Former US lawmaker Cynthia McKinney says every candidate for Congress has to sign a pledge to vote for supporting the military superiority of Israel.
“Every candidate for Congress at that time had a pledge. They were given a pledge to sign … that had Jerusalem as the capital city,” McKinney said in an interview with Press TV on Sunday.
“You make a commitment that you would vote to support the military superiority of Israel that the economic assistant that Israel wants that you would vote to provide that,” she added.
McKinney said that if a candidate does not sign the pledge or perform accordingly, “then you do not get money to run your campaign.”
The former Congresswoman said that after she made the pledge issue public “the tactic changed.”
“But this is what is done for 535 members of the United States Congress, 100 senators and 435 members of the House of Representatives have to now write a paragraph which basically says the same thing.”
He comments came as US President Barack Obama vowed to sustain Israel’s military superiority over its neighbors at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) annual gathering on Sunday.
“We (the US) will maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge”… “We have increased military financing to record levels,” Obama said.
A holiday beach was cordoned off after a landslip sent more than 1,000 deadly bombs and rockets embedded in the cliffs for more 60 years tumbling onto the sands.
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The cliffs are an old firing range from World War Two, explosives and grenades can be found in the area Photo: ALAMY
The East Riding beach of Mappleton, near Hornsea, was used as a practice bombing range during the Second World War – but the bad weather has led to ground movement which exposed one of the biggest arsenals ever uncovered yesterday.
The fins of many of the bombs have been left sticking out of the mud and rock which has fallen onto the beach.
With holiday crowds flooding to the coast, coastguards are warning visitors thinking of grabbing a souvenir that the bombs may be “highly volatile” and capable of causing tragedy.
Coastguards say the odd item of explosives often turn up in dribs and drabs after being embedded in the cliffs for decades in the area.
But over the weekend, a landslip caused by the combination of heavy rain and coastal erosion exposed at least 1,000 weapons.
Coastguards say that most of them are probably dummy or practice rounds – but they still contain enough explosive to cause terrible injuries.
A 24-hour guard has been placed on the beach by Humberside Police amid fears that children may be tempted to pick up a “trophy” during the school holidays.
An Army Bomb Disposal team from North Yorkshire’s Catterick Army Base has also been called in to clear the beach over the next few days.
The Army experts are hoping to remove some of the smaller items but some will have to be blown up on site in controlled explosions, Humber Coastguard said.
They include rockets, mortar bombs and 25-pounder bombs which were all fired into the cliffs by RAF aircraft during the war years and have been there ever since.
Mike Puplett, watch manager at Humber Coastguard, said: “It’s an old firing range from World War Two and an area where we do get explosives and grenades.
“When the cliff sinks it is a fairly regular occurrence that we get one or two. But there has been a fairly significant landslide occurred due to the erosion and bad weather which has caused it to slip.
“It is a conservative estimate of more than 1,000 items, a mixture of explosives. It is going to take two to three days if not longer to transport the less harmful explosives out of the way while those which are more dangerous or live are detonated in controlled explosions.”
There was no evacuation of the beach which was empty at the time of the landslip, he said, adding that the Coastguard were notified at 1.30pm on Sunday.
The beach can be approached along the sands from Hornsea or down a cliff top path but both points of access have been cordoned off and are under 24-hour police guard.
“The explosives have been fired into the cliff for target practice during bombing runs in World War Two,” Mr Puplett continued.
“Most are practice rounds but the Army have advised us that the amount of explosives even in Low Explosive rounds make them highly dangerous to handle.
“Because they have been in the cliff so long they may have become volatile and dangerous after being exposed to the fresh air.
“They have actually fallen in the landslip down onto the beach and are sticking out of the mud and rock and sand.
“Because there is such a great number of them what we do not want is people wandering around picking up the odd trophy to put on the mantel piece.
“They are all highly dangerous and should not be touched at all. It is highly dangerous at the moment. I am no explosive expert but the Army have told me these things could cause serious injury if not worse and even Low Explosive rounds are dangerous.
“Even the dummy or practice rounds have some explosives in them. Anyone who finds anything like this should dial 999.”
http://www.euronews.com/ Mafia groups are making billions from environmental crime, new research has found. Dumping toxic waste, illegal logging and trafficking of endangered species are just some of the many crimes according to a report called ‘Eco-Mafia 2012′ by Legambiente.
Other environmental groups also claim the EU is currently failing to tackle the issue seriously.
Julian Newman, Campaign Director of the Environmental Investigation Agency, said: “The problem with these crimes is that they are often seen as low priorities, not given much in the way of resources. If contraband is stopped, it hardly ever leads to prosecution, yet, these are crimes which deserve a strong response from Europe and globally, because the impact of these crimes affect us all.”
In Italy alone the Mafia is said to have earned some 16 billion euros last year through eco-crime. Despite that, some MEPs insist Europe can learn from Italian authorities on how to combat the mobsters.
“We can’t expect to keep uncovering criminality if we don’t use the same methods that proved so successful in Italy: I’m talking about attacking criminals by seizing and confiscating assets,” MEP Sonia Alfano said.
An EU parliament select committee on organised crime said more coordination between law enforcement agencies like Interpol and OLAF is needed to stem the current destructive tide.
The urgency for international agreement on Syria is underlined by the growing daily violence there. As Maria Finoshina reports, even the youngest in the country are being dragged into the conflict.
The efforts of the Global Elite are to enable an environmentally-based economy within a one world government. This includes replacing the currency and economic structures in place.
The Royal Canadian Mint (RCM) has announced that they will stop printing pennies. The RCM have unveiled a digital RFID-chip based currency that can be loaded up, stored and spent in-store and online.
The RCM calls this currency MintChip; which will be a virtual payment method accessible through microchips, microSD cards and USB sticks.
This RFID-chip currency is collaboration with the US corporations and research and development outfits. Ian Bennett, president and CEO of the Mint explains:
As part of its research and development efforts, the Mint has developed MintChip, which could be characterized as an evolution of physical money, with the added benefits of being electronic.
The MintChip is still under development, with patents pending and prototypes being studied. The creation and perfection of the technology must be useable with American markets.
Paul Solman, correspondent for the PBS NewsHour purveys the positive propaganda of one world currency by asserting that:
Ah, the dream: one world, one economy, one currency – and, of course, one global political system . . . a common currency means a common economic policy . . .
The United Future World Currency is a foundation nearly 2 decades old that seeks to “bring to life the project for a common currency” once defined as the Euro. They are committed to bringing awareness to the necessity of global currency.
Organizations like this serve to make the idea of a global currency more palatable to the general public. Simultaneously, nations like China are pushing against the US dollar being the global reserve currency as the Federal Reserve continues to inflate the US dollar which debases its worth.
The Institute of International Finance (IIF), a group of technocrats that represent 420 banking cartels and financing houses have joined the cry for a one world currency.
Charles Dallara, managing director of the IIF, said:
A core group of the world’s leading economies need to come together and hammer out an understanding. The narrowly focused unilateral and bilateral policy actions seen in recent months – including many proposed and actual measures on trade, currency intervention and monetary policy – have contributed to worsening underlying macroeconomic imbalances. They have also led to growing protectionist pressures as countries scramble for export markets as a source of growth.
The UN’s call for one world currency is contained in their report entitled, United Nations: Economic and Social Survey 2010. The UN asserted that the US dollar must be replaced by a new one-world currency issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
In response to the Global Market Crash of 2008, Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the People’s Bank of China, revived the ideal of the Bancor by demanding that the IMF have special drawing rights (SDRs).
Xiaochuan contented that national currencies were counter-productive to the global markets and that domestic monetary policy must not override international necessities.
