ओशियानिया – Page 3 – आवारा मुसाफिर

New Zealand imposes lifetime ban on youth buying cigarettes

December 13, 20221561 Views

New Zealand on Tuesday passed into law a unique plan to phase out tobacco smoking by imposing a lifetime ban on young people buying cigarettes. The law states that tobacco can’t ever be sold to anybody born on or after Jan. 1, 2009, it would be punishable by fines up to NZ$150,000 ($95,910). The ban will remain in place for a person's whole life. It means the minimum age for buying cigarettes will keep going up and up. In theory, somebody trying to buy a pack of cigarettes 50 years from now would need ID to show they were at least 63 years old. But health authorities hope smoking will fade away well before then. FILE PHOTO: Vaping by a man in a street in Auckland, New Zealand, Thursday, Dec. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/David Rowland) Already boasting one of the lowest adult smoking ...

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Tongan volcano eruption unleashed highest plume on record

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

November 5, 2022995 Views

The powerful Jan. 15 underwater eruption of Tonga's Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano in the South Pacific produced a plume that soared higher into Earth's atmosphere than any other on record - about 35 miles (57 km) - as it extended more than halfway to space, researchers said on Thursday. The white-grayish plume unleashed by the eruption in the Polynesian archipelago became the first one documented to have penetrated a frigid layer of the atmosphere called the mesosphere, according to scientists who employed a novel technique using multiple satellite images to measure its height. The plume was composed primarily of water with some ash and sulfur dioxide mixed in, said atmospheric scientist Simon Proud, lead author of the research published in the journal Science. Eruptions fro...

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Climate justice: UN rules Australia violated islander rights

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

October 11, 20221007 Views

A landmark climate-change ruling can have large scale impact The United Nations Human Rights Committee has found that the Australian government violated the rights of people living on four islands in the Torres Strait and has ordered it to pay for the harm caused. The committee ruled last week that the country had failed to protect islanders from the effects of climate change, making their claim the first successful one of this kind. The Torres Strait islands off the northern tip of Australia are already feeling the brunt of climate-change damage. Rising sea levels, coastal erosion and flooding have had devastating impacts on the island communities. Bridget Lewis, at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, studies how human-rights law can be applied to environmental ...

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Missing snow puts famed New Zealand ski areas on precipice

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

October 7, 20221423 Views

New Zealand’s Tūroa ski area is usually a white wonderland at this time of year, its deep snowpack supporting its famed spring skiing. This season, it’s largely a barren moonscape, with tiny patches of snow poking out between vast fields of jagged volcanic boulders. The ski area was forced to close for the season this week, three weeks earlier than planned. Rain repeatedly washed away the snow, and the ski area’s 50 snowmaking machines proved no match against balmy temperatures. Climate change appears to be a significant factor, after New Zealand experienced its warmest winter on record — for the third year in a row. The ski slopes are almost devoid of snow at the Tūroa ski field at Mt. Ruapehu, New Zealand on Sept. 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Nick Perry) The disastrous snow season co...

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Australia to set aside at least 30% of its land mass to protect endangered species

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

October 4, 2022906 Views

Australia will set aside at least 30% of its land mass for conservation in a bid to protect plants and animals in the island continent famed for species found nowhere else in the world, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said on Tuesday. Australia has lost more mammal species than any other continent and has one of the worst rates of species decline among the world's richest countries, a five-yearly environmental report card released in July by the government showed. FILE PHOTO: A wallaby sits among burnt trees at Kosciuszko National Park in Providence Portal, New South Wales, Australia. REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy That report showed the number of species added to the list of threatened species or in a higher category of risk grew on average by 8% from the previous report in 2016. ...

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Amid rising seas, island nations push for legal protections

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

October 1, 2022500 Views

When and if an island nation fully submerges due to rising seas, what happens to the nationalities of its citizens? This and other related questions are being considered by island nations advocating for changes to international law as climate change threatens their existence. “Climate change induced sea level rise is a defining issue for many Pacific Island states and like most climate change issues, Pacific Island states have been at the forefront of challenging international law to develop in a way which is equitable and just,” said Fleur Ramsay, head of litigation and climate lead of the Pasifika Program at the Australia-based Environmental Defenders Office. Eseta Vusamu sits near the water Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022, in the village of Faleasiu on the island of Upolu in Samoa. (...

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Some 230 whales beached in Tasmania; rescue efforts underway

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

September 21, 20221017 Views

About 230 whales have been stranded on Tasmania’s west coast, just days after 14 sperm whales were found beached on an island off the Australian state’s northwestern coast. The pod stranded on Ocean Beach in Macquarie Harbour appears to be pilot whales and at least half are presumed to still be alive, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania said Wednesday. In this image made from a video, a rescuer pours water on one of stranded whales on Ocean Beach, near Strahan, Australia Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation via AP) A team from the Marine Conservation Program was assembling whale rescue gear and heading to the area, the department said. The whales beached two years to the day after the largest mass-stranding in Australia’s his...

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New Zealand removes most remaining COVID restrictions

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

September 12, 20221639 Views

Tourists will no longer need to be vaccinated to visit New Zealand removed most of its remaining COVID-19 restrictions Monday as the government signaled a return to normalcy for the first time since the pandemic began. People will no longer be required to wear masks in supermarkets, stores, busses or planes. The last remaining vaccine mandates — on health care workers — will end. And tourists will no longer need to be vaccinated in order to visit the country. The government announced it was ditching its so-called COVID traffic light framework altogether and leaving in place just two main restrictions — that those who test positive for the virus isolate for seven days, and that people wear masks when visiting health care facilities like hospitals and aged-care homes. FILE PHOTO...

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New Zealand river’s personhood status offers hope to Māori

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

August 16, 2022851 Views

The Whanganui River is surging into the ocean, fattened from days of winter rain and yellowed from the earth and clay that has collapsed into its sides. Logs and debris hurtle past as dusk looms. Sixty-one-year-old Tahi Nepia is calmly paddling his outrigger canoe, called a waka ama in his Indigenous Māori language, as it is buffeted from side to side. Before venturing out, he makes sure to first ask permission from his ancestors in a prayer, or karakia. It’s the top item on his safety list. He says his ancestors inhabit the river and each time he dips his paddle into the water he touches them. Tahi Nepia, a waka ama (outrigger canoe) paddler and caretaker at a Maori immersion school, travels on the Whanganui River in New Zealand on June 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Brett Phibbs) “You ...

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Social media helps scientists monitor rarely sighted whales

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

August 16, 2022286 Views

The infrequently sighted southern right whale, or tohorā is one of New Zealand's rarest whale species Photographs shared by members of the public, via Facebook and nature-watching network iNaturalist, helped scientists assess how the species is faring around the Aotearoa New Zealand mainland. Carried out in cooperation with the Department of Conservation and published in the journal Ocean & Coastal Management, the study reveals that southern right whales are slower than expected at re-establishing a habitat in mainland waters. The Tohoro, or Southern Right Whale is one of New Zealand's rarest whale species. Researchers have monitored its movement and presence with the help of citizen scientists. Photo credit: University of Auckland, Department of Conservation permit The re...