*** Faced with the increase in massacres and femicides that have occurred this year, the president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, demanded this Monday that the authorities responsible for national security offer results within 72 hours. "Secretariat of Security: Everything that has been requested of me I have resolved. National Control of Penitentiary Centers, transfer of the Anti Maras Force, Investigation and Intelligence Directorate, State of Exception and extensions in more than 60 percent of the national territory," the president wrote on her Twitter account. "It is not possible that we are under attack by organized crime in constant massacres and femicides, among others. I demand forceful actions and results in the next 72 hours! The time to wait is over!", said the governor.
*** Most trains were stopped, oil refineries blocked and energy production was reduced in France on Tuesday as unions staged a nationwide strike for a sixth day against President Emmanuel Macron's pension reform plans Opinion polls have shown for weeks that a majority of voters reject the reform, which by 2030 would raise the retirement age by two years to 64, among other measures. In addition, the reform includes bringing forward to 2027 the requirement to contribute 43 years (and not 42, as now) to collect a full pension. However, the government intends to stand firm and carry out the plans, which it considers essential to ensure that the pension system does not go bankrupt.
*** The website of the Non-Governmental Organization Gun Violence Archive (GVA), on Monday, revealed that in the first months of 2023, in the United States (U.S.) there have been 102 mass shootings. According to the data of the entity, in that northern nation, three every two days occur mass attacks with firearms. From January to this Monday, 7,513 shooting deaths have been recorded in the U.S., of which 3,223 were murders, homicides and accidental deaths, while 4,290 people have committed suicide. GVA also noted that 302 children under 17 years of age died from gunshot wounds and another 740 were injured. Since 2020, the U.S. has recorded more than 600 mass shootings annually, representing an increase of 75 percent, if taken into account, with respect to those counted between 2016 and 2022.
*** Brazil international Neymar, Paris Saint-Germain striker, will miss the remainder of the current season after undergoing surgery to fix his right ankle problems, which will require a recovery period of three to four months. The decision, according to the club, has been taken after the player suffered a new sprain on February 20, after which the medical staff recommended him to undergo surgery to avoid recurrence of his injuries. With the intervention to be performed at the ASPETAR hospital in Doha, Neymar is trying to glimpse a new horizon in which the part of the body that is generating more setbacks throughout his career can better withstand the load of matches and contact with rivals.
*** India and Sri Lanka plan to abandon the U.S. dollar in their bilateral trade. Instead, the two countries will make payments in Indian rupees, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported last Sunday. According to PTI, economic transactions in rupees will help strengthen the trade partnership and investments between the two countries. Last Thursday, India's diplomatic representation in Sri Lanka initiated negotiations regarding bilateral payments in rupees. During the talks, banks from both countries "shared their experiences and informed the public that they had started conducting trade transactions in rupees through 'vostro' and 'nostro' accounts [which are used when a financial institution holds an active account of another bank for the purpose of international trade transactions] following the creation of an enabling framework for the Reserve Bank of India and the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in 2022," a statement said.
*** The material damage caused by the earthquake in Turkey "exceeds 100 billion dollars", according to an estimate by the World Bank, the UN, the European Union (EU) and the Turkish government. A month after the tragedy, Louisa Vinton, head for Turkey of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), described as "apocalyptic" the scenes in Turkey's worst-hit Hatay province, saying hundreds of thousands of houses were destroyed. "The needs are enormous, but resources are scarce," he added. The World Bank had previously estimated the damage in Turkey at around $34.2 billion. More than 52,000 people were killed in Turkey and Syria by the February 6 earthquakes. Many were crushed or buried in their sleep. The provisional damage figure, which Vinton said covers only Turkey, is being used as the basis for a donor conference in Belgium on March 16 that will seek to mobilize funds for quake victims.
*** Under the alleged criteria of violating community standards, the video platform YouTube, removed the channel of the famous Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus, who teased Western politicians, and commented to Sputnik that this demonstrates the West's fear of the truth. "Actually, there was no serious reaction, because this is the third time we have been blocked because of YouTube's alleged rules," Alexei Lexus Stoliarov told Sputnik, after on March 05, the platform, attached to Google, removed the pranksters' channel for alleged serious violations. "Last time, the British government and the UK Ministry of Defense, they sent a request to YouTube management, a letter saying that we are a real threat to the national security of the UK. But they didn't reveal what the real reason was, you see, because we published a statement from the UK Defense Secretary, who said that, he no longer had missiles for his own country. So they thought it was top secret information," Stoliarov elaborates.
*** A new global greenhouse gas monitoring infrastructure was approved by the Executive Council of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in order to "reduce the heat-trapping gases that are causing the temperature rise." The WMO stressed the "growing societal importance of greenhouse gas monitoring in support of improving our scientific understanding of the Earth system" to strengthen mitigation actions taken by Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement. According to the agency, the initiative requires final approval next May at the World Meteorological Congress and if endorsed, it will take advantage of "all existing greenhouse gas monitoring capabilities (space-based and surface-based observing systems, all relevant modeling and data assimilation capabilities)."
*** A broken jar containing a thousand centuries-old coins buried in a field in Poland was found by chance by an individual while using a metal detector to search for items of agricultural equipment. The discovery was made at the end of February in the village of Zaniówka, located about 160 kilometers southwest of the capital, Warsaw. The discovery was announced by the Lublin Provincial Conservator of Monuments on its official site on the social network Facebook (belonging to Meta, classified in Russia as an extremist organization). The staff of the entity went to the site and found that they were Lithuanian shillings and crowns of the 17th century, the entity published on March 2
*** The explosion of reactor number 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine in 1986 caused radioactive contamination that continues to show its effects to this day. Following the catastrophe, thousands of people were forced to flee their homes, leaving behind all their possessions, including their pets. Days after the accident, Soviet authorities attempted to euthanize the abandoned animals for fear that they might spread radioactive contamination. However, despite their efforts, they were unable to euthanize them all. In this context, an international team of researchers conducted the first genetic study of large mammals in the radiation-affected area. To do so, they collected DNA samples from wild dogs descended from those that inhabited the area at the time of the accident or that arrived shortly after the explosion at the nuclear power plant.