The UN published a report following the financial crisis in 2008 entitled, The Commission of Experts of the President of the UN General Assembly on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System wherein they created a commission to “restore global economic stability”.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon affirmed that a one-world currency would “bridge the old North-South divide” and that the UN’s “monetary vision” if properly implemented would be a “path out of our current predicament.”
In a report published in 2010, the IMF stated that the Bancor should be established and administered as the one-world currency. To go along with the one-world currency, the IMF advises the establishment of a one-world bank; which would also have issuance rights as the Federal Reserve Bank does within the US.
The IMF report states:
The global central bank could serve as a lender of last resort, providing neededsystemic liquidity in the event of adverse shocks and more automatically than at present. Such liquidity was provided in the most recent crisis mainly by the U.S. Federal Reserve, which however may not always provide such liquidity.
The advent of a global currency, if allowed to happen will be controlled by the UN, as the IMF is an arm of the globalist Elite front.
Simply put, this demand is a call for economic control by the international community for the express purpose of ensuring that the future of all sovereign nations eventually fall victim to the coming global governance.
Susanne Posel is the Chief Editor of Occupy Corporatism. Our alternative news site is dedicated to reporting the news as it actually happens; not as it is spun by the corporately funded mainstream media.
6.1 magnitude earthquake strikes near the east coast of Kamchatka, Russia.
Magnitude
6.1
Date-Time
Sunday, June 24, 2012 at 03:15:02 UTC
Sunday, June 24, 2012 at 04:15:02 PM at epicenter
Location
57.601°N, 163.218°E
Depth
17.4 km (10.8 miles)
Region
NEAR THE EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA, RUSSIA
Distances
268 km (166 miles) SSW (192°) from Il’pyrskiy, Russia
317 km (197 miles) NNW (329°) from Nikol’skoye, Komandorskiye Ostrova, Rus.
586 km (364 miles) NNE (28°) from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Russia
2994 km (1860 miles) NNE (28°) from TOKYO, Japan
Eruptive activity remains at low levels at volcanoes we have been watching in the Americas.
Nevado del Ruiz volcano (Colombia) seems to have settled into producing banded (alternating periods of higher and lower amplitude) tremor along with occasional volcanic earthquakes (station OLLE).
Low level tremor and small earthquakes have become apparent again on seismograms at nearby Galeras volcano (Colombia) (station ANGV).
Popocatepetl volcano (Mexico) continues to simmer with pulses of spasmodic tremor, small earthquakes and low level exhalations of gas and some ash.
At El Hierro, Canary Islands, Spain, a new earthquake swarm seems to have started late tonight. The strongest earthquake being a M3.1
Popocatepetl volcano, Mexico
Sporadic earthquakes at Galeras volcano, Colombia
Start of an new earthquake swarm at El Hierro, Canary Islands, Spain
Strong 3.1 earthquake (for local conditions at least) at El Hierro, Canary Islands, Spain
BALTIMORE CANYON TO HATTERAS CANYON OUT TO 36N 70W TO 34N 71W
HATTERAS CANYON TO CAPE FEAR OUT TO 34N 71W TO 32N 73W
CAPE FEAR TO 31N OUT TO 32N 73W TO 31N 74W
JUNEAU AK
PUEBLO CO
BILLINGS MT
MISSOULA MT
GRAND JUNCTION CO
NORTH PLATTE NE
RIVERTON WY
GREAT FALLS MT
DENVER CO
GOODLAND KS
RENO NV
LAS VEGAS NV
SALT LAKE CITY UT
ELKO NV
BOISE ID
A massive, out of control wildfire on Lake Mountain prompted evacuations Friday morning and was bearing down on an explosives factory. “It’s close enough to where we’re really worried,” BLM spokeswoman Cami Lee said of the explosives plant. An evacuation of the Benches subdivision in Saratoga Springs has now begun. Officials have begun notifying residents door to door and through reverse 911 telephone calls. The evacuation area is everything south of Pony Express Parkway, east of Smith Ranch Road and east to Redwood Road. The affected subdivisions in Eagle Mountain include Kiowa Valley, Eagle Top, Fremont Springs and SilverLake. Highway 68 also was closed south of 400 North in Saratoga Springs. A shelter is being set up at West Lake High School. Just after 11 a.m. the temperature was already 90 degrees and the wind was blowing at 15 mph with gust up to 19 mph. Authorities were scrambling around 10 a.m. to notify residents of at least 250 homes in Saratoga Springs and Eagle Mountain that they needed to leave the area. Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman Teresa Rigby said that a change in wind was driving the Dump Fire east and it had come within a quarter of a mile of a neighborhood. The thick brown smoke was filling the air over much of northern Utah County and drifting east over the valley. An air tanker was flying overhead, visible only occasionally before it disappeared into the smoke. In Saratoga Springs the city’s water department has shut off irrigation wast er to all location where culinary water is being used for irrigation, according to the city’s Facebook page, so water tanks can fill and provide water and water pressure if the fire reaches homes. The city also is asking residents to turn off their irrigation systems this weekend. According to the BLM, the fire was being fought Friday morning by four hand crews, various fire engines, and a handful of helicopters. Additional hand crews were en route.
The fire burning behind Lake George in Park County is now 200 acres, and it is 0% contained. According to a park ranger for the Pike National Forest, the 11 mile canyon has been evacuated. That is between 150 and 200 homes. Everyone else in that area is under pre-evacuation orders. That means they must be ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice. County road 96 and 92 at Highway 24 are both shut down right now. That fire started around noon on the Indian Paintbrush Ranch. We’ve heard several reports from witnesses who say they saw someone fire shots, and that may have hit a propane tank causing an explosion. But, Park Rangers say they are still investigating what caused this fire. Among the evacuees, about 500 campers with Camp Alexander. They were at 11 mile canyon. The Camp Director tells us they are all safely out of the fire’s reach. Those campers are from all over Colorado, and out of state. They will have to stay the night at Woodland Park High School and/or Middle School. There are more than 40 firefighters fighting this fire, and witnesses say they have also seen drops from helicopters.
25.06.2012
Forest / Wild Fire
USA
State of Colorado, [Fort Collins (Paradise Park) area]
Crews on Saturday battled a fast-moving wildfire in northern Colorado that has scorched about 8,000 acres and prompted several dozen evacuation orders. Larimer County Sheriff’s Office spokesman John Schulz said the fire was reported just before 6 a.m. Saturday in the mountainous Paradise Park area about 25 miles northwest of Fort Collins. The blaze expanded rapidly during the late afternoon and evening and by Saturday night, residents living along several roads in the region had been ordered to evacuate and many more were warned that they might have to flee. An evacuation center has been set up at a Laporte middle school. Officials didn’t specify how many residents had evacuated but said they had sent out 800 emergency notifications alerting people to the fire and the possibility that might have to flee. “Right now we’re just trying to get these evacuations done and get people safe,” Schulz told Denver-based KMGH-TV, adding that “given the extreme heat in the area, it makes it a difficult time for (the firefighters).” Temperatures near Fort Collins reached the mid-80s Saturday afternoon with a humidity level of between 5 percent and 10 percent. Ten structures have been damaged, although authorities were unsure if they were homes or some other kind of buildings. No injuries have been reported. The cause of the fire was unknown. Aerial footage from KMGH-TV showed flames coming dangerously close to what appeared to be several outbuildings and at least one home in the area, as well as consuming trees and sending a large plume of smoke into the air. Two heavy air tankers, five single-engine air tankers and four helicopters were on the scene to help fight the blaze, which appeared to be burning on private and U.S. Forest Service land and was being fueled by sustained winds of between 20 and 25 mph. “It was just good conditions to grow,” National Weather Service meteorologist Chad Gimmestad told The Associated Press. “The conditions today were really favorable for it to take off.”
