Hong Kong's famous skyline was engulfed in smog Monday, with residents urged to stay indoors.

A giant mushroom-shaped cloud shot up from the Philippines' most active volcano on Monday, turning day into night as it rained ash on communities where tens of thousands have fled after warnings of an impending eruption.

"Hazardous eruption imminent," the state volcanology agency concluded in its latest bulletin, saying Mayon volcano could blow up within days after two weeks of activity.

Fine ash and sand fell on Legazpi, a city of about 200,000 people, and nearby areas after the midday explosion turned the area into virtual nighttime, forcing motorists to switch on their lights and use windscreen wipers, an AFP video stringer said.

The ash column rose several kilometres above the volcano, blotting out the sun in a largely agricultural region some 330 kilometres (205 miles) southeast of Manila.

"I had to stop because my helmet had filled up with ash," local housewife Girlie Panesa, 39, told AFP as she parked her motorcycle by the roadside in the nearby town of Ligao.

She asked bystanders for water to wash the cement-grey ash off her visor, saying she plans to ride home despite the hazardous conditions because her teenage daughter was alone in their house.

"We expect the explosions to continue," Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology director Renato Solidum told a news conference in Manila.

"There is a possibility of a dangerous eruption, the start of which we are already witnessing," Solidum added.

He advised local officials to evacuate more areas around the crater, expanding the danger zone from six kilometres to eight kilometres.

He also warned aircraft to steer clear of the area due to the danger of jet engines sucking in ash which could gum up turbines, potentially causing a catastrophic crash.

The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) said it shut down Legazpi airport until further notice, disrupting several domestic flights, while warning off other aircraft from the region.

"CAAP advised pilots flying near the area to exercise extreme caution, as ash from volcanic eruption can be hazardous to the aircraft," it said in an advisory.

More than 40,000 people had fled in the past week, the civil defence office in Manila said Monday.

Solidum said superheated volcanic rocks and ash rolled down the volcano's flanks while the ash column was shooting up, threatening surrounding communities.

Mayon, a near-perfect cone, rises 2,460 metres (8,070 feet) and is considered the most volatile of the country's 22 active volcanoes.

There have been 51 previous eruptions in recorded history, the last one in 2014. In 1814 it buried the town of Cagsawa, killing more than 1,000 people.

The Philippines is part of the Pacific "Ring of Fire" of islands that were formed by volcanic activity.

The most powerful explosion in recent years was the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, about 100 kilometres northwest of Manila, which killed more than 800 people.

Source: AFP

For years China was the world's top destination for recyclable trash, but a ban on certain imports has left nations scrambling to find new dumping grounds for growing piles of garbage.

The decision was announced in July and came into force on January 1, giving companies from Europe to the United States barely six months to look for other options, and forcing some to store rubbish in parking lots.In China, some recycling companies have had to lay off staff or shut down due to the lost business.

The ban bars imports of 24 categories of solid waste, including certain types of plastics, paper and textiles.

"Large amounts of dirty... or even hazardous wastes are mixed in the solid waste that can be used as raw materials. This polluted China's environment seriously," the environment ministry explained in a notice to the World Trade Organization.

In 2015 alone, the Asian giant bought 49.6 million tonnes of rubbish, according to the latest government figures.

The European Union exports half of its collected and sorted plastics, 85 percent of which goes to China. Ireland alone exported 95 percent of its plastic waste to China in 2016.

That same year, the US shipped more than 16 million tonnes of scrap commodities to China worth more than $5.2 billion.

- Filling China's enormous shoes -

The ban has been like an "earthquake" for countries dependent on China, said Arnaud Brunet, head of the Bureau of International Recycling.

"It has put our industry under stress since China is simply the largest market in the world" for recycled materials, he told AFP, noting that he expected exports of certain materials to tank by 40 percent or more.

Global plastic exports to China could sink from 7.4 million tonnes in 2016 to 1.5 million tonnes in 2018, while paper exports might tumble nearly a quarter, according to Brunet's estimate.

