

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday said his country's patience with US efforts to create a safe zone in northern Syria was running out, indicating an operation was imminent.
The two NATO allies, Turkey and the United States, agreed in August to establish a buffer zone to keep Syrian Kurdish militants away from the Turkish border and help repatriate refugees.
Erdogan has repeatedly threatened to launch a unilateral operation against the US-backed Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) if the buffer zone was delayed.
"At the current stage, we have no other choice other than to proceed on our own path," he said in the televised speech.
"We have tried every path. We have been extremely patient," he said.
"We cannot afford to lose a single day."
The YPG, which controls a swathe of land east of the Euphrates in northern Syria, is a key partner for Washington in the fight against the Islamic State group, but Ankara says it is a "terrorist" offshoot of Kurdish separatists in ..

Turkey's Erdogan indicates Syria operation imminent

Voter participation in last weekend's Afghan presidential election will be much less than a third, the country's Independent Election Commission said Tuesday, marking a record-low turnout.
Afghans voted Saturday in the first round of a presidential race that will decide whether President Ashraf Ghani will win a second five-year term, fending off a challenge from his top rival, Afghanistan's Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.
With data collated from nearly all polling centres, around 2.59 million of Afghanistan's 9.6 million voters turned out to cast a ballot, according to IEC commissioner Maulana Abdullah.
"This is not a final figure, it is going to change as we are still receiving more data," Abdullah said.
The turnout -- about 27 per cent -- represents a slight increase on initial figures, but still a historical low.
It was unclear how many of the approximately 4,500 polling stations that received voters still had to transmit data, but the number appeared small.
The turnout is the ..

With nearly all data in, Afghan turnout at record low

Looted amidst the tumult of Egypt's 2011 revolution, the golden coffin of priest Nedjemankh was unveiled on Tuesday in Cairo after its return from New York.
Standing at 1.8 metres (six foot), the fine gilded sarcophagus has gained notoriety, apart from for its historical value, for its role at the centre of an international trafficking ring Dating back to the Ptolemaic period (1st-2nd century BC), the ornate wooden coffin was designed for Nedjemankh, a high priest of the ram-headed god Heryshef.
The shimmering artefact adorned with gesso reliefs had been housed since 2017 in New York's Metropolitan Museum, which purchased it from a Paris art dealer for around 3.5 million euros (USD 3.8 million).
But in February, a Met exhibition which named the high priest had to shut down after being informed the sarcophagus had been plundered by a multi-national trafficking ring.
It had been smuggled out of Minya in southern Egypt in 2011, the year that long-time autocrat Hosni Mubarak was toppled ..

Stolen golden coffin makes return from New York to Cairo

Hundreds of US municipalities, schools and health organisations have been hit by ransomware in 2019, leading to massive service disruptions, researchers said Tuesday.
The security firm Emsisoft said at least 621 government entities, healthcare providers and school districts, colleges and universities were affected by ransomware in the first nine months of 2019.
The attacks which lock up computer networks if a ransom is not paid has led to disruption of municipal and medical services and the closing of some schools, the report noted.
The researchers had no prior year data for comparison but said ransomware appears to be surging as hackers seek vulnerabilities in older computer networks and use cryptocurrencies to anonymously get payments.
"There is no reason to believe that attacks will become less frequent in the near future," said Fabian Wosar, chief technology officer at Emsisoft.
"Organisations have a very simple choice to make: prepare now or pay later."
The researchers said the ..

Ransomware hits hundreds of US schools, local governments: study

More than 400 Bangladeshis have been murdered in South Africa over the past four years because of business and personal disputes within the community, government officials said Tuesday.
A wave of deadly attacks on foreign workers in South Africa in recent weeks has cast a spotlight on the country's record.
The Bangladesh embassy in Pretoria said none of the South Asian country's nationals were involved in that violence.
Instead, the Bangladesh ambassador revealed most of the deaths were over business and money disputes, extra-marital affairs, and other personal arguments.
The embassy said the bodies of 88 Bangladeshi migrants had already been repatriated this year, and 452 since January 2015.
"Approximately 95 per cent of those who died here were murdered, mostly shot dead in their shops," an embassy official said.
Ambassador Shabbir Ahmad Chowdhury said the number killed could be far higher, as many families do not report the deaths.
"Many are buried here. It is therefore uncertain ..

More than 400 Bangladeshis murdered in South Africa in four years

Russians might have a reputation as a nation of hard drinkers, but a report by the World Health Organization published Tuesday showed their alcohol consumption has dropped by more than 40 percent from its peak in the early 2000s.
The WHO put the decrease down to a raft of measures brought in since sport-loving President Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, including restrictions on alcohol sales and the promotion of healthy lifestyles.
"The Russian Federation has long been considered one of the heaviest-drinking countries in the world," the report said, adding that alcohol was a major contributor to a spike in deaths in the 1990s.
"However, in recent years these trends have been reversed."
The study showed a 43 per cent drop in alcohol consumption per capita from 2003 to 2016, driven by a steep decline in the consumption of bootleg booze.
The authors said this trend was a factor in increased life expectancies, which reached a historic peak in 2018, at 78 years for women and 68 years .

