Environment

Russia have launched the Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket containing the navigation satellite Glonass-M into space from the Plesetsk space center on Sunday.  “On Sunday, at 03.21 a.m. Moscow time [24:21 GMT] a squad of Russian Space Forces of Russian Aerospace Forces successfully carried out a launch of a Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with the navigation satellite Glonass-M,” the press service told Russian media outlets. Tass.ru reports: “It will take several hours for the Frigate upper stage to bring the Glonass-M spacecraft to the intended orbit,” the Defense Ministry added.

The rogue state of North Korea has apparently given itself the right to conduct economic and industrial activity on the Norwegian territory of Svalbard after signing an ancient treaty. The country signed the Svalbard Treaty on 25 January according to The Korean Central News Agency. The Sunday Express reports:. The agency said in a news bulletin: “The accession of the Treaty gives the country the right to practice economic activities and research on Svalbard Islands.” It is unknown what the rogue state’s agenda on Svalbard is.

In a groundwater leak at the Indian Point nuclear power plant, three monitoring wells were discovered to contain “alarming levels of radioactivity” The Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo has ordered an immediate environmental probe into the issue. Health and environment commissioners were ordered to begin an investigation into the leak of “radioactive tritium-contaminated water” at the Indian Point nuclear power plant after the operator, Entergy Nuclear Operations, raised the alarm. In a statement, Cuomo  said one of the wells reported a 65,000% spike in radioactivity.

Two years after being fined for falsifying safety records, nine months after a transformer exploded at the Indian Point Nuclear Reactor just 37 miles from midtown Manhattan, and two months after Entergy - the plant's operator - shut down the Unit 2 reactor after a major power outage cut power to several control rods (when the company assured that no radioactivity was released into the environment), this afternoon NY Governor Andrew Cuomo said he learned that "radioactive tritium-contaminated water" had leaked into the groundwater at the nuclear facility in Westchester County

The poaching crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is not only affecting elephants. The giraffe population has now plunged to only 38, putting the species at immediate risk of extinction there, new surveys have revealed. Sadly, giraffes in the Congo are not alone. Poaching has become a major problem for the animals wherever they are living. Their numbers throughout Africa have dropped by more than 40 percent over the past 15 years. The entire subspecies is at risk of extinction.