The decrease will be partly due to a fall in the threshold of impurities China is willing to accept per tonne of waste -- higher standards that most countries currently cannot meet.

Some are now looking at emerging markets elsewhere such as India, Pakistan or southeast Asia, but it could be more expensive than shipping waste to China.

Sending recyclables to China is cheaper because they are placed on ships that would "otherwise be empty" when they return to the Asian country after delivering consumer goods in Europe, said Simon Ellin, chief executive of the Britain-based Recycling Association.

Brunet also warned that many alternate countries may not yet be up to the task of filling China's enormous shoes, since "processing capacity doesn't develop overnight."

The ban risks causing a "catastrophic" environmental problem as backlogs of recyclable waste are instead incinerated or dumped in landfills with other refuse.

In the US, collectors of recyclables are already reporting "significant stockpiles" of materials, said Adina Renee Adler, senior director of international relations at the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI).

"Some municipalities have announced that they will either not take certain materials or direct them to landfills," she said.

Brandon Wright, a spokesman for the US National Waste and Recycling Association, told AFP that some facilities were storing inventory outside or in parking lots.

- 'Hard to do business' -

The ban has also created challenges for Chinese companies dependent on foreign waste.

"It will be very hard to do business," said Zhang Jinglian, owner of the Huizhou Qinchun plastic recycling company in southern Guangdong province.

More than half their plastics were imported, and as prices for such raw materials go up, production will be reduced by at least a third, he said. He had already let go a dozen employees.

Others, such as Nantong Heju Plastic Recycling in coastal Jiangsu province, will "no longer do business" at all, a representative said.

But at the same time, the ban could jolt China into improving its own patchy recycling systems, allowing it to reuse more local materials, said Greenpeace plastics expert Liu Hua.

"In China at the moment, there isn't a complete, legal and regulated recycling system in place," he said, with even big cities like Beijing reliant on illegal scavengers.

"When there aren't resources coming from abroad, there's a greater likelihood of us improving our own internal recycling."

In Europe, the ban could also have the positive effect of prompting countries to focus on developing domestic recycling industries, said Jean-Marc Boursier, president of the European Federation of Waste Management and Environmental Services.

"The Chinese decision forces us to ask ourselves whether we wouldn't be interested in making processing plants in Europe so as to export products rather than waste," he said.

On Tuesday, the EU unveiled plans to phase out single-use plastics such as coffee cups and make all plastic packaging recyclable by 2030.

The black clouds hanging over the boats in Dutch ports Friday were not the remnants of wild winter gales, but harbingers of another devastating storm brewing for Dutch fishermen.

On Tuesday, the European Parliament struck what may prove to be the death knell for some of the Dutch fishing fleet by demanding a ban on electric pulse fishing.

For the Dutch, who invented this experimental method of trawling the North Sea for fish, the decision came as a bombshell, spelling likely catastrophe.

In the northern village of Urk, Andries de Boer, a third generation fisherman, said he like many others now faced an uncertain future after investing heavily to equip their boats with the technology.

On the western coast, in the bustling port of Scheveningen near The Hague, his colleague Anton Dekker said he was "bewildered and extremely disappointed" by "this injustice".

Standing among the nets on his boat, his gaze was lost on the horizon as his crew prepared to head out into the cold North Sea for four days.

- 'It's electrifying' -

Pulse fishing involves dragging electrically charged lines just above the seafloor to shock marine life up from low-lying positions into trawling nets.

EU rules allow member states to equip up to five percent of their fleets with electrodes, and the method has been adopted in particular by Dutch vessels fishing for sole.

Some 84 Dutch boats use the practice, alongside just three Belgian vessels, representing 0.1 percent of the total European fishing fleet.

"Sole is a fish which hides under 10 centimetres of sand during the day. By sending out these little electric pulses, they come out of the sand and bingo, they're in the net," said Dekker.

