A deadly disease estimated to have killed a million olive trees in Italy has spread to France. The French agriculture ministry announced the discovery of the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa, known as olive tree leprosy, on two trees in the south of the country and said the infected trees would be destroyed to stop it spreading.

Ministry officials said the two decorative olives were found to have the same subspecies of the disease that killed an estimated 1m valuable ancient olive trees in Italy. All trees and plants vulnerable to the bacterium within a three-mile radius are to be destroyed and burned.

There is no known cure or prevention for the disease, which blocks the plant or trees’ ability to take up water. Michel Dessus, the president of the chamber of agriculture in the Alpes-Maritimes, where the two infected trees were discovered, said more tests were needed before swathes of vegetation were destroyed. “Cutting down trees more than a hundred years old needs to be thought about,” he told French television.

The disease, also called olive quick decline syndrome, which scientists believe affects more than 350 plant species, has also hit vineyards in north and south America. It was first detected in Europe in October 2013 when ancient olive trees in Puglia, Italy, began to die. Entire olive groves of more than 230,000 hectares have been cut down. Although it has been found in other plants in France and the French Mediterranean island, Corsica, it is the first time the disease has hit French olive trees that, like those in Italy, have been hit by a subspecies of the bacterium called Pauca.

In July 2016, there was an isolated infestation in an oleander plant in a commercial nursery in Saxony, but the disease was declared eradicated after the plant and those around it were destroyed. The disease is spread by insects feeding on the sap of the plants. It can also affect fruit trees including peaches, pear and plums and nuts.(The Guardian)…[+]

British Airways pilots have begun a two-day strike in an ongoing dispute over pay and conditions. Tens of thousands of passengers have been told not to go to airports, with the airline cancelling some 1,700 flights due to the disruption.

The pilots’ union Balpa said BA management’s cost-cuts and “dumbing down” of the brand had eroded confidence in the airline. But BA chief Alex Cruz said investment in the operator had never been so big.

Both sides say they are willing to hold further talks, but no date has been set. The pilots are currently scheduled to stage another strike on 27 September. Balpa’s general secretary, Brian Strutton, said: “It is time to get back to the negotiating table and put together a serious offer that will end this dispute.”

But he told the BBC that while BA says publicly it is willing to talk, “in private they say they are not going to negotiate”. And although the headline dispute is about pay, he said there was also deep resentment about the airline’s direction. “BA has lost the trust and confidence of pilots because of cost-cutting and the dumbing down of the brand… management want to squeeze every last penny out of customers and staff,” Mr Strutton said.(BBC)…[+]

The United States (US) Supreme Court is to make a decision in the case of Jamaican-born Lee Boyd Malvo, who at age 17 was sentenced to life without parole for his part in the infamous DC (District of Columbia) sniper case that claimed the lives of 10 people.

“Oral argument in the case is set for Wednesday, October 16,” a Supreme Court spokesman confirmed on the weekend in an e-mail response to the Jamaica Observer. For 47 days in 2002, a thick pall of fear and tension hung over Washington and Virginia — and a traumatised nation — as the Jamaican teenager and a man whom he saw as a father figure, drove across the District shooting randomly at people on the street, eluding perplexed authorities before being finally caught.

The youngster was said to have met his then mentor, John Allen Muhammad, in Antigua where he was allegedly left by his mother. He was subsequently taken to the US by Muhammad.Malvo, now 34, along with Muhammad, was convicted for the series of murders between September 5 and October 22 that year. Muhammad, who had served in the Louisiana National Guard before joining the regular US army and also served in Iraq in 1991, was executed in Virginia in 2009 for being the mastermind behind the rampage.(Jamaica Observer)…[+]