Word: air
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Washington believes al-Shabaab still harbors two al-Qaeda bombers responsible for the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and has launched air and missile strikes on suspected militants several times since early 2007, killing at least two Islamist leaders. Osama bin Laden makes frequent broadcasts urging Somalis to defeat Americans, Ethiopians and anyone with any connection to either. The stakes could hardly be higher, says analyst Hassan. "If these guys [the Islamists] succeed in taking over Somalia, they will create havoc in the entire continent. The world needs to act quickly...
Anyone stepping outside in Beijing around midday on June 18 would have noticed something slightly amiss. The sky was dark enough for cars to use their headlights, and the air was as thick as a smoky bar just before last call. After one of the cleanest springs on record, the Chinese capital's air quality took an unhealthy plunge for the worse...
...wouldn't have known it by the official numbers. The Ministry of Environmental Protection publishes air quality data online each day at noon, but only for the previous 24-hour-period. Anyone who checked on the afternoon of June 18 would have seen an air pollution figure that indicated Beijing's skies were "slightly polluted," referring to the 24 hours before. (See pictures of Beijing's attempt to clean up its air...
...embassy data is published on its own Twitter feed, and while the U.S. doesn't actively promote the information, it has slowly been getting more attention from Beijing residents concerned about the city's air quality. "The U.S. Embassy has an air quality monitor to measure PM 2.5 particulates on the Embassy compound as an indication of air quality," says Susan Stevenson, a State Department spokesperson. "This monitor is a resource for the health of the Embassy community." She cautions that citywide analyses cannot be done from a single machine, but because the embassy has the data available, it makes...
...Reporting from one area, the twitter feed is hardly a complete service, but its popularity underscores some shortcomings in the official daily reports. Chinese environmental officials don't regularly release PM2.5 data, and it isn't used to calculate the daily air pollution index. Instead the government figures rely on measurements of larger PM10 particles, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. Several cities including Beijing and Shanghai are already measuring PM2.5, the state-run China Daily reported earlier this month, and the government is now considering what standards to set for the finer particles and ozone...