UK Prime Minister promises to complete 10 Mbps broadband accessibility by 2020.
The legislation, if passed, will force providers to connect to remote villages. (Image courtesy of Engadget.)
The UK’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, pledged fast broadband access for all UK homes and businesses by 2020. The proposed legislation would make internet accessibility similar to other basic services, like water and electricity. The United Kingdom’s Labour party criticized that access to broadband would be put on the “back-burner” for another 5 years. Previously, the coalition government promised that the UK would have Europe’s fastest broadband by 2015. In the current promise by David Cameron, where he also stated that fast broadband should be a “fundamental right”, consumers will have access to at least 10 Mbps no matter where they are. At the moment, 83% of UK homes and businesses have broadband of 24 Mbps or over. This figure is expected to rise to 95% by 2017.
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Russian jet downed by a bomb in Egypt.
Russian media claims that the black box does not provide sufficient evidence. (Image courtesy of Photoshot.)
After studying the recording of a black box, investigators concluded that the explosion of a bomb caused the crash of a Russian jet that killed 224 people. ISIS’s claim on the tragedy is more plausible after this discovery. The government of Russia has halted all flights to Egypt from Russia in light of the disaster. A Kremlin spokesman clarified that the action did not imply that the government believed the cause of the crash to be from terrorist groups. Russian intelligence chief Alexander Bortnikov said the government has tourist flights as its primary concern.
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Sierra Leoneans gather in the streets for the countdown to midnight, which marks the end of the Ebola virus outbreak in the nation. (Image courtesy of BBC)
Sierra Leone declared free of Ebola by the World Health Organization.
Sierra Leoneans celebrate 42 days without any declaration of an Ebola case, officially rendering the country free from human-to-human transmission of the deadly virus. Citizens paraded behind a marching band in the capital of Freetown, and had a moment of silence to honour the health workers that lost their lives. Almost 4000 people in the country died from the outbreak, accounting for nearly one-third of total reported deaths worldwide. Hours before the official declaration, President Ernest Bai Koroma criticized the World Health Organization for delaying government response to the outbreak, and stated that in the event of another outbreak, countermeasures would be enacted sooner.
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President Barack Obama announces and defends his decision to reject the Keystone XL pipeline application in a press conference. (Image courtesy of Fox59)
The U.S. government officially rejects the Keystone XL pipeline application by TransCanada.
U.S. President Barack Obama announced that the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which was designed to transport crude oil from Canada’s oil sands to refineries in the American Midwest, “will not serve the national interests of the United States” and that the U.S. State Department has rejected the proposal. Despite this setback, TransCanada’s CEO Russ Girling stated that the company remains “absolutely committed to building this important energy infrastructure project” and is considering legal action including challenging the rejection in court and suing the U.S. government under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). With the Paris Climate summit in less than a month, this move strengthens the U.S. government’s standing on climate change; however a reapplication is possible pending the outcome of the American presidential election next year.
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NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission provides an explanation for the planet’s transition from a once habitable environment to its current hostile state.
Artist’s rendering of the effects of solar-wind erosion on the Martian atmosphere. (Image courtesy of NASA)
Launched in November 2013, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) space probe was designed to gather data on the Martian atmosphere and determine why it has gotten thinner throughout the planet’s history. MAVEN measured the rate at which the atmospheric gases were stripped away due to solar wind to be approximately 0.1 kilograms per second. Solar winds are streams of charged particles emitted from the sun that generate an electric field as it flows past Mars; the field accelerates gas molecules in the atmosphere away from the planet. This discovery lends valuable insight on the process which transformed Mars from a warm planet covered in rivers and lakes to the barren landscape we see today.
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