International News: 13/08/2020
ASIA
Thailand: The Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration announcement on Monday, allows fans to attend sports events, and allow Chinese traders to enter Thailand for fruit export. The CCSA said that as Thailand approaches 80 days without a local COVID-19 transmission, it’s believed to be safe for spectators to attend large sports gatherings, although measures will be tighter for events held indoors. (Note: So far, Thailand has registered 3,356 coronavirus cases and 5 deaths from this disease since the pandemic began.)
NORTH AMERICA
USA: Joe Biden named California Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate on Tuesday, making history by selecting the first black woman to compete on a major party’s presidential ticket. “I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked Kamala Harris – a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants as my running mate”, Biden tweeted.
SOUTH AMERICA
Brazil: Brazil on Thursday registered 1,164 new coronavirus deaths, bringing the total death toll to 104,623, the health ministry said. Overall, confirmed cases rose by 58,081 in the past 24 hours bringing the country’s total coronavirus cases to 3,170,474.
EUROPE
AFRICA
Mauritius: The Japanese owned cargo ship which ran aground on the reef on July 25 has leaked about 1,000 metric tons of oil into Indian Ocean. There are fears the ship could break in two as new cracks had appeared in the ship—and if the ship broke up, thousands more tons of fuel would be released into water.
”The way the leakage and the break in the ship are increasing, there is huge probability that this ship will break in two. And we still have around 2,500 metric tons of fuels on the tanks of the ship”, said Sunil Dawarkasing, a former strategist and a former member of parliament in Mauritius. Dawarkasing said the ship has three oil tanks, one of which had leaked into the ocean. That leak has stopped, and an operation is now underway –utilizing a tanker and salvage teams – to remove the oil from the other tanks before the ship break up.
OCEANIA
Australia: When Australia’s coronavirus lockdown forced bars and restaurants to shut down in March, breweries were left with huge unsold, stale beer. But instead of going to waste, these expired beer have been serving a new purpose: powering a water treatment plant.
At the Glenelg Wastewater Treatment Plant, millions of liters of unused beer from local breweries have been converted into renewable energy to power its water treatment process in recent months. The plant mixes organic industrial waste with sewage sludge to produce biogas, which is then turned into electricity to power the whole facility. It usually generates enough biogas to provide about 80 % of its energy needs. “By adding around 150,000 liters of expired beer per week, we generated a record 355,200 cubic meters biogas in May and another 320,000 cubic meters in June which is enough to power 1,200 houses”, Lisa Hannat, a senior manager of production and treatment at SA water, said in a statement.
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