Today
Forest / Wild Fire
USA
State of New Mexico, [Community of La Puebla, Santa Fe County ]
Two wildfires broke out in the northern Santa Fe County community of La Puebla on Sunday evening, causing electricity to be cut off to some homes and other residences to be evacuated. The first, called the Rio Vista Fire, began about 6 p.m. with a vehicle that caught fire for unknown reasons at a residence near Rio Vista Run and Santa Fe County Road 88B. The car fire quickly spread to about 3 acres in the bosque on both sides of the Rio Santa Cruz near Camino de Flores, where it reportedly was crowning in cottonwood trees. A state Forestry Division spokesman said residents in a 2-mile radius were being advised to head south and that roadways in the area were expected to be congested. John Wheeler, a public information officer for the Santa Fe County Fire Department, said five residences were evacuated. He said county animal-control officers were removing some dogs from the residences. Fifty firefighters from various jurisdictions responded and “had a good handle” on the Rio Vista Fire by 8:30 p.m., he said. About 8 p.m., however, a second fire, dubbed the Alamo Fire, was reported about two miles away near Calle Alamo, causing most of the firefighters to be shifted to the second site. The Alamo Fire’s origin is unknown, but by 9:30 p.m., it had grown to about 3 acres and was threatening five structures, Wheeler said. “We’re going to have to cut power to a few houses out here,” he said. “It looks like [electric power transmission lines] are going to catch fire.” Wheeler said he didn’t know how many residences would be without power, but he said the outage was likely to last overnight. Hot and dry conditions have made much of New Mexico a tinderbox. Calmer winds Sunday night were helping firefighters contain the La Puebla wildfires, but Wheeler cautioned New Mexicans to be “hypervigilant” of wildfires, at least until the summer rains begin.
(CNN) — The expansive, stalled Tropical Storm Debby lashed Florida on Sunday, spawning apparent tornadoes in the central part of the state that killed one woman, a county spokeswoman said.
Gloria Rybinski, emergency operations spokeswoman for Highland County, said two twisters destroyed four homes in the southern end of the county and damaged others.
The woman was found dead in a home in Venus, located in the middle of the state roughly between Port St. Lucie and Sarasota, Rybinski said. In addition, a child in one of the affected homes was injured and transported to a hospital for treatment.
Packing 60 mph winds, Debby’s eye was still 115 miles south-southwest of Apalachiocola, Florida (and 195 miles east-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River in Louisiana) according to the National Hurricane Center’s 7 p.m. (8 p.m. ET) Sunday update.
Even so, it’s already made a big impact — and is likely to cause damage, flooding and worse for days to come. In fact, the heart of the storm was churning but not moving in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday evening, and forecasters still don’t know where it will end up.
“Little movement is expected during the next couple of days, but this forecast remains uncertain due to weak steering currents,” the Miami-based center said. “Some gradual strengthening is possible during the next 48 hours.”
Offshoot tornadoes, like the ones that seemed to hit Highland County, are one major concern. The National Weather Service had tornado warnings out, indicating a high likelihood of a twister strike, in spots off-and-on throughout the day Sunday, and a less severe tornado watch is in effect for much of western Florida through 5 a.m. Monday.
And even if tornadoes don’t occur, the combination of relentless rains and strong winds has proven enough to cause big problems.
The sprawling system’s tropical storm force winds of 39 mph or stronger extend out 200 miles from its center. Such sustained winds were recorded early Sunday evening in several spots on the Florida Panhandle, west of Apalachicola.
Debbie Ponceti said wind was pushing run underneath the door to her home in Madeira Beach, about 10 miles east of St. Petersburg, while her front lawn has been reduced to mush and waters in a lagoon near her house are steadily rising. There was been no let up in the powerful rain, which is forecast to continue through Tuesday.
“Typically when a thunderstorm happens, it is over in 20 minutes,” Ponceti told CNN iReport. “But this has been going on all day.”
In nearby Redington Beach, fellow iReporter Keri Ann Eversole said winds appeared to be blowing between 40 to 50 miles per hour.
“The rain was coming down sideways,” Eversole said. “(It) felt like glass.”
Fire and rescue personnel in nearby Clearwater responded to 30 calls in an hour, as of 6 p.m. Sunday, to help people stranded in their cars due to the flooding or needing urgent medical help, the city’s public safety spokeswoman Elizabeth Watts said. Beach areas were “basically underwater,” as were many side streets and at least two major thoroughfares — U.S. Highway 19 and Gulf to Bay Boulevard.
Mandatory evacuation orders were issued for Alligator Point. St. George Island and other low-lying areas in Franklin County on the Florida Panhandle, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said in a Sunday night news release. Just to the east and also on the Gulf coast, voluntary evacuations are being encouraged in parts of Taylor and Wakulla counties.
And high winds have prompted authorities to shut down the Sunshine Skyway bridge on Interstate 275 connecting St. Petersburg and Bradenton, Florida, said Elizabeth LaRotonda with St. Petersburg police.
The hurricane center said tropical storm conditions will extend for the entire area from the Mississippi-Alabama line eastward to the Suwannee River, Florida, by night’s end.
Beyond that, the new forecast track showed Debby remaining a tropical storm as it moves northward and makes landfall, possibly Thursday, on the Florida Panhandle. However, forecasters warned Debby’s track remained uncertain and said the “new official track remains a low-confidence forecast.”
Debby should dump 10 to 15 inches of rain in the Florida Panhandle and elsewhere in northern Florida before it’s done, the hurricane center said, with as much as 25 inches possible in spots. Central Florida and southeast Georgia will likely be drenched with 5 to 10 inches, with smaller but still significant precipitation amounts in parts of coastal Alabama, southeastern Louisiana and south Florida.
“Given the recent heavy rainfall and wet soil conditions, these additional amounts will exacerbate the threat of flooding across portions of the central and eastern Gulf coast,” the weather service said.
The combination of a storm surge and the high tide could cause 4 to 6 feet of flooding at Florida’s Apalachee Bay to Waccasassa Bay, forecasters said. Parts of Florida’s west coast and coastal Mississippi could see 2 to 4 feet deep waters.
The storm has raised concerns for those working on 596 manned oil and gas production platforms throughout the Gulf, run by various companies.
One of them, Shell, said in a statement Sunday morning that it had evacuated 360 staff the previous day and was planning further evacuations. ExxonMobil said it has “evacuated nonessential personnel” from its offshore facilities and is preparing to evacuate the rest.
And BP spokesman Brett Clanton said early Sunday evening that “we’ve evacuated the majority of our offshore personnel in the Gulf of Mexico” due to Tropical Storm Debby. “Those unable to be evacuated will shelter in place for the storm,” he said.
Even though it was far from clear it would hit Louisiana, officials in that state weren’t taking any chances — with Terrebonne Parish and Lafourche Parish among those issuing precautionary states of emergency, after the governor did the same.
In Plaquemines Parish, the state’s southernmost parish, authorities were using baskets and tubes to keep Highway 23 — the parish’s main evacuation and emergency route — free of water should the 4-foot levees be topped, said Billy Nungesser, parish president. The levees were being sandbagged as an additional precaution
“We want to be ahead of that as a precautionary measure,” Nungesser said. The area is forecast to get a storm surge of 2 to 4 feet, he said — “with a direct hit, if it goes up a little bit more, we’ll have those levees topped.”
BEIJING — Chinese state media say torrential rains have killed at least 16 people and affected 1 1/2 million people in southern and northern parts of the country.
The official Xinhua News Agency said Monday that the heavy rains over the past three days had affected 450,000 people and wiped out crops in the southern Guangxi region. Another more than 730,000 people were affected in the southern province of Jiangxi, and 312,000 were affected in the adjacent manufacturing powerhouse province of Guangdong.
Xinhua quoted a local government official as saying the direct economic losses so far were $20.3 million, and that water levels in 10 reservoirs and several major rivers had risen above warning levels.
