ON March 17, 1969, President Richard M. Nixon began a secret bombing campaign in Cambodia, sending B-52 bombers over the border from South Vietnam. This episode, largely buried in history, resurfaced recently in an unexpected place: the Obama administration’s “white paper” justifying targeted killings of Americans suspected of involvement in terrorism.
President Obama is reportedly considering moving control of the drone program from the Central Intelligence Agency to the Defense Department, as questions about the program’s legality continue to be asked. But this shift would do nothing to confer legitimacy to the drone strikes. The legitimacy problem comes from the secrecy itself — not which entity secretly does the killing. Secrecy has been used to hide presidential overreach — as the Cambodia example shows.
On Page 4 of the unclassified 16-page “white paper,” Justice Department lawyers tried to refute the argument that international law does not support extending armed conflict outside a battlefield. They cited as historical authority a speech given May 28, 1970, by John R. Stevenson, then the top lawyer for the State Department, following the United States’ invasion of Cambodia.
Since 1965, “the territory of Cambodia has been used by North Vietnam as a base of military operations,” he told the New York City Bar Association. “It long ago reached a level that would have justified us in taking appropriate measures of self-defense on the territory of Cambodia. However, except for scattered instances of returning fire across the border, we refrained until April from taking such action in Cambodia.”
In fact, Nixon had begun his secret bombing of Cambodia more than a year earlier. (It is not clear whether Mr. Stevenson knew this.) So the Obama administration’s lawyers have cited a statement that was patently false.
To be sure, the administration may have additional arguments in support of its use of drones in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia and other countries. To secure the confirmation of John O. Brennan as the C.I.A. director, it recently showed members of the Congressional intelligence committees some of the highly classified legal memos that were the basis for the white paper. But Mr. Obama has asked us to trust him, and Cambodia offers us no reason to do so.
Wikileaks Was Just a Preview: We’re Headed for an Even Bigger Showdown Over Secrets
POSTED: March 22, 10:53 AM ET
I went yesterday to a screening of We Steal Secrets, Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney’s brilliant new documentary about Wikileaks. The movie is beautiful and profound, an incredible story that’s about many things all at once, including the incredible Shakespearean narrative that is the life of Julian Assange, a free-information radical who has become an uncompromising guarder of secrets.I’ll do a full review in a few months, when We Steal Secretscomes out, but I bring it up now because the whole issue of secrets and how we keep them is increasingly in the news, to the point where I think we’re headed for a major confrontation between the government and the public over the issue, one bigger in scale than even the Wikileaks episode.
We’ve seen the battle lines forming for years now. It’s increasingly clear that governments, major corporations, banks, universities and other such bodies view the defense of their secrets as a desperate matter of institutional survival, so much so that the state has gone to extraordinary lengths to punish and/or threaten to punish anyone who so much as tiptoes across the informational line.
This is true not only in the case of Wikileaks – and especially the realsubject of Gibney’s film, Private Bradley Manning, who in an incredible act of institutional vengeance is being charged with aiding the enemy (among other crimes) and could, theoretically, receive a death sentence.
There’s also the horrific case of Aaron Swartz, a genius who helped create the technology behind Reddit at the age of 14, who earlier this year hanged himself after the government threatened him with 35 years in jail for downloading a bunch of academic documents from an MIT server. Then there’s the case of Sergey Aleynikov, the Russian computer programmer who allegedly stole the High-Frequency Trading program belonging to Goldman, Sachs (Aleynikov worked at Goldman), a program which prosecutors in open court admitted could, “in the wrong hands,” be used to “manipulate markets.”
Aleynikov spent a year in jail awaiting trial, was convicted, had his sentence overturned, was freed, and has since been re-arrested by a government seemingly determined to make an example out of him.
And most recently, there’s the Matthew Keys case, in which a Reuters social media editor was charged by the government with conspiring with the hacker group Anonymous to alter a Los Angeles Times headline in December 2010. The change in the headline? It ended up reading, “Pressure Builds in House to Elect CHIPPY 1337,” Chippy being the name of another hacker group accused of defacing a video game publisher’s website.
Keys is charged with crimes that carry up to 25 years in prison, although the likelihood is that he’d face far less than that if convicted. Still, it seems like an insane amount of pressure to apply, given the other types of crimes (of, say, the HSBC variety) where stiff sentences haven’t even been threatened, much less imposed.
A common thread runs through all of these cases. On the one hand, the motivations for these information-stealers seem extremely diverse: You have people who appear to be primarily motivated by traditional whistleblower concerns (Manning, who never sought money and was obviously initially moved by the moral horror aroused by the material he was seeing, falls into that category for me), you have the merely mischievous (the Keys case seems to fall in this area), there are those who either claim to be or actually are free-information ideologues (Assange and Swartz seem more in this realm), and then there are other cases where the motive might have been money (Aleynikov, who was allegedly leaving Goldman to join a rival trading startup, might be among those).
But in allof these cases, the government pursued maximum punishments and generally took zero-tolerance approaches to plea negotiations. These prosecutions reflected an obvious institutional terror of letting the public see the sausage-factory locked behind the closed doors not only of the state, but of banks and universities and other such institutional pillars of society. As Gibney pointed out in his movie, this is a Wizard of Oz moment, where we are being warned not to look behind the curtain.
What will we find out? We already know that our armies mass-murder women and children in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, that our soldiers joke about smoldering bodies from the safety of gunships, that some of our closest diplomatic allies starve and repress their own citizens, and we may even have gotten a glimpse or two of a banking system that uses computerized insider trading programs to steal from everyone who has an IRA or a mutual fund or any stock at all by manipulating markets like the NYSE.
These fervent, desperate prosecutions suggest that there’s more awfulness under there, things that are worse, and there is a determination to not let us see what those things are. Most recently, we’ve seen that determination in the furor over Barack Obama’s drone assassination program and the so-called “kill list” that is associated with it.
Weeks ago, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul – whom I’ve previously railed against as one of the biggest self-aggrandizing jackasses in politics – pulled a widely-derided but, I think, absolutely righteous Frank Capra act on the Senate floor, executing a one-man filibuster of Obama’s CIA nominee, John Brennan.
Paul had been mortified when he received a letter from Eric Holder refusing to rule out drone strikes on American soil in “extraordinary” circumstances like a 9/11 or a Pearl Harbor. Paul refused to yield until he extracted a guarantee that no American could be assassinated by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime.
He got his guarantee, but the way the thing is written doesn’t fill one with anything like confidence. Eric Holder’s letter to Paul reads like the legal disclaimer on a pack of unfiltered cigarettes:
Dear Senator Paul,
It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: “Does the president have the additional authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?” The answer is no.
Sincerely,
Eric Holder
You could drive a convoy of tanker trucks through the loopholes in that letter. Not to worry, though, this past week, word has come out via Congress – the White House won’t tell us anything – that no Americans are on its infamous kill list. The National Journal‘s report on this story offered a similarly comical sort of non-reassurance:
The White House has wrapped its kill list in secrecy and already the United States has killed four Americans in drone strikes. Only one of them, senior al-Qaida operative Anwar al-Awlaki, was the intended target, according to U.S. officials. The others – including Awlaki’s teenage son – were collateral damage, killed because they were too near a person being targeted.
But no more Americans are in line for such killings – at least not yet. “There is no list where Americans are on the list,” House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers told National Journal. Still, he suggested, that could change.
On February 28th, Army private first class Bradley Manning pleaded not guilty to the charge of aiding the enemy for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to Wikileaks in 2010. After more than 1,000 days in prison, Manning may be America’s most famous political prisoner – but he’s far from the only one. From environmentalists to hackers to whistleblowers, the U.S. government has made a policy of charging and convicting a wide range of activists across the country. To the FBI, an information transparency activist like the late Aaron Swartz is apparently more dangerous than the men who ruined the nation’s economy, and an environmentally-minded economics student poses a greater threat than the oil companies polluting America’s natural resources. The government insists that such harsh penalties are necessary to protect national security – but as hacker Jeremy Hammond said in a recent letter from prison, this misleading rhetoric ultimately “enables the politically motivated prosecution of anyone who voices dissent.”
THE CHARGE:Rolling Stone‘s Janet Reitman profiled this radical hacker in November 2012′s “Enemy of the State.” In December 2011, while working with Antisec – a group of hackers connected to Anonymous – Hammond allegedly accessed the servers of Stratfor, a private intelligence firm, and stole client lists, credit card information, and millions of emails. Wikileaks later published the data.
THE CHARGE: For years, Weev was most infamous as an Internet troll, using his hacking skills for provocative, often racist and homophobic ends. He once told The New York Times Magazine that he makes “people afraid for their lives.” But that’s not why he’s in trouble with the law. In June of 2010, Daniel Spitler, Auernheimer’s co-defendant, discovered that AT&T was not protecting its web database of iPad user accounts. Auernheimer and Spitler wrote a computer script that collected customer email addresses and names, and Auernheimer then shared that information with the website Gawker in order to expose the hole in AT&T’s data security.
THE CHARGE: Brown, a self-proclaimed spokesman for Anonymous, faces multiple indictments since his arrest in September 2012 – for allegedly threatening an FBI agent in a rambling YouTube video, for posting a link to emails obtained from the 2011 Stratfor hack (the hack for which Jeremy Hammond faces decades in prison) to a chat room and for allegedly concealing evidence about another Anonymous hacker when FBI agents raided his apartment in March 2012.
THE CHARGE: In December 2008, Tim DeChristopher attended an auction at which the U.S. government was selling oil and gas drilling rights. While he initially intended merely to make a speech, DeChristopher ended up bidding on more than 22,000 acres of land, throwing the auction into turmoil. For what was essentially a prank, DeChristopher was charged with two felonies.
THE CRIME: John Kiriakou is a former CIA agent who led the team of agents that found Al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah in 2002. He was also a frequent source for journalists covering national security. Kiriakou emailed the name of a covert CIA officer to a reporter; the reporter never published the officer’s name.
THE CHARGE: McDavid and two others, Zachary Jenson and Lauren Weiner, were arrested in January 2006 and charged with conspiracy over plans to bomb several locations in California.
Wikileaks has obtained and decrypted this previously unreleased video footage from a US Apache helicopter in 2007. It shows Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, driver Saeed Chmagh, and several others as the Apache shoots and kills them in a public square in Eastern Baghdad. They are apparently assumed to be insurgents. After the initial shooting, an unarmed group of adults and children in a minivan arrives on the scene and attempts to transport the wounded. They are fired upon as well. The official statement on this incident initially listed all adults as insurgents and claimed the US military did not know how the deaths ocurred. Wikileaks released this video with transcripts and a package of supporting documents on April 5th 2010 on http://collateralmurder.com
The Cambodian Ministry of Health in conjunction with the World Health Organization announced in a joint press release that 3 new human cases of the Avian influenza H5N1 were reported near Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Of the 3 cases, 2 have resulted in the death of the patients. Cambodia 1st reported an outbreak of the H5n1 influenza virus in December 2004, and also reported a major outbreak of the virus in March 2006 that lasted until November 2006. The H5N1 influenza virus is endemic in Southeast Asia, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has been reporting on it for over a decade now through their Global Alert and Response System (GAR). The joint press release, dated Friday, January 25, 2013, described the cases as that of an 8 month-old infant boy from the Phnom Penh area had been diagnosed withH5N1 influenza, developing symptoms on January 8 at which time he was brought to the national pediatric hospital presenting with symptoms of fever, cough, runny nose and vomiting. The confirmation of bird flu was made by the National Institute of Public health on January 11, 2013.
The boy has since recovered, and is said to have become infected after coming into contact with raw poultry. The 2nd case was that of a 15-year-old girl from the Takeo province, diagnosed with bird flu on 22 January 2013, after becoming sick on 11 January, suffering from fever and cough and was initially treated by local private practitioners. Her condition worsened and she was admitted to hospital care on 17 January. Despite all efforts and intensive medical care, she died on 21 January. This young girl also had prepared raw chicken prior to becoming sick and dying. The 3rd case is that of a 35-year-old man from the Kampong Speu province. He had been diagnosed on January 23 after initially becoming ill on January 13, presenting with fever and cough. After initially being treated locally, his condition worsened and he was admitted to hospital care in Phnom Penh with fever and dyspnea on January 21. He received emergency intensive medical care, but to no avail as he died later that day. Just as in the other 2 cases, he had prepared raw chicken previously. âAvian influenza H5N1 is still a threat to the health of Cambodians. This is the 3(rd) cases of H5N1 infection in human(s) this year, and children still seem to be most vulnerable. I urge parents and guardians to keep children away from sick or dead poultry, discourage Them from playing in areas where poultry stay and wash their hands often. If they have fast (rapid) or difficulty breathing, they should be brought to medical attention at the nearest health facilities and attending physicians be made aware of any exposure to sick or dead poultry.â Said HE Mam Bunheng, Minister of health.
The message to the Cambodian general public from the Ministry of Health of the Kingdom of Cambodia is very simple â wash your hands often; keep children away from poultry; keep poultry away from living areas; do not eat sick poultry; and make sure all poultry eaten has been cooked thoroughly. H5N1 influenza is usually spread from bird to bird exclusively, but can sometimes be spread to humans. The human variant of H5N1 is a very serious illness that normally requires hospitalization, an early recognition of cases of this nature are deemed essential to containing what may become a pandemic outbreak. The World Health Organization reports that there have been 613 confirmed laboratory cases of the H5N1 avian influenza with 362 reported deaths worldwide since the year 2003.
Image Caption: A 2011 eruption of Eritrea’s Nabro volcano caused the largest stratospheric aerosol load ever recorded by OSIRIS on Sweden’s Odin satellite in its more than 10 years of flight. Credit: Image: Swedish Space Corporation
A University of Saskatchewan-led international research team has discovered that aerosols from relatively small volcanic eruptions can be boosted into the high atmosphere by weather systems such as monsoons, where they can affect global temperatures. The research appears in the July 6 issue of the journal Science.
Adam Bourassa, from the U of S Institute of Space and Atmospheric Studies, led the research. He explains that until now it was thought that a massively energetic eruption was needed to inject aerosols past the troposphere, the turbulent atmospheric layer closest to the earth, into the stable layers of the stratosphere higher up.
“If an aerosol is in the lower atmosphere, it’s affected by the weather and it precipitates back down right away,” Bourassa says. “Once it reaches the stratosphere, it can persist for years, and with that kind of a sustained lifetime, it can really have a lasting effect.” That effect is the scattering of incoming sunlight and the potential to cool the Earth’s surface.
For example, the massive eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 temporarily dropped temperatures by half a degree Celsius world-wide.
The research team includes scientists from the U of S, Rutgers University in New Jersey, the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, and the University of Wyoming. They looked at the June 2011 eruption of the Nabro volcano in Eritrea in northeast Africa. Wind carried the volcanic gas and aerosol – minute droplets of sulfuric acid – into the path of the annual Asian summer monsoon.
The stratosphere’s calm layers are high – from 10 km up at the poles to 17 km altitude at the equator – and it was thought storms could not pierce it. For example, the distinctive flattened “anvil” shape at the top of large thunderstorms is created as the storm pushes against the stratosphere.
Dust from the Nabro volcano, being slightly heavier, settled out, but the monsoon lofted volcanic gas and the lighter liquid droplets into the stratosphere where they were detected by the Canadian Space Agency’s OSIRIS instrument aboard the Swedish satellite Odin. The Nabro volcano caused the largest stratospheric aerosol load ever recorded by OSIRIS in its more than 10 years of flight.
OSIRIS, designed in part at the U of S, is used to study the upper atmosphere, particularly the ozone layer and atmospheric aerosols. Originally intended for a two-year mission, the instrument has been functioning flawlessly since its launch in 2001. It circles the earth from pole to pole once every hour and a half, downloading fresh data to the analysis centre at the U of S campus.
“There are only a few instruments that can measure stratospheric aerosols, and OSIRIS is one of them,” Bourassa says. “It’s become extremely important for climate studies, because we’ve captured more than a full decade of data. The longer it’s up, the more valuable it becomes.”
The hope is these latest findings will provide another piece of the puzzle to allow more accurate models of climate behavior and change.
PITTSBURGH PA
LOUISVILLE KY
GRAND RAPIDS MI
NORTHERN INDIANA
CHICAGO IL
GREEN BAY WI
CLEVELAND OH
TWIN CITIES/CHANHASSEN MN
KANSAS CITY/PLEASANT HILL MO
LA CROSSE WI
WILMINGTON OH
MILWAUKEE/SULLIVAN WI
DES MOINES IA
QUAD CITIES IA IL
CHARLESTON WV
OMAHA/VALLEY NE
SIOUX FALLS SD
ST LOUIS MO
LINCOLN IL
PADUCAH KY
INDIANAPOLIS IN
MOUNT HOLLY NJ
DETROIT/PONTIAC MI
PITTSBURGH PA
LOUISVILLE KY
TOPEKA KS
GRAND RAPIDS MI
JACKSON KY
CLEVELAND OH
KANSAS CITY/PLEASANT HILL MO
WILMINGTON NC
HASTINGS NE
RALEIGH NC
MORRISTOWN TN
SPRINGFIELD MO
WICHITA KS
NEWPORT/MOREHEAD CITY NC
CHARLESTON WV
OMAHA/VALLEY NE
SIOUX FALLS SD
ST LOUIS MO
MEMPHIS TN
NORTH PLATTE NE
NASHVILLE TN
DETROIT/PONTIAC MI
Ship movements ground to a complete halt both at Shuwaikh and Shuaiba ports following severe sandstorms that swept the country yesterday. According to information available, three ships at berth and three ships at the loading zone at Shuwaikh Port were waiting for improvement in visibility to sail off. Similarly, four ships anchored off Shuaiba Port and four ships moored inside Shuaiba Port are also waiting for improvement in weather conditions. An official at the operations department at Shuwaikh Port, Sulaiman Al- Yahya, said that visibility was limited to one kilometer in the port area while wind speed was 40 miles, forcing the port authorities to halt ship movements until the weather improves. Al-Yahya informed that Shuwaikh Port currently has three ships at the berth while another three ships were in the waiting area. Acting Operations Director at Shuaiba Port Captain Tawfeeq Shihab told KUNA that wind-speed reached 35 knots at port area yesterday causing high waves and disrupting navigation at the port. The visibility was less than 500 m in the area, he said. As a result of the bad weather, four ships had to wait at the anchorage area and will be allowed to enter Shuaiba Port only after the weather improves, Shihab said. At the same time, the other four ships inside the port will be allowed to sail once the weather improves.Head of the weather forecast department at Civil Aviation Osama Al-Muthan expected considerable improvement in the weather condition and visibility overnight in spite of the continuation of northwestern winds at a speed of 20-45 km per hour. Al-Muthan told KUNA that by sunrise today with the increase in earth’s temperature during the day, sandy weather condition will come back and visibility will drop on Friday and Saturday due to the Northwestern winds. The temperature is expected to drop to 44 – 45 degrees Celsius due to sandstorm that will block direct sunrays. Al-Muthan expects the high pressure to fall by Sunday and the Indian seasonal low pressure to drop. The weather will start to improve and wind speed will subside to around 40 kilometers per hour. As a result, the temperature will rise to 47 degree Celsius at Kuwait International Airport. Kuwait is currently under the impact of Indiaís seasonal low pressure from the East and high pressure from North West. These activities will be accompanied by Northwestern wind carrying sand along with it. Wind-speed is expected to exceed 70 kilometer per hour at Kuwait International Airport and visibility will be limited to only 500 meter. During the weekend, sea will be rough and waves will reach.
