Ulaanbaatar (AFP) – The icy peaks of Jargalant Mountain are supposed to belong to snow leopards, whose numbers have dwindled to fewer than 1,000 in Mongolia, but hard-pressed herders are increasingly pushing into the vulnerable animals’ traditional habitat.
Houston (AFP) – Before a T. rex can tower over museum visitors or a Triceratops can show off its huge horns, dinosaur fossils must first be painstakingly reconstructed — cleaned, fit together and even painted. That’s what Lauren this restorationist does.
Houston (AFP) – Before a T. rex can tower over museum visitors or a Triceratops can show off its huge horns, dinosaur fossils must first be painstakingly reconstructed — cleaned, fit together and even painted. That’s what Lauren this restorationist does.
Stockholm (AFP) – A Stockholm court fines climate activist Greta Thunberg for disobeying police orders after blocking access to Sweden’s parliament during a protest.
Birkerød (Denmark) (AFP) – Henriette Berthelsen was separated from her family at 11 and forced to wear a contraceptive coil, a trauma she buried until she and 142 other Greenlandic women sued the Danish state. “We should have the right to say what we feel, what happened and the right to be listened to,” she says. Now 66, Berthelsen was part of a forced contraception campaign orchestrated by Copenhagen from the 1960s to 1980, limiting the birth rate in the Arctic territory. The case comes as Denmark and Greenland are re-examining their past relationship, with conclusions due in mid-2025. A Danish colony until 1953, Greenland was granted home rule in 1979.
Golan Heights (AFP) – Israeli soldiers take part in military and aerial supply exercises near the town of Katzrin in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights. Israel bombarded Rafah on 7 May and the military said ground troops conducted “targeted raids” in the southern Gazan city, as negotiations to halt the seven-month war resumed in Cairo. The war was sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures. Israel in response vowed to crush Hamas and launched a military offensive that has killed at least 34,844 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Colombia (Colombia) (AFP) – Until a few months ago, the Ritacuba Blanco glacier, one of Colombia’s highest peaks, was covered in a blanket of snow. But the El Nino phenomenon has opened up large cracks in it, a sign that the glacier is in trouble.
Geneva (AFP) – “Fuel that we expected to be allowed in today has not been allowed in,” says World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom, explaining that, if supplies are not able to get into Gaza, the WHO “cannot sustain our life-saving support.”
Mount Ruang (Indonesia) (AFP) – A team of volunteers in Indonesia travels to Mount Ruang by boat on rescue missions to save abandoned pets from the foot of the volcano. Some of the animals were found trapped under rubble and thick volcanic ashes. Mount Ruang in Indonesia’s northernmost region has erupted more than half a dozen times since April 16, stirring a spectacular mix of ash, lava and lightning that forced the island’s residents to be permanently relocated and thousands more evacuated.
Beijing (AFP) – China says the banning of “Glory to Hong Kong”, a protest song that emerged during the city’s massive democracy demonstrations in 2019, is a “necessary measure”.