Xinhua said rainstorm-triggered floods have also hit areas of Inner Mongolia in the north of China.
At least 14 people were killed and more than 11 lakh people affected after downpours triggered flash floods and mudslides in China’s southwestern regions and some parts in the north over the past three days. Floods triggered by the rainstorms have killed six people, affected the lives of more than 450,000 people, destroyed some 1,000 houses and inundated almost 17,000 hectares of cropland in southern Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, a spokesman with the Regional Department of Civil Affairs said. Direct economic losses were estimated at 128 million yuan (USD 20.3 million), the spokesman said, adding local authorities have launched relief operations. Local meteorological authorities forecast that more heavy rainfalls will hit parts of Guangxi tomorrow.
As a flood watch continues around B.C., residents were urged to “evacuate when emergency officials request it” by minister of justice and attorney general Shirley Bond Saturday. “We understand how difficult it might be for families to leave their homes, but they are only asked to do that when there is an imminent potential safety risk. When an evacuation order is given, it is essential that everyone consider their safety and that of first responders and leave as requested,” Bond said in a statement. “Emergency management officials don’t want to see the forcible removal of anyone from a property – rather, we depend on individuals to heed the advice of public safety professionals, whose decisions and directions are made with the highest regard for the safety of you and your loved ones,” Bond said. Swollen by melting snow and rain, the Fraser River has reached levels not seen for 40 years and has caused flooding from the province’s interior to the Fraser Valley. Early Sunday, Environment Canada said that a slow-moving low pressure system situated off the coast of Oregon state was expected to drop between 10 to 20 mm on the Arrow Lakes, Slocan Lake and East Kootenay regions. It also forecasted potential development of severe thunderstorms with large hail and damaging winds Sunday afternoon.
The Village of Kaslo has issued a red alert to residents after a mudslide on Josephine Creek, which empties into Kemp Creek, severely compromised water flows to the main reservoir said Chief Administrative Officer Rae Sawyer Sunday. Fact is the mudslide completely wiped out the main water dam to the village. “It’s completely gone,” Sawyer told The Nelson Daily Sunday night. “The dam on Kemp Creek Kemp Creek is gone and the reservoir is not filling up.” The slide occurred sometime around noon Sunday. A contractor working in the area of the reservoir alerted village officials, which went into damage control. “Right now we’ve switched over to emergency water supplies from the Kaslo River but we’re having a hard time keeping up with the demand,” Sawyer explained. The slide had destroyed the dam, built of concrete and steel, which holds the intake to the main reservoir so no water is draining into the system. “We don’t know yet if we can rebuild the dam at the same site . . . we’re still assessing that,” Sawyer explained. “At this time we’re running on emergency systems from the Kaslo River that drains into a small reservoir in the water treatment plant. “It’s a small reservoir that can’t handle the normal demands of the village and that’s what we’re concerned about.” Sawyer is hopeful residents comply with the village alert to conserve water. “We’re asking residents to simply use extreme water conservation,” Sawyer said. “Restrict water consumption to interior household use and set drinking water aside.” Sawyer said the staff is still assessing the situation and is hopeful a plan will be put into place to fix the problem in a few days.
A group of Emperor penguin adults make their way across sea ice in Terre Adelie in East Antarctica. In December, the adults return to the colony to provide food for the chicks. They can be observed walking in groups to the nearest open water areas where they feed. Disappearing sea ice may also affect the penguins’ food source. The birds feed primarily on fish, squid, and krill, a shrimp like animal, which in turn feeds on zooplankton and phytoplankton, tiny organisms that grow on the underside of the ice. (Stephanie Jenouvrier, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution).
At nearly four feet tall, the Emperor penguin is Antarctica’s largest sea bird-and thanks to films like “March of the Penguins” and “Happy Feet,” it’s also one of the continent’s most iconic. If global temperatures continue to rise, however, the Emperor penguins in Terre Adelie, in East Antarctica may eventually disappear, according to a new study by led by researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). The study was published in the June 20th edition of the journal Global Change Biology.
“Over the last century, we have already observed the disappearance of the Dion Islets penguin colony, close to the West Antarctic Peninsula,” says Stephanie Jenouvrier, WHOI biologist and lead author of the new study.
“In 1948 and the 1970s, scientists recorded more than 150 breeding pairs there. By 1999, the population was down to just 20 pairs, and in 2009, it had vanished entirely.” Like in Terre Adelie, Jenouvrier thinks the decline of those penguins might be connected to a simultaneous decline in Antarctic sea ice due to warming temperatures in the region.
Unlike other sea birds, Emperor penguins breed and raise their young almost exclusively on sea ice. If that ice breaks up and disappears early in the breeding season, massive breeding failure may occur, says Jenouvrier.
“As it is, there’s a huge mortality rate just at the breeding stages, because only 50 percent of chicks survive to the end of the breeding season, and then only half of those fledglings survive until the next year,” she says.
Disappearing sea ice may also affect the penguins’ food source. The birds feed primarily on fish, squid, and krill, a shrimplike animal, which in turn feeds on zooplankton and phytoplankton, tiny organisms that grow on the underside of the ice.
If the ice goes, Jenouvrier says, so too will the plankton, causing a ripple effect through the food web that may starve the various species that penguins rely on as prey.
To project how penguin populations may fare in the future, Jenouvrier’s team used data from several different sources, including climate models, sea ice forecasts, and a demographic model that Jenouvrier created of the Emperor penguin population at Terre Adelie, a coastal region of Antarctica where French scientists have conducted penguin observations for more than 50 years.
Combining this type of long-term population data with information on climate was key to the study, says Hal Caswell, a WHOI senior mathematical biologist and collaborator on the paper.
“If you want to study the effects of climate on a particular species, there are three pieces that you have to put together,” he says. “The first is a description of the entire life cycle of the organism, and how individuals move through that life cycle.
The second piece is how the cycle is affected by climate variables. And the crucial third piece is a prediction of what those variables may look like in the future, which involves collaboration with climate scientists.”
Marika Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research is one such scientist. She specializes in studying the relationship between sea ice and global climate, and helped the team identify climate models for use in the study.
Working with Julienne Stroeve, another sea ice specialist from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Holland ultimately recommended five distinct models. “We picked the models based on how well they calculated the sea ice cover for the 20th century,” she says.
“If a model predicted an outcome that matched what was actually observed, we felt it was likely that its projections of sea ice change in the future could be trusted.”
Jenouvrier used the output from these various climate models to determine how changes in temperature and sea ice might affect the Emperor penguin population at Terre Adelie.
She found that if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at levels similar to today-causing temperatures to rise and Antarctic sea ice to shrink-penguin population numbers will diminish slowly until about 2040, after which they would decline at a much steeper rate as sea ice coverage drops below a usable threshold.
“Our best projections show roughly 500 to 600 breeding pairs remaining by the year 2100. Today, the population size is around 3000 breeding pairs,” says Jenouvrier.
The effect of rising temperature in the Antarctic isn’t just a penguin problem, according to Caswell. As sea ice coverage continues to shrink, the resulting changes in the Antarctic marine environment will affect other species, and may affect humans as well.
“We rely on the functioning of those ecosystems. We eat fish that come from the Antarctic. We rely on nutrient cycles that involve species in the oceans all over the world,” he says.
“Understanding the effects of climate change on predators at the top of marine food chains-like Emperor penguins-is in our best interest, because it helps us understand ecosystems that provide important services to us.”
Also collaborating on the study were Christophe Barbraud and Henri Weimerskirch of the Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chize, in France, and Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the United States.
Titanium-44 Could Solve The Mystery Of Exploding StarsMessageToEagle.com – Somewhere in the Milky Way, a massive old star is about to die a spectacular death. As its nuclear fuel runs out, the star begins to collapse under its own tremendous weight. Crushing pressure triggers new nuclear reactions, setting the stage for a terrifying blast. And then… nothing happens.
