Новости за 07.03.2024

Paris (AFP) March 4, 2024
Two of fashion's most environmentally conscious designers presented their autumn-winter collections on Monday, the penultimate day of Paris Fashion Week. - Vegan Stella McCartney - With her father and his Beatles bandmate Ringo Starr watching from the front row, Britain's Stella McCartney called on the fashion world to "wake up" with a collection that took her sustainable schtick even f

Brussels, Belgium (AFP) March 4, 2024
EU negotiators struck an agreement Monday to ban single-use plastics in cafes and restaurants from 2030, officials said, under new rules to reduce waste from packaging across the bloc. The EU's 27 nations and lawmakers agreed on the draft text that sets a target of cutting packaging waste in the bloc by five percent by 2030, compared with the amount in 2018. The aim is to reduce that fu

Hanoi (AFP) March 5, 2024
Vietnamese capital Hanoi was blanketed by a thick haze of pollution on Tuesday that obscured high-rise buildings and left the city's nearly nine million people breathing toxic air. The city topped air monitoring website IQAir's table of the world's most polluted cities early Tuesday afternoon. Levels of PM2.5 pollutants - cancer-causing microparticles small enough to enter the bloodstre

Dubai (AFP) March 4, 2024
A Liberian-flagged vessel was targeted off Yemen, maritime security firm Ambrey said Monday, adding that the ship had been listed as "Israeli-affiliated". No group immediately claimed an attack. Since November, Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels have fired drones and missiles at ships they deem to be affiliated with Israel. They say their campaign is in solidarity with Palestinians in the

Brussels, Belgium (AFP) March 5, 2024
The European Union moved a step closer Tuesday to banning products made from forced labour after negotiators reached an agreement on a law that supporters hope will help block imports from China involving the Uyghur Muslim minority. The bloc's draft text does not specifically mention China, but focuses on all products made from forced labour, including those made within the European Union.

Beijing, China (SPX) Mar 04, 2024
Today's commercial solar panels can convert about 15% to 20% of the sunlight they absorb into electrical energy - but they could be much more efficient, according to researchers at Soochow University. The next generation of solar cells has already demonstrated 26.1% efficiency, they said, but more specific research directions are needed to make such efficiency the standard and expand beyond it.

Melbourne (AFP) March 5, 2024
Australia unveiled plans to ramp up investment in Southeast Asia on Tuesday, setting aside US$1.3 billion to bolster trade in a region of rising economic might. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the funding as leaders from the 10-nation ASEAN forum met in Melbourne for a three-day summit. "The government I lead has made it clear. More than any other region, Southeast Asia is wh

Espoo, Finland (SPX) Mar 05, 2024
A new analysis has revealed that human activity has driven the planet's freshwater cycle to unprecedented levels, far exceeding the natural variability that existed prior to the industrial era. Published in Nature Water, this research marks the first instance of global water cycle change being evaluated against a pre-industrial baseline over an extended period, providing a stark illustration of

Geneva (AFP) March 5, 2024
Global container shipping company MSC confirmed Tuesday one of its vessels was hit by a missile off the coast of Yemen, in an attack claimed by the country's Huthi rebels. Since November, the Iran-backed rebels have fired drones and missiles at numerous ships in the Red Sea area vital for world trade. Geneva-based MSC said the Liberian-flagged container ship MSC Sky II was hit on Monday

Beijing (AFP) March 6, 2024
China's top economic policymakers expressed confidence Wednesday that the country could achieve a strong recovery this year, despite persistent headwinds that continue to hinder growth. Thousands of delegates are convening this week in Beijing for the "Two Sessions" - the annual meetings of China's parliament and a political consultative body - to discuss official strategy for the year ahe

San Francisco (AFP) March 4, 2024
Anthropic, a major player in generative artificial intelligence, announced new models to fuel its Claude chatbot, the company said on Monday, as ChatGPT faces more rivals. The company said three new AI models - called Claude 3 Opus, Sonnet and Haiku - were its most high-performing tools yet and were industry leading in terms of their ability to match human intelligence. Founded in 2021,

Boston MA (SPX) Mar 04, 2024
In 2016, at the huge Houston energy conference CERAWeek, MIT materials scientist Yet-Ming Chiang found himself talking to a Tesla executive about a thorny problem: how to store the output of solar panels and wind turbines for long durations. Chiang, the Kyocera Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and Mateo Jaramillo, a vice president at Tesla, knew that utilities lacked a cost-