Canada's wildfires could continue into fall, says government
Canada is facing its second-worst wildfire season on record, with 7.8 million hectares already burned, and the fires could persist for weeks, accordin...
China has begun building a five-station cascade on the Yarlung Zangbo river in Tibet, a $170 billion project that will dwarf the Three Gorges Dam, lift construction shares and alarm India, Bangladesh and environmental groups.
Work got under way on Monday after Premier Li Qiang hailed the venture as a “project of the century,” state news agency Xinhua said. Designed to generate 300 billion kWh a year—roughly the electricity Britain used last year—the complex will tap a 2,000-metre drop along a 50-kilometre stretch of the river before it becomes the Brahmaputra.
Chinese markets treated the announcement as fresh stimulus. The CSI Construction & Engineering Index jumped more than 4 % to a seven-month high, while shares in Power Construction Corporation of China and Arcplus Group hit their 10 % daily limit. Yields on long-dated government bonds rose as investors rotated into equities.
Huatai Securities told clients the build-out would lift demand for cement, tunnelling gear and civil explosives. Citi estimated that, assuming a decade-long schedule, annual spending could add about 120 billion yuan (around $16.5 billion) to gross domestic product.
Li said engineers must “place special emphasis on ecological conservation to prevent environmental damage.” However, non-governmental organisations warned of irreversible harm to one of the plateau’s most biodiverse regions, while experts noted the site’s seismic activity.
India and Bangladesh—downstream on the Brahmaputra—have already voiced concern that the dam could disrupt water supplies or heighten flood risks for millions of people. Beijing maintains the project will meet Tibet’s power needs and feed the national grid “without major downstream impact.”
The scheme is being overseen by the state-owned China Yajiang Group and is expected to begin feeding power to the grid in the 2030s. Officials have yet to say how many residents might be displaced, but the smaller Three Gorges project created nearly one million jobs and forced a similar number of relocations during its two-decade build-out.
A powerful eruption at Japan’s Shinmoedake volcano sent an ash plume more than 3,000 metres high on Sunday morning, prompting safety warnings from authorities.
According to the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), a magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck the Oaxaca region of Mexico on Saturday.
A magnitude 5.2 earthquake struck 56 kilometres east of Gorgan in northern Iran early Sunday morning, according to preliminary seismic data.
'Superman' continued to dominate the summer box office, pulling in another $57.25 million in its second weekend, as theatres welcome a wave of blockbuster competition following a challenging few years for the film industry.
Honduras has brought back mask mandates as COVID-19 cases and a new variant surge nationwide.
Hamas has agreed to a 60-day ceasefire proposal with Israel that would see half of the hostages in Gaza freed in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners, an Egyptian official said on Monday.
On Monday, Russian drones deliberately struck a SOCAR oil depot in Ukraine's southern Odesa region for the second time in two weeks, according to Ukrainian officials.
Afghanistan's growing flour industry now supplies more than half the country's annual demand, with domestic mills producing 3.5 million tons out of the 6 million-ton national requirement.
U.S. envoy Tom Barrack has arrived in Beirut for his fourth visit since June, seeking to reinforce a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, days after the Cabinet backed a plan to disarm Hezbollah and other non-state groups.
Since January, more than 1.7 million Afghan citizens have returned from Iran and Pakistan, the United Nations said on Friday, warning of mounting humanitarian pressures.
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