CHINA DEVELOPMENT THREATENS WILDLIFE
BEIJING: From tigers to dolphins, animal populations in many of China’s ecosystems have plummeted during decades of development and urbanization, a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) study said on Wednesday.

The conservation group highlighted about a dozen species in different natural habitats across the country in its third China Ecological Footprint Report, saying that numbers have fallen dramatically over the years. In a separate set of indicators updated from its latest report in 2010, the study said that China was using resources such as cropland and forests at 2.5 times the rate than they could be regenerated. This imbalance of China’s ecological demand versus supply would impact the rest of the world, said Jim Leape, the director general of WWF International.

POPE TO SEND OUT FIRST TWEET
VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI is due to send out his first, much-anticipated Twitter message on Wednesday, with hundreds of thousands of followers already signed up to receive the tweet. Since the pope last week announced that he would start tweeting under the name @pontifex, about 625,000 people have registered to follow his main account, in English. Tens of thousands more are following his Arabic, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish accounts. The first tweet will mark a milestone in Vatican communication efforts as it tries to disseminate the Catholic message, especially to younger people.

PARIS’S FAVORITE DAME TURNS 850
PARIS: Notre Dame (Our Lady), the iconic cathedral at the heart of the French capital on Wednesday will launch a year of celebrations to mark the 850th anniversary of its founding. Nine new bells are to be delivered during 2013, replacing four that were taken out of service at the start of last year. The new arrivals will team up with Emmanuel, the great bell that only just managed to avoid being melted down during the revolution and rang out to announce the liberation of Paris from German occupation in 1944.

UN LAUNCHES MAJOR CHOLERA APPEAL FOR HAITI
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations (UN) launched a $2.2 billion appeal for a campaign to halt a cholera epidemic in Haiti, widely blamed on UN peacekeepers, which has killed more than 7,750 people. With the number of reported cases exceeding 620,000 since the epidemic started in October 2010, UN Leader Ban Ki-moon acknowledged the “heavy toll” as he launched the 10-year initiative. Ban did not mention the cause of the epidemic, allegedly a camp of Nepalese peacekeepers in the town of Mirebalais, as he called for huge international financing to counter the bacterial disease. UN officials said that 70 percent of the $2.2 billion needed in the next decade would be used to build water and sanitation facilities. Ban said that the UN would also buy quantities of a new oral vaccine. He said that $500 million would be needed in the next two years, with $215 million already raised from donor countries, while the UN was committing $23.5 million.

AT LEAST THREE DEAD IN US MALL SHOOTING
LOS ANGELES: At least two people were killed on Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila) when a masked gunman opened fire at a mall in the western US state of Oregon, sparking panic before apparently turning the gun on himself, police said. At least one person was also injured in Clackamas, south of Portland, a sheriff’s spokesman said, after local media reported a gunman wearing body armor opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle near a Macy’s department store. The gunman was wearing a kind of hockey mask and shouted “I am the shooter” as he moved through the mall, KGW television cited witnesses as saying. AFP