Setting smoky bonfires of tires and trash, people in the West African country of Mauritania battled the sub-Sahara's largest locust invasion in more than a decade as swarms swept south from the desert.
Locusts settled on the desert capital of Nouakchott on Thursday in vision-blurring clouds, prompting traffic collisions and crunching underfoot with each step in sand-covered streets.
"It's beautiful to see and funny, the locusts on parade in the sky," marveled Aicha Bint Sadibouh, a woman in Nouakchott. "But when they invade the streets and homes, it's disastrous," Sadibouh said.
Moving at up to 100km a day, the crop-eating insects were settling at an estimated rate of 50 million per km2, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned. Experts warned of threats to vital rainy season planting, calling for urgent international action for an arid region perpetually on the edge of food shortages.
"Some farmers now are afraid to plant any more seeds; they're afraid once seeds germinate and the little plants come up, they will be attacked by the locusts," said Keith Cressman, a locust forecast officer with the Rome-based FAO.
"The last risk is that when the crops are ready to be harvested, around September, that will coincide with the formation of new swarms" from eggs being laid now, Cressman said. "That harvest could be seriously disrupted," making for a "very difficult summer" for farmers.
At risk are sustenance crops of millet, sorghum and other grains that feed millions in vulnerable Saharan states. Vegetable crops for markets likewise were in danger.
Swarms descended on Nouakchott on Wednesday, making good on weeks of warnings from African leaders and international agencies that unseasonably heavy rains to the north had spawned the northwest Sahara's largest locust infestation since 1988.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS