Highest operating weather station on Everest

Kathmandu: The National Geographic Society has announced the successful installation of the world's highest operating weather stations on Mount Everest to provide researchers, climbers, and the public with near real-time information about mountain conditions. The Balcony weather station is the first installed at an elevation above 8,000 metres, meaning it will also be the first to sample the stratosphere as natural variations in the atmospheric boundaries change over time. IANS

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NASA’s Mars 2020 rover to explore ancient life  

Washington: NASA's Mars 2020 rover, its latest robotic mission to the Red Planet, will include technology to explore ancient life on Mars. It will be the first spacecraft to collect samples of the Martian surface, caching them in tubes that could be returned to Earth on a future mission. The atmosphere on Mars is mostly carbon dioxide and extremely thin, about 100 times less dense than the Earth's, with no breathable oxygen. There's no water on the surface and the landscape is freezing. IANS 

UN counter-terror czar visits China’s Xinjiang 

United Nations: The UN's counter-terrorism czar is on a visit this week to China's Xinjiang region, where Beijing insists one million Uighurs and other Muslims are detained because of a terrorism threat. Vladimir Voronkov is the highest level UN official to visit Xinjiang, which activists have described as an open air prison, deprived of religious freedom. AFP