"When you've been working for years to improve the environment and CO2 emissions, to catch fewer unwanted or small fish, and you've reached your goal -- which is what we believe -- to then see it reduced to nothing, is terrible," said de Boer bitterly.

In Urk, a 10th century village which used to be an island in Flevoland, fishermen have spent hundreds of thousands of euros after having won the go-ahead from the EU on an experimental basis.

But MEPs voted on Tuesday by 402 members to 232 in favour of the ban, while 40 abstained.

"It is a wonderful victory against a terribly harmful kind of fishing," said Yannick Jadot, a French member of the Greens party, who took part in the campaign against the practice.

But Pim Visser, the head of the Dutch fisherman's organisation VisNed, said the campaign had been based on "half-truths, non-facts, insinuations and allegations".

"It's a scandal, and a blow," he said, denying Jadot's accusations by insisting there was no terrible environmental harm.

On the contrary, the Dutch fishermen said: "The seabed is less disturbed" than by more traditional methods of fishing for sole,.

There is "no scientific basis for saying that electric fishing is not good," he added.

- 'Bruised fish' -

Researcher Adriaan Rijnsdorp, from the University of Wageningen, agreed. He is due to complete a study of the environmental effects next year.

"It's a very promising technique, which is important for limiting the damage which fishing inflicts on the ecosystem," he told the NOS public broadcaster.

But the row has increasingly pitted the Netherlands against France -- particularly after 200 top European chefs pledged to stop sourcing seafood obtained through electric pulse fishing.

"We refuse to work with seafood coming from a fishing method that condemns our future and that of the ocean," the chefs said in a text written by two-star Michelin chef Christopher Coutanceau.

They alleged that electric trawlers "produce catches of poor quality, fish which underwent stress and are often marked by post-electrocution bruises."

"It is impossible to work with such low-quality products."

"Nonsense," shot back Visser, insisting the Dutch were selling high-quality fish, and pointing to the beloved French delicacy of foie-gras, most often produced by force-feeding poultry to fatten their livers.

Tuesday's vote was just one step in a long battle, with the EU parliament now trying to strike a compromise with the European Commission, the bloc's executive, and the European Council, which groups the 28 member states.

Dutch fishermen say if a total ban is adopted, then they will need to use 40 million litres of diesel more a year to drag heavier nets, which will cut their revenues by some 20 percent.

Source: AFP

Nine people including two firefighters were killed Thursday as violent gales battered northern Europe, snapping air and train links.

Germany halted all long-distance rail traffic for at least a day, while numerous domestic flights were scrapped as hurricane-force winds lashed the country.

The storm claimed six lives in Germany, including two firefighters deployed in emergency operations and two truck drivers whose vehicles were blown over by the gales.

Another driver died when he lost control of his vehicle and crashed in to a truck.

A 59-year-old camper was killed instantly when a tree fell on him in North Rhine-Westphalia state, German police said, as wind speeds reached a high of 203 kilometres an hour (126 mph) at the Brocken -- the highest peak of northern Germany.

The storm, named Friederike, also ripped the roof off a school in the eastern state of Thueringia while children were still in the building. Authorities said no one was hurt there.

In the Bavarian alps, the strong gales forced the cancellation of a ski world championship qualifier at Oberstdorf.

It is the worst storm to strike Germany since 2007, according to the German weather service.

Passengers stuck at rail stations were given a voucher for a hotel room, German rail service Deutsche Bahn spokesman Achim Strauss said.

"We must have protect our passengers and our staff," he added, without saying when the rail service would return to normal.

In the Netherlands, which had borne the brunt of the severe winter storms earlier Thursday, two people were crushed by falling trees as bitter winds barrelled off the North Sea to hit the low-lying country with full force.

As the national weather service raised its warning to the highest code red level, a 62-year-old man was killed in the central Dutch town of Olst by a falling branch when he got out of his truck to remove debris blocking the road.

A second Dutchman, also 62, was killed in eastern Enschede when a tree toppled onto his car, the Dutch news agency ANP said.

