When Ken Umeano went to watch the summer sci-fi blockbuster “District 9,” he stormed out after 30 minutes. “I was so angry,” said Umeano, a Nigeria native living in Atlanta
‘District 9’ depiction angers some Nigerians
Tag Archives: animals
Scientists study ‘garbage patch’ in Pacific Ocean
It is a problem of massive plastic proportions — a giant floating debris field, composed mostly of bits and pieces of plastic, in the northwest Pacific Ocean, about a thousands miles off the coast of California. It’s called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and it covers a vast area of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of miles of open ocean
Japanese jobless for June highest in six years
Japan’s unemployment rate hit a six-year high in June, climbing to 5.4 percent, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said Friday. The site of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was converted into Camp Alpha shortly after the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. The troops and their contractors caused “major damage” by digging, cutting, scraping and leveling while they were revamping the site to meet military standards, the U.N
U.S. troops accused of damaging Babylon’s ancient wonder
The U.S.
Jackson’s chimp Bubbles enjoys life out of public eye
Bubbles gained fame over two decades ago as Michael Jackson’s simian companion. Now at age 26, Bubbles has retired to the Center for Great Apes outside Wauchula, Florida. When Bubbles was 5 years old, he and Jackson toured Japan, where the chimp moonwalked for the media.
Mekong River dolphins at risk of extinction, WWF says
Pollution in the Mekong River in Southeast Asia has pushed the local population of Irrawaddy dolphins to the brink of extinction, the World Wildlife Fund warned Wednesday. The small freshwater dolphins, distinguished by their round heads and short dorsal fins, are already listed as a threatened species, the WWF said in a report
Contagious cancer threatens future of devils
Australia’s iconic Tasmanian devil — widely known as trouble in Looney Tunes cartoons — has been put on the country’s endangered list, environmental officials announced Friday.
Plight of the giant panda: Animals struggle after quake
As people across China’s Sichuan province continue to rebuild their lives one year after a 7.9-magnitude earthquake leveled some towns and cities, the region’s famed giant pandas are still struggling due to the devastation wreaked by the deadly temblor. The quake triggered mountain landslides and caused damage across large areas of the forests at the Wolong Giant Panda Protection Studies Center, also known as “the Home of Pandas.” A majority of the reserve’s panda living facilities and its studies facilities were damaged. “The pandas were traumatized by the quake.
Name your poison: ‘Snake wine’ seized at airport
Everyone has heard of the worm at the bottom of the bottle, but what customs officials in Miami found kicked that up a few notches. United States Customs and Border Protection officers conducting a routine inspection on Wednesday seized a cobra and other poisonous snakes in a bottle believed to be “snake wine.” Customs officials said the snakes, mixed in a glass container containing some form of alcohol, were inside an express mail package from Thailand. Jose Castellano, a spokesman for U.S
Canada: Farmer possibly gave swine flu to pigs
More than a week after the swine flu outbreak rattled the world, with cases of infected people popping up from Mexico to South Korea, the new virus strain has shown up in a herd of swine. The catch, Canadian officials say, is that the animals may have caught the flu from a human. Canadian officials are quarantining pigs that tested positive for the virus — scientifically known as 2009 H1N1 — at an Alberta farm in what could be the first identified case of pigs infected during the recent outbreak