Hold the vodka: Russians cut drinking 40 per cent under Putin

The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday told Bosnia it must tear down a Serbian Orthodox Church built on land seized from Muslims forced to flee their homes during the country's 1992-1995 civil war.
The church, long a flashpoint between the area's Serbs and Muslims, was built in 1998 in Konjevic Polje on land seized from Fata Orlovic, a Muslim refugee.
The village is not far from Srbrenica, where more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were massacred by Serb forces in 1995 -- including Orlovic's husband, the court said.
Orlovic and others in her family eventually returned and had their lands returned under the terms of the Dayton peace accords, except for the plot on which the church was built.
Her family's legal efforts to force the church's relocation proved unsuccessful, despite court rulings in Orlovic's favour in 1999 and 2001.
The site became a source of tensions, at times leading to clashes between local Serbs and Muslims.
"The authorities' failure to comply with final and ...

Bosnia must remove Serbian church near Srebrenica: rights court

With two fingers missing from his right hand, Afghan writer Reza Khorami struggles to tap out stories on his keyboard.
The Taliban lopped off his forefinger in 2014 because it was covered in indelible ink showing Khorami had voted.
The tip of the middle finger was also splashed with the purple dye, so was also amputated.
The crude punishment, part of the Taliban's war on Afghan democracy, did not deter a defiant Khorami from voting in Saturday's first round of the presidential election, which pitted Afghan President Ashraf Ghani against his top rival, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.
"I voted again in 2019 just to show that I have not surrendered to terrorism," Khorami told AFP this week in Kabul, where he writes fiction.
"They can cut our fingers, but they cannot kill our morale."
Khorami said he wanted the world to know what the radical Islamists did to him and possibly thousands of others like him.
Since Saturday's vote, several images have circulated online of voters proudly ...

Afghan who voted even after Taliban cut off fingers

A bomb blast Tuesday near a key oil field in eastern Syria targeted US-backed fighters but killed three workers instead, a war monitor said Tuesday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the explosion occurred on the road outside the Al-Omar oilfield, the country's largest in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor.
Al-Omar is under the control of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces who have been fighting the Islamic State group.
Part of the oil field is used as an SDF base, while workers have resumed production in another.
Tuesday's blast struck on the nearby road "as a vehicle transporting oil field employees drove by, killing three workers," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.
"The explosive device was detonated at a distance just after an SDF patrol had passed by," the head of the Britain-based monitoring group said.
There was no immediate claim for the blast, but IS often says it is responsible for deadly attacks in the area.
The Kurdish-led SDF expelled IS from its ...

Bomb kills three oil employees in east Syria: Monitor

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy lost a final court appeal Tuesday against an order that he stand trial on charges of illegal financing for his 2012 election campaign.
Sarkozy, who already faces a separate trial for corruption involving a judge, is accused of spending nearly double the legal limit of 22.5 million euros (USD 24.5 million) on his failed re-election bid.
France's highest criminal appeal court rejected his attempt to avoid facing the charges, paving the way for a trial date to be set after multiple challenges by Sarkozy's legal team.
Prosecutors claim the 64-year-old Sarkozy, who has spent the past few years fighting a barrage of corruption and campaign financing charges, spent nearly 43 million euros on his quest for a second term.
In the end, he was beaten by the Socialist Party's Francois Hollande.  Investigators claim that Sarkozy's campaign used fake invoices to get around the campaign spending limits.
Sarkozy has rejected the charges, saying he was unaware of 

Former French president Sarkozy to stand trial for illegal campaign financing

A French court has ordered a trial for ex-prime minister Edouard Balladur over allegations that kickbacks from an arms deal with Pakistan helped fund his failed 1995 presidential bid, France's top prosecutor Francois Molins said Tuesday.
Balladur, 90, will stand trial before the Court of Justice of the Republic, set up to try cases of current and former ministers.
The claims came to light during an investigation into a 2002 bombing in Karachi, Pakistan, which targeted a bus transporting French engineers -- allegedly in revenge for non-payment of bribes.

French ex-PM Balladur ordered to stand trial over 1990s arms deal

More than 500 people were arrested after clashes in Indonesia's capital amid nationwide protests against a raft of divisive reforms -- including banning pre-marital sex and weakening the anti-graft agency -- authorities said Tuesday.
The arrests came after a night of pitched street battles between riot police and stone-throwing protesters -- many high school and university students -- in Jakarta's sprawling downtown core.
Security forces geared up for more unrest Tuesday as some 575 lawmakers were sworn in at the country's heavily barricaded parliament building.
Since last week, at least two students have died and hundreds more have been injured as a wave of unrest swept across the Southeast Asian archipelago, just weeks before President Joko Widodo kicks off another term as head of the world's third-biggest democracy.
The protests are among the biggest student rallies since mass street demonstrations in 1998 toppled the Suharto dictatorship.
"So far we have detained 519 rioters from .

AFP

AFP

Page 365 - Afp