At least that’s what supercomputers have been telling astrophysicists for decades.
Many of the best computer models of supernovas fail to produce an explosion. At the end of the simulation, gravity wins the day and the star simply collapses.
Clearly, physicists are missing something.
“We don’t fully understand how supernovas of massive stars work yet,” says Fiona Harrison, an astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology.
To figure out what’s going on, Harrison and colleagues would like to examine the inside of a real supernova while it’s exploding. That’s not possible, so they’re doing the next best thing.
Launched over the Pacific Ocean on June 13, 2012, by a Pegasus XL rocket, NuSTAR is the first space telescope that can focus very high-energy X-rays, producing images roughly 100 times sharper than those possible with previous high-energy X-ray telescopes.
When NuSTAR finishes its check-out and becomes fully operational, scientists will use it to scan supernovas for clues etched into the pattern of elements spread throughout the explosion’s debris.“The distribution of the material in a supernova remnant tells you a lot about the original explosion,” says Harrison.
An element of particular interest is titanium-44. Creating this isotope of titanium through nuclear fusion requires a certain combination of energy, pressure, and raw materials.
Inside the collapsing star, that combination occurs at a depth that’s very special. Everything below that depth succumbs to gravity and collapses inward to form a black hole.
Everything above that depth will be blown outward in the explosion. Titanium-44 is created right at the cusp.
So the pattern of how titanium-44 is spread throughout a supernova remnant can reveal a lot about what happened at that crucial threshold during the explosion. And with that information, scientists might be able to figure out what’s wrong with their computer simulations.
A supercomputer model of a spinning core-collapse supernova. NuSTAR observations of actual supernova remnants will provide vital data for such models. Credit: Fiona Harrison Some scientists believe the computer models are too symmetrical. Until recently, even with powerful supercomputers, scientists have only been able to simulate a one-dimensional sliver of the star. Scientists just assume that the rest of the star behaves similarly, making the simulated implosion the same in all radial directions.
But what if that assumption is wrong?
“Asymmetries could be the key,” Harrison says. In an asymmetrical collapse, outward forces could break through in some places even if the crush of gravity is overpowering in others. Indeed, more recent, two-dimensional simulations suggest that asymmetries could help solve the mystery of the “non-exploding supernova.”
If NuSTAR finds that titanium-44 is spread unevenly, it would be evidence that the explosions themselves were also asymmetrical, Harrison explains.
Cassiopeia A Light Echoes in Infrared Credit: O. Krause (Steward Obs.) et al., SSC, JPL, Caltech, NASATo detect titanium-44, NuSTAR needs to be able to focus very high energy X-rays. Titanium-44 is radioactive, and when it decays it releases photons with an energy of 68 thousand electron volts. Existing X-ray space telescopes, such as NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory, can focus X-rays only up to about 15 thousand electron volts.
Normal lenses can’t focus X-rays at all. Glass bends X-rays only a miniscule amount—not enough to form an image.
X-ray telescopes use an entirely different kind of “lens” consisting of many concentric shells. They look a bit like the layers of a cylindrical onion.
Incoming X-rays pass between these layers, which guide the X-rays to the focal surface. It’s not a lens, strictly speaking, because the X-rays reflect off the surfaces of the shells instead of passing through them, but the end result is the same.
The NuSTAR team has spent years perfecting delicate manufacturing techniques required to make high-precision X-ray optics for NuSTAR that work at energies as high as 79 thousand electron volts.
Their efforts could end up answering the question, “Why won’t the supernova explode?”
Black hole, neutron stars and gamma-ray bursts. Expert Dr. Fiona Harrison talks about her latest mission at CalTech, building the first on-orbit focusing telescope. She explains how it will work and what it will be used for.
Meteor reports of the latest worldwide meteors, fireballs and bolides worldwide. Report a Meteor/fireball/bolide worldwide and join the worldwide community of nightsky meteor fireball and bolide reporters and watchers. Owner LunarMeteorite*Hunter, Dirk Ross, Tokyo, Japan. All Rights Reserved – Copy allowed with link citation ONLY http://lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.com/ .
The mysterious death of 22 green turtles, a protected species, is puzzling experts in North Queensland. The experts have not ruled out poisoning and even drowning as a cause. The Department of Environment and Heritage Protection is investigating the deaths of the turtles found at Wunjunga Beach, about 100 kilometres south of Townsville. The department’s director of threatened species, Wolf Sievers, said the vulnerable animals have been washing up on the beach for over a week. “It is very unusual for this many turtles to have stranded on one beach and we will be making every effort to establish what may have happened,” Mr Sievers said. Senior turtle expert Dr Ian Bell said that initial investigations found no injuries, no obvious signs of malnutrition or illness. “It’s a bit like turtle CSI, it’s all about ruling out possible alternatives,” Dr Bell said. “We’re ruling out starvation. It doesn’t look like it’s any infectious type of disease, and it leaves us with two possibilities. “One is potential poisoning, and we’re also looking at the possibility of a drowning. “At this stage we really don’t know.” The department hopes they will be able to establish the causes of death after performing further necropsies. The entire Great Barrier Reef is an important feeding area for green turtles, which are classified as a vulnerable species nationally under legislation. All of the green turtles, except one, have been large adult female green turtles. Adults have a shell length of about 1m and average about 130 kg, although some nesting females can weigh more than 180 kg. A loss of just one breeding size individual can have an impact on the species.
Biohazard name:
Mass Die-off (turtles)
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Symptoms:
Status:
confirmed
Today
HAZMAT
Chile
Provincia de Cachapoal , Codegua [Cristo del Parque school]
20 children were affected after an accidental inhalation of certain chemical compounds, and they developed symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, and vomiting. It is not clear how these children became intoxicated with chemicals. Apparently, some chemical substances might have been dispersed in a premise next to Cristo del Parque school in Codegua community, and these may be the causative agents of the symptoms described in affected children. More than 20 children started their usual school activities in the morning, but soon they developed symptoms such as dizziness, headache, and nausea, and some children developed vomiting. Facing this situation, authorities from Cristo del Parque school decided to call parents of affected children, and they brought the most severely affected children to the nearest local health care facility. One of the children had to be brought to the Rancagua Regional Hospital because he developed intense abdominal pain. Ms. Ana Maria Silva, Mayor of the local community, added that the local Health Commission should investigate this occurrence, since some health-related complications have been recently described in this community because of the use of pesticides, such as high numbers of cases of cancer, congenital malformations, and problems in pregnant women, and this event is not the 1st of its kind. Codegua has been one of the communities in this region that has been significantly affected because of the excessive use of pesticides, and chemical spill emergencies have also been reported. We have to remember that last January [2012], one person died after being poisoned with ammonia fumes from a local packing shed in the area.
Less oxygen dissolved in the water is often referred to as a “dead zone” (in red above) because most marine life either dies, or, if they are mobile such as fish, leave the area. Habitats that would normally be teeming with life become, essentially, biological deserts. Image credit: NOAA.
A dry spring in portions of the Midwest is expected to result in the second-smallest Gulf of Mexico “dead zone” on record in 2012, according to a University of Michigan forecast released last week. The U-M prediction calls for a 2012 Gulf of Mexico dead zone of about 1,200 square miles, an area the size of Rhode Island. If the forecast is correct, 2012 would replace 2000 (1,696 square miles) as the year with the second-smallest Gulf dead zone.
The smallest Gulf oxygen-starved, or hypoxic, zone was recorded in 1988 (15 square miles).
“While it’s encouraging to see that this year’s Gulf forecast calls for a significant drop in the extent of the dead zone, we must keep in mind that the anticipated reduction is due mainly to decreased precipitation in the upper Midwest and a subsequent reduced water flow into the Gulf,” said aquatic ecologist Donald Scavia, professor at the U-M School of Natural Resources and Environment.
