International News Picks

AUSTRALIA: The New South Wales government announced Sunday it has permanently banned hosing pathways and daytime use of sprinklers due to the threat of global warming. The practices were temporarily banned during the state's long-running drought (Agence France-Presse, Sept. 16).

CHINA: The Chinese government will attach electronic identification labels to every barrel of drinking water in Beijing following a study that said almost half of the water used in coolers across the capital is unsafe, state media reported yesterday (Reuters).

PHILIPPINES: Scientists confirmed the discovery of a new breed of the flying fox fruit bat on the Philippine island of Mindoro, the government said Sunday. It will be known as the Mindoro Fruitbat (Reuters, Sept. 16).

SCOTLAND: RSBP Scotland said its staff and other bee enthusiasts discovered more than 10 colonies of threatened mining bees on the Uists islands (BBC News online, Sept. 12).

UKRAINE: The French consortium Novarka signed a contract yesterday to construct a steel shield over the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident for more than €430 million (Agence France-Presse).

UNITED KINGDOM: Construction crews are exploring the 500-acre Olympic site in London for unexploded bombs from World War II, adding time and expense to a project which already exceeds $19 billion in costs (Bryan Lysaght, Bloomberg, Sept. 13)