03.07.2012
Forest / Wild Fire
USA
State of Colorado, [Waldo Canyon]
Forest / Wild Fire in USA on Sunday, 24 June, 2012 at 05:03 (05:03 AM) UTC.
Although the Waldo Canyon Fire is now 90 percent contained as of Thursday, officials are warning of a new possible disaster for the region: flash flooding. The Colorado Springs Gazette reports that thunderstorms over the foothills could cause flash flooding in areas now exposed due to the wildfire having consumed the natural vegetation. “Once the rain hits the areas that burned hotly, those soils will not be enough to absorb any of the moisture,” meteorologist Kathy Torgerson with the National Weather Service in Pueblo told the Gazette. “It will mix with the ash and cause these mud and ash flows. And they can be quite dramatic.” This could mean another round of evacuations for the fire-ravaged region which, at the peak of the Waldo Canyon Fire burn, faced evacuations of more than 32,000 residents on June 27. Rain and thunder may be headed to the Front Range as early as Thursday, according to 7News. The hottest June on record could be followed by a very wet July, a much-needed relief from the heat and dryness to be sure, but one that could have dire consequences for wildfire affected regions. The National Weather Service says that flash flooding is a concern for the Waldo Canyon fire burn scar, “Any heavy rainfall on the burn scar will produce rapid runoff along with dangerous debris flows.”Jeff Kramer with the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office told 9News that emergency crews have set up a flash flood task force to be ready to help residents if a heavy downpour does arrive. On Thursday, officials also announced that they have determined the ignition point of the Waldo Canyon Fire. According to The Denver Post, the spot was not revealed and officials did not say whether or not the fire was human caused. The Waldo Canyon Fire, the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history destroyed 346 homes, left two people dead and burned 18,247 acres to date. Firefighters have had a series of successful days containing the fire despite temperatures remaining above 90 degrees since mid-June. The Gazette reports that utility crews are working to restore natural gas to more than 3,000 homes in the region and hope to have that done by mid-week. But crews must go house to house making sure there are no leaks first before the gas gets turned back on. Crews have begun working on replacing damaged or destroyed power lines in the region as well. Evacuation orders have been lifted for Eileen Court, Centauri Road, Boardwalk Drive and Corporate Plaza Drive as of Monday, according to 9News, and gas has been restored to homes in those areas as well. However, residents returning home remain on pre-evacuation notice as potential for fire growth remains high.
On Sunday, some residents were allowed to temporarily return to their homes for the first time since being evacuated. Many remarked at the chaos that their neighborhoods have been reduced to. “It’s crazy,” Bill Simmons said to The Associated Press regarding the conditions of his home which remains intact and his neighbors’ homes which were reduced to ashes. “The house across the street is burned to the foundation and the other side of the street is untouched.” The Associated Press also reports that a “bear invasion” has been challenging authorities in the region. Evacuees rushed away from their homes and didn’t have time to properly secure garbage — some bears, pushed out of their forest habitat from the fire, have picked up the scent and have come in search of a meal. The devastation from the fire and possible flooding isn’t the only thing residents need worry about — thieves are taking advantage of the evacuated areas and looting homes. At least 32 homes were burglarized and dozens of evacuees’ cars were broken into in the evacuation zones since the fire erupted about a week ago, according to Bloomberg. There have been three arrests so far. The string of burglaries has some wondering if Colorado Springs’ anti-tax movement is partially to blame for a lack of resources to protect the area effectively. Bloomberg reports that the city has 50 fewer police and 39 fewer firefighters than five years ago.
In 2010, Colorado Springs had a nearly $28 million budget shortfall so the city government sold police helicopters on the Internet, cut firefighter and police jobs — including burglary investigators, according to The Denver Post — asked residents to volunteer to mow public green spaces, and turned off more than thirty percent of the city’s streetlights. Karin White, a 54-year-old resident who returned home to a looted and vandalized home, thinks that the smaller force may have “impacted the response,” she said to Bloomberg. Mayor Steve Bach, an anti-tax advocate advocate, says that the lack of tax revenue has not affected the handling of the wildfire, but he offered a dire warning after a press briefing about the fire: “Forget the fire, at our current cost curve, we’ll be insolvent in eight years.” Rebuilding in the wake of the Waldo Canyon Fire will be expensive and unfortunately one of the region’s main sources of income — tourism to the Garden of the Gods, historic Manitou Springs, Pikes Peak Cog Railway — is deeply affected by the disaster. 7News reports that areas like Manitou are usually packed with tourists this time of year, but the streets remain only peppered with visitors. The railway which usually has around 2,000 visitors around the 4th of July holiday is hoping to just get close to 1,000 this year. The cause of the Waldo Canyon Fire is still under investigation and has cost $14.5 million to date.
Several families in Del City were evacuated overnight after a grassfire approached their homes. Oklahoma City television station KWTV reports that firefighters extinguished the flames and no homes were damaged. A fence and two sheds burned in the blaze, which also knocked out electricity to the area. The fire started shortly before 1 a.m. Thursday when a resident reported that an outbuilding was on fire. Authorities say the flames quickly spread and burned at least four backyards. Firefighters evacuated an entire block of homes as a precaution as they battled the fire. Authorities say they don’t know what caused the fire but neighbors reported hearing fireworks shortly before seeing flames.
On Wednesday afternoon, local and federal firefighters responded to a new wildfire reported about 20 miles north of De Beque on Roan Creek, County Road 204, Tanny McGinnis, spokeswoman for the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office, said. As of 5 p.m. the fire had reportedly burned about 15 acres and was threatening some structures. But firefighters were also reporting that the fire was “laying down,” which means that it was advancing slowly and staying close to the ground. McGinnis said fire crews with the Upper Colorado River Interagency Fire Management Unit responded and called in assistance from two air tankers, a helicopter and eight fire engines. She said the fire was sending a plume of smoke eastward into the Colorado River valley at least as far as New Castle.
05.07.2012
Forest / Wild Fire
USA
State of Idaho, [Lone Pine Gulch, Washington County]
The Lone Pine Fire has burned about 1,200 acres on BLM and state of Idaho lands in Lone Pine Gulch, an area where the Payette National Forest has fire responsibilities. The fire started Tuesday, and quickly grew because of dry grasses in the area. Officials don’t know how it started. No homes are at risk, but the fire is threatening ranch buildings and rangeland. Hand crews, engine crews and helicopters assigned to the fire are making good progress toward containment. There are some forest road and trail closures in the area.
The latest drought report says more than a third of Arkansas is in extreme drought conditions. The U.S. Drought Monitor report, updated Thursday, says all of Arkansas is undergoing drought conditions. A handful of counties are experiencing moderate drought conditions, but most of Arkansas is either in severe or extreme drought. Northern counties from Carroll to Clay and extending south to Jackson are in extreme drought, as is southwest Arkansas. A pocket of north central Arkansas counties from Franklin to Conway and Van Buren counties is also classified as extreme. The National Weather Service says rain is possible this weekend and early next week, but it will likely have little impact on the drought conditions.
The abnormally dry conditions gripping Alabama now cover more than 90 percent of the state. An analysis released Thursday by the U.S. Drought Monitor shows southwest Alabama is the only section of the state that’s not experiencing a large rainfall deficit. The situation is worst in eastern Alabama, where all but a few counties are in a severe or extreme drought. Arid conditions are classified as exceptionally bad in parts of Barbour and Henry counties in the state’s southeastern corner. In all, about 91 percent of the state is either abnormally dry or in a full-blown drought. Forestry officials say there’s an increased threat of wildfires because of the dry conditions, and farmers are having on irrigation to sustain crops in many areas.
Flash flooding caused by torrential rains has killed eight people, including at least four children in northern Turkey, authorities said Wednesday. The downpours caused a river to burst its banks late Tuesday, inundating homes and shops and stranding cars in the Black Sea port city of Samsun, the state-run Anadolu agency reported Wednesday. Two brothers, aged 1 and 5, as well as a father and his two sons, aged 9 and 16, were drowned when the flood hit their homes, it said. The country’s emergency management authority said at least eight people were killed and two others were missing in Samsun. It said 21 people were injured.
Altogether 538 animals, including 13 rhinos, of the Kaziranga National Park, have been killed in the devastating Assam floods and the death toll is mounting with the KNP authorities of this World Heritage Site recovering more floating carcasses everyday. The floods have also damaged roads and other infrastructure in the park, which is famous for the one-horned rhino. Even amidst the floods, two rhinos were killed by poachers. The floods have claimed 100 human lives, while 16 others died due to landslip in the State. Of these, 56 are children. Of the 31 lives lost in Barpeta district, 21 were children. KNP Director Sanjib Kumar Bora told The Hindu that till Thursday afternoon carcasses of 463 hog deer, 13 rhinos, 16 Sambar, 10 swamp deer, 28 wild boars, 5 porcupines, one wild buffalo and two hog badgers had been recovered.He said the death toll was likely to increase as more carcasses were recovered with the water level receding. About 20 of these hog deer were fatally hit by vehicles as the animals crossed National Highway 37, which passes through the park, to reach higher ground on the southern part. So far, 126 hog deer have been rescued and 94 of these released in the wild after treatment at the Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC), located in the park. Two rhino calves and two elephant caves rescued from floodwaters are being treated at the centre. CWRC volunteers rescued four barking deer, three of which have been released in the wild after treatment. The park director said locals and NGOs also helped in the rescuing the marooned animals and taking them to the CWRC. Mr. Bora said floodwaters disrupted motorable communication, what with damage to roads, bridges and approaches to bridges. “The tourism season this time might be delayed as huge funds and time would be required to reconstruct and repair the infrastructure.” Frontline staff manning 16 of the total 152 anti-poaching camps had to be shifted due to flooding, while four old camps had been fully damaged. “The actual damage is still being assessed,” he said. The flood waters entered the park area on June 26 and by midnight on June 28, the flow peaked submerging 80 per cent of its area, and only the natural and artificial highlands inside were spared. The migration of herds of hog deer and elephants and some rhinos had been noticed by the park authorities since June 22.
Consequently, prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Cr.PC were promulgated along NH 37 and time cards introduced restricting speed limit to 40 km/hour to protect the migrating animals. Now “the water level has receded in most parts but some areas are still submerged,” said Mr. Bora.
05.07.2012
Landslide
India
State of Uttarakhand, [Rishikesh-Badrinath National Highway in Chamoli district]
A woman was buried alive and 15 others were injured when landslides triggered by incessant rains hit Rishikesh-Badrinath National Highway in Chamoli district early Thursday. The landslides have also flattened a tourist resort and a camp of Directorate General of Border Roads (DGBR), police said. Police said a search operation has been launched to find out if any person might be trapped under the debris of the landslides. The area has been receiving rains since Wednesday and the search operation is also being hampered by the continuous rains. The injured have been rushed to a nearby hospital.
Three people have died and 53 more are infected in a rare outbreak of cholera in south-east Cuba, officials have confirmed.
Communist Party newspaper Granma said a number of wells suspected to be the source of the outbreak had been closed.
The health ministry has dismissed reports of a lack of medicine.
Health officials said they had “all the necessary resources to provide adequate attention to patients” and that the situation was “under control”.
They said they had taken a series of measures, including taking samples of water and adding chlorine to purify it, to combat the outbreak.
About 1,000 people have received medical attention so far. Most of them were from the coastal town of Manzanillo in the south-east of Cuba.
Analysis
Although cholera was all but eliminated in Cuba shortly after the Cuban revolution in 1959, doctors here are highly experienced in treating the disease.
Hundreds have worked, and continue to work, with cholera patients in Haiti, where tens of thousands of people were infected in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake.
Several hundred medical professionals from eastern Granma province, including 400 nurses, are among those who have been deployed to Haiti.
Officials said they believed those infected had drunk water contaminated after a period of heavy rains and high temperatures in the area.
They said the number of reported cases was now falling.
The health ministry has said this is the first reported cholera outbreak since soon after the 1959 revolution. The last cholera epidemic in Cuba ended in 1882.
The BBC’s Sarah Rainsford in Havana says locals have told her health officials had been visiting homes and checking food and water supplies to try and establish the source of the outbreak.
Our correspondent spoke to a guest-house owner who said local radio had been broadcasting information about the importance of personal hygiene and extra care in food preparation, but that the official announcements had only spoken of a diarrhoea outbreak, without mentioning cholera.
A boy born in Virginia two years ago became the known first person in the United States to have acquired Chagas disease from his mother, according to a new report that describes the case.
The case highlights the need for increased awareness of the disease among health care providers in the United States, the researchers said. The disease occurs mainly in Latin America, but cases in the U.S. and elsewhere have been increasing, mostly due to migration, according to the World Health Organization.
Chagas disease is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, which is typically transmitted to people by bites from insects commonly called kissing bugs. Although less common, the disease can also be transmitted congenitally, meaning from mother to child during pregnancy, as was the case with the Virginia boy.
While the boy’s case was the first to be formally documented, it has been estimated that between 65 and 638 cases of congenital Chagas disease occur in the United States each year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report said. That estimate is based on the typical birth rates of women from regions where Chagas disease is endemic, and the fact that in about 1 to 5 percent of pregnancies of infected mothers, the disease is transmitted to the child.
In August 2010, the mother, who had recently immigrated to the United States from Bolivia, gave birth by cesarean section when her child was 29 weeks old. The boy had signs of jaundice as well as excess fluid around his heart, abdomen and lungs. The child’s doctors, who did not know the boy had Chagas disease, administered antibiotics for what they believed to be a widespread bacterial infection called sepsis.
Two weeks after the birth, the mother revealed she had been told in Bolivia during a previous pregnancy that she had Chagas disease. After testing her baby boy, the doctors found he too had the parasite in his blood. The boy received a 60-day treatment of benznidazole, a drug for Chagas disease, and was cured.
The case “illustrates that congenital Chagas disease, even when severe, might not be recognized, or diagnosis might be delayed because of the lack of defining clinical features, or because the diagnosis is not considered,” today’s CDC report said.
Chagas disease is estimated to affect about 300,000 people in the United States, most of whom immigrated here.
Doctors in the United States should be aware of the condition so that pregnant women from at-risk areas for Chagas disease can undergo screening and be identified, the report says. Mothers diagnosed with Chagas disease should be treated for the condition, but not until after they finish breast-feeding, the report said.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Health officials in Cambodia are searching for the cause of a mystery disease that has killed more than 60 children over the past three months, the World Health Organization said Thursday.
The “undiagnosed syndrome” has killed 61 children since April, but there’s no indication that is it spreading from person to person, said WHO spokeswoman Aphaluck Bhatiasevi.
She said health workers are trying to determine whether the cases were all the same disease or a collection of various illnesses.
The children were all under 10 years old and first fell ill with a high fever, followed by neurological symptoms and severe respiratory problems that quickly progressed. The cases have been reported in hospitals in 14 provinces, with most occurring in southern Cambodia.
The majority of the victims were aged younger than three, Reuters reported.
Health Minister Man Bung Heng was quoted as saying identification of the cause may take some time. Neighboring countries have also been alerted.
The United Nations agency said in a June 30 report that the clinical signs of those afflicted with the disease “appear unusual,” with patients suffering from fever and a rapid deterioration of respiratory functions, although platelet counts, liver and renal functions were found normal.
No other hospital patients or staff in Phnom Penh had fallen ill with similar symptoms, WHO said.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
An unidentified disease has killed 60 young children in Cambodia in three months, the World Health Organization said Tuesday as it raced to identify the cause. “The number of deaths reported to WHO is 60 cases and they have all been in young children,” said Dr Nima Asgari, a public health specialist for the UN body in Cambodia, adding that the first casualties were reported in April. The WHO is currently working with the Cambodian Ministry of Health “to identify the cause and the route of spread of this disease”, he said. With the investigation still at an early stage, Asgari said it was difficult to specify the symptoms, which “include high fever and severe chest disease symptoms, plus in some children there were signs of neurological involvement”. There have been 61 reported cases so far, Asgari said, with just one patient surviving. The victims, all aged seven and under, were admitted to hospitals in the capital Phnom Penh and the northwestern tourist hub of Siem Reap. In separate comments the WHO said there were no signs yet of contagion. “To date, there is no report of any staff or any neighbouring patients to the cases at the hospitals becoming sick with similar symptoms,” it said. Asgari confirmed there was “no cluster of the cases yet” but said the high mortality rate in such a short space of time was worrisome. “WHO is always concerned about a disease which causes death in such high numbers of children,” he said. Cambodian health ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.