“The predicted 2012 dead-zone decline does not result from cutbacks in nitrogen use, which remains one of the key drivers of hypoxia in the Gulf.”
The U-M prediction is one of two Gulf dead zone forecasts released today by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which funds the research. The other NOAA-supported team, from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium and Louisiana State University, predicts a 2012 Gulf dead zone of 6,213 square miles.
The Michigan forecast model is based solely on 2012 spring nutrient inputs from the Mississippi River, which are significantly lower than average due to drought conditions throughout much of the watershed.
The Louisiana State University forecast model takes into account last year’s above-normal nutrient load, which the Louisiana researchers say can remain in bottom sediments and can result in a “carryover effect” that increases the size of the 2012 dead zone.
Last year, the Gulf dead zone measured 6,765 square miles. The largest Gulf hypoxic zone measured to date occurred in 2002 and encompassed more than 8,400 square miles. The Gulf dead zone has averaged about 6,000 square miles over the past five years.
This year, for the first time, Scavia’s U-M team was able to forecast the volume of hypoxic water contained in the dead zone. The most likely 2012 scenario corresponds to a volume of 2.6 cubic miles, according to the U-M team.
Scavia, director of the Graham Sustainability Institute and special counsel to the U-M president for sustainability, also released his annual Chesapeake Bay dead zone forecast today. It calls for an average-size dead zone in the Bay this year, down significantly from last summer’s record-setter.
“These dead zones are ecological time bombs,” he said. “Without determined local, regional and national efforts to control nutrient loads, we are putting major fisheries at risk.”
In 2009, the dockside value of commercial fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico was $629 million. Nearly 3 million recreational anglers further contributed more than $1 billion to the Gulf economy, taking 22 million fishing trips.
Farmland runoff containing fertilizers and livestock waste-some of it from as far away as the Corn Belt-is the main source of the nitrogen and phosphorus that cause the annual Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone. Each year in late spring and summer, these nutrients flow down the Mississippi River and into the Gulf, fueling explosive algae blooms there.
When the algae die and sink, bottom-dwelling bacteria decompose the organic matter, consuming oxygen in the process. The result is an oxygen-starved region in bottom and near-bottom waters: the dead zone.
“This forecast is a good example of NOAA, USGS and university partnerships delivering ecological forecasts that quantify the linkages between the watershed and the coast,” said NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco.
“While the occurrence of a low-flow year following a year with major flooding will help us to evaluate any carryover effect from prior years, we should not lose sight of the ongoing need to reduce the flow of nutrients to the Mississippi River and thus the Gulf.”
According to U.S. Geological Survey estimates, the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers transported 58,100 metric tons of nitrogen (in the form of nitrite plus nitrate) to the northern Gulf in May 2012, an amount that is 56 percent lower than average May nitrogen loads estimated in the last 33 years.
“These forecasts are the product of decades of research, monitoring and modeling on how decisions we make in the vast drainage basin of the Mississippi and its tributaries translates into the health of the coastal zone of the Gulf of Mexico,” said U.S. Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt.
“Comparing the actual hypoxic zone against the predictions will help scientists better understand the multiyear memory of this complex land-sea system, and ultimately better inform options for improving ecosystem productivity.”
About a thousand miles northeast of the Gulf of Mexico in Chesapeake Bay, this year’s hypoxic zone is expected to measure about 1.5 cubic miles, Scavia said. That’s about average compared to measured volumes since 2000 but much smaller than last year’s record-setter of 2.75 cubic miles, which was due to spring storms that washed large amounts of nutrients into rivers that feed the Bay.
So far in 2012, rainfall in the Chesapeake Bay watershed has been 50-to-75 percent of normal, Scavia said.
The actual size of the 2012 Gulf hypoxic zone will be announced following a NOAA-supported monitoring survey led by the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium between July 27 and Aug. 3.
The amount of nitrogen entering the Gulf of Mexico each spring has increased about 300 percent since the 1960s, mainly due to increased agricultural runoff. The Gulf of Mexico/Mississippi River Watershed Nutrient Task Force has targeted 1,900 square miles as a long-term goal for the size of the Gulf dead zone.
The profilers on deck, ready to be launched. Credit: Tom Sanford
(Phys.org) — Some might say that University of Washington oceanographers did well to only lose one of 21 underwater probes, given that they were deployed near the notorious Bermuda Triangle, where boats and airplanes have been known to disappear without a trace.
The scientists chose the location to research its swirling whirlpools via a pioneering experiment that repeatedly sent the probes deep into the ocean and back to the surface in unison.
“Nothing like this has ever been done,” said Tom Sanford, an oceanographer at the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory. “It will be the paradigm for future experiments.”
Typically, oceanographers may deploy an instrument in one place and then travel by boat to another spot to launch it again.
“You make observations that are a few kilometers apart but also a few hours apart. During that time, the tides change things and the wind blows. Yet you make measurements and treat them as if there was just a spatial change and not a temporal one,” Sanford said.
His group invented the velocity sensors that were added to commercial autonomous profilers, so called because they take measurements as they travel vertically through the water creating a profile of the water’s characteristics. They also changed the software to synchronize the path of the profilers, or underwater probes, which were programmed to dive to a specific depth and rise to the surface at scheduled intervals. When they reached the surface, they communicated their GPS positions and a small set of other data via satellites.
UW graduate student Nathan Lauffenburger and John Dunlap, APL principal engineer, launch one of the profilers. Credit: Tom Sanford
During the deployment, the profilers traveled within about a minute of each other.
The new velocity sensor on the profilers picked up electric current in the ocean to track the velocity of moving water. The sensors measure electric current generated when ocean water flows through the Earth’s magnetic field. The higher the voltage the faster the water is moving.
The profilers were deployed during a three-week period last summer in the Sargasso Sea, which encompasses the so-called Bermuda Triangle, and placed in arrays covering areas of around 10 kilometers in diameter, a little more than 6 miles.
While Sanford deployed the 21 profilers, researchers from UW and many other organizations used a number of other technologies at the same time to collect a vast amount of data. The other technologies included four gliders, 42 drifters, three equipment-towing boats and an airplane. The equipment gathered data about ocean characteristics such as temperature, salinity and velocity to describe flow structure and mixing.
The researchers built such a sophisticated expedition because of the subject they are studying: internal waves and whirlpools, known as vortices.
“What’s mysterious are these vortices that exist due to various processes and float around for a long life, banging into each other. They may be responsible for ocean mixing,” Sanford said.
A vortex is a swirl of water that can be created in several ways, including water being pushed between land masses and then released into the open ocean. The subsurface features are hard to measure, Sanford said, because when they pass an underwater sensor they appear to be waves. Only by locating other sensors nearby at the same moment can researchers identify that movement as a swirl and not a wave.
Scientists are interested in ocean mixing in part so they can learn more about how climate change might affect the deep ocean. Researchers know that the atmosphere, tides, sunlight, and surface and internal waves affect the temperature of the top few meters of the ocean. They also have some understanding of large-scale eddies and ocean dynamics, visible via satellite images, that cause broader ocean mixing.
“What we have difficulty doing is identifying and tracking some of the smaller-scale features, particularly well below the surface. We know they’re there but we don’t know enough about their role in maintaining the ocean structure,” Sanford said. Those features, like deep waves and vortices, mix upper water, which is warmer and has more carbon dioxide, deeper into the ocean.
Now that the expedition is complete, the researchers have started analyzing the data. Their initial graphs simply plot the raw data, with a squiggly vertical red line depicting the upward trajectory of each profiler and a blue line their downward paths. But they hope to be able to draw conclusions by more closely studying the data.
