Life, Nature, Society

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Washington Post: As China cleans up its act, India’s cities named the world’s most polluted
India’s capital, New Delhi, choked by rising automobile emissions and construction dust, was named Wednesday the world’s most polluted megacity by the World Health Organization, which analyzed the levels of the pollutant PM10 in the air in cities with populations above 14 million between 2010 and 2016.
Greater Cairo was the second most polluted large city. India’s other megacity of Mumbai ranked fourth on the list and Beijing fifth.

Nine out of 10 people around the globe are breathing polluted air, the study said, and air pollution is responsible for the deaths of 7 million people worldwide each year, most of them living in Asia and Africa. Of those deaths, 3.8 million were from indoor air pollution from unhealthy cook stoves, a huge problem in India.
Former perennial offender China, in response to citizen outrage, has taken steps to clean up its air, shuttering or reforming factories and reducing its coal consumption in favor of renewable energy. The moves helped improve air quality in Beijing and elsewhere but at a cost — many poor people were denied coal heat during winter or lost jobs.
The World Health Organization’s head of public health, Maria Neira, told the Reuters news agency that India should follow China’s lead.  read more »

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Winx: Australian horse takes Queen Elizabeth Stakes for 25th consecutive win
The champion mare made her signature late charge to take the A$4m (£2.18m) race.
Six-year-old Winx is now unbeaten in three years, matching the 25 successive wins of fellow Australian mare Black Caviar, who retired in 2013. Winx first ran in 2014 and has now won 29 of her 35 races, the winning streak starting on 16 May 2015.
"What can I say? She is just an exceptional athlete," said her jockey Hugh Bowman.

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Photo courtesy BBC

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Scientific Benefits of Meditation
Over 100 studies were analyzed (some of which are in themselves analysis of other hundreds of studies), and categorised the findings into 76 benefits (divided into 46 subheadings).

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Image courtesy liveanddare.com

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New Zealand bans all new offshore oil exploration as part of 'carbon-neutral future'
The New Zealand government will grant no new offshore oil exploration permits. The ban will apply to new permits and won’t affect the existing 22, some of which have decades left on their exploration rights and cover an area of 100,000 sq km.
The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said her government "has a plan to transition towards a carbon-neutral future, one that looks 30 years in advance”"
The Labour coalition government was elected last year and made tackling climate change one of the cornerstones of its policies, committing to transition to 100% of electricity generation from renewable sources by 2035 and making the economy carbon neutral by 2050.
Last month Ardern accepted a 50,000-strong Greenpeace petition calling for an end to offshore oil and gas exploration.

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Image courtesy 123RF / Radio New Zealand

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Sudan, the world's last male northern white rhino, has died, putting his species on the brink of extinction
Sudan was born in 1972, in what is now South Sudan, when there were still about 1,000 northern white rhinos roaming wild. But their habitat was then, as it remains today, riven by human conflict. As The Washington Post's Kevin Sieff wrote in a profile of Sudan in 2015: “They were concentrated in countries plagued by war: Sudan, Congo, the Central African Republic. When fighting broke out, the rhinos were also victims, killed for their meat or their horns, or sometimes exchanged for money or arms.”

The world's last remaining male northern white rhino has died in Kenya at age 45, the conservationists who looked after him said Tuesday. There are now just two female members of the subspecies left.

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Photo courtesy Mercury News / AP

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Silversea luxury cruise ship cut in half for massive 49-foot expansion
Silversea began the lengthening process of its Silver Spirit ship this month as part of a $100 million renovation.
The massive expansion will require 500 workers who will spend approximately 450,000 hours to complete.

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Image courtesy @FoxNews and Wikimedia / Flickr / Tips For Travellers