Biohazard name:
Unidentified fatal disease
Biohazard level:
4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:
Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
Symptoms:
The symptoms include high fever and severe chest disease symptoms, plus in some children there were signs of neurological involvement.
Indonesia’s health ministry today announced the death of an 8-year-old girl from an H5N1 avian influenza infection, according to a report from the Jakarta Globe. The girl, from West Java province, got sick on Jun 18 during a trip to Singapore. Six days later her symptoms worsened and she was admitted to a Jakarta hospital with signs of pneumonia. She was transferred two more times and required treatment with a ventilator. A health ministry official told the Globe that she tested positive for the virus on Jun 29 and died on Jul 3. The official said she had often walked past a live-bird market on her way to school, and 6 days before she got sick she had helped carry freshly killed birds home from the market with her father. If the World Health Organization (WHO) confirms the girl’s H5N1 illness and death, she will be listed as Indonesia’s 190th case-patient and its 158th fatality from the disease.
Biohazard name:
A/H5N1
Biohazard level:
4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:
Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
At least nine people are confirmed dead in a cholera outbreak at Atebubu in Brong Ahafo Region in just a week with several others infected. According to the District Chief Executive, Sanja Nanja the first case was recorded in May but the situation became worse about a week ago. He told Joy News a District Security Council meeting was held with the various stakeholders to work out ways of curbing the outbreak to avert further deaths. Mr Nanja said about a 100 people had so far contracted the disease. He said task-force has been created to do cholera sensitisation to educate the people on how to avoid contracting the disease. He said some of the measures include suspension of funerals where people usually eat and drink contaminated foods and water.
Biohazard name:
Cholera
Biohazard level:
3/4 Hight
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that can cause severe to fatal disease in humans, but for which vaccines or other treatments exist, such as anthrax, West Nile virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, SARS virus, variola virus (smallpox), tuberculosis, typhus, Rift Valley fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, yellow fever, and malaria. Among parasites Plasmodium falciparum, which causes Malaria, and Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes trypanosomiasis, also come under this level.
Two people have died and 26 others have been infected by an outbreak of cholera in the city of Gao, northern Mali, a region occupied by hardline Islamist groups, officials reprted on Wednesday. “Yesterday we counted 27 cases of cholera, including two deaths. This morning we had one case,” said Ibrahima Maiga, a health official from Gao hospital. The disease has broken out in Wabaria, a southwestern suburb of Gao on the Niger river. “We have sent someone to Wabaria today to see the cholera cases” and determine what help is needed, said Almahdi Cisse, the president of a local NGO which is helping to bring humanitarian aid to Malians in the area. According to one young Gao resident, the local ruling Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) has told people not to drink the river water or bathe in it in a bid to contain the outbreak. Fear of the disease spreading only adds to the problems currently facing Mali’s desert north, which has been controlled for the last three months by Islamist groups allied to Al-Qaeda after a March coup that toppled the country’s elected president. Chaos and unrest have ensued in the fabled city of Timbuktu where the Ansar Dine group has in recent days run rampage, smashing seven tombs of ancient Muslim saints. The destruction prompted widespread condemnation abroad and led UN cultural body UNESCO to class the city as an endangered world heritage site. Meanwhile in Gao, Ansar Dine’s Al-Qaeda allies have planted landmines around the city to prevent a counter-offensive by the Tuareg fighters they violently expelled last week.
Biohazard name:
Cholera
Biohazard level:
2/4 Medium
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that cause only mild disease to humans, or are difficult to contract via aerosol in a lab setting, such as hepatitis A, B, and C, influenza A, Lyme disease, salmonella, mumps, measles, scrapie, dengue fever, and HIV. “Routine diagnostic work with clinical specimens can be done safely at Biosafety Level 2, using Biosafety Level 2 practices and procedures. Research work (including co-cultivation, virus replication studies, or manipulations involving concentrated virus) can be done in a BSL-2 (P2) facility, using BSL-3 practices and procedures. Virus production activities, including virus concentrations, require a BSL-3 (P3) facility and use of BSL-3 practices and procedures”, see Recommended Biosafety Levels for Infectious Agents.
Rising sea levels may not stop for several hundred years, even if global average temperatures drop, scientists have warned.
Rising sea levels threaten about a tenth of the world’s population who live in low-lying areas and islands which are at risk of flooding, including the Caribbean, Maldives and Asia-Pacific island groups.
Measures to limit sea rises have focused on lowering temperatures – but this may not be enough.
Even if global average temperatures fall and the surface layer of the sea cools, heat would still be mixed down into the deeper layers of the ocean, causing continued rises in sea levels.
Rising sea levels threaten about a tenth of the world’s population who live in low-lying areas and islands which are at risk of flooding, including the Caribbean, Maldives and Asia-Pacific island groups
This is because as warmer temperatures penetrate deep into the sea, the water warms and expands as the heat mixes through different ocean regions.
If global average temperatures continue to rise, the melting of ice sheets and glaciers would only add to the problem.
Global average surface temperatures have risen about 0.17 degrees Celsius a decade from 1980-2010.
Sea level rise of about 2.3mm a year from 2005-2010 as ice caps and glaciers melt.
How much of this has been caused by ‘greenhouse gases’ is still being debated by scientists.
‘Even with aggressive measures that limit global warming to less than 2 degrees above pre-industrial values by 2100, sea level continues to rise after 2100,’say the scientists
More than 180 countries are negotiating a new global climate pact which will come into force by 2020 and force all nations to cut emissions to limit warming to below 2 degrees Celsius this century – a level scientists say is the minimum required to avert catastrophic effects.
But even if the most ambitious emissions cuts are made, it might not be enough to stop sea levels rising due to the thermal expansion of sea water, said scientists at the United States’ National Centre for Atmospheric Research, U.S. research organisation Climate Central and Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research in Melbourne.
‘Even with aggressive mitigation measures that limit global warming to less than 2 degrees above pre-industrial values by 2100, and with decreases of global temperature in the 22nd and 23rd centuries … sea level continues to rise after 2100,’ they said in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The scientists calculated that if the deepest emissions cuts were made and global temperatures cooled to 0.83 degrees in 2100 – forecast based on the 1986-2005 average – and 0.55 degrees by 2300, the sea level rise due to thermal expansion would continue to increase – from 14.2cm in 2100 to 24.2cm in 2300.
If the weakest emissions cuts were made, temperatures could rise to 3.91 degrees Celsius in 2100 and the sea level rise could increase to 32.3cm, increasing to 139.4cm by 2300.
‘Though sea-level rise cannot be stopped for at least the next several hundred years, with aggressive mitigation it can be slowed down, and this would buy time for adaptation measures to be adopted,’ the scientists added.
MessageToEagle.com – Between July 12-17, 2012, comet 96P/Machholz will be visible in the SOHO LASCO/C3 field of view and will brighten to about magnitude +2.
It’s a great possibility for scientific study because the comet will not make another close approach to the Earth until 2028, when it will pass at a distance of 0.319 AU (47,700,000km; 29,700,000 miles).
96P/Machholz (or 96P/Machholz 1) is a short-period comet with an estimated radius of around 3.2km, and a high inclination with respect to the plane of the solar system.
It should be visible from both STEREO A and B between July 13-15 and it comes to perihelion on July 14, 2012.It was discovered by amateur astronomer Donald Machholz on Loma Pieta peak, in central California using 130 millimetres (5.1 in) binoculars, on May 12, 1986.
On June 6, 1986, comet 96P/Machholz passed 0.40373 AU (60,397,000 km; 37,529,000 miles) from our planet.
It entered the field of view of the orbiting Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) in 1996, 2002, and 2007, where it was seen by the corona-observing LASCO instrument in its C2 and C3 coronagraphs.
Comet Machholz is not as like other comets.
It must have had a very unusual origin and might even have formed in another solar system probably very different from our own.
GALEX Sees Comet Machholz
The figure shows a GALEX NUV grism observation of comet Machholz, recorded on March 1, 2005. The different colors in the image represent different intensities, with black being the lowest, purple a little higher, and yellow the highest. The large, round, “purple haze” is emission from the hydroxyl molecule (chemical symbol, “OH”), and is centered on the large yellowish dot towards the upper left. The smaller yellow dot, just below and to the right of that, is emission from the molecule “CS.” Emission between the two dots is from other material. The stars in the field appear as streaks because their light is spread out by the grism as well. The long, curved dust tail is completely invisible because the comet’s UV emissions totally outshine it. Emission from atomic carbon was also detected in the GALEX FUV grism data. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/U. Washington/J. Morgenthaler
During the comet’s last perihelion passage in 2007, it appeared in SOHO’s LASCO C3?s field of view from April 2 to April 6, peaking in brightness on April 4, 2007, around magnitude +2. In these observations, its coma was substantially smaller than the Sun in volume, but the forward scattering of light made the comet appear significantly brighter.
During the 2002 passage the comet brightened to magnitude -2,and was very impressive as seen by SOHO.
According to David Schleicher of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, researching the physical properties, chemical composition, and behavior of comets, the comet’s level of the chemical cyanogen (CN) is less than 1.5% of the normal level, which is very unusual comparing with 150 other comets having similar levels of CN.
The exact cause of this chemical anomaly remains unknown.
Click on image to enlargeFinding chart (Seiichi Yoshida/StellaNavigator Ver.8 (AstroArts)
Click on image to enlargeFinding chart (Seiichi Yoshida/StellaNavigator Ver.8 (AstroArts)
It’s highly eccentric 5.2 year orbit has the smallest perihelion distance known among numbered/regular short-period comets, bringing it considerably closer to the Sun than the orbit of Mercury.
Comet 96P/Machholz/Apr. 20, 2012. Photo Credits: M. Masek, J. Cerny, J. Ebr, M. Prouza, P. Kubanek, M. Jelinek
It is also the only known short-period comet with both high orbital inclination and high eccentricity. In 2007, Machholz 1 was found to be both carbon-depleted and cyanogen-depleted, a chemical composition nearly unique among comets with known compositions. The chemical composition implies a different and possible extrasolar origin.
There are currently three hypotheses to explain the chemical composition of Machholz 1. One hypothesis for the difference is that Machholz 1 was an interstellar comet from outside the Solar System and was captured by the Sun. Other possibilities are that it formed in an extremely cold region of the solar system (such that most carbon gets trapped in other molecules) – Oort cloud.
The high inclination of Machholz 1′s orbit, 59°, suggests that it could came from the Oort Cloud rather than the Kuiper Belt, which is the source of most short-period comets. Exclusive Views of Comet 96P/Machholz
China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region has reported an outbreak of H5N1 in poultry, the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) announced Monday. The disease has killed 1,600 chickens raised by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), a unique economic and semi-military government organization of about 2.5 million people. A total of 5,500 XPCC-farmed chickens showed symptoms of suspected avian flu on June 20, according to the MOA. The National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory Monday confirmed the epidemic was H5N1 bird flu after testing samples collected at the farm, the MOA said. Local authorities have sealed off and sterilized the infected area, where a total of 156,439 chickens have been culled and safely disposed of to prevent the disease from spreading, according to the MOA. Bird flu, or avian influenza, is a contagious disease of animal origin caused by viruses that normally infect only birds and, less commonly, pigs. It can be fatal to humans.
Biohazard name:
H5N1 – Highly pathogenic avian influenza virus
Biohazard level:
4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:
Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
Symptoms:
Status:
confirmed
05.07.2012
HAZMAT
USA
State of Virginia, Radford [Radford Army Ammunition Plant, Constitution Road]
HAZMAT in USA on Thursday, 05 July, 2012 at 09:40 (09:40 AM) UTC.
Description
A key production line remains shut down at the Radford Army Ammunition plant after a chemical leak. The Army and plant operator BAE Systems had said after Sunday’s incident that they expected operations to return to normal Tuesday, but it didn’t happen. Army spokeswoman Joy Case told the Roanoke Times that officials are still reviewing the incident, and it could take several days. BAE spokesman Neil Franz said that by “normal,” officials had meant that the plant would be fully ready to meet customers’ needs on Tuesday, and that was achieved. The Army previously said it has an inventory it can draw from in times of need. One employee was taken to a hospital for observation after exposure to fumes. Officials say he was released Monday morning.
Four Tucson firefighters have been taken to the hospital as a precaution this afternoon, after complaining of nausea after responding to a fire alarm. At around 10:30 a.m., Tucson Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at a building downtown, at 32 N Stone. Upon arrival, fire personnel were able to confirm smoke in the basement of the building, according to a TFD spokesperson. After further investigation, the firefighters began to exhibit some symptoms related to possible hazardous material exposure. The building was then evacuated, and Hazarous Materials was called. Right now Tucson Fire is trying to determine the cause of the problem.
Trees lie in the middle of Lake Ave. in Baltimore, Maryland on Monday July 2, 2012.
Thu Jul 5, 2012 11:16PM GMT
3
Amid rising temperatures, more than half a million people still remain without power in the United States following last week’s strong storms.
US utility companies were trying to return lights and air conditions to more than 500,000 customers, including nearly 230,000 in West Virginia, The Associated Press reported on Thursday.
Residents frustrated by the sweltering heat criticized the companies for acting slowly in fixing power lines.
Violent storms, which began on Friday, have hit the eastern United States with high winds, toppling trees onto power lines and knocking out transmission towers and electrical substations.
The storms have claimed 24 lives in seven states and the District of Columbia.
The power outages forced many Fourth of July celebrations across the region to be canceled as local governments deal with damage from the strong winds and with the heat wave and drought conditions that make firework shows hazardous.
A burning trail lit up the sky over Western Australia for 20 minutes after an object suspected to be a meteorite plunged into the sea, leaving a burning orange trail that mesmerised local residents.
Beachgoers in Perth debated what could have caused the strange burning line in the sky, which persisted for 20 minutes. Most meteorite trails are only seen briefly – and seeing an object plunge into the sea is rare.
The burning trail persisted in the sky for 20 minutes afterwards, say Perth residents, who assume that a meteorite left the flaming streak across the sky
A burning trail lit up the sky over Australia for 20 minutes after an object suspected to be a meteorite plunged into the sea, leaving a burning orange trail that mesmerised local residents
Local resident Gavin Trought captured a picture of the ‘burning streak’, saying, ‘The weird streak in the sky seen from Cottesloe last night. I noticed it just before sunset.’
Meteorites are fragments of rock that land on Earth’s surface. Those that burn up – ‘ablate’ – in Earth’s atmosphere are referred to as meteors.
Perth journalist Pip Moir posted a photo she took at Cottesloe Beach to Twitter shortly after 6pm as puzzled onlookers debated what caused the colourful phenomena.
Daniel Jongue, manager at Perth’s The Naked Fig Cafe, said he saw ‘something on the horizon” just before sunset.
Jonque said that the fiery trail lasted for around 20 minutes.
‘It looked like vapour. It was red, orange and yellow and quite beautiful,’ he said.
Meteorites are fragments of rock and sometimes metal that survive the fall to Earth from space. Most are fragments left over from the collision of two asteroids.
Captured by Earth’s gravitational force, they are accelerated to speeds of over 11.2 kilometres per second.
They can vary in size from a fraction of a millimetre to larger than a football pitch. It is believed a meteorite six miles across wiped out the dinosaurs 65million years ago.
Hundreds of meteorites fall to Earth each year but only a handful are recovered.
There have been many bizarre instances recorded when things have fallen from the skies that simply do not belong there.
Among them is the rare phenomenon of red rain which has been reported in some parts of the world.
On July 5, at around 6:50 a brief red rain shower create some panic and curiosity among the residents in Kannur, a city in the Indian state of Kerala.
The rain lasted only 15 minutes.
People in the 1km area in and around Edachery in Puzhati panchayat panicked as their courtyards turned blood red after rain.
According to Times of India: “Kannur block panchayat president Shaija M, who collected the sample of the rainwater, said the water was as dark as black coffee and had the smell of raw beetroot.“I thought someone killed some animal and its blood got mixed with water on the courtyard,” she said. Akshay Sajeevan, another resident in the locality, said in his compound the colour of rainwater was a bit lighter.According to meteorological department, though red rain is a rare phenomenon, but it is no way harmful.
“I assume this is due to atmospheric pollution.
The pollutants in the air get dissolved in rainwater resulting in red rain,” said M Santhosh, director of meteorological department, Thiruvananthapuram.”
This is not the first time red rain has been seen in the state of Kerala.
Godfrey Louis and A. Santhosh Kumar wrote in their research paper that “a red rain phenomenon occurred in Kerala, India starting from 25th July 2001, in which the rainwater appeared coloured in various localized places that are spread over a few hundred kilometers in Kerala. Maximum cases were reported during the first 10 days and isolated cases were found to occur for about 2 months.
Red rain is a rare phenomenon.
In majority of the cases the colour of the rain was red. There were a few cases of yellow coloured rain and rare unconfirmed cases of other colours like black, green, gray etc. Coloured hailstones were also reported.”
The scientists discussed the possibility that the red rain phenomenon could be of extraterrestrial origin as it appeared shortly after a meteor sighting.
“The nature of the red particles rules out the possibility that these are dust particles from a distant desert source. These red particles do not have any similarity with the usual desert dust. This is clearly shown by microscopic study of the particles.
Particles of this type are not found in Kerala or nearby place. The origin of these particles is unknown.
It is convenient to assume that these particles are something, which got airlifted from a distant source on Earth by some wind system.
Several questions remain unanswered even under such an assumption.
An examination of the several characteristics of this red rain phenomenon shows that it is possible to explain this by assuming the meteoric origin of the red particles.
Is a meteor responsible for the red rain shower on July 5th?
The red rain phenomenon first started in Kerala after a meteor airburst event, which occurred on 25th July 2001 near Changanacherry in Kottayam district.
This meteor airburst is evidenced by the sonic boom experienced by several people during early morning of that day.
The first case of red rain occurred in this area few hours after the airburst event. This points to a possible link between the meteor and red rain,” Kumar and Louis wrote in their paper.