A stormy Atlantic ocean hits the coast of Buxton, North Carolina. Photographer: Ted Richardson/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Sea level rise is accelerating three to four times faster along the densely populated east coast of the US than other US coasts, scientists have discovered. The zone, dubbed a “hotspot” by the researchers, means the ocean from Boston to New York to North Carolina is set to experience a rise up a third greater than that seen globally.
Asbury Sallenger, at the US geological survey at St Petersburg, Florida, who led the new study, said: “That makes storm surges that much higher and the reach of the waves that crash onto the coast that much higher. In terms of people and communities preparing for these things, there are extreme regional variations and we need to keep that in mind. We can’t view sea level rise as uniform, like filling up a bath tub. Some places will rise quicker than others and the whole urban corridor of north-east US is one of these places.”
The hotspot had been predicted by computer modelling, but Sallenger said: “Our paper is the first to focus on using real data to show [the acceleration] is happening now and that we can detect it now.”
The rapid acceleration, not seen before on the Pacific of Gulf coasts of the US, may be the result of the slowing of the vast currents flowing in the Altantic, said Sallenger. These currents are driven by cold dense water sinking in the Arctic, but the warming of the oceans and the flood of less dense freshwater into the Arctic from Greenland’s melting glaciers means the water sinks less quickly. That means a “slope” from the fastest-moving water in the mid-Atlantic down to the US east coast relaxes, pushing up sea level on the coast.
“Coastal communities have less time to adapt if sea levels rise faster,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, at the Potsdam Institute Germany, who published a separate study in the same journal, Nature Climate Change, on Sunday. Rahmstorf’s team showed that even relatively mild climate change, limited to 2C, would cause global sea level to rise between 1.5 and 4 metres by the year 2300. If nations acted to cutting carbon emissions so the temperature rise was only 1.5C, the sea level rise would be halved, the researchers found.
The impacts of the rising seas are potentially devastating, said the scientists. “As an example, 1 metre of sea level rise could raise the frequency of severe flooding for New York City from once per century to once every three years,” said Rahmstorf, adding that low lying countries like Bangladesh are likely to be severely affected. His colleague Michiel Schaeffer, at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, said: “Sea level rise is a hard to quantify, yet a critical risk of climate change. Due to the long time it takes for the world’s ice and water masses to react to global warming, our emissions today determine sea levels for centuries to come.”
Sallenger’s work on the hotspot off the US east coast showed that the extreme acceleration in sea level rise could add 20-30% to the rise seen globally. “If this turns out to be a metre by 2100, it would add 20 to 30cm.” In May, North Carolina legislators drew ridicule from experts by proposing a law that would require estimates of sea level rise to be based solely on historical data and to rule out any acceleration in future rises.
Rahmstorf said: “Sallenger’s paper shows that, far from being spared accelerating sea level rise, [the coast here] has been over the past decades a hotspot of accelerating sea level rise.” But he added that the cause of the hotspot was not fully understood, meaning it was uncertain whether the acceleration would continue.
Sallenger said: “We came up with a very clear correlation between the acceleration of sea level rise and rising temperature in the hotspot area. That suggests to me that as long as temperature continues to rise the hotspot will continue to grow.”
APOCALYPTIC LIKE WEATHER PHENOMENON JUNE 2012 …………………………………….PLAGUES PESTILENCE AND BIZARRE WEATHER PHENOMENON JUNE 2012
CREDIT…….music Epic Score – 08 Prepare for the End – Epic Action & Adventure, Vol. 7 – ES018…………………………………………………………………
The Dry Valleys of Antarctica are remarkable in many ways.
A journey through this otherworldly landscape reveal incredible rock sculptures. Strangely, one of them happen to be very similar to the Easter Island statues!
Conditions here are similar to those on Mars, which is the reason why NASA did testing there for the Viking mission.
Dry Valley, Antarctica – Image credit: Peter West, National Science FoundationThe most important dry valleys include the Taylor, Wright, McKelvey, Balham, Victoria, and Barwick Valleys. Farther south along the coast of McMurdo there are some smaller similar valleys.
Lenticular clouds hover over Mount Erebus volcano – US Coast Guard photoMcMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. This area is in Victoria Valley, west of Lake Vida. Polygonal ice patterns have formed as ice fills cracks produced in the ground by the freeze-thaw cycle. The McMurdo Dry Valleys are a dry, relatively ice-free region of Antarctica. The valleys are kept mostly ice-free by natural rock barriers that reduce the influx of glacier ice, and by a lack of snowfall. Credit: Georger Steinmetz/Science photo Library
It is not correct to say that these valleys are completely ice-free, because in some areas there is actually not much but at least little ice. Still, there is almost no snowfall in these valleys.
Lake Vanda in Wright Valley, with extremely salty water underneath thick layer of incredibly clear ice.The lakes in the Dry Valleys are intriguing and so are the ventifacts, geologic formations shaped by the wind, which are scattered across the areas.
A rock sculpture in Dry Valley. Image credit: George SteinmetzCompare the above image with Easter Island Statue below.
Another rock sculpture in the Dry Valley. Image credit: Kristan HutchisonImage credit: Kristan Hutchison*************************************************************************************************************
[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit, for research and/or educational purposes. This constitutes 'FAIR USE' of any such copyrighted material.]
After making a phone call with Damascus, Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul said that the downed jet fighter might have violated Syrian airspace. (Reuters)
By Al Arabiya with agencies
Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul said Saturday the jet fighter shot down by Syria might have violated Syrian airspace.
“It is routine for jet fighters to sometimes fly in and out over (national) borders … when you consider their speed over the sea,” Gul told Anatolia news agency. “These are not ill-intentioned things but happen beyond control due to the jets’ speed.”
He said Anakara has made a telephone contact with Syria.
The president, however, heightened his tone when he said that it is not “possible to ignore Turkish fighter jet being downed by Syria,” and that whatever is needed to be done following downing of the fighter jet will be done.
Meanwhile, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said on Saturday a jet that was shot down by Syria was not a warplane but a reconnaissance aircraft, state television TRT reported.
It was not immediately clear where Arinc, who is one of four deputy prime ministers and also the government’s spokesman, was speaking. Turkish media reported the downed jet was an F-4 Phantom, a supersonic jet fighter which can also carry out reconnaissance operations.
Syria’s downing of a Turkish plane marks a serious escalation of the Syrian conflict, Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said on Saturday.
“The shooting down yesterday of a Turkish aircraft over Syrian territorial waters – this is a serious escalation and indication that the conflict would have far (a) bigger impact than (on) Syria itself,” he told a televised news conference with his Swedish, Bulgarian and Polish counterparts in Baghdad.
On Saturday, Syria confirmed that it shot down a Turkish warplane over its territory, sparking a fresh crisis on the two countries’ long border which is already awash with refugees and rebel fighters.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said NATO member Turkey would take all necessary steps once it had established the facts of Syria’s downing of the F-4 fighter jet in Mediterranean waters on Friday.
Tensions between the two neighbors were already running high as Ankara has taken a tough line on Damascus’s bloody crackdown on a 15-month-old uprising against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, giving sanctuary to defecting military personnel who have formed the kernel of an expanding rebel army.
Syria’s official SANA news agency confirmed that Damascus had downed the jet in a terse report early on Saturday.
“An unidentified aerial target violated Syrian air space, coming from the west at a very low altitude and at high speed over territorial waters,” the news agency quoted a military spokesman as saying.
Turkey has denied that it is arming Syrian opposition, however the New York Times reported on Thursday that a small number of CIA officers had been deployed to southern Turkey, where they were helping U.S. allies decide which Syrian opposition elements should receive weapons deliveries.
While Turkey’s offcials downplayed the serious of Syria’s downing of a Turkish plane, Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said on Saturday it marks a serious escalation of the Syrian conflict,
“The shooting down yesterday of a Turkish aircraft over Syrian territorial waters – this is a serious escalation and indication that the conflict would have far (a) bigger impact than (on) Syria itself,” he told a televised news conference with his Swedish, Bulgarian and Polish counterparts in Baghdad.