In neighbouring Belgium, a woman driver reportedly died when her car was crushed by a tree as she was travelling through a wood in the Grez-Doiceau area, about 35 kilometres south of Brussels.

Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, one of the continent's busiest travel hubs, was forced to briefly cancel all flights as winds gusted up to 140 kilometres an hour in some areas.

Flights later resumed but all passengers were being advised to check their flight status, the airport said in a tweet, adding "up until now, 320 flights have been cancelled".

The airport also had to close the entrances to two of its three departure halls when some roof tiles were whipped off the terminal building.

- Storm carpool -

The traffic chaos also plagued the roads, with the Dutch national traffic office reporting 66 trucks had been toppled over by the high winds causing huge traffic jams on the motorways, the highest recorded number since 1990.

The Dutch NS national train service said meanwhile that only a few trains would be put into service late Thursday, and warned of further disruption on Friday as many overhead lines had been brought down by the high winds.

The hashtag #StormPoolen (or storm carpool) began trending with people searching rides between cities, and some drivers offering spare seats in their cars.

“My lovely boyfriend is trying to get from Leiden Central to Delft. He’s very nice and there’s a bottle of wine in it for whoever can return him unharmed. #StormPoolen,” wrote one Twitter user Molly Quell.

Puk van de Lagemaat promised "mad Dj-ing and Karaoke skills to accompany you in the traficjam (sic)" if anyone could give her a ride from Amsterdam central station to The Hague.

Thalys, the high-speed train operator, said suspended services to the Netherlands and Belgium would resume on Friday while services to Germany would depend on when the Aachen Cologne line reopens.

- Avalanche risk -

Germany's rail service said stranded passengers will receive a hotel voucher or will have the option of spending a night in a train at the station.

Traffic is expected to resume only very gradually, said a German rail spokesman.

Dutch insurers warned that the bill for Thursday's storm damage could top 10 million euros ($12.25 million).

Four people were injured in Antwerp, including one woman who was seriously hurt after being hit in the head by flying metal debris, the Belgian news agency Belga said.

Elsewhere in Europe, Tyrol state in western Austria said part of the Westbahn train line linking Vienna, Linz and Salzburg was closed on Thursday morning because of avalanche risk, national railways company OeBB said.

"We don't want to take any risks," OeBB spokesman Christoph Gasser-Mair said.

Source: AFP

 Cape Town will next month slash its individual daily water consumption limit by 40 percent to 50 litres, the mayor said Thursday, as the city battles its worst drought in a century.

The wreck of an Iranian oil tanker that collided with a cargo ship off China this month has been located, Beijing said Wednesday, but gave no new details about the environmental impact of the disaster.

The Sanchi, which was carrying 136,000 tonnes of light crude oil from Iran, ran into Hong Kong-registered bulk freighter the CF Crystal on January 6, sparking a fire that Chinese rescue ships struggled to extinguish.

It sank on Sunday after a new and massive fire erupted, sending a cloud of black smoke as high as a kilometre above the East China Sea. The bodies of only three of the 32 crew members -- 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis -- have been found.

On Monday Chinese ships scrambled to clean-up a massive oil spill amid fears of devastating damage to marine life.

"The location of the wreck has been confirmed," China's transport ministry said on its official social media platform, adding that the ship lay at a depth of around 115 metres.

Thirteen vessels were sent to continue emergency operations at the scene on Tuesday.

Next, "underwater robots will be deployed to explore the wreck waters," the transport ministry added.

Three separate slicks were easily visible from surveillance planes, up to 18.2 kilometres (11.3 miles) in length, China's State Oceanic Administration (SOA) said in a statement Monday, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

The type of condensate oil carried by the Sanchi does not form a traditional surface slick when spilt, but is nonetheless highly toxic to marine life and much harder to separate from water.

The area where the ship went down is an important spawning ground for species like the swordtip squid and wintering ground for species like the yellow croaker and blue crab, among many others, according to Greenpeace.

It is also on the migratory pathway of numerous marine mammals, such as humpback and gray whales.