What caused the red rain fall in the city of Kunnar this Thursday? Was a meteor responsible for the red rain shower or is there another explanation?
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(Reuters) – A strong earthquake struck off the west coast of New Zealand’s North Island on Tuesday, shaking residents across a wide area and toppling goods from shelves but there were no immediate reports of major damage or injury.
The 7.0 magnitude quake was centered 170 km northwest of the capital Wellington at a depth of 230 km (147 miles), the national GeoNet website reported. The U.S. Geological Service earlier reported the tremor at a 6.2 magnitude. There was no tsunami warning issued.
The quake was felt throughout central New Zealand, sparking a flurry of activity on social network sites, but local media reported only minor damage.
“It was a good shake but we see no damage. I felt the whole building shake,” a spokeswoman at the Opunake police station told Reuters. The quake was centered 60 km from Opunake.
The New Zealand dollar dipped to a session low near 80 U.S. cents following the tremor.
Christchurch, the New Zealand’s second-largest city, is still recovering from a shallow quake measuring 6.3 which killed 182 people in February 2011 and caused some NZ$20 billion ($15.5 billion) in damage.
Colombia evacuated people from communities close to the Nevado del Ruiz volcano after an eruption on Saturday that spewed smoke and ash from its crater, bringing back memories of avalanches that in 1985 buried tens of thousands under rocks. President Juan Manuel Santos said on his Twitter account that the area around the Nevado del Ruiz, in the central spine of Colombia’s Andean mountain range, had been put on red alert and people should leave the area. Even as volcanic activity began to subside, emergency services urged 4,800 residents in Caldas and nearby Tolima province to get to safety, according to Carlos Ivan Marquez, who heads the security effort. The volcano is about 110 miles west of the capital Bogota.
The Big Apple baked again Saturday – and it could be cooking for days. Temperatures topped 90 degrees for the third-straight day, sending legions of New Yorkers to area beaches and pools to try to stay cool. The mercury soared to 93 degrees in Central Park, the second-straight day it cleared 90, according to the National Weather Service. Temperatures are expected to eclipse that mark again Sunday. There will be some relief Monday – but only a little. Temperatures are expected to top out in the high 80s or low 90s – where, they are forecasters say, they will remain for the next week.
In Washington, DC, where thousands are still without power, people took to public pools to cool off on Monday. Photograph: Larry Downing/Reuters
The relentless heat that has gripped the US east coast showed no sign of abating on Tuesday, as power companies warned that some people may be without electricity into next week.
Utility crews struggled to catch up with a backlog of millions of people without power for a fourth hot day. Authorities feared the toll of 22 storm deaths could rise because of stifling conditions and generator fumes.
Power was back for more than a million customers, but lights and air conditioning were still out for about 1.4m homes and businesses in seven states and the District of Columbia.
The damage was caused by powerful wind storms that swept from the midwest to the mid-Atlantic states late Friday, toppling trees and branches into power lines and knocking out big transmission towers and electrical substations.
Utilities were warning that many neighborhoods could remain in the dark for much of the week, if not beyond. But public officials and residents were growing impatient.
“This has happened time after time and year after year, and it seems as if they’re always unprepared,” said John Murphy, a professional chauffeur, who was waiting for the power company to restore electricity.
The wave of late Friday evening storms, called a derecho, moved quickly across the region with little warning. The straight-line winds were just as destructive as any hurricane but when a tropical system strikes, officials usually have several days to get extra personnel in place.
So utility companies had to wait days for extra crews traveling from as far away as Quebec and Oklahoma. And workers found that the toppled trees and power lines often entangled broken equipment in debris that had to be removed before workers could even get started.
Adding to the urgency of the repairs are the sick and elderly, who are especially vulnerable without air conditioning in the sweltering triple-digit heat. Many sought refuge in hotels or basements.
Officials feared the death toll, already at 22, could climb because of the heat and widespread use of generators, which emit fumes that can be dangerous in enclosed spaces
About 93,000 Commonwealth Edison customers in northeastern Illinois of were without power from the storms that brought wind gusts of up to 90 miles per hour.
Utilities in Ohio, Virginia and Maryland described damage to their power grids as catastrophic. FirstEnergy utilities in states from Ohio to West Virginia had about 194,400 customers without power.
Pepco, which serves Washington and much of its suburbs in Maryland and Virginia, reported about 201,900 customers without power.
Baltimore Gas & Electric said about 213,000 customers remained affected. Almost 1,200 utility workers from 12 states and Canada are helping restore power or are on their way to central Maryland, the company said.
Storms killed six people in Virginia and left more than 1 million customers without power. Two people were killed in Maryland, officials said.
A falling tree killed two cousins, aged 2 and 7, in New Jersey. Heat was blamed for the deaths of two brothers, ages 3 and 5, in Tennessee who had been playing outside in temperatures reaching 105 F (41 C).
St Louis reported three heat-related deaths over the weekend. All were elderly and had air conditioners not in use.
Meanwhile, soybean and corn crops in the US mid-west are expected to get hit hard by the unrelenting heat and dryness. Corn, which is entering its critical pollination or reproductive stage of development, is seen as especially vulnerable.
“We’re still looking at a scenario providing below-average rainfall for at least the next 10 days,” said agricultural meteorologist John Dee of Global Weather Monitoring.
The US government has told federal workers in the Washington area they could take unscheduled leave or work from home on Monday and Tuesday.
Two of the largest property insurers, USAA and Nationwide, said they had received more than 12,000 claims in total from the weekend storms. Most were for house damage.
Firefighters battling the 2,000-acre Waldo Canyon fire that erupted west of Colorado Springs Saturday are preparing for the worst Sunday, a perfect storm of hot weather, rugged terrain, and aggressive flames. “Tomorrow could be very explosive,” said Mike Smith, the fire information officer for the U.S. Forest Service, said Saturday after the fire had exploded over 1,000 acres and appeared headed in all directions. Another forest service spokesman, Greg Heule, said he expected the dry winds and scorching Saturday temperatures would keep the Waldo Canyon blaze burning throughout the night. Heule wouldn’t predict flare-ups on Sunday, but suspected that hot, dry conditions would make Sunday another challenging day for firefighting. As the sun set on the billowing smoke Saturday evening, trees continued to torch, bursting into flames that could be seen across Colorado Springs. “We saw what the fire behavior was like. We see what it’s like now—we have trees that are torching off,” Heule said just before 9 p.m. Saturday. “What that indicates to me is that conditions are ripe for aggressive fire behavior. I’m not Mother Nature. I don’t make predictions,” he added.
Erratic winds, steep terrain, tinder-dry trees, and near-record high temperatures have made fighting the Waldo Canyon fire a challenge for the 350 firefighters from across the Pikes Peak region and beyond who raced to battle the blaze after it started just after noon with a towering column of black smoke. The 2,000-acre fire burned with multiple heads as it moved across the hillsides, stretching to the north and northwest, and as well as making an unusual run to the southwest — downhill and against the prevailing winds. The cause of the fire was unknown. Two single engine air tankers, two heavy air tankers, and one massive helicopter flew over the blaze Saturday, under the watchful-eye of one air attack plane, an airborne command center, said Heule. More than 1,000 homes and as many as 2,300 people were evacuated from Colorado Springs and portions of El Paso County, said El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa. An unknown number of people were also evacuated from the Ute Pass area, near Cascade, said El Paso County Commissioner Sallie Clark. All recreational areas on the hills west of Col.orado Springs were shut down Saturday afternoon, including the Garden of the Gods Park, the Pikes Peak Highway, Waldo Canyon trail, and the Cog Railway, said Sunny Smaldino, spokeswoman for the Colorado Springs Fire Department. Sections of Rampart Range Road, which was initially the only point of access for firefighters trying to reach fire, burned, said Sheriff Maketa.
A Type 1 incident command team, the highest classification for fire-disasters, was requested by local fire officials and was expected to take the lead Sunday morning to take charge on Monday, said Maketa. As the fire burned through dense trees and fallen logs — what firefighters call heavy fuels — it sent up thick columns of jet-black smoke Saturday. There are more of these fuels to burn in the hills, Smith said, and Sunday’s possibility for more near-record highs, between 95 and 100 degrees, could add to the conflagration. Within minutes after the fire was first spotted the white smoke it spewed turned black, bursting into a tall column that could be seen from across the region. Firefighters were quickly amassed from Colorado Springs, Green Mountain Falls, and Woodland Park. Two Forest Service Hotshot crews came down from Lake George, where they were fighting the 1,145-acre Springer fire. An incident command post was set up at a Safeway parking lot on West Colorado Avenue, where the city officials and some residents gathered to glean the latest news. Mandatory evacuations were issued for the 200 homes Cedar Heights neighborhood, an exclusive gated community west of the Garden of the Gods. An additional 850 homes were evacuated in the Garden of the Gods Park and parts of the nearby Mountain Shadows neighborhood. Colorado Springs police were sent to make door-to-door calls to drive those residents in the evacuation zones out of their homes.
The evacuation alerts confused several residents on the Westside Saturday afternoon. Some voluntary evacuations for the northern section of the Mountain Shadows neighborhood were issued and then rescinded. One Manitou Springs woman, who asked not to be named, said she received a reverse 911 call and knock on her door telling her to leave Saturday, although her neighborhood was not evacuated. Despite its fury, the Waldo canyon fire hadn’t damaged structures Saturday. By 9 p.m. Saturday, a command team, consisting of Forest Service officials, the Colorado Springs Fire Department and the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, had not decidedwhether firefighetrs would do battle with the Waldo Canyon fire until dawn. Firefighters are also worried about more blazes igniting in the dry hills and plains. The fire department and sheriff’s office called in off-duty firefighters and deputies to bolster forces in the city and county. Thirty-two deputies were called in to monitor evacuation zones, and 12 off-duty firefighters were brought in to staff three engines in the city. The fire department also called on fire crews from the Cheyenne Mountain, Cimarron, and Stratmoor Hills fire department to help bolster Colorado Springs fire stations exmptied when firefighters deployed to Waldo Canyon. As for what the Waldo Canyon fire will cost the city of Colorado Springs, already under budget constraints, fire Chief Rich Brown said it is too early to tell.
More are being evacuated from the Squirrel Creek Fire area. The fire that’s nearly 7,000 acres, is pushing towards the northeast today. The Squirrel Creek Fire began on Saturday afternoon and in just a matter of days has spread rapidly due to extremely dry conditions and the high winds. Helicopters spent the afternoon dropping buckets of water to try to prevent that fire from spreading to nearby homes. Residents near the towns of Wood’s Landing and Jelm plus others near Highway 10 and Fox Creek Road have already been evacuated. “I don’t have a complete number, but we’ve evacuated potentially several hundred people,” said David O’Malley, Albany County Sheriff. Fire crews have formed an anchor point at the southwest flank of the fire, but lost ground to the northeast on Tuesday forcing more ranchers to be evacuated. “Just recently today we were activated to evacuate an area from Sheep Mountain to the north towards Lake Hattie and we have that accomplished at this time,” O’Malley said. An evacuation center has been established at the Albany County Fairgrounds for residents and their livestock. An incident management team from California has arrived to take over command of the fire. They’re reporting that one house and three other structures have been destroyed. They say containment of the fire remains at about 6%. “The cooler temperatures and the cloud cover actually does help, but the wind’s a major concern. Were we’ve seen the significant runs, both a couple days ago and what we had today it’s because it’s been wind driven,” said Rocky Opliger, Incident Commander. Crews from the U.S. Forest service and nearby rural fire departments have been instrumental in suppressing the fire and creating structure protection. They just received word reinforcements are on the way. “I just got confirmation a few minutes ago that we are getting two MAFFS,” Opliger said. This comes just days after one crashed in South Dakota. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Fire crews have a grass fire burning south of Butte close to 50 percent contained. The fire broke out Tuesday around 4 p.m. near Buxton and quickly spread. Officials revised earlier estimates and put the blaze at around 30 acres. It threatened some homes, but crews were able to protect them. No one was evacuated. “Were in red flag conditions today for low humidity and higher winds and as a result of that this fire did spread rapidly as you can see it obviously moves faster in grass which is pretty normal but we got a good response from the county as well as forest service folks to get on this and were able to hold this on the East flank,” Joe Sampson with the U.S. Forest Service said. At least three crews and two helicopters are on the fire. Firefighters expect to be on the scene until after dark. Sampson said they used helicopters from the Pony Fire.
03.07.2012
Forest / Wild Fire
Spain
Province of Valencia, [Around 30km to the west of Valencia]
Two thousand people have been evacuated from Spain’s popular tourist region of Valencia as the worst forest fires in more than a decade raged out of control, causing a huge cloud of ash to pour into the country’s third-largest city. Media reports on Sunday said between 20 000 and 45 000 hectares of land had been destroyed in two forest fires around 30km to the west of Valencia on Spain’s eastern coast. No official estimates have been given of how much land has been destroyed by the fires, but Nasa images show smoke covering a vast area of the region famous for its beaches. The majority of people in the Valencia region were not at risk, according to emergency services. The city’s airport was still operating and it was not known how many tourists were affected by the fires. Spain’s tourism sector represents around 10 percent of the country’s economic output, and has been one of the few drivers of growth as the economy slides back into a heavy recession. Authorities in the Valencia region told Reuters that in the three days since the fires started around 2 000 people have been forced to leave their homes, though many have since been able to return. The fires, which are still not under control, began after a week in which temperatures in many parts of Spain soared to close to 40 degrees Celsius, leading authorities to raise to maximum the level of forest fire risk in the Valencia region. Authorities said preliminary investigations showed one of the fires had been accidentally started by workers in the hillsides around Valencia, and the other by agricultural burning that could not be controlled. The country has seen 10 big forest fires this year, and around 50 000 hectares of land destroyed in the first five months of 2012, the worst since 2002, according to data from the Environment Ministry.
Authorities say a Black Hills forest fire is 10% contained and has burned about 3,000 acres. The White Draw Fire is about five miles northeast of Edgemont, primarily in a mix of grasslands and timber. Officials say crews started early Sunday morning ahead of expected unfavorable winds and hot temperatures. Rains on Saturday briefly slowed the advance of the fire. More than 180 personnel are assigned to the fire. Workers are battling the blaze with the help of 4 helicopters and three air tankers. More crews and equipment have been ordered. Officials say firefighters are facing additional hazards with the steep terrain and rattlesnakes. Residents of 5 homes near Edgemont were given voluntary evacuation notices Saturday.
03.07.2012
Forest / Wild Fire
USA
State of Montana, [Ash Creek (Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation)]
Authorities in eastern Montana ordered the evacuation of several communities Saturday as the Ash Creek Complex fires consumed another 72 square miles and pushed the number of structures destroyed past 30. The Powder River County Sheriff’s office ordered Wilbur, Whitetail, Beaver Creek and East Fork of Otter Creek residents out after the fire swelled to 244 square miles overnight. Fire spokesman Pat McKelvey said one home and five outbuildings were destroyed overnight but no injuries were reported due to the lightning-caused fire that started Monday. The fire had destroyed at least 26 structures previously. “We did have significant movement to the east,” he said, noting embers were causing spot fires a mile ahead of the main fire that’s burning in timber, juniper, pine, sage and grass. He said officials were looking at Saturday as a chance to possibly strengthen fire lines before Sunday when high winds and lower humidity are predicted. The fire is about 25 percent contained. “We are figuring today will be a lull day, if you can call 90 degree temperatures a lull,” he said. Nearly 450 firefighters are at the blaze with more being called in, McKelvey said, adding that two helicopters are working the fire and fixed-wing retardant bombers are also available.
Firefighters moved quickly to get a handle on a wildfire that has burned 96 acres of dry brush in the San Gabriel Mountains northeast of Los Angeles. Los Angeles County Fire dispatcher Andre Gougis says the fire north of Wrightwood near the San Bernardino County line is 80 percent contained Saturday night. Crews got help from water-dropping aircraft as they worked to keep the flames from moving east into the Pinyon Hills area. Gougis says there has been no damage or injuries. Route 138 near Route 18 was briefly closed in both directions. The fire was reported just before noon. The cause is under investigation.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has issued a drought disaster designation for 62 of Colorado’s 64 counties, making federal assistance available for at least some of the farmers and ranchers in those counties. Vilsack notified Gov. John Hickenlooper of the disaster declaration on Tuesday, according to members of Colorado’s congressional delegation, who were alerted to the action on Tuesday morning. Vilsack wrote the governor that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has reviewed loss assessment reports and determined that there were sufficient losses in 62 counties — all of Colorado’s counties except Delta and San Juan — to qualify them as “primary natural disaster areas due to losses caused by drought, excessive heat and high winds that occurred from Jan. 1, 2012, and continuing.” Delta and San Juan counties have been named “contiguous disaster counties.” Vilsack said the disaster designation makes farm operators in both the primary and contiguous counties eligible to be considered for assistance from the federal Farm Service Agency, provided other eligibility requirements are met. That assistance includes emergency loans. Hickenlooper, who’d written Vilsack last week seeking the drought assistance, said in a Tuesday afternoon statement that “this federal disaster declaration will give farmers and ranchers in Weld County and nearly every other part of the state much needed relief.” Vilsack said farmers in eligible counties have eight months to apply for that emergency loan assistance. The Farm Service Agency will consider each emergency loan application on its own merits, taking into account the extent of production losses, security available and repayment ability.
“The entire state of Colorado has been severely affected by hot and dry conditions that have hampered the production of our agricultural producers,” said U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet. “The designations from USDA will provide much-needed assistance to farmers to help offset their losses due to drought. Agriculture is a critical part of Colorado’s economy, and these resources will help producers weather a difficult growing season.” U.S. Sen. Mark Udall said, “The losses that face Colorado’s agriculture producers are mounting and now that this declaration has been made, Colorado’s farmers and ranchers will have access to additional resources to get them through these tough times.” Udall, D-Eldorado Springs, and Bennet, D-Denver, had written Vilsack last month, asking for federal assistance for Colorado’s drought-threatened farms and ranches. So had at least two other members of the state’s congressional delegation, U.S. Reps. Cory Gardner R-Yuma, and Scott Tipton, R-Cortez. Weld County commissioners have backed their county’s farmers continuing push to get state permission to pump water onto their parched fields from an underground aquifer in the South Platte River Basin — something Hickenlooper said last month that Colorado Attorney General John Suthers’ staff has advised the governor’s legal staff that Hickenlooper doesn’t have the legal authority to do. Weld’s commissioners had then sought a formal legal opinion from Suthers, asking the attorney general to consider legal points raised by Weld County Attorney Bruce Barker in support of the groundwater pumping proposal.
Weld commissioners’ spokeswoman Jennifer Finch said Tuesday that Suthers’ office has declined the commissioners’ request for a formal legal opinion on the pumping issue. Meanwhile, the Weld commissioners announced Tuesday that they were sending letters to about 30 ditch companies and others holding senior rights to surface water — senior water rights holders whose rights have been held to be jeopardized under the onetime practice of pumping from the aquifer. The Weld commissioners are asking those senior water rights holders’ consent to allow Weld farmers to pump from those wells for up to 30 days this summer, in order to irrigate their fields during the drought. For about six years, South Platte River Basin farmers have been prohibited by court decisions and state engineer’s orders from using the wells that were long ago drilled into the aquifer. Weld County commissioners wrote that farmers who rely solely on ditch rights to water their fields “are now completely out or very short of water, and their crops are dying in the field.”
Today
Drought
USA
State of Wyoming, [Counties of Yellowstone and Stillwater]
The resolution urges Gov. Brian Schweitzer and the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to support the drought declaration and to provide “all available assistance to the agricultural producers in Yellowstone County.” In Stillwater County, the commissioners said in their resolution that its drought advisory committee recommended a disaster declaration. Dryland hay production is estimated to be 15 percent of normal, and most of the dryland spring wheat is “not expected to make a harvestable grain crop,” Stillwater’s resolution read. “Livestock pasture and range conditions are extremely poor due to lack of precipitation, excessive winds and grasshoppers.” Darla Rhodes, the Farm Service Agency’s executive director in Yellowstone County, said that if the governor and USDA declare a disaster, it would make available low-interest loans for producers and give producers a tax advantage if they need to liquidate livestock. Land enrolled in the conservation reserve program could be grazed or used for emergency hay without a disaster declaration, Rhodes said, but producers face a 25 percent reduction in payments for the months grazed. Kelsey said producers would like to see the penalty reduced to about 10 percent. The drought and extreme turnaround from last year, when conditions were wetter, have caught a lot of producers “flat-footed,” Kelsey said.
Grass quality is diminishing every day, he said. Spring grains are “taking it on the chin,” with crops about 50 percent of normal and not as high as the stubble from last year, Kelsey said. Creeks that provide stock water are running dry, prompting water hauling, Kelsey said. Wells are stressed. As for moisture in the soil? “There is none,” he said. If producers have to ship out cattle, they will be slow to recover, Kelsey said. “Something to keep the cattle here would be great,” he said. Most producers have crop insurance on forage and grain crops, but that only covers a certain percentage when there is a total loss, Kelsey said. “Believe me, I’d rather be haying and combining wheat,” he said. Commission Chairman John Ostlund said he was concerned about the agricultural industry. “When ag suffers, our economy suffers,” he said. In passing the resolution, Ostlund said it was important to give producers the tools they need to try to cope with the situation. The drought also appears to be having an effect on animals in the county. Yellowstone County Sheriff Mike Linder said his office is getting more calls about neglected animals, like horses, that don’t appear to be getting food, either because of a lack of hay or the expense of feed. Someone may have 5 acres but no grass for their animals, he said. Sheriff’s deputies advise that owners know they have to take care of their animals and follow up on neglect calls, Linder said.
Damage remains three days after a powerful storm swept through this Washington, D.C., neighborhood. Nearly 2 million people on the East Coast were without electricity Monday.
WASHINGTON – From North Carolina to New Jersey, nearly 1.8 million people still without electricity were asking the same question Monday evening: Why will it take so long to get the lights back on?
Nearly three full days after a severe summer storm lashed the East Coast, utilities warned that many neighborhoods could remain in the dark for much of the week, if not beyond.
Friday’s storm arrived with little warning and knocked out power to 3 million homes and businesses, so utility companies have had to wait days for extra crews traveling from as far away as Quebec and Oklahoma. And the toppled trees and power lines often entangled broken equipment in debris that must be removed before workers can even get started.
Adding to the urgency of the repairs are the sick and elderly, who are especially vulnerable without air conditioning in the sweltering triple-digit heat. Many sought refuge in hotels or basements.
Officials feared the death toll, already at 22, could climb because of the heat and widespread use of generators, which emit fumes that can be dangerous in enclosed spaces.
At the Springvale Terrace nursing home and senior center in Silver Spring, Md., generators were brought in to provide electricity, and air-conditioning units were installed in windows in large common rooms to offer respite from the heat and darkness.
Residents using walkers struggled to navigate doors that were supposed to open automatically. Nurses had to throw out spoiled food, sometimes over the loud objections of residents who insisted their melting ice cream was still good.
The lack of power completely upended many daily routines. Supermarkets struggled to keep groceries from going bad. People on perishable medication called pharmacies to see how long their medicine would keep. In Washington, officials set up collection sites for people to drop off rotting food. Others held weekend cookouts in an attempt to use their food while it lasted. And in West Virginia, National Guard troops handed out food and water and made door-to-door checks.
When it comes to getting the power running again, all utilities take a top-down approach that seeks to get the largest number of people back online as quickly as possible.
First, crews repair substations that send power to thousands of homes and businesses. Next, they fix distribution lines. Last are the transformers that can restore power to a few customers at a time.
In Great Falls, Va., just outside Washington, patent attorney Patrick Muir found out firsthand who was high on the priority list. The area is sparsely populated and wealthy, with mansions spread across secluded, wooded lots. Muir had been raiding water bottles from his powerless office to supply his home, which is on a well that was not working. His 8-year-old daughter spoke hopefully of a beach trip to escape the heat. Dad said it was under consideration.
“Great Falls always seems to be the first to go down and the last one to come back up,” Muir said.
A Safeway supermarket trying to stay open with a limited power supply handed out free bags of dry ice. But after two days of temperatures in the 90s, the air inside was stale. Shopping carts with spoiled food, buzzing with flies, sat outside the store.
At a CVS pharmacy, Mahesh Tickle did the best he could. He had no cash register, so he made change with loose bills and coins stuffed inside a Ziploc bag. Tickle filled what prescriptions he could and fielded questions from customers wondering if medications such as insulin had spoiled.
Some people said the destruction over the weekend was reminiscent of that caused by Tropical Storm Isabel in 2003 and Hurricane Irene in 2011.
Some backup utility crews arrived Sunday in Maryland, but many were not expected until sometime Monday. That’s because the storm arrived so quickly, unlike hurricanes, which typically approach with several days of warning and give out-of-state crews plenty of time to get into place.
After Isabel, it took electricity supplier Pepco eight days to restore power to most of the 500,000-plus customers in Washington and the surrounding areas. About 443,000 lost power at the peak of this storm, and restoration work will likely last into the weekend.
Last year, it took Baltimore Gas and Electric company eight and a half days to restore power to all 750,000 customers who lost power during Hurricane Irene. This time, the power company initially confronted more than 600,000 people without power. It said restoration efforts will extend into the weekend.
BGE said in a letter posted on its website that it would take hundreds of thousands of man-hours to clear debris and work through outages. Crews are working around the clock in 16-hour shifts.
“This type of widespread, extensive damage also complicates our ability to quickly provide accurate restoration times, especially when original damage assessments are revised upon closer inspection of the work required,” the letter said.
However, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley has been blunt that the utilities must work faster: “No one will have his boot further up Pepco’s and BGE’s backsides than I will,” O’Malley said Sunday.
Pepco spokeswoman Myra Oppel said the differences between storms can be significant. Two storms could have the same number of customers with outages, but the root of the problem could be downed wires in one situation and downed poles in another. But repairing poles takes a lot longer.
As a result, the length of time it takes to restore power “depends on what damage has occurred, not the number of outages,” Oppel said.
In the case of Friday night’s storms, crews are contending with trees that have to be removed before crews can get to damaged infrastructure.
She said the fact that neighboring states were also hard-hit meant many utilities were competing to get the same backup crews for help.
In Baltimore County, Eveena Felder, a registered nurse, had been relying on air-conditioned public areas to keep cool during the day and a fan to help her family sleep.
“We’ve purchased a ton of batteries, that’s where most of our money has gone,” Felder said. “Turn the fan on and keep still, don’t move, less energy.”
Officials were especially concerned about people in isolated rural areas, such as Greenbrier County, W.Va.
“They have no radio station. They have no TV station. They have no communications because without power, they don’t have phones,” said Lt. Col. David Lester of the West Virginia National Guard.
Back at the nursing home, the cable was out as well, so in the common rooms with generator power the center played movies on old VHS tapes, including the 1932 classic “Grand Hotel.”
Margaret Foster and Helen Ofsharick, 93 and 95 respectively, passed the time outside.
“You wouldn’t want to live this way more than a day or so,” Foster said. “There are sick people here, or people who don’t think too well. They need help.”
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Barakat reported from Falls Church, Va., and Silver Spring, Md. Associated Press writers Dan Sewell in Cincinnati; Kantele Franko in Columbus, Ohio; and Vicki Smith in Morgantown, W.Va., contributed to this report.
Flash flooding caused by torrential rains has killed eight people, including at least four children in northern Turkey, authorities said Wednesday. The downpours caused a river to burst its banks late Tuesday, inundating homes and shops and stranding cars in the Black Sea port city of Samsun, the state-run Anadolu agency reported Wednesday. Two brothers, aged 1 and 5, as well as a father and his two sons, aged 9 and 16, were drowned when the flood hit their homes, it said. The country’s emergency management authority said at least eight people were killed and two others were missing in Samsun. It said 21 people were injured.
Today
Landslide
Canada
Province of Manitoba, [Highway 83, near Asessippi Provincial Park ]
Manitoba has closed a section of a highway near the Saskatchewan border after a large section of the road collapsed. Highway 83, near Asessippi Provincial Park about 200 km northwest of Brandon, collapsed Sunday, leaving a hole that’s nearly four metres deep, according to witnesses. Crews had been working to fix problems with the highway for several days when a large section of road collapsed on Sunday, according Rick Goraluk, a councillor in nearby Shellmouth. “It’s quite a mess,” said Goraluk, who also operates Asessippi Beach & Campground nearby. “It looks like something you see after a California earthquake.” Goraluk said a recent storm may have washed away part of the unstable road, which he said had been dropping a few centimetres every day before the collapse. He said problems with the road have persisted for years, and it’s hard to say how long it could take to fix. “I don’t think they could do anything until it stops moving. If you stand there, you can actually see dirt moving,” he said. “It’s been a problem for a long time.” Manitoba Highways’ website said Hwy. 83 is closed between Roblin and Russell due to “poor conditions.”
Parts of the Suncoast Parkway are still shut down because of flooding due to Tropical Storm Debby, but what’s underneath the water is also a source of concern for Hernando County residents. Road depressions and sinkholes, which are already a problem in Hernando County, are an even bigger issue since Debby dumped several inches of rain last week. Nearly 200 sinkholes have showed up throughout Hernando County. Officials said they have received 56 sinkhole reports, many of which have multiple sinkholes at one location. Headley Wilks is among those residents who now have to deal with sinkholes on their personal property. “I was surprised,” he said. “All I can say is there’s nothing you can do about it.” Within days, Wilks said he had two sinkholes appear near his home, including one in his backyard that appears to be about 12 feet wide and more than 15 feet deep. Wilks also lives near one of the sinkholes that opened on Mariner Road. As a result, he has to endure detour traffic until it is repaired. “This street is just like the highway, now so I hope they fix the road as soon as possible,” he said. Hernando County Sheriff Al Nienhuis said repairs are already underway on some roads. “As far as the ones on public roadways, they’re going to be prioritized,” he said. “We’re still finding new ones everyday.” Other locations are left with massive holes, some of which are big enough to swallow a car. “Some of the larger ones are somewhere between the size of a large room in a house and a small house and that goes for the width and breadth as well as the depth,” Nienhuis said. “There can be some pretty good sized ones, ones that you could put a car in with no problem.”
HAVANA — A rare cholera outbreak has killed three elderly people in Cuba and sickened dozens more.
The Communist Party daily Granma says 53 people tested positive for the disease in Manzanillo, 430 miles (700 kilometers) east of Havana. The three who died were 66 to 95 years old.
An official report in Granma blamed contaminated wells. It said Tuesday that authorities closed the wells, were disinfecting the hydraulic system and had the outbreak under control.
Cholera is a waterborne disease caused by a bacteria found in tainted water or food. It can kill within hours through dehydration, but is treatable if caught in time.
Cholera is unusual in Cuba. But recent outbreaks in nearby Haiti have killed more than 7,200 people.
Two people died and more than 50 remain hospitalized in the eastern city of Manzanillo, where an outbreak of cholera required authorities to set up a quarantine at the Celia Sanchez Manduley Provincial Surgical Clinic,” reported the Miami-based Café Fuerte website, though there has been no confirmation or denial of the incidents in the official state-run media. “The hospital can’t cope, the aisles are full of stretchers with patients…now with more than 50 people, including children and adults who are hospitalized as a result of the disease,” was a statement attributed to Manzanillo resident Misleidi Calvente Figueredo. Calvente said several communities have been quarantined, while all Manzanillo health care workers have been mobilized. Police and State Security officers are reported to be guarding the medical center, according to testimonies received from residents. Fortunately, Cuba is not without experience in fighting cholera, as hundreds of Cuban doctors have worked in a campaign against the disease in the neighboring country of Haiti.
Biohazard name:
Cholera
Biohazard level:
2/4 Medium
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that cause only mild disease to humans, or are difficult to contract via aerosol in a lab setting, such as hepatitis A, B, and C, influenza A, Lyme disease, salmonella, mumps, measles, scrapie, dengue fever, and HIV. “Routine diagnostic work with clinical specimens can be done safely at Biosafety Level 2, using Biosafety Level 2 practices and procedures. Research work (including co-cultivation, virus replication studies, or manipulations involving concentrated virus) can be done in a BSL-2 (P2) facility, using BSL-3 practices and procedures. Virus production activities, including virus concentrations, require a BSL-3 (P3) facility and use of BSL-3 practices and procedures”, see Recommended Biosafety Levels for Infectious Agents.
Symptoms:
Status:
suspected
Today
Epidemic
Bolivia
Multiple areas, [Departmento de La Paz, Santa Cruz, Cochabamba and Oruro]
An epidemic of H1N1 flu has infected almost 900 people and claimed 11 lives in Bolivia, health officials said Tuesday. Although most of the cases occurred in the last few weeks, the outbreak does not rise to the level of a national epidemic, officials said. “At the national level, the situation is under control. The most affected area is in the west,” Johnny Rada, director of the ministry of health’s epidemiology service reported. According to official tallies, 873 cases have been reported across the country, of which 606 are in the western department of La Paz and 60 in the department just south of it, Oruro. There have also been 167 cases reported in the large eastern department of Santa Cruz, and 36 in central Cochabamba department. A health alert has been issued for La Paz and Oruro, which, according to Rada, will permit health workers to intensify preventative measures. Deputy Health Minister Martin Maturano also urged Bolivians to take precautions, such as eating well and frequently washing their hands. Bolivian authorities have not said whether the strain of the virus originated as swine or avian flu — in other words whether it first spread to humans from pigs or birds. Bolivia’s current outbreak has primarily affected young children, the elderly, and those whose systems are already weakened by illness or chronic health conditions such as high blood pressure or diabetes. Eight of the deaths were identified in the department of La Paz department, while the remaining three were in the eastern department of Santa Cruz.
Biohazard name:
H1N1
Biohazard level:
3/4 Hight
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that can cause severe to fatal disease in humans, but for which vaccines or other treatments exist, such as anthrax, West Nile virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, SARS virus, variola virus (smallpox), tuberculosis, typhus, Rift Valley fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, yellow fever, and malaria. Among parasites Plasmodium falciparum, which causes Malaria, and Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes trypanosomiasis, also come under this level.
An unidentified disease has killed 60 young children in Cambodia in three months, the World Health Organization said Tuesday as it raced to identify the cause.
“The number of deaths reported to WHO is 60 cases and they have all been in young children,” said Dr Nima Asgari, a public health specialist for the UN body in Cambodia, adding that the first casualties were reported in April.
The WHO is currently working with the Cambodian Ministry of Health “to identify the cause and the route of spread of this disease”, he said.
With the investigation still at an early stage, Asgari said it was difficult to specify the symptoms, which “include high fever and severe chest disease symptoms, plus in some children there were signs of neurological involvement”.
There have been 61 reported cases so far, Asgari said, with just one patient surviving. The victims, all aged seven and under, were admitted to hospitals in the capital Phnom Penh and the northwestern tourist hub of Siem Reap.
In separate comments sent to AFP, the WHO said there were no signs yet of contagion.
“To date, there is no report of any staff or any neighbouring patients to the cases at the hospitals becoming sick with similar symptoms,” it said.
Asgari confirmed there was “no cluster of the cases yet” but said the high mortality rate in such a short space of time was worrisome.
“WHO is always concerned about a disease which causes death in such high numbers of children,” he told AFP.
Cambodian health ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.
An unidentified disease has killed 60 young children in Cambodia in three months, the World Health Organization said Tuesday as it raced to identify the cause. “The number of deaths reported to WHO is 60 cases and they have all been in young children,” said Dr Nima Asgari, a public health specialist for the UN body in Cambodia, adding that the first casualties were reported in April. The WHO is currently working with the Cambodian Ministry of Health “to identify the cause and the route of spread of this disease”, he said. With the investigation still at an early stage, Asgari said it was difficult to specify the symptoms, which “include high fever and severe chest disease symptoms, plus in some children there were signs of neurological involvement”. There have been 61 reported cases so far, Asgari said, with just one patient surviving. The victims, all aged seven and under, were admitted to hospitals in the capital Phnom Penh and the northwestern tourist hub of Siem Reap. In separate comments the WHO said there were no signs yet of contagion. “To date, there is no report of any staff or any neighbouring patients to the cases at the hospitals becoming sick with similar symptoms,” it said. Asgari confirmed there was “no cluster of the cases yet” but said the high mortality rate in such a short space of time was worrisome. “WHO is always concerned about a disease which causes death in such high numbers of children,” he said. Cambodian health ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.
Biohazard name:
Unidentified fatal disease
Biohazard level:
4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:
Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
Symptoms:
The symptoms include high fever and severe chest disease symptoms, plus in some children there were signs of neurological involvement.
MessageToEagle.com – A brief look into the future.
The year is 2029 and a very dangerous asteroid named Apophis is making its closest approach to Earth.
Humans are awaiting this moment with great anxiety as they will finally learn whether the space killer will strike Earth when it returns in the year 2036.
Just how dangerous is Apophis really?
A huge, potentially hazardous, aircraft carrier-sized asteroid named Apophis, is rushing toward Earth at speeds of more than 30 thousand km per hour. This NEA (Near-Earth Asteroids) has a size of 320 m and mass of about 4.6 × 1010 kg.
Apophis (circled) in a composite of five exposures taken on January 31 with the University of Hawaii 2.2-meter telescope on Mauna Kea. The doughnut in the upper left corner is an artifact caused by a dust speck on the camera. Image by D. Tholen, M. Micheli, G. Elliott, IfA.
It constitutes a possible danger from the sky that may hit our planet as preliminary planned.Such events did actually happen before and will certainly take place in the future.
We hope that Apophis’ passing close to the Earth will be ONLY a great astronomical event for all observers in Europe, Africa and western Asia and no harm will be done.
The computation of Earth impact probabilities for near-Earth objects is a complex process requiring sophisticated mathematical methods and it’s not any easy work.
For now a possible impact risk from Apophis (MN4) still does exist.
The asteroid will be making the nearest-in-time close approach with Earth on April 13, 2029, when the minimum distance of the asteroid from the Earth’s center will be as small as 38 000 km (23,612 miles).
Will Apophis hit our planet?
It was previously predicted that Apophis will pass about 36350 km above the Earth on April 13, 2029.
Recent observations using Doppler radar at the giant Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico confirmed that Apophis will swing by at about 32000 km above the Earth in 2029, but with a chance of resonant return in 2036.
So, there’s no danger of being hit in 2029, but the force of Earth’s gravity will have a great influence on Apophis and its orbit. “When it does pass close to us on April 13, 2029, the Earth will deflect it and change its orbit. There’s a small possibility that if it passes through a particular point in space, the so-called keyhole, … the Earth’s gravity will change things so that when it comes back around again in 2036, it will collide with us,” according to Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer from Queen’s University Belfast.
The chance of Apophis passing through the keyhole, a 600-metre patch of space, is 1 in 5,500 based on current information.
Scientists seriously consider this transformation because it may result in new dangerous approaches and even in probable Apophis collisions with the Earth starting from 2036.
If that happened, there would be a massive destruction, and the victims could be counted in millions. It will create a ball of iron and iridium 320 metres (1049 feet) wide and weighing 200 billion tonnes, which will crash into the Atlantic Ocean, according to predictions. The shockwaves from that would create huge tsunami waves, destroying both coastlines and inland areas, whilst creating a thick cloud of dust that would darken the skies indefinitely.
In 2012, Apophis will become observable for approximately nine months. More accurate forecasting will be achieved due to additional optical and radar observations in 2013, when Apophis will pass close enough to Earth for ultraprecise radar signals to be bounced off its surface.
Our next possibility to observe this asteroid will be in 2020-2021.
Scientists from many countries joined their efforts in closely watching the flight path of this asteroid and they will know much more and more exactly in 2029 when the asteroid will come to a specific trajectory . This trajectory is unfortunately possible and if it happens – the impact will become inevitable.
According to Dr. Donald Yeomans of NASA’s Near Earth Object Program, Apophis is not likely to hit Earth in 2036.
However, “if the object passes through a 600-meter-sized keyhole in 2029 – that is, a location in space that is only 600 meters wide – it will indeed hit the Earth in 2036. But the chances of its actually passing through this 600-meter-sized keyhole in space in 2029 are extremely low.” he said.
Timelapse of Asteroid 2004 FH’s flyby (NASA/JPL Public Domain) 2004 FH is the centre dot being followed by the sequence; the object that flashes by near the end is an artificial satellite. Images obtained by Stefano Sposetti, Switzerland on March 18, 2004. Animation made Raoul Behrend, Geneva Observatory, Switzerland. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Astronomers of Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center, Poland say that “the present observations are not adequate to eliminate definitely the possibility of impact with the Earth in 2036 and in many years following this year even in fully ballistic model…”
There are many asteroid collision avoidance strategies ideas, but at least one of them must be reasonable and possible to realize in … good time, if necessary.
Russian scientists made their own calculations and propose an unmanned machine, designed solely for the purpose of diverting Apophis from a collision course with Earth safely. At the same time, Professor Leonid Sokolov of the Saint Petersburg State University in Russia believes that the chance of a collision in 2036 is extremely slim saying that the asteroid would likely disintegrate into smaller parts and smaller collisions with Earth could occur in the following years.
However, he adds that “our task is to consider various alternatives and develop scenarios and plans of action depending on the results of further observations of Apophis.”
And so, one of many alternatives is a 10 kg solar sail with a lead-time of one year can move Apophis out of a 600-m keyhole area in 2029 to eliminate the possibility of its resonant return in 2036, according to Chinese scientist Shengping Gong of Tsinghua University, Beijing.
Along with his colleagues, he propose this alternative solution to the Apophis problem in their paper.
In 2029, we’ll know much more about the danger from Apophis. If necessary, Apophis can be deflected, but a deflection mission must be determined soon enough.
We’ll have seven years to alter its course enough to miss our planet in 2036 preventing the tragedy.
Is it enough time to do so? Is it enough time to test any asteroid-deflection plan in order to put it almost immediately into practice?
Many say that if the object gets close enough, it would be a good research opportunity. Of course… we hope so! Because if it comes too close we’ll not have time to research anything! @ MessageToEagle.com
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A Young Star Flaunts Its X-ray Spots In McNeil’s NebulaMessageToEagle.com -X-ray observations have revealed something curious about the young star that illuminates McNeil’s Nebula, a glowing jewel of cosmic dust in the Orion constellation:
The object is a protostar rotating once a day, or 30 times faster than the sun. The stellar baby also has distinct birthmarks—two X-ray-emitting spots, where gas flows from a surrounding disk, fueling the infant star.
The young star, V1647 Orionis, first made news in early 2004, when it erupted and lit up McNeil’s Nebula, located 1,300 light years away in a region of active star formation within the constellation of Orion.
The initial outburst died down in early 2006, but then V1647 Ori erupted again in 2008, and has since remained bright.
More recently, astronomers combined 11 observations of V1647 Ori from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Japan-led Suzaku satellite, and the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton to determine the source of the high-energy emission. T he team began monitoring the star shortly after its eruption in 2004 and continued to keep watch through 2010, a period covering both eruptions.
Strong similarities among X-ray light curves captured over this six-year period allowed the lead author on the study, Kenji Hamaguchi, astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, to identify cyclic X-ray variations.
Hamaguchi and the rest of the team determined the star is rotating once per day, making V1647 among the youngest stars whose spin has been determined using an X-ray-based technique.
“The observations give us a look inside the cradle at a very young star,” says co-author Joel Kastner, a professor of imaging science and astronomical sciences and technology at Rochester Institute of Technology.
“It’s as though we’re able to see its beating heart. We’re actually able to watch it rotate. We caught the star at a point where it is rotating so fast as it gains material that it’s barely able to hold itself together. It’s rotating at near break-up speed.”
During outbursts, the infant star illuminating the McNeil Nebula may brighten by 100 times at X-ray energies. In this rendering, magnetic fields drive powerful flows onto the star, creating two hot spots that produce the high-energy emission. Photo Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
The team identified V1647 Ori as a protostar in formation. “Based on infrared studies, we suspect that this protostar is no more than a million years old, and probably much younger,” Hamaguchi says.
V1647 Ori presently feeds on gas channeled from a surrounding disk and will likely continue to do so—though not nearly so rapidly—for millions of years. At that point it will finally be able to generate its own energy by fusing hydrogen into helium in its core like the sun and other mature stars.
Hamaguchi’s analysis focused on repetitive behavior found in the data from all three of the X-ray observatories. By combining data, he pieced together a picture showing the daily rotation of two X-ray-emitting spots on V1647 Ori that are thousands of times hotter than the rest of the star.
McNeil’s Nebula was discovered with a 3-inch telescope by amateur astronomer Jay McNeil in January 2004. A young star buried deep in a cloud had brightened suddenly, illuminating the nebula. This optical image of McNeil’s Nebula and the surrounding area was taken by the Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO)
The hot spots are located at opposite sides of the star, with the southerly one five times brighter than its companion. Each spot is about the diameter of the sun. In comparison, the low density of V1647 Ori bloats the star itself to nearly five times the size of the sun.
“We think these spots are showing us X-ray-emitting regions that are very tightly constrained to a couple positions on the star by magnetic fields,” says Kastner, director of the Laboratory for Multiwavelength Astrophysics in RIT’s Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science.
“For six years, through two different eruptions, we’ve seen it rotate like this. That means the magnetic field configuration—the overall geometry between the disk and the star—is very stable. At the same time, the local disruption of magnetic fields probably generates the X-rays.”
BRz composite V1647 Ori (Fedele et al., in prep.)
“One attractive possibility for driving such high-speed matter involves magnetic fields that are undergoing a continual cycle of shearing and reconnection in mass accretion,” says co-author David Weintraub, professor of astronomy at Vanderbilt University.
In this picture, X-ray outbursts result from interplay of the magnetic fields belonging to the star and the disk. The star spins faster than the disk and winds up the magnetic fields until they snap like rubber bands. The pent up energy creates a powerful blast when the tangled magnetic fields fall back into place. The process, called magnetic reconnection, also powers X-ray flares on the sun.
During the outbursts, the star’s luminosity varied at optical and infrared wavelengths. The astronomers associated this to changes in the protostar’s main energy source, the inflow of matter onto the star. Because changes in the X-ray brightness of V1647 Ori closely followed those in the optical and infrared, the team established that its higher-energy emission is also closely linked to accretion.
“V1647 Ori gave us the first direct evidence that a protostar surges in X-ray activity as its rate of mass accretion rises,” says co-author Nicolas Grosso, an astrophysicist of the French National Center for Scientific Research at the Strasbourg Astronomical Observatory.
The finding that an accretion burst could be accompanied a surge of high-energy X-rays during the formation of a young star was originally announced by essentially the same study team, led by Kastner, in a paper published in Nature in 2004. In that paper, the team first argued that X-rays emitted by V1647 Ori were coming from material falling onto the star from a surrounding disk.
Up until then, the more widely accepted mechanism for producing X-rays from protostars was thought to be via coronae that are far more powerful than the sun’s, Kastner explains. Signatures in X-ray observations of a handful of stars in formative stages had led to the hunch that accretion might also contribute to or even dominate protostellar X-ray emission. The eruptions of V1647 Ori and a few other young stars that were accompanied by elevated X-ray emission levels have since underscored this connection, Kastner notes.
“The exciting and unexpected thing about our fresh look at the whole set of X-ray data for V1647 Ori is that this is the first time we’ve seen a star in such an early stage of formation with a regular rotation that you can measure in X-rays,” Kastner says.
Kastner and team hope to confirm the X-ray study’s findings at infrared wavelengths using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.
Results from the study will appear in the paper “X-raying the Beating Heart of a Newborn Star: Rotational Modulation of High-energy Radiation from V1647 Ori,” in the July 20 issue of The Astrophysical Journal. MessageToEagle.com via .rit.edu
Around one million birds have died or were culled at 111 poultry farms and 15 farms in Jalisco, Mexico, where the National Health and Quality Agribusiness Service (Senasica) detected in ten such facilities the AH7N3 strain of avian flu. The Senasica said it issued license to import a vaccine from Asia to be distributed at the disease-hit states where the birds are being buried with due prophylaxis (quarantine, cull and vaccination) to contain the spread and get rid of the virus. FAO also issued a call to check the outbreak since the bird flu virus is very aggressive, adding that its presence now enters Mexico in the WHO watch list though Mexican authorities claim the strain is not a threat to human poultry consumption.
Biohazard name:
AH7N3
Biohazard level:
3/4 Hight
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that can cause severe to fatal disease in humans, but for which vaccines or other treatments exist, such as anthrax, West Nile virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, SARS virus, variola virus (smallpox), tuberculosis, typhus, Rift Valley fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, yellow fever, and malaria. Among parasites Plasmodium falciparum, which causes Malaria, and Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes trypanosomiasis, also come under this level.
The Mexican government declared a national animal health emergency on Monday in the face of an aggressive bird flu epidemic that has infected nearly 1.7 million poultry.
More than half the infected birds have died or been culled, the agriculture ministry said of an epidemic that was confirmed on Friday by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
“We have activated a national animal health emergency… with the goal of diagnosing, preventing, controlling and eradicating the Type A, sub-type H7N3 bird flu virus,” the ministry said.
Health officials keep a close watch on such outbreaks in Mexico since so-called swine flu began there in 2009. The H1N1 virus spread into a global pandemic that claimed the lives of 17,000 people.
The virus responsible for Mexico’s current bird flu outbreak, H7N3, has occasionally caused human disease in various parts of the world, according to the UN, but has not shown itself to be easily transmittable between humans.
The outbreak was first detected
03.07.2012
Biological Hazard
China
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, [The area was not defined.]
China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region has reported an outbreak of H5N1 in poultry, the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) announced Monday. The disease has killed 1,600 chickens raised by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), a unique economic and semi-military government organization of about 2.5 million people. A total of 5,500 XPCC-farmed chickens showed symptoms of suspected avian flu on June 20, according to the MOA. The National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory Monday confirmed the epidemic was H5N1 bird flu after testing samples collected at the farm, the MOA said. Local authorities have sealed off and sterilized the infected area, where a total of 156,439 chickens have been culled and safely disposed of to prevent the disease from spreading, according to the MOA. Bird flu, or avian influenza, is a contagious disease of animal origin caused by viruses that normally infect only birds and, less commonly, pigs. It can be fatal to humans.
Biohazard name:
H5N1 – Highly pathogenic avian influenza virus
Biohazard level:
4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:
Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
Harmful blue-green algae has been found on Lake Erie and may reach beyond Lake County’s borders, according to the Lake County General Health District. Laboratory tests of samples collected in January revealed harmful algal blooms in the lake. The blooms produce toxins that may cause skin rashes, blisters or hives. Those in contact with the blooms may also experience dizziness, numbness, vomiting, diarrhea, tingling, sore throat and headaches, among other symptoms. In more severe cases, contact with the algae may cause liver or kidney damage. Those who may have come in contact with the blooms are cautioned to completely rinse off after the contact. People are also encouraged not to drink the water, and to only eat fish from the lake at your own risk after the skin, fat and intestines are removed.
Biohazard name:
Blue-Green (cyanobacteria) Algae bloom
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Officials say that 73 people, including 20 children and a pregnant woman, have been hospitalized after a chlorine leak in a suburb of the ex-Soviet nation’s capital, Tbilisi. Georgian Health Ministry said that the incident occurred early Wednesday after poisonous chlorine leaked from a tank that belongs to a water utility company. It said 27 people remain in the hospital, and one of them, a 18-year-old man with asthma, is in a critical condition. The impoverished nation of 5 million people faces constant problems with crumbling Soviet-era infrastructure.
Physicists said they had discovered a new particle that is consistent with the Higgs boson, a long-sought particle crucial to scientists’ current understanding of how the universe is built, although they will need additional data to pin it down with near absolute certainty. Joe Incandela, leader of one of the teams, told scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, that the new particle was definitely a boson and the heaviest boson ever found. “The implications are very significant and it is precisely for this reason that we must be extremely diligent in all of our studies and cross-checks,” he said in a statement. The new particle found at CERN is in the mass range of 125-126 GeV, or gigaelectronvolts, which means its mass is 125-126 times greater than the mass of a proton. CERN said their data had pinned down the mass of the new particle with an extremely high level of statistical certainty. It’s hard not to get excited by these results,” CERN Research Director Sergio. However, the researchers cautioned that the current finding was still preliminary and they expect more data from additional experiments in coming months. One crucial detail would be for them to pin down specific properties that the Higgs boson is supposed to have. For example, the theory predicts it will have a spin of zero
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A 5.8-magnitude earthquake has struck northern Italy with authorities reporting 15 dead. It comes a week after a 6.0-magnitude tremor hit the same region, killing seven and destroying hundreds of buildings. The video shows evacuees from the previous quake peering out of tents in disbelief as second quake strikes.
A 5.8-magnitude earthquake has struck northern Italy on Tuesday, May 29 with authorities reporting 15 dead. It comes a week after a 6.0-magnitude tremor hit the same region, killing seven and destroying hundreds of buildings.
A car is destroyed after an earthquake on May 29, 2012 in Cavezzo. As many as 10 people were reported killed when a strong earthquake rocked northeastern Italy on Tuesday, just days after another quake in the same region wrought death and destruction. AFP PHOTO / Pierre Teyssot
CAVEZZO, Italy – An earthquake killed 16 people and injured about 350 in northern Italy on Tuesday, spreading fear among thousands of residents living in tents after a similarly strong tremor in the same region flattened their homes nine days ago.
Rescuers were searching through the rubble of houses and warehouses in the Emilia-Romagna region, where several building sites had just reopened after the previous quake on May 20.
