Researchers have been searching for ways to reduce cattle emissions with food additives, such as garlic, oregano, cinnamon and even curry — with mixed results. Dairy farms and other livestock operations are a major source of methane, a heat-trapping gas, much more potent than carbon dioxide. Both gases contribute to global warming. Now, University of California researchers are feeding seaweed to dairy cows in an attempt to make cattle more climate friendly. VOA’s Deborah Block has the story. …
The longest-serving NATO commander in Afghanistan is stepping down Sunday. Before his confirmation in 2016, U.S. General John Nicholson told Congress the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan has “largely defined” his service. Nicholson has served about six years in the war-torn country since Sept. 11, 2001, and, as VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb reports, experts say only time will tell if his legacy set the Afghan government up for success or simply maintained a stalemate with the Taliban. …
A U.S. senator who was held as a prisoner of war (POW) in Vietnam and then ran for U.S. president twice was given the honor of lying in state in the U.S. Capitol Friday, two days before his burial. Arizona Senator John McCain lost his battle with cancer. But the 81-year-old will probably be best remembered for his ability to cross party boundaries. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti reports. …
Satellite imagery shows North Korea is poised to stage another military parade amid new worries that diplomatic efforts on denuclearization are stalling, though analysts say it is unclear whether it will showcase any of the country’s largest ballistic missiles. Pyongyang is preparing to host a number of major events Sept. 9 for the 70th anniversary of the country’s founding, including a military parade, possible visits by foreign delegations, and — for the first time in five years — a massive choreographed performance known as the “Mass Games.” Parades have long been a way for North Korea to show off its military might, and September’s show comes amid sensitive negotiations over the future of the country’s nuclear and ballistic missile arsenal. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met U.S. President Donald Trump in June and agreed to “work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” but negotiations since then appear …
Community and conservation groups in Myanmar have branded a planned highway linking a port project to Thailand an “ecological and social disaster,” saying it would uproot indigenous people from their homes and farms. Critics said an environmental and social impact assessment for the road project, approved by the Myanmar government in June, failed to adequately specify compensation for loss of land and livelihoods, among other problems. “This is a road to an ecological and social disaster (in Myanmar),” said Christy Williams, Myanmar director for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), an international conservation group. The highway is considered strategically important to both nations as it would link Thailand to a deep-sea port and planned Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Dawei, a town on the Myanmar side of an isthmus divided between the two countries. The industrial complex would serve as a gateway to Southeast Asia’s markets, with goods trucked …
Authorities said Friday that two former rebel leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia have abandoned their camps, raising fears they could abandon a fragile peace process that ended five decades of internal conflict. Colombia’s lead prosecutor Nestor Humberto Martinez said that the whereabouts of Luciano Marin, who is more commonly known as Ivan Marquez, are unknown. Office of National Protection director Diego Mora said that Henry Castellanos sent his bodyguards home to the capital of Bogota earlier this week and his location is also a mystery. The two former commanders helped negotiate a peace deal with the government in 2016 under which the rebel group known as the FARC was promised 10 seats in Colombia’s Congress and reduced sentences in exchange for laying down their weapons and not participating in future crimes. Drug trafficking charges But U.S. officials are investigating Marquez in connection with alleged drug trafficking schemes …
The Trump administration is under increasing pressure to speed up the reunification of immigrant families it separated at the Mexican border, following allegations three youngsters were sexually abused while in U.S. custody. The government of El Salvador said the three, ages 12 to 17, were victimized at shelters in Arizona, and it asked the U.S. to make their return a priority. “May they leave the shelters as soon as possible, because it is there that they are the most vulnerable,” Deputy Foreign Relations Minister Liduvina Magarin said in San Salvador on Thursday. Deadline a month ago The U.S. government already is facing heavy criticism over its slow pace in reuniting more than 2,600 children who were separated from their parents last spring before the Trump administration agreed to stop the practice. Most have since been reunited, but hundreds remain apart more than a month after the deadline set by a …