BANGKOK (AP) — The eulogies called Chut Wutty one of the few remaining activists in Cambodia brave enough to fight massive illegal deforestation by the powerful. The environmental watchdog was shot by a military policeman in April as he probed logging operations in one of the country’s last great forests.
Nisio Gomes was the chief of a Brazilian tribe struggling to protect its land from ranchers. Masked men gunned him down in November; his body, quickly dragged into a pickup, has not been seen since.
Around the world, sticking up for the environment can be deadly, and it appears to be getting deadlier.
People who track killings of environmental activists say the numbers have risen dramatically in the last three years. Improved reporting may be one reason, they caution, but they also believe the rising death toll is a consequence of intensifying battles over dwindling supplies of natural resources, particularly in Latin America and Asia.
Killings have occurred in at least 34 countries, from Brazil to Egypt, and in both developing and developed nations, according to an Associated Press review of data and interviews.
A report released Tuesday by the London-based Global Witness said more than 700 people — more than one a week — died in the decade ending 2011 “defending their human rights or the rights of others related to the environment, specifically land and forests.” They were killed, the environmental investigation group says, during protests or investigations into mining, logging, intensive agriculture, hydropower dams, urban development and wildlife poaching.
The death toll reached 96 in 2010 and 106 last year, said the report, which was released as world leaders gathered in Rio de Janeiro for a conference on sustainable development. The report’s annual totals for the six prior years range from 37 in 2004 to 64 in 2008.
More than three-quarters of the killings Global Witness tallied were in three South American countries: Brazil, Colombia and Peru. Another 50 deaths occurred in the Philippines. All have bloody land-rights struggles between indigenous groups and powerful industries.
Global Witness’ figures are much higher that those that Bill Kovarik, a communications professor at Virginia’s Radford University, has been compiling since 1996. He focuses on slayings of environmental leaders and does not include deaths in protests that are counted in the Global Witness report. But Kovarik, too, has noticed a substantial jump: from eight in 2009 to 11 in 2010 and 28 last year.
“For many years intolerant regimes like Russia and China and military dictatorships tolerated environmental activists. That was the one thing you could do safely, until some crossed into the political area,” Kovarik said. “Now, environmentalism has become a dangerous form of activism, and that is relatively new.”
Both Kovarik and Global Witness believe even more killings have gone unreported, especially in relatively closed societies in countries such as Myanmar, Laos and China. Global Witness said there is an “alarming lack of systematic information on killing in many countries and no specialized monitoring at the international level.”
The dead last year included Rev. Fausto Tentorio, an Italian Catholic priest who fought against mining companies to protect the ancestral lands of the Manobo tribe in the southern Philippines. Affectionately known as “Father Pops,” he was buried in a coffin made from a favorite mahogany tree he had planted.
In Thailand, where at least 20 environmental activists have been killed over the past decade, seven hired gunmen were paid $10,000 to kill Thongnak Sawekchinda, a veteran campaigner against polluting, coal-fired factories in his province near Bangkok. Powerful figures believed to have ordered the slaying are yet to be apprehended.
In developing countries, bolder and more numerous activists have come into sharper conflict with governments and their cronies or local and foreign companies, some with low environmental and ethical standards. These are moving in to “industrialize” areas where rights of the local people are traditional rather than clearly defined by modern laws.
“It is a well-known paradox that many of the world’s poorest countries are home to the resources that drive the global economy. Now, as the race to secure access to these resources intensifies, it is poor people and activists who increasingly find themselves in the firing line,” Global Witness said.
Julian Newman of the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency said the killings will only get worse because one of the key flashpoints — land ownership — ignites powerful passions.
“To people protecting their lands, their forests, it’s very personal, and they suffer when confronted with influential forces who have protection, be it the police in Indonesia or thugs in China,” Newman said.
Targeted assassinations, disappearances followed by confirmed deaths, deaths in custody and during clashes with security forces are being reported. The killers are often soldiers, police or private security guards acting on behalf of businesses or governments. Credible investigations are rare; convictions more so.
“It’s so easy to get someone killed in some of these countries. Decapitate the leader of the movement and then buy off everyone else — that’s standard operating procedure,” says Phil Robertson, Asia deputy director of Human Rights Watch.
The countries where environmental killings are most common share similarities: a powerful few, with strong links to officialdom, and many poor and disenfranchised dependent on land or forests for livelihoods, coupled with strong activist movements which are more likely to report the violence.
Environmental groups say it is time to build a comprehensive database of such violence and mount unified campaigns.
“In Asia there has been a rise for some years but this has been off the radar of international NGOs until recently,” says Pokpong Lawansiri, Asia head for the Dublin-based Front Line Defenders. “Political rights activists usually have international connections but environmental ones are often teachers, community leaders and villagers, so they have little profile.”
Robertson called for “a waves-to-the-beach strategy. It can be small and irregular but it always has to keep coming.”
“Without that constant level of concern and anger, things won’t change. Governments and companies play for time and for most of the victims and their families time is not on their side,” he said.
One of the things that define Iran and the Iranian culture is the hundreds of art forms that its people have created and mastered and passed down the ages. It encompasses many different disciplines, from the more world renowned like carpet weaving and khatam woodcrafts, to metalwork and stonemasonry. Persian art is known for its vibrant colors, from pomegranate red, to turquoise and navy, and is best recognized by the symmetric patterns that dominate it. For centuries, Iranians have used their art as a form of self expression, and a source of income. For thousands of years the carpet loom has had pride of place in Iranian homes, especially in villages and small comminutes.
The empty hours of the day were dedicated to weaving, and when the carpet was sold, it gave the family an economic boost. But in the present day, Iranian handicrafts are taking a beating. Some have died out, and others are in danger of extinction. One reason for this is the drop in demand. Decorative objects crafted by hand are expensive. Sales inside and outside Iran is suffering as a result of the 20th century’s love affair with cheap and cheerful goods that can be replaced regularly. Chinese goods have flooded the global market, not just Iran’s; economic sanctions imposed by Western nations have stunted Iran’s handicraft exports, and although Iranians have an undying love for their handicrafts, economic strife often prevents them from purchasing them.
In this edition of the show we will delve deeper into the world of Persian arts and their survival.
MessageToEagle.com – Somewhere in the Milky Way, a massive old star is about to die a spectacular death. As its nuclear fuel runs out, the star begins to collapse under its own tremendous weight. Crushing pressure triggers new nuclear reactions, setting the stage for a terrifying blast. And then… nothing happens.
A supercomputer model of a spinning core-collapse supernova. NuSTAR observations of actual supernova remnants will provide vital data for such models. Credit: Fiona Harrison Some scientists believe the computer models are too symmetrical. Until recently, even with powerful supercomputers, scientists have only been able to simulate a one-dimensional sliver of the star. Scientists just assume that the rest of the star behaves similarly, making the simulated implosion the same in all radial directions.
MessageToEagle.com – Antarctica is not entirely covered with ice. There are a few places which are cold and dry.
Dry Valley, Antarctica – Image credit: Peter West, National Science FoundationThe most important dry valleys include the Taylor, Wright, McKelvey, Balham, Victoria, and Barwick Valleys. Farther south along the coast of McMurdo there are some smaller similar valleys.
Lenticular clouds hover over Mount Erebus volcano – US Coast Guard photo
Lake Vanda in Wright Valley, with extremely salty water underneath thick layer of incredibly clear ice.The lakes in the Dry Valleys are intriguing and so are the ventifacts, geologic formations shaped by the wind, which are scattered across the areas.
Another rock sculpture in the Dry Valley. Image credit: Kristan Hutchison
Image credit: Kristan Hutchison*************************************************************************************************************
