2017年6月1日 星期四

Is Serena Williams having a girl? Venus certainly thinks so

Serena Williams (left) watched her sister, Venus, play at the French Open in Paris on Wednesday Image copyright AFP/Getty Images Image caption Serena Williams (left) watched her sister, Venus, play at the French Open in Paris on Wednesday

Spoiler alert: Tennis ace Serena Williams is having a baby girl. Unless her sister is mistaken.

Venus Williams appears to have accidentally given the news away during a post-match television interview at the French Open.

She referred to baby as "she", and listed a series of potential female names.

Serena's baby, with fiancé and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, is due in the autumn.

Venus was being interviewed after winning against Japan's Kurumi Nara in Paris, a match her sister came to watch on Wednesday.

"She is going to call me favourite aunt," she told the Eurosport presenter, with a laugh.

She then joked about their other sisters - Lyndrea and Isha - saying each of the siblings wanted the baby to take their name.

"We're all like, baby V, baby Isha, baby Lyn... We all want the baby to be named after us," she said.

Image copyright Getty Images / AFP Image caption Venus says all the sisters are competing for the name

The family is not doing well with secrets. Last month, Serena admitted she revealed her pregnancy news to the world by accident, after mistakenly uploading a photograph on Snapchat.

The 23-time Grand Slam winner posted a picture on the social media app, posing in a mirror with the message: "20 weeks", before deleting it, with her publicist later confirming the news.

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"I was just saving them [for myself]" she said. "I've been so good about it, but this was the one time it slipped."

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Parents-to-be Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian attended New York's Met Gala in May


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Cyclone Mora: Bangladesh fishermen missing after storm

Bangladeshi people walk with their belongings towards a safer area near the coast at the Cox's Bazar district in Chittagong, 30 May 2017 Image copyright EPA Image caption Cyclone Mora brought heavy rain and powerful winds to parts of Bangladesh on Tuesday

The Bangladeshi navy says it is searching for dozens of fishermen still missing after a powerful storm.

Cyclone Mora, which brought high winds and torrential rain, killed seven people and destroyed thousands of homes when it hit on Tuesday.

The areas around Cox's Bazar and Chittagong, along the border with Myanmar, bore the brunt of the storm.

Camps on the border housing thousands of Muslim Rohingya refugees from Myanmar were badly damaged.

Fishing vessels were ordered back to port as the storm approached, but a local fishing industry representative said about 150 people were missing.

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Media captionCyclone Mora battered coastal villages in the south-east of the country

The Bangladeshi navy said it had sent 15 ships to search for survivors and had so far rescued at least 20 fishermen.

The Indian navy picked up 33 survivors on Wednesday but Indian officials said it was not clear whether they came from vessels that had sunk or from huts washed into the sea.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Camps for Rohingya refugees have been badly damaged, officials say

The Bangladeshi fishing industry representative, Mushtaq Ahmed, told Agence France-Presse news agency that if these survivors were rescued fishermen, then some 90 would still be missing.

"They could be moored on an island or adrift at sea," he said. "In the past we have seen that most of the fishermen return to their fishing ports within a week or two. We hope this time they will also be back in good health."

He said many of the boats that did return to port had been damaged by the storm.

Around 350,000 people were evacuated from low-lying areas ahead of Cyclone Mora's arrival. A local official said 50,000 homes had been destroyed or damaged by the storm in Cox's Bazar.

The area is home to camps for hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya refugees who have fled violence in neighbouring Myanmar.

"Housing for undocumented Myanmar nationals near Cox's Bazar was severely damaged," the Office of the UN Resident Co-ordinator for Bangladesh said. "Rohingya refugees are currently without reliable shelter, food and fuel."

Sanjukta Sahany, local head of the International Organisation for Migration, told AFP that more than 16,000 homes in the camps had been destroyed or damaged.

The cyclone blew in from Sri Lanka, where it caused flooding and landslides that killed 202 people. Another 96 people are listed as missing.



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Coral reefs can be saved but change is inevitable, scientists say

Severe coral bleaching on Australia's Great Barrier Reef Image copyright ARC Centre of Excellence Image caption Bleaching occurs when corals are stripped of colour-giving algae

The world's coral reefs can be saved by addressing climate change but they will not resemble those of the past, a new study has said.

Future reefs will be defined by corals able to adapt to rapidly changing ecosystems, according to a paper published in the journal Nature.

In April, surveys showed two-thirds of Australia's Great Barrier Reef had been severely bleached within two years.

Governments can sustain reefs with immediate action, the researchers said.

Lead author Prof Terry Hughes, from James Cook University, said he was optimistic that reefs would exist into the next century.

"But the reefs of the future are going to look quite different," he told the BBC.