In addition to the light crude oil, the Sanchi also carried a fuel tank able to accommodate some 1,000 tonnes of heavy diesel.

Takuya Matsumoto, a spokesman for Japan’s coastguard said it was not yet clear how much fuel remained in the ship.

"It is difficult to give an immediate assessment of what kind of environmental impact the oil leak may leave at this point. It depends on how much fuel the ship still had inside," he told AFP on Tuesday.

"We believe the situation is reasonably under control for now."

Alaska-based oil spill consultant Richard Steiner has slammed governments for failing to gather environmental data more quickly.

"As no one has been conducting a scientific assessment of (the environmental impact), the governments and ship owners are likely to claim, erroneously, there was limited damage," he said.

Source: AFP

Floating on the murky waters of the River Thames in London, activist paddle-boarders are trying to rid the waterway of a plague of plastic waste and draw attention to the problem.

As the sun rises on the Thames behind historic Kew Bridge in the west of the British capital, quacking ducks and gliding swans conjured a serene landscape.

But on closer inspection all manner of plastic objects have washed up ashore, including plastic bags hanging from trees.

It is this kind of regularly sullied scene that inspired several members of paddle-board association Active360 to launch cleaning sessions of the river and canals that run through London.

The founders -- Paul Hyman, Louise Nolan and James Roorda -- took to the water this week to inspect an island for detritus.

Within half an hour, they had discovered enough discarded waste to fill a large bucket.

The haul includes plastic bottles, ropes, sheeting, cups "and the most unpleasant plastic bags: dog poop bags which seem to get everywhere now," Nolan said.

Many of these products would take hundreds of years to downgrade.

- '1,000 Royal Albert Halls' -

Nolan noted their haul was relatively modest and -- depending on the tides -- it can be three or four times larger.

For her, this small gesture for the environment is "really gratifying", but Hyman, the founder of the association, struggles with its limitations.

"Cleaning it up, the danger is that we're just hiding the problem," he said.

"It's upstream measures that need to happen. There's no point just cleaning up after people, you need to stop it happening in the first place."

The association tries to raise awareness about its efforts on social networks and at a festival held in spring.

Their latest battle: attempting to convince coffee shops in the capital to abandon disposable cups, many of which fall into the river.

Their anti-plastics campaign is slowly starting to gather momentum, aided in part by the government of Prime Minister Theresa May, who last week announced a plan to fight "one of the great environmental scourges of our time."

"In the UK alone, the amount of single-use plastic wasted every year would fill 1,000 Royal Albert Halls," she said, referring to the famous London concert hall with more than 5,000 seats.

- 'Change in the air' -

May's environmental action plan includes extending a small charge for plastic carrier bags -- currently enforced at supermarkets -- to all retailers in England, as well as urging them to introduce plastic-free aisles.

The government will also call for evidence on changes to the tax system or charges on single-use plastic items, such as takeaway containers.

However environmental advocates have criticised the proposals as too modest, in particular the pledge to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste only by the end of 2042.

The European Union wants to phase out single-use plastics, aiming to make all packaging reusable or recyclable by 2030.

Corporations also appear to be responding to the growing climate of concern around plastics.

On Tuesday, budget supermarket chain Iceland, which specialises in frozen food, announced it would remove all plastic packaging from its own branded product lines within five years.

Coffee and convenience goods chains like Starbucks, Pret a Manger and Costa Coffee also increasingly compete in "green" proposals, offering discounts to customers who bring their own mugs and charging more for their disposable cups.

"This year there is definitely a change in the air," said Hyman, though he remains unconvinced by May's plans.

"What the government announced last week was interesting but it wasn't very tangible," he said.

As he plays his part in the evolving anti-plastics revolution, Hyman urged others "to think about their own lives and the plastic they use, and to think about what they don't really need to use.

"Just carrying a reusable coffee cup around with you is a really good example."

Source: AFP

One of the most important strategic sites in Europe for the US military has come under threat from a rather unexpected enemy: a flock of sheep.

