Author: Starvision News Desk

Wellington, Oct 6 (IANS) Experts have warned increasing wildfire risks due to the El Nino climate phenomenon as windy, hot and dry weather will be more likely for regions this summer.With the El Nino-Southern Oscillation, the country will see dramatic temperature swings and stronger than usual winds, reports Xinhua news agency. Prevailing westerlies may lead to prolonged dry spells in the north and east of both islands as summer progresses.Hugh Wallace, team lead for Fire and Atmospheric Sciences, Scion Research, said on Friday that between now and early December, El Nino is expected to cause average or slightly above average…

Ankara, Oct 6 (IANS) The Turkish Defence Ministry on Friday said that its forcesresponded to an “attack” by the Syrian Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG) and killed 26 Kurdish militants.Ankara’s retaliation came after the YPG launched an “attack” on the Dabiq Base area in the Euphrates Shield Operation zone of the Turkish military in northern Syria late Thursday, Xinhua news agency quoted a Ministry statement as saying.Turkish warplanes also launched airstrikes against the YPG and hit 30 targets in the Tal Rifaat, Jazira and Derik regions on Thursday night, according to the Ministry.Early on Thursday, the National Intelligence Organization (MIT)…

Tokyo, Oct 6 (IANS) Japan’s household spending fell 2.5 per cent in August from a year earlier with consumption being squeezed by rising prices, government data showed on Friday.Households of two or more people spent an average of 293,161 yen ($1,975), dropping for the sixth consecutive month but easing from the 5 per cent fall in July, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.By category, food expenditure, accounting for around one-third of household spending, declined for the eleventh straight month by falling 2.5 per cent, amid rising prices for fish, meat, dairy products and eggs, reports Xinhua news…

London, Oct 6 (IANS) A person’s immune response to variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, depends on their previous exposure — and differences in the focus of immune responses will help scientists understand how to optimise vaccines in the future to provide broad protection, suggests a study. The study found that the variant of SARS-CoV-2 a person gets first exposed to determines how well the immune system responds to different parts of the virus, and how protected the person is against other variants.It also means that the same Covid-19 vaccine might work differently for different people, depending on…

Washington, Oct 6 (IANS) The US military shot down an armed Turkish drone as it came in proximity to American forces in Syria, the Department of Defense said.Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder said during a press briefing that commanders assessed that on Thursday a Turkish unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flew “less than a half kilometer from US forces” based in Syria, reports Xinhua news agency.US. F-16 fighters subsequently shot down the UAV “in self-defense” as the drone was deemed “a potential threat”, Ryder said, adding that the Pentagon had “no indication that Türkiye was intentionally targeting US forces”.Defense Secretary Lloyd…

Berlin, Oct 6 (IANS) Germany’s Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) has warned of risks to energy supply posed by a possible cold winter, despite improvements in supply situation, and the agency’s head Klaus Mueller called on consumers to save energy.In order to secure Germany’s gas supply during the winter, the 95 per cent target for filling the country’s gas storage was reached ahead of time in September, Xinhua news agency quoted BNetzA’s status report as saying.Two weeks ago, BNetzA carried out an emergency exercise by simulating a gas shortage. Although Germany was much better prepared this winter than last year, it…

Madrid, Oct 6 (IANS) Around 3,000 people have been evacuated from their homes on the Spanish island of Tenerife due to a raging wildfire, the Canary Islands’ regional government said.Unseasonal hot weather plus strong winds has reignited a wildfire that originally began on August 15, reports Xinhua news agency.The blaze has already burned around 12,273 hectares of land, in the worst wildfire ever to hit the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago located off the north-west coast of Africa.Around 12,000 people have been forced to leave their homes in and around Santa Ursula and La Orotava in the north-east of the…

Washington, Oct 6 (IANS) The US and Venezuela have agreed on a plan “to allow the orderly, safe and legal repatriation of Venezuelan migrants” directly to the South American nation in an attempt to curb the record influx of crossings at the US-Mexico border, according to senior administration officials.Venezuelans who cross the US-Mexico border unlawfully and lack a legal basis to remain in America will be eligible for removal, CNN quoted the officials as saying on Thursday.Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the new policy “a key piece” of the administration’s approach to migration.“Under the Los Angeles Declaration, we’re charged…

Tokyo, Oct 6 (IANS) Green tea, matcha and black tea can effectively inactivate the highly transmissible and contagious sub-variants of Omicron, claimed a study. Studies have previously shown that tea catechins — biologically active chemicals in tea — effectively deactivated the virus SARS-CoV-2.In the new study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, healthy volunteers consumed a candy containing green tea or black tea, and saliva collected from them immediately after the candy consumption significantly decreased virus infectivity in vitro.“We found that all the Omicron subvariants that we tested were efficiently inactivated by treatment with green tea, Matcha green tea, and…

Colombo, Oct 6 (IANS) At least five passengers were killed and about a dozen others injured after a tree fell on their bus in Colombo on Friday.The incident occurred when the bus was parked at a bus stop in the Sri Lankan capital/According to the police, 17 passengers were rushed to the hospital, but it took nearly an hour to rescue two who were stuck inside the bus that was crushed by the tree.Deputy Director of the Colombo National hospital said that five people out of 17 admitted to hospital died. Due to the continued heavy rain in Sri Lanka…