Officials said 16 people were confirmed dead, more than twice the number killed in the May 20 quake that, like Tuesday’s, had its epicentre near the city of Modena. The number of those forced to leave their homes doubled to 14,000.
Many residents ran out of buildings when they felt the 5.8-magnitude tremor, which hit shortly after 0700 GMT just as operations to rebuild the quake-struck region were under way.
“As we were coming down the stairs, we heard the sound of crumbling houses around us. There was a big cloud of dust,” said 72-year-old Giulio in Cavezzo, a badly damaged village about 30 km (20 miles) from Modena where three died.
Rescuers searched tirelessly for survivors despite initial operations being hampered by disruption to the mobile phone network and to the railway network around Bologna.
A woman was pulled alive from the debris of her house in Cavezzo after 12 hours searching, according to Sky Italia.
The quake was the most deadly to strike Italy since 2009 when a tremor partially destroyed the central city of L’Aquila, killing about 300 people and leaving thousands homeless.
With its streets deserted, Cavezzo looked like a ghost town. A shop in the centre still had fruit displayed on stalls outside in the street.
In a nearby empty coffee shop a half-eaten croissant was left on a plate on the bar and an apron lay on the floor.
“It’s a disaster, I’ve never seen anything like it. An endless series of very strong tremors after those of May 20, which had already pulled everything to its knees,” said a very shaken Stefano Draghetti, mayor of Cavezzo.
“We need a lot of help to restart, from those who can – the state, the European community.”
Italian media showed buildings and shopping malls shaking and collapsing under the force of the quake and ambulances racing across towns. Churches and factories were badly damaged.
In Medolla, also near the epicentre, an electromedical equipment plant collapsed, killing a worker. Rescuers were frantically searching for three other workers still believed to be under the rubble, a Reuters witness said.
“The situation is one of great fear and uncertainty,” said Salvatore Iannizzotto, provincial head for the Modena police.
“The population was becoming more relaxed and slowly moving back into their homes. They have now left their homes again.”
The civil protection service was setting up new emergency campsites to provide residents with shelter for the night.
QUAKE WOUNDS ITALY
The quake hit one of the most productive regions in a country struggling with a deep economic recession.
Farmers estimated the damage of the previous quake to agriculture in one of Italy’s most fertile areas at more than 200 million euros ($250 million).
Sports car maker Ferrari and motorcycle firm Ducati closed their plants in the region for safety reasons. The world’s top pasta-maker Barilla, based in Parma, evacuated a plant for 15 minutes but said production had not stopped. Italian bank BPER closed around 20 branches for safety reasons while medical products company Sorin said its plant in Mirabella had been damaged.
The quake was felt across northern and central Italy, including in the most populous northern city Milan. The area was hit by several large aftershocks, one of 5.6 magnitude
Schools and buildings were evacuated as far south as Florence. A soccer match between Italy and Luxembourg in Parma scheduled later on Tuesday was called off.
Emilia-Romagna, famed for its cured ham and mature Parmesan cheese, is in the middle of the Po plain, traditionally considered safer than other areas of seismic Italy.
Several historic buildings, some hit by the previous quake, suffered further damage.
In the town of San Felice sul Panaro whose imposing 14th-century Estense Castle was badly damaged in the quake just over a week ago, three workers were killed by a crumbling warehouse.
“The situation is very serious, some people are stuck under the rubble,” Alberto Silvestri, the town’s mayor, told Italian television.
Italian media also reported serious damage to the Baroque cathedral of Carpi and the Te Palace in Mantua, an architectural masterpiece from the Renaissance.
Prime Minister Mario Monti, whose cabinet is due to approve fresh emergency measures on Wednesday, tried to reassure the population in an impromptu news conference.
“I want to assure everyone that the state will do all that it must do, all that is possible to do, as fast as it can to guarantee the return to normality in a region so special, so important, so productive for Italy,” he said.
French President Francois Hollande’s office said France stood ready to provide Italy with any experts or logistical aid it might need. Greece was among the first nations to offer help.
A 3.8 magnitude quake was also felt in western Bulgaria on Tuesday, causing no casualties or serious damage, the National Geophysical Institute said. It had its epicentre near Pernik.
Mount Baker Volcano Washington USA – Active Volcano Warning
Rsoe EDIS Code: VA-20120529-35248-USA
May is volcano awareness month and as the summer months approach, officials want to remind those who go out to Mt. Baker that they are skiing and snowboarding and camping on an active volcano.
As the summer months approach, officials want to remind those who go out to Mt. Baker that they are skiing and snowboarding and camping on an active volcano. May is volcano awareness month, and Carolyn Driedger with the U.S. Geological Survey says the biggest threat from a Baker eruption would be volcanic mud flows. She says those who live in volcano hazard zones around Mt. Baker need to have a plan to get to higher ground. Driedger says officials are confident they will see some warning signs before an eruption on Mt. Baker. West of Baker, the towns of Glacier, Maple Falls, Deming, Everson and Sumas all lie in the pathway for eruption-related mud flows.
May 29. 2012 – COLOMBIA – Colombia warned Tuesday of a possible eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano after it began rumbling and spewing gas, sending ashes onto cities and towns in the nearby coffee-growing region. The government’s geology and mining oversight institute Ingeominas said in a statement it raised the warning level to orange from yellow, which means an eruption is possible in days or weeks. The increased seismic activity began at around 3 a.m. local time (4 a.m. EDT). Civil aviation authority Aerocivil said operations have been suspended at the Manizales, Armenia, Cartago and Pereira airports, all in Colombia’s central-western coffee-growing region, due to visibility problems and concerns over aircraft engines getting clogged. This is the second time this year the warning level has been set at orange. It was raised to orange March 31, but brought back to yellow several days later as seismic activity declined. The 17,800-foot volcano, located west of Bogota, hasn’t erupted since the 1980s. An official at the Volcanology Observatory in Manizales, 16 miles northwest of the crater, said the city’s 360,000 residents have been able to see ash falling on the city since before dawn. In 1985, an eruption caused hot volcanic flows to melt the ice- and snow-covered summit area. This unleashed a cascade of debris down the volcano’s eastern slope, which wiped the town of Armero off the map, killing 25,000 people. Another 2,000 people were killed in nearby areas. -WSJ
Colombian volcanologists indicated that the likelihood of an eruption at the Nevado del Ruiz volcano has increased, after an earthquake Tuesday morning in cental Colombia. Local authorities have raised the alert level from yellow to orange following a report issued by the Manizales Volcanological and Seismological Observatory. An orange alert does not mean an eruption is imminent. Web cameras in the area “show the emission of ash,” which “has been felt in the area surrounding the volcano,” according to Seismologic and Volcanic Observation director Gloria Patricia Cortes, who also noted the impact on city of Manizales and municipality of Villamaria. Cortes said that relief agencies in the area are prepped for immediate action, in case of emergency. “The recommendation now is to use masks in the city of Manizales because of the persistent rain of ashes,” said Cortes, who also said that she did not expect a lava flow but did not rule out that the emission of ash could continue for some time. According to officials, small amounts of ash could be dispersed from the volcano to remote areas depending on wind direction and strength. The volcano has been fluctuating at high activity levels for the past several months and was lowered to alert level yellow earlier this month. The last eruption of the volcano in 1985 killed an estimated 25,000 people and destroyed the town of Armero.
Small earthquake swarm at Katla volcano during 28-29 May 2012 (Icelandic Met Office)
A swarm of 14 small to very small mostly very shallow quakes occurred at Katla volcano yesterday and today. Epicenter depths were reported between 0.1 and 12.2 km. Judging from the depth and magnitude of the quakes, the most likely cause for the seismic swarm are adjustments of the hydrothermal system under the icecap, and probably not magmatic intrusions (which would be possible indicators of a future new eruption).
The Vulcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center (PVMBG) has raised the alert status of Mt. Soputan in Minahasa and Southeast Minahasa regencies in North Sulawesi to level 3 — meaning “standby” — from the previous level 2 (alert), following increasing levels of volcanic activity.
“Based on our observations, as of 3 p.m. on Monday, Mt. Soputan’s alert status was raised to level 3,” center head Surono said on Monday evening.
According to Surono, increasing activity had been detected since May 25, when the volcano spew out white smoke to heights of between 50 meters and 75 meters above the mountain’s peak.
The center has recorded dozens of different types of activity since then. The center’s highest alert status for volcanoes is level 4 (on guard).
Surono has called on local residents to stay beyond a radius of six kilometers from the volcano’s summit.
The center has also warned residents of the threat of a cold lava flood, urging people living near Ranowangko, Pentu, Lawian and Popang rivers to remain alert and aware.
The volcano’s last eruption occurred on July 3, 2011. It erupted 10 hours after its status was raised to alert, forcing local officials to close Sam Ratulangi Airport for a day.
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CAPE FEAR TO 31N OUT TO 32N 73W TO 31N 74W
HATTERAS CANYON TO CAPE FEAR OUT TO 34N 71W TO 32N 73W
BALTIMORE CANYON TO HATTERAS CANYON OUT TO 36N 70W TO 34N 71W
A 10-year-old Cambodian girl has died from bird flu, the World Health Organization said Monday, the country’s third fatality from the virulent disease this year. The child developed a fever and shortness of breath on May 20 and died on Sunday, the WHO said in a joint statement with the Cambodian health ministry. Hospital tests confirmed she had contracted the H5N1 strain of avian influenza. “There is evidence of recent deaths among poultry in the village and the patient prepared sick chicken for food prior to becoming sick,” the statement said. The girl, from southwestern Kampong Speu province, is the 21st person in Cambodia to become infected with the H5N1 virus since 2003. Nineteen of those cases have been fatal. The H5N1 strain has killed 357 people worldwide since 2003, according to WHO statistics.
Biohazard name:
A/H5N2
Biohazard level:
4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:
Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
Two people have been confirmed dead and 56 others admitted atNebbi hospital following the fresh outbreak of cholera disease in Nebbi district. The death of the two unidentfied victims and 56 patients who are admitted at Nebbi hospital brings to 17 the number of victims killed and more than 1,150 infected with cholera after the first case was reported in the district in March this year according to health official in the district. Kitts Obima, the Nebbi district health Educator said that the district is alarmed by the persistance outbreak of the disease arguing that cholera is persisting due to relaxity on the side of the community to have sanitary facilites at home and thier poor habits to responds on the cholera symptoms. When New Vision visited Nebbi hospital to ascertain the number of people infetced in the lastest outbreak in Nebbi Town concil on Monday (May, 28,2012) many of the victims mostly youths and children were seen lying with drip on thier connected to thier body at Nebbi hospital isolation ward.
Obima called on leaders in the district to enforce the use of sanitary facilities and educate the communities to avoid eating cold food , “According to public food act, food is purpose to be eaten indoor place but people still eat food in open places which exposes them at high risks of contracting cholera” he said. Cholera is an infection in the small intestine caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse, watery diarrhea and vomiting. Its transmission occurs primarily by drinking water or eating food that has been contaminated by the feces of an infected person. Obima said that the first case of cholera was reported in Akworo sub-county the district on March 2012. He explained that the worst hit sub-county has been Akworo, Panyimur, Parombo Pakwach sub-county which recorded a total of 15 death and the latest being Nebbi Town Council with over 56 cases reportedly admitted at Nebbi hospital Obima, however,said that drugs that district is still using the previous stocks which were delivered by the ministry and other humantarian organisation in the first outbreak.
He added that, the cholera sample have been taken to central public health’s laboratory for test for rapid responds. Mean while to avoid the further spread of the disease, local council leaders have banned the selling of food itmes at the road sides. In Nebbi Town council James Chombe Mucek , the Nebbi town council LC.3 chaiperson said that the council have temporaly suspended selling of food items in the street and open restaurant. He said the move was aimed to control the disease from futher spread by eating cold food. He also said that the council have formed cholera task force who would move door to door to check sanitary facilities like toilets, washing facilities in order to to combat the cholera the disease.
Biohazard name:
Cholerae Outbreak
Biohazard level:
3/4 Hight
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that can cause severe to fatal disease in humans, but for which vaccines or other treatments exist, such as anthrax, West Nile virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, SARS virus, variola virus (smallpox), tuberculosis, typhus, Rift Valley fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, yellow fever, and malaria. Among parasites Plasmodium falciparum, which causes Malaria, and Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes trypanosomiasis, also come under this level.
“WEST MICHIGAN (NEWSCHANNEL 3) – People are buzzing over what could have possibly caused a loud boom and violent shaking last night and this morning throughout West Michigan.The reports came in from people in Calhoun, Branch and Kalamazoo Counties.People from all over say they felt and heard it, but Newschannel Three has only heard of one case of actual damage happening during the same time.John Nieuwenhuis, who lives in Oshtemo, says that he felt and heard the explosion, which shook his entire house.”Where the two trees are parallel and something completely scrapped both trees off at the same height and laid them to the west,” said Nieuwenhuis.Nieuwenhuis called the fire department but after extensively searching, they couldn’t find the source of an explosion. “I’ve never seen anything like this, we cut down trees, we log trees and what could have taken this down I have no idea,” said Nieuwenhuis.Newschannel Three tried to search into what might have caused the explosions but, it was a clear night and there was no earthquake activity reported anywhere in the Midwest.Air Traffic Control in Kalamazoo says no planes were in the area that might have broken the sound barrier.”
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This image shows the aquaculture of salmon. Credit: Norsk Havbrukssenter.
Researchers from the University of Oviedo have for the first time analysed a DNA fragment from commercial feed for aquarium cichlids, aquaculture salmon and marine fish in aquariums. The results show that in order to manufacture this feed, eight species of high trophic level fish have been used, some of them coming directly from extractive fisheries.
Aquaculture initially came as an ecological initiative to reduce pressure from fishing and to cover human food needs. However, a problem has emerged: consumers prefer carnivore species, like salmon and cod that require tons of high quality protein for their quick, optimum development.
“If these proteins are obtained from extractive fisheries, aquaculture stops being an alternative to over-fishing and starts contributing to it, turning it into a risk for natural marine ecosystems” Alba Ardura, lead author of the study published in ‘Fisheries Research’ and researcher in the department of Functional Biology at the University of Oviedo told SINC.
The research team analysed a DNA fragment from commercial feed made for aquarium cichlids, aquaculture of salmon and marine fish in aquariums. After removing oil and fat from the feed, DNA sequences were obtained and compared with public databases to identify the species found.
From fish feed samples, supplied by manufacturers and bought in animal shops, researchers identified eight species of wild marine fish that were from high trophic levels in the food chain.
Industrial waste from processing and commercialisation for human consumption of Peruvian anchoveta (Engraulis ringens), European sprat (Sprattus sprattus), Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus), whiting (Merlangius merlangus), Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus), Pacific sandlance (Ammodytes personatus), jack mackerel (Trachurus symmetricus), and blue mackerel (Scomber australasicus), allow fish meal for aquaculture fish to be made.
Nonetheless, according to the researcher “some of the species found in this feed are commercialised fresh without being processed and they suspect that they came to the feed directly from extractive fisheries.” This is the case with herring and Pacific sandlance.
The research suggests that aquaculture is partly maintained by fisheries, and aquaculture fishes are fed by wild fish sold “whole” (without being processed) and fresh directly from fishing vessels.
Vegetable proteins, an alternative “If species from extractive fishing are used to feed farm fish, aquaculture does not help minimise over-fishing” warns the expert who suggests “urgently” revising the composition of aquaculture feed to replace them with other proteins. The aim is to reduce the exploitation of natural fish populations.
Ardura proposes increasing efforts to gain high quality proteins from other sources, such as vegetable proteins, which supplement farmed fish’s nutritional needs. This way they will be able to “minimise the impact of aquaculture on wild populations.”
Ardura, A.; Horreo, J. L.; Hernandez, E.; Jardon, A.; Pola, I. G.; Martinez, J. L.; Garcia-Vazquez, E. “Forensic DNA analysis reveals use of high trophic level marine fish in commercial aquaculture fish meals” Fisheries Research 115: 115-120 DOI: 10.1016/j.fishres.2011.08.011 March 2012.
Fridley set up an experimental garden on SU’s South Campus that includes groups of native plants and their non-native cousins, such as Japanese honeysuckle (invader) and Canada honeysuckle (native), burning bush (invader) and bursting heart (native), and European buckthorn (invader) and Carolina buckthorn (native).
Much like the fabled tortoise and the hare, the competition between native and invasive plants growing in deciduous forests in the Eastern United States is all about how the plants cross the finish line in autumn.
A new study by a Syracuse University biologist has found that the leaves of invasive plants continue to function in the fall, long after their native cousins have hunkered down for the winter. The findings are counter to conventional wisdom, which held that plants living under the forest leafy canopy obtain most of their food via photosynthesis in the spring and early summer before the canopy blocks the amount of sunlight getting to the shrubs.
The study, “Extended leaf phenology and the autumn niche in deciduous forest invasions,” will be published online in Nature. “It’s a classic case of scientific serendipity,” says study author Jason Fridley, assistant professor of biology in SU’s College of Arts and Sciences.
“We set up the experiment to quantify the amount of photosynthesis happening in the spring when both groups of plants were thought to be most active. But we found it was all about the finish. This was totally off of everybody’s radar.”
Many of the plants growing naturally under the forest canopy in the eastern United States, including New York, Pennsylvania and New England, are closely related to those that have been imported for more than 100 years, primarily from Europe, China and Japan, for cultivation in home gardens. The imported plants have invaded the surrounding forests and thrived. Scientific research is focused on uncovering strategies the invaders use that make them so successful.
Fridley set up an experimental garden on SU’s South Campus that includes groups of native plants and their non-native cousins, such as Japanese honeysuckle (invader) and Canada honeysuckle (native), burning bush (invader) and bursting heart (native), and European buckthorn (invader) and Carolina buckthorn (native). His research team monitored the plants for three years, recording when the leaves burst, turned brown and dropped.
They also used devices to measure leaf chlorophyll and photosynthesis throughout the leaf growing and dying seasons.
