Environment

UN Security Council sanctions aside, one of the reasons China has closed much of its border with North Korea and imposed emergency measures to monitor radiation flowing across the mountainous terrain is because the country’s scientists worry that the mountain under which North Korea has held five of its six nuclear tests is in danger of collapsing and unleashing a devastating cloud of radiation on the surrounding terrain.

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

Neither sanctions nor persistently low oil prices are hindering Russia’s ambitions or plans to develop oil resources in its sections of the Arctic.

In April, state-controlled oil giant Rosneft started drilling the northernmost well on the Russian Arctic shelf in the Khatangsky license area in the Laptev Sea. In June, Rosneft struck first oil in the Eastern Arctic in this license.

Seismologists believe the US state is decades overdue a “Big One” tremor measuring magnitude 7 or greater on the Richter scale. The Daily Star reports, a massive fault line zone in the Bay Area of Southern California is thought to be most at risk with experts giving a 72% chance of a large tremor within the next 30 years.

Now a freak spate of deadly earthquakes that wreaked havoc in several regions throughout the Pacific has sparked fears California could be next.

The Pacific “Ring of Fire” is living up to its name.

In the latest court challenge to the Trump administration’s push to prevent potentially dangerous individuals from entering the US, a district court judge has blocked the Trump administration's third travel ban, which it had introduced late last month following the expiration of a temporary ban that had been hobbled by court challenges.

The wildfires that have destroyed 6,000 homes and caused dozens of deaths across Northern California last week have finally been brought to heel as slackening winds allowed the 9,000 firefighters deployed by Cal Fire to make meaningful advances in their battle against the flames. With the biggest fires mostly under control, some residents have begun to return to their homes. However, more than 40,000 remain displaced.