International

Will the world end Friday? Well, actually, it's already Friday in Kiribati (a Pacific island vulnerable to sea-level rise), and we have no reports of apocalypse. NASA scientists were so confident that they issued their retrospective world-didn't-end video 10 days ahead of time. Turns out the whole story was whomped up by some stoned hippies decades ago. Mayan scholars call it baloney. As to climate-caused sea-level rise, NASA is still issuing warnings. The entire nation of Kiribati is still planning to relocate ahead of rising seas.

"SEATTLE -- A U.S. appeals court ordered American anti-whaling activists to keep 500 yards away from Japanese whaling ships off Antarctica."

"JAKARTA -- Indonesia has identified the bird flu virus that has killed hundreds of thousands of ducks over the past few weeks as a virulent type which is new to the country."

"TOKYO -- Japan's plans to phase out nuclear power and boost reliance on renewable energy are likely to be reversed with the victory of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in parliamentary elections."

"The United States on Tuesday pressed forward with plans to slap steep punitive duties on wind turbine towers imported from China at prices deemed unfairly low, even as officials welcomed a high-level Chinese delegation for trade and economic talks."

"The demand for coal will increase in every region of the world through 2017 except in the United States, where low-cost natural gas will continue providing tough competition, the Paris-based International Energy Agency said [Tuesday] morning."

"Global funding for the fight against malaria has stalled in the past two years, threatening to reverse what the World Health Organisation (WHO) says are 'remarkable recent gains' in the battle to control one of the world's leading infectious killers."

"Study published by Lancet says surge in car use in south and east Asia killed 2.1m people prematurely in 2010."

"As economic activity and populations continue to expand in coastal urban areas, particularly in Asia, hundreds of trillions of dollars of infrastructure, industrial and office buildings, and homes are increasingly at risk from intensifying storms and rising sea levels."

"OSLO -- The amount of land needed to grow crops worldwide is at a peak and an area more than twice the size of France can return to nature by 2060 due to rising yields and slower population growth, a group of experts said on Monday."