It is their random meanderings near the Deveselu base in southern Romania that has triggered an unusual power struggle between US commanders and a stubborn local sheep farmer.

Dumitru Bleja's 250 or so sheep "grazed without problem" in the area for years before the Americans arrived at the end of 2013, says Alexandru Damian, mayor of Stoenesti, a community on the vast Danubian plain 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of the border with Bulgaria.

"Sheep are not like people. They don't respect the rules, they go into areas where security sensors are active, touching the fence and setting off alarm systems," he says.

But this is unthinkable for the US military, which chose the site as one of its two anti-missile defence systems to help defend NATO members against the threat of short and medium-range ballistic missiles, particularly from the Middle East.

- A security threat? -

In 2014, the top US official at Deveselu informed Romania's defence ministry that having a shelter for sheep some 10 metres (yards) from the fence "undermines the minimum security requirements and is incompatible" with the running of the base.

The complaint has spiralled into a more than three-year legal saga between the Romanian defence ministry and the farmer that has now reached the country's highest court, which on Wednesday will rule on one of the aspects of the case.

According to the mayor, Bleja had in 2007 bought nearly a hectare (2.5 acres) of land adjacent to the area later taken over by the base, and a year later, he built a shelter for his sheep -- well before work began on the military site.

But, the farmer never applied for planning permission to build, he says.

With the ministry pursuing him for building without a permit, the shepherd has responded with his own claims -- for damages of up to 18,000 euros ($22,000) in the event of the demolition of his 132-square-metre (1,420-square-foot) sheep pen.

For the mayor, the situation is "embarrassing".

"We have signed a treaty with the Americans and we should respect it," he says.

Contacted by AFP, the US military declined to comment "on a dispute between the Romanian government and a private citizen".

"We sincerely appreciate the strong and continued partnership between the United States and our Romanian allies that allows for continued operations at Naval Support Facility Deveselu," said Lieutenant Tim Pietrack, spokesman for the US Navy's Europe, Africa and Southwest Asia region.

The base at Deveselu, which is part of the NATO missile shield and was built at an estimated cost of $800 million, was inaugurated in May 2016, infuriating Russia which views it as a security threat right on its doorstep.

- 'Exaggerated' demands -

In Stoenesti, residents are largely reluctant to talk "to avoid getting into trouble" with Bleja, but some believe that he is the one at fault.

"Even if we're talking about building a road, people should just accept the conditions laid out" by the authorities responsible for expropriations, said one bar owner.

"You can't just dig in your heels and do things of your own accord. The landowner must reach an agreement with the military and with the local authorities," said a 69-year-old retiree, Nicoleta Nacu.

"And the damages he is asking for are exaggerated because after all, the sheep pen is not all that big."

One local councillor even accused the farmer of buying the land and building the shelter there "on purpose, to be able to demand significant compensation from the Americans."

But the idea is dismissed out of hand by Bleja's lawyer Serban Dinu.

"Out of the question," he says.

"Back in 2007, nobody knew that Deveselu would be chosen" as the site for a US base, he told AFP.

Ahead of Wednesday's verdict, the farmer -- who declined to be interviewed -- has gone with his sheep to his hometown of Caracal, which lies 15 km west of Stoenesti.

Source: AFP

The Philippines raised the alert level for the country's most active volcano twice in 24 hours Sunday, meaning that a hazardous eruption is possible within days.

A bright glow from Mayon volcano's summit crater indicated the start of lava flow, while steam and ash plumes were produced by three steam-driven eruptions, according to the country's volcanology institute.

Mayon's status was raised late Sunday to Level Three, meaning "increased tendency towards hazardous eruption".

"This means that Mayon is exhibiting relatively high unrest and that magma is at the crater and that hazardous eruption is possible within weeks or even days," the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said in a statement.

More than 900 families have been evacuated and temporarily sheltered at nearby schools, a national disaster agency spokesperson told the Manila Bulletin.

