Halt to combat in Aleppo uncertain

BEIRUT — Russia said the Syrian army was suspending combat operations in Aleppo late Thursday to allow for the evacuation of civilians from besieged rebel-held neighbourhoods, but residents and fighters reported no let-up in the bombing and shelling campaign on the opposition’s evershrinking enclave.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking in Germany after talks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, said military experts and diplomats would meet Saturday in Geneva to work out details of the rebels’ exit from Aleppo’s eastern neighbourhoods, along with civilians who were willing to leave the city.

Lavrov said the Syrian army suspended combat action late Thursday to allow some 8,000 civilians to leave the city in a convoy spreading across a five-kilometre route. However, opposition activists said there was no halt to the government offensive.

“Battles are intense,” said a message from a rebel operation room shared with The Associated Press. Other residents reported warplanes firing from machine-guns at rebel positions and artillery shells falling in the remaining rebel-controlled districts.

Tsunami warnings cancelled

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Tsunami warnings for several Pacific islands, including those in Hawaii, were cancelled Friday after authorities determined that a powerful magnitude-7.7 earthquake that struck near the Solomon Islands did not pose a broad tsunami threat.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said waves of up to three metres were still possible along the coast of the Solomon Islands and smaller tsunami waves could hit Papua New Guinea.

There were reports of some power outages in the Solomon Islands, although there were no immediate reports of widespread damage or injuries from the quake.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit about 200 kilometres southeast of Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands. The epicentre was relatively deep at 48 kilometres below the surface. Deeper quakes generally cause less damage on the ground.

The Solomon Islands are located in the Pacific’s geologically active “Ring of Fire.”

Giraffe at risk of extinction

WASHINGTON — The giraffe, the tallest land animal, is now at risk of extinction, biologists say.

Because the giraffe population has shrunk nearly 40 per cent in just 30 years, scientists put it on the official watch list of threatened and endangered species worldwide, calling it “vulnerable.” That’s two steps up the danger ladder from its previous designation of being a species of least concern. In 1985, there were between 151,000 and 163,000 giraffes, but in 2015 the number was down to 97,562, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

At a biodiversity meeting Wednesday in Mexico, the IUCN increased the threat level for 35 species and lowered the threat level for seven species on its “Red List” of threatened species, considered by scientists the official list of what animals and plants are in danger of disappearing.

The giraffe is the only mammal whose status changed on the list this year. Scientists blame habitat loss.

While everyone worries about elephants, Earth has four times as many pachyderms as giraffes, said Julian Fennessy and Noelle Kumpel, cochairs of the specialty group of biologists that put the giraffe on the IUCN Red List.