"Restoring things to what they used to be is no longer tenable. There will be a different mix of species."

However, annual bleaching in many locations by 2050 was likely if emissions continued on their current trajectory, the scientists said.

Future sustainability would rely on significant shifts in how reefs were managed.

This would involve international co-operation, such as with the Paris climate deal, but also policy co-ordination at a national level.

Image copyright ARC Centre of Excellence Image caption Curbing carbon emissions is critical to reef survival, scientists say

The researchers said coral species had shown capacity to adapt rapidly on a huge scale, something they described as "an asset".

"When bleaching happens it changes the mix of species," Prof Hughes said.

"There are so-called winners and losers."

If normal conditions return, then corals could recover, but it may take decades.

"If you tell somebody that something is doomed, they are likely to give up on it," Prof Hughes said.

"There is hope for reefs, but there is a narrow window of opportunity to deal with global warming. The sooner we enact the transition to zero net carbon emissions, the better."

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Media captionUnderwater video shows where bleaching has damaged the Great Barrier Reef


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Martina Navratilova says Margaret Court is 'a racist and a homophobe'


Navratilova was among the first players to call for a new name for the Margaret Court Arena

Eighteen-time Grand Slam champion Martina Navratilova has renewed her call for the Margaret Court Arena to be renamed - describing the Australian as a "racist and a homophobe".

Court, 74, has said she would not fly on Qantas "where possible" in protest at its support of same-sex marriage.

She then told a Christian radio station "tennis is full of lesbians".

In an open letter, Navratilova said: "We should not be celebrating this kind of behaviour."

The 60-year-old addressed her letter to the Margaret Court Arena, one of the main show courts at the Australian Open.

She said: "It is now clear exactly who Court is: an amazing tennis player, and a racist and a homophobe.

"Her vitriol is not just an opinion. She is actively trying to keep LGBT people from getting equal rights (note to Court: we are human beings, too)."

In 1990, Court said Navratilova was a poor role model for young tennis players because of her homosexuality.

Navratilova said she had forgiven Court for those comments, but had only just been made aware of remarks the Australian made about South Africa's apartheid regime.

Court, who won 24 Grand Slam singles titles, said in 1970: "South Africa has the racial situation rather better organised than anyone else, certainly much better than the United States."

Navratilova described Court's actions as "bullying" and said sporting venues are named after athletes for "who they are as human beings" and "not just for what this person did on the field".

"The platform people like Margaret Court use needs to be made smaller, not bigger," she said.

Navratilova believes the Margaret Court Arena should renamed after Evonne Goolagong, a 14-time Grand Slam winner of Australian Aboriginal descent.

"I think the Evonne Goolagong Arena has a great ring to it," she added. "Now there is a person we can all celebrate. On every level."



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China 'trying extremely hard' on climate

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China will honour commitments on climate change, PM says, as US appears poised to pull out of key deal

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'Faceless' fish, last seen in 1873, found off Australia

The unique deep-sea fish was last spotted back in 1873.

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2017年5月31日 星期三

India judge mocked for saying peacocks don't have sex

Peacock is seen displaying its full feathers during the third round of the Hero Indian Open at Delhi Golf Club on March 19, 2016 in New Delhi, India. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Judge Mahesh Sharma told TV channels that "the peahen gets pregnant" after "swallowing the tears of the peacock".

Social media users are ridiculing a judge after he said the peacock was chosen as India's national bird because "it's considered pious" and follows "life-long celibacy".

Judge Mahesh Sharma told TV channels that "the peahen gets pregnant" only by "swallowing the tears of the peacock".

He made the remark to back his observation that cows should replace the tiger as the national animal because "it's also holy".

Experts have rejected his claims.

Mr Sharma told reporters in the northern Indian city of Jaipur that he believed people revere both peacocks and cows because of their "divine qualities".

He added that he had recommended that the government should immediately declare the cow as the national animal.

But social media users vehemently disagreed.

Image copyright Rohit Pradhan

Image copyright AJ

Image copyright Devika Mittal

Image copyright Kawalpreet Kaur

Experts said there was no merit in Mr Sharma's theories.

"This theory about peacocks drinking tears to breed is an old hoax. They breed like all other birds, by means of sexual copulation," Bikram Grewal, an ornithologist, told The Indian Express newspaper.

Mr Sharma is not alone in demanding national status for cows, considered sacred by India's majority Hindu community.

Many states have actively started enforcing bans on cow slaughter after the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed India's federal government in 2014.

In addition to government bans, several vigilante groups who portray themselves as protectors of cows have also been active in several states.

But Mr Sharma added that his demand was not linked to the ongoing debate about banning cow slaughter in the country.



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