A seven-kilometre (four-mile) extended danger zone has been recommended on the volcano's southern flank. The public is urged to be vigilant and avoid entering the area "due to the danger of rockfalls, landslides and sudden explosions or dome collapse that may generate hazardous volcanic flows", Phivolcs said.

Civil aviation authorities were told to advise pilots against flying near the summit due to the danger of erupting ash, which can be hazardous to aircraft.

The 2,460-metre (8,070-foot) Mayon, located about 330 kilometres southeast of Manila, has a long history of deadly eruptions.

Four foreign tourists and their local guide were killed when Mayon erupted in May 2013.

In 1814 more than 1,200 people were killed when lava flows buried the town of Cagsawa.

An explosion in August 2006 did not cause direct deaths, but four months later a typhoon unleashed an avalanche of volcanic mud from Mayon's slopes that killed 1,000 people.

"For the past 24 hours, Mayon Volcano in Albay Province has noticeably increased its unrest," warned Phivolcs.

China raced to contain oil leaking from an Iranian tanker stricken off its eastern coast Tuesday amid warnings the burning ship could spark an environmental disaster.

The Sanchi was carrying 136,000 tonnes of light crude oil when it collided with a cargo ship on Saturday and erupted into flames 160 nautical miles east of Shanghai.

If all the cargo from the Panamanian-flagged 274-metre (899-foot) tanker spills, it would be the biggest oil slick from a ship in decades and could kill marine life across a vast area, analysts have said.

The transport ministry said the vessel was still burning on Tuesday. It released a photo of the Sanchi enveloped in smoke and flames.

"With the ship on fire, it is expected that much of this condensate oil will burn off rather than enter the water," Greenpeace East Asia said in a statement to AFP.

"However, if the ship sinks before the oil burns off, the cleanup procedure would be extremely difficult. What is important now is to understand how much of that oil has burned off, and how much is leaking into the sea."

The Chinese foreign ministry said late Monday that cleaning ships had been sent to prevent "secondary disasters".

Authorities widened the search on Tuesday for 31 missing crew members, with 13 search-and-rescue vessels "carrying out an uninterrupted search within 900 square nautical miles" of the tanker, China's ministry of transport said.

The efforts were hampered by poor conditions at sea, it added, with rescuers battered with rain, wind and waves.

The tanker "is in danger of explosion and sinking, and the toxic gas... is very harmful to rescue workers on the scene," authorities warned Tuesday.

A vessel carrying protective suits, masks and gas testing equipment was sent to the scene Monday evening.

The Sanchi was on its way to South Korea when it collided with the CF Crystal, a Hong Kong-registered bulk freighter that was transporting grain.

The Crystal's 21 Chinese crew members were rescued, but most of the 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis from the Sanchi are still missing.

A "preliminary assessment" by China's transport ministry determined that a body found on Monday with a protective garment on it belonged to one of the Sanchi's crew members.

A US Navy aircraft took part in the search on Sunday, scouring a wide area before returning to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan.

A South Korean coast guard ship was also dispatched.

The Sanchi belongs to the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), Iran's petroleum ministry said, and was transporting the oil to South Korea's Hanwha Total. The ship and its cargo were insured, a statement said.

This is the second accident in less than two years involving a tanker owned by the NITC. In August 2016, an Iranian supertanker and a container ship collided in the Singapore Strait, causing damage to both vessels but no injuries or pollution.

source: AFP

 New onshore wind and solar energy projects are set to deliver electricity more cheaply than fossil fuels plants, with other green technologies also rapidly gaining a cost advantage over dirty fuels, a report published Saturday said.

According to a new cost analysis from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), within two years "all the renewable power generation technologies that are now in commercial use are expected to fall within the fossil fuel-fired cost range, with most at the lower end or undercutting fossil fuels".

It expects renewables will cost between three and 10 US cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) by 2020, while the current cost spectrum for fossil fuel power generation ranges from five to 17 US cents per kWh.

"This new dynamic signals a significant shift in the energy paradigm," said IRENA's Director-General, Adnan Amin, in a statement.

"Turning to renewables for new power generation is not simply an environmentally conscious decision, it is now -- overwhelmingly -- a smart economic one," he added.

Continued technological advancements are not the only factor helping drive down prices. The report found that the market was becoming more competitive and a number of experienced project developers had emerged in the sector.

The best onshore wind and solar PV projects are expected to deliver electricity for three US cents or less by next year.

But onshore wind and solar are not the only sectors becoming more competitive rapidly. The study found that new bioenergy and geothermal projects commissioned in 2017 had global weighted average costs of around seven US cents per kWh.

IRENA said auction results suggest that two other technologies --concentrating solar power (CSP) and offshore wind -- will provide electricity for between 6-10 US cents per kWh by 2020.

"These cost declines across technologies are unprecedented and representative of the degree to which renewable energy is disrupting the global energy system," said Amin.

The report was released on the first day of the eighth assembly of IRENA, which aims to be a global hub for renewable energy cooperation and information exchange by its 154 member countries.

source: AFP

 Storm surges and tidal cycles caused record sea levels along the coast of the Netherlands last year, a Dutch marine institute has found.

"The level has been rising gradually since 1890 by about 0.2 cm per year due to the melting of the ice and the warming up of the ocean," expert Fedor Baart, of the research organisation Deltares, said in a statement Friday.

"That means that, as a rule, you expect the sea level to be higher every year."

Sea and water levels are carefully watched in the Netherlands, as much of the country lies below sea-level and is protected from flooding by a series of defences such as dykes, sand dunes, windmills to pump away water and sophisticated barrages.

In 2017, the institute measured the average sea levels along the Dutch coast to be 11 centimetres (over four inches) higher than normal water levels in Amsterdam, a gauge known as the NAP.

The previous highest reading was in 2007 when the water was nine centimetres above the NAP.

The institute said in 2017 "there were several storm surges in a single year for the first time since 2007," which had contributed to the high water levels.

Bad storms can temporarily push water levels up by a meter, which accounts for an average rise of about one centimetre, Baart explained.

The institute also highlighted that every 18.6 years the seas rise and fall by two centimetres on a tidal cycle.

"The last peak was in 2004, and the level is now rising again to the next peak in early 2023," Deltares said in a statement.

It stressed however that "the Dutch coast can cope with extreme water levels" and said "the sea level on the Dutch coast is rising by 20 centimetres every century".

Dutch water defences were completely overhauled and improved after devastating floods in 1953 which left 1,800 people dead.

source: AFP

Indonesian conservation officials are racing to locate and rescue a saltwater crocodile that has had a motorbike tyre wrapped around its neck for more than a year on the island of Sulawesi.

The stricken crocodile, measuring around 13-foot (4 metres) long, has been regularly spotted in a river running through Central Sulawesi's capital, Palu, since 2016.

But a recent video shot by a local showed the reptile gasping for air with officials fearing the tyre is slowly killing the beast.

Conservationists believe someone may have deliberately placed the tyre around the protected animal's neck in a failed attempt to trap it as a pet.

The animal has recently been spotted swimming under a bridge in Palu with excited locals trying to take selfies with the croc in the background.

"In the past year, we saw that there's still enough room for the crocodile's neck to move around," head of the local conservation agency Haruna, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told AFP Thursday.

"But we are not going to wait until the tyre strangles the animal. We will rescue it."

Haruna said the agency lacked proper equipment to rescue the animal, adding that their attempts to locate the animal has so far proved fruitless.

Authorities are also opposed to using tranquiliser darts on the animal, fearing it might disappear back into the river that is home to more than 20 crocodiles before the drugs take effect.

Instead Haruna said his team has built an iron trap which will be placed inside the river when the water level is low.

"We will definitely save the crocodile but at the same time I also need to consider my men's safety," he said.

The huge Indonesian archipelago is home to a vast array of exotic wildlife, including several species of crocodile.

Source: AFP