The research team found little differences between the spring emergence of leaves in native and their non-native cousins, the timing of which for both groups varied in response to spring temperatures. They also found little differences in spring food production between the groups.
Most significantly, the researchers found that the invaders retained their leaves and continued to photosynthesize almost four weeks longer into the fall than their native cousins, which begin shutting down between late August and mid-September.
“The extended leaf activity we found in the invaders is rarely seen in native species that inhabit deciduous forests,” Fridley says. “However, the data don’t tell us whether this is the primary strategy invasive plants use to compete with native species.”
The plants in the study have had separate evolutionary histories since at least the Pleistocene Age (11,400 to 2 million years ago). Climate conditions over the North American continent were colder with more ice coverage than Asia, Fridley says. Native species responded to the shorter growing seasons by pulling nitrogen from their leaves to store in the stems, causing the leaves to turn brown and fall off.
“Invaders don’t appear to store as much nitrogen,” Fridley says. “Their leaves fall off with a higher nitrogen content. It may be that the invasive species are better suited a warming climate.”
Which begs the question of how the invaders gain back in the spring the nitrogen that falls to the forest floor in the fall. “One hypothesis,” Fridley says, “is that invaders evolved by depending on earthworms to decompose the leaves, making nitrogen available in the spring for the plants.” Native plants did not evolve with earthworms because native earthworms did not survive glaciation.
“Eurasian earthworms invaded North America at some point in the past,” Fridley says. “It’s conceivable that having co-evolved with earthworms, the invaders would devise a nutrient-use strategy that was not dependent on re-absorbing the nutrients from the leaves.”
The larger question for scientists is, how does an increase in the amount of nutrient-rich leaf litter affect the overall forest-floor ecosystem? “It’s possible the extended growing season of non-native shrubs in deciduous forests may be a major driver of human-induced ecosystem change in eastern North America that may rival climate change in its impact on forest processes,” Fridley says.
Since January, dead dolphins have washed ashore in Peru, the death toll reaching a staggering 877. Scientists are still trying to explain the bizarre deaths, and their best prediction at the moment is that its due to a virus outbreak or acoustic trauma.
Environmental authorities are investigating the deaths of more than 800 dolphins that have washed up on the northern coast of Peru this year.
The dolphins may have died from an outbreak of Morbillivirus or Brucella bacteria, said Peruvian Deputy Environment Minister Gabriel Quijandria, according to Peru’s state-run Andina news agency. Speaking to CNN, he said he expects test results to be ready within the week.
“Right now, the most probable hypothesis is that it’s a virus outbreak,” he said.
Quijandria said Thursday that 877 dolphins have washed up in a 220-kilometer (137-mile) area from Punta Aguja to Lambayeque, in the north of the country.
More than 80% of those dolphins were found in an advanced state of decomposition, making it difficult to study their deaths, according to Andina.
Earlier last week, the Peruvian government put together a panel from different ministries to analyze a report by the Peruvian Sea Institute (IMARPE). Officials have been able to conclude that the dolphins’ deaths were not due to lack of food, interaction with fisheries, poisoning with pesticides, biotoxin poisoning or contamination by heavy metals.
“When you have something this large, my gut would tell me that there’s something traumatic that happened,” Sue Rocca, a marine biologist with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, told CNN. She floated a number of number of possibilities as to what could have killed the animals, including acoustic trauma, but concluded that investigators just don’t know yet. “More investigation needs to be done,” she said.
More then 200 Dolphins have beached themselves on Manila Bay, Philippines
Ignoring a veto threat from the White House, the House passed legislation Thursday designed to protect communications networks from cyberattacks.
The vote was 248-168.
But even as the House bill moves forward, privacy concerns about granting government agencies access to personal information transmitted on the Internet could prove to be a major obstacle to any new cybersecurity law.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Michigan and a former FBI agent, said he spent the last year working on the bill because the national security risk to the United States posed by cyberattacks is one, “we are just not prepared to handle.”
“We needed to stop the Chinese government from stealing our stuff. We needed to stop the Russians from what they’re doing to our networks and people’s personal information data and resources,” Rogers said on the House floor on Thursday. “We needed to prepare for countries like
Iran and North Korea so that they don’t do something catastrophic to our networks here in America and cause us real harm to real people.”
The House bill, called the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, was drafted by Rogers and the committee’s top Democrat, Maryland Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger. It sets up a voluntary system for private companies to share information about any threats or attacks on their networks with U.S. national security agencies. It also gives some liability protections to those companies in return for cooperating with the government.
While the Obama administration and many congressional Democrats agree the United States needs to respond to cyberthreats, they and many outside civil liberties advocates say the House bill fails to sufficiently guard personal information. They worry the new rules allowing Internet companies to share information with the National Security Agency could give unfettered access by the intelligence community to data about any individual surfing the Web or sending e-mail.
In its statement opposing the bill and promising a veto, the administration on Wednesday said, “Cybersecurity and privacy are not mutually exclusive.”
In a reference to the George Orwell book that described a society in which government was eavesdropping on its citizens, Rep Hank Johnson, D-Georgia, said during Thursday’s debate, “I know it’s 2012 but it still feels like 1984 in the House today.”
But House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, argued the administration’s insistence on specific standards and broader limitations on how much personal information can be shared goes too far.
“The White House believes the government ought to control the Internet; the government ought to set standards and the government ought to take care of everything that’s needed for cybersecurity. They’re in a camp all by themselves,” Boehner said
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Cyber Information and Security Protection Act late Thursday despite concerns over user privacy, the specter of SOPA/PIPA, and a veto threat from the Obama administration. The idea behind CISPA is to empower the government and corporations to work together to better protect American infrastructure from foreign attacks. But many civil liberties groups say the bill is too broad and threatens user privacy.
The Center for Democracy and Technology said it is “disappointed that CISPA passed the House in such flawed form.” And the Electronic Frontier Foundation condemned the vote, saying it “would allow companies to bypass all existing privacy law to spy on communications and pass sensitive user data to the government.”
There’s little doubt that online security is a serious issue for large corporations. Recent reports of online security breaches have involved such high-profile targets as Google, security firm RSA, Verisign, and credit card processing company Global Payments. But whether CISPA is the right legislation to tackle those concerns is hotly debated.
So what is CISPA? Should you be concerned about this legislation? Here’s what you need to know.
What Does CISPA Do?
CISPA allows the government to share classified information about security threats with select American companies. These corporations can then use that information to better protect their infrastructure such as computer networks containing intellectual property and trade secrets. The bill also allows corporations to share information relating to cyber security with the authorities and protects those companies against privacy lawsuits. Critics say an Internet Service Provider would be free to share a customer’s private communications such as e-mail and instant messages without a court order if the information related to a cyber security concern.
CISPA allows this information to be used not only to protect against cyber attacks, but also to protect individuals from bodily harm, protect children from sexual exploitation, and for general American national security.
CISPA would shield companies from privacy-related lawsuits brought by customers. And corporations could share information relating to cyber security with each other without fear of the government bringing an antitrust suit against them.
The biggest privacy problem with Facebook isn’t Facebook itself, it’s Facebook’s apps. There are more than 500,000 games, puzzles, quizzes and other time wasters in the Facebook platform, many of which exist for the sole purpose of sucking data out of your account. Worse, these apps not only can access your information, they can also grab data from your friends’ profiles, depending on their privacy settings. Thank you, obnoxious Farmville fans.
Now you can take matters into your own hands and find out who the real data vampires are. PrivacyScore from PrivacyChoice is a Chrome plug in that rates how each app deals with your data on a scale from 0 to 100. It can also do the same for Web sites. You can view these scores on the Web, on Facebook or, if you’ve installed the Chrome extension, by clicking the PS icon in the browser bar when you install an app.
Nine months after Patty Silva-Hicks tore out her front lawn to plant fruit trees and produce, she shows us how her garden grows. She’s eating her yard (cherries, plums, avocado and chard), but it’s also surprisingly attractive with touches like lettuce and pepper hedgerows. Original story from 2009: http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/swapping-lawn-for-fruit-because-you-cant…
Chhut Vuthy, president of the Natural Resource Conservation Group.
A prominent Cambodian activist was fatally shot in a remote forest Thursday while documenting illegal logging in a clash that also killed a military police officer, authorities said.
Chhut Vuthy, president of the Natural Resource Conservation Group, was escorting two female reporters from a Cambodian newspaper when a dispute erupted, said Kheng Tito, spokesman for the national military police.
“There was a shooting incident when there was a clash between military police on duty to protect the forest and an environmental team, leading to the deaths of activist Chhut Vuthy and a military police official,” he told AFP.
Vuthy, 43, and one military police officer received gun shot wounds in the incident in a forest in southwestern Koh Kong province and died shortly afterwards in hospital.
Koh Kong provincial military police chief, Thong Narong, confirmed the deaths but details of the incident remain unclear and officials were unable to say how the dispute escalated and who had fired the shots.
Vuthy, who received military police training, was known to carry arms, activists told AFP.
Kheng Tito said the two reporters from the English-language Cambodia Daily, one Cambodian and one Ukrainian, would be questioned.
Kevin Doyle, the paper’s editor-in-chief, confirmed to AFP that both women were unharmed but said he was unable to give further details of the incident at this stage.
A military police source in the province said the row appeared to have erupted when the officer tried to confiscate a camera memory stick from the team.
“Vuthy was a long-time activist on forestry issues,” said Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights. “He was a very brave man.”
Land disputes, including forced evictions and protests against illegal logging, have been on the rise in recent years in Cambodia and have become increasingly violent although they rarely result in deaths.
Over the last six months local human rights group Licadho documented five shooting incidents involving land activists, causing 19 injuries, though the last death was in April 2010.
Environmental groups and human rights campaigners have long accused the Cambodian government of selling off land to the highest bidder.
On May Day, Expect Scores of Rallies, Marches, Creative Actions
A strike, if it actually happens on May 1 or thereafter, may not look like one ever has before.
Photo Credit: occupymay1st.org
An Occupy Wall Street organizer I know — one of the original ones, from the planning meetings before the occupation began last September 17 — has a striking banner atop his Facebook Timeline. It’s from the History Channel series Life After People, an artist’s rendition of a cityscape after which all the humans in it somehow disappear. It’s quiet, and still, with trees growing out from the sides of crumbling towers.
To say that this image has anything to do with the movement’s plans for May 1, which the person who posted it is involved in making, might cause both paranoid-style right-wing radio hosts and the most anarcho- of primitivists to froth a bit at the mouth. And so they should. Ever since the idea of working toward May Day started catching on in Occupy Wall Street last January, it has been infused with the impulse of creating the vision of a radically different kind of city.
The visionary impulse, however, has also mixed with things more mundane. Over the course of the May Day planning process in New York, in at least two meetings each week, OWS organizers have been patiently patching together an historic joint rally and march with labor unions, immigrants’ rights groups and community organizations, many of which were invited to participate in the planning process since the beginning.
[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.]
EMSC Hokkaido, Japan Region
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USGS Hokkaido, Japan Region
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EMSC Georgia (sak’art’velo)
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USGS Central California
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EMSC Oaxaca, Mexico
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USGS Oaxaca, Mexico
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EMSC Western Iran
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EMSC Eastern Turkey
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USGS Southern Alaska
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6.2-magnitude quake hits Papua New Guinea: USGS
SYDNEY: A 6.2-magnitude quake struck off Papua New Guinea early Saturday, the US Geological Survey said, but there were no immediate reports of damage and no tsunami warning was issued.
The quake hit at 02:15 am (16:15 GMT) 150 kilometres (93 miles) east of Rabaul, in Papua New Guinea’s East New Britain province and 885 kilometres northeast of the capital Port Moresby at a depth of 85 kilometres.
FAIRBANKS, Alaska – Alaska’s Cleveland volcano in the Aleutian Islands is continuing to erupt.
The Alaska Volcano Observatory said Friday that low-level eruptions continue to occur inside the volcano located on a remote, uninhabited island 940 miles southwest of Anchorage.
The volcano’s lava dome in the summit crater was destroyed during a short explosive eruption on Wednesday. The resulting ash cloud reached about 15,000 feet above sea level.
It was the third lava dome that has been destroyed by explosive events since the eruptions began in July 2011.
On the Tuesday broadcast of “CNN Newsroom,” CNN meteorologist Alexandra Steele declared that tornadoes plowing through the Dallas-Fort Worth area were brought on by climate change.
Steele, formerly of The Weather Channel, also predicted that more extreme weather is on its way.
“It really is [such a strange spring],” Steele said. “That’s kind of the climate change we are seeing. You know, extremes are kind of ruling the roost and really what we are seeing, more become the norm.”
“CNN Newsroom” host Carol Costello said it made her “afraid” about what is in store for next spring.
“It might be unnaturally cold,” said Costello. Steele agreed that future weather would be less predictable.
“This global warming is really kind of a misnomer,” Steele said. “It’s global climate change. So the colds are colder and warms are warmer and severe is more severe.
At least 14 people died overnight into Thursday in Argentina following storms that saw strong winds cause damage across the capital region.
“Seven people died — six were crushed and one was electrocuted,” near Buenos Aires, local emergency coordinator Luciano Timerman told reporters.
Police also said three other people died in a neighborhood to the south of Buenos Aires when an illegally built home collapsed.
In the capital, a man died when the walls of his home collapsed, authorities also said in an initial report.
They later reported the death of another man crushed by the wall of a gas station abandoned in Florencio Varela to the south of Buenos Aires. A woman was killed after another wall fell on her.
In central-eastern Santa Fe province, a high tension cable snapped by the high winds killed a man, Timerman said.
Fukushima Daiichi Site: Cesium-137 is 85 times greater than at Chernobyl Accident
….In recent times, more information about the spent fuel situation at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site has become known. It is my understanding that of the 1,532 spent fuel assemblies in reactor No. 304 assemblies are fresh and unirradiated. This then leaves 1,231 irradiated spent fuel rods in pool No. 4, which contain roughly 37 million curies (~1.4E+18 Becquerel) of long-lived radioactivity. The No. 4 pool is about 100 feet above ground, is structurally damaged and is exposed to the open elements. If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cs-137 released by the Chernobyl accident.
The infrastructure to safely remove this material was destroyed as it was at the other three reactors. Spent reactor fuel cannot be simply lifted into the air by a crane as if it were routine cargo. In order to prevent severe radiation exposures, fires and possible explosions, it must be transferred at all times in water and heavily shielded structures into dry casks.. As this has never been done before, the removal of the spent fuel from the pools at the damaged Fukushima-Dai-Ichi reactors will require a major and time-consuming re-construction effort and will be charting in unknown waters. Despite the enormous destruction cased at the Da–Ichi site, dry casks holding a smaller amount of spent fuel appear to be unscathed.
Based on U.S. Energy Department data, assuming a total of 11,138 spent fuel assemblies are being stored at the Dai-Ichi site, nearly all, which is in pools. They contain roughly 336 million curies (~1.2 E+19 Bq) of long-lived radioactivity. About 134 million curies is Cesium-137 — roughly 85 times the amount of Cs-137 released at the Chernobyl accident as estimated by the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection (NCRP). The total spent reactor fuel inventory at the Fukushima-Daichi site contains nearly half of the total amount of Cs-137 estimated by the NCRP to have been released by all atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, Chernobyl, and world-wide reprocessing plants (~270 million curies or ~9.9 E+18 Becquerel).
It is important for the public to understand that reactors that have been operating for decades, such as those at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site have generated some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet…..
“SAN ANTONIO – We’ve received a bunch of phone calls Monday about a ball of fire in the sky.
John Haley says that’s exactly what it looked like.
“It was like a fireball falling right out of the sky,” Haley told News 4 WOAI. “It was so bright! It was like a little piece of the sun falling with a big torch behind it.”
I spoke to our astronomer expert Bob Kelley with the Scobee Planetarium, and he explained that it was a phenomenon called “April Fireballs.”
Chunks of meteors enter and burn up in our atmosphere. The fireballs are brighter than a shooting star and can happen at any time of the day. For reasons astronomers don’t fully understand, they occur in early April.
San Antonians weren’t the only ones who saw the April Fireball Monday morning. Sightings were reported in New Braunfels, Kerrville, Floresville and other cities nearby.
“I can chalk that up on the old bucket list — I saw a meteorite during the day,” laughed Haley.”
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured imagery of a Red Planet dust devil on March 14, 2012. Different from a tornado, this phenomena sometimes occurs on clear days when the heated surface interacts with pockets of cool air above it.
Mexican plan for Gulf deepwater wells sparks new worries
Tim Johnson
MEXICO CITY — Two years after the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, Mexico’s state oil company is about to test its hand at drilling at extraordinary depths in the Gulf of Mexico.
If all goes as planned, Petroleos de Mexico, known as Pemex, will deploy two state-of-the-art drilling platforms in May to an area just south of the maritime boundary with the United States. One rig will sink a well in 9,514 feet of water, while another will drill in 8,316 feet of water, then deeper into the substrata.
Pemex has no experience drilling at such depths. Mexico’s oil regulator is sounding alarm bells, saying the huge state oil concern is unprepared for a serious deepwater accident or spill. Critics say the company has sharply cut corners on insurance, remiss over potential sky-high liability.
Mexico’s plans come two years after the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, the worst oil spill in U.S. history. On April 20, 2010, a semi-submersible rig that the British oil firm BP had contracted to drill a well known as Macondo exploded off the Louisiana coast, killing 11 workers and spewing 4.9 million barrels of oil in the nearly three months it took engineers to stop the spill.
BP has said the tab for the spill — including government fines, cleanup costs and compensation — could climb to $42 billion for the company and its contractors.
Pemex’s plans to sink even deeper offshore wells underscore Mexico’s pressing need to maintain sagging oil production — exports pay for one-third of government operating expenses — along with oil companies’ desire to leverage technology and drill at ever more challenging depths.
Carlos A. Morales, the chief of the Pemex exploration and production arm, which employs 50,000 people, voiced confidence that his company has to the ability to sink wells in ultra-deep water.
“Pemex is ready to undertake the challenge and to do it safely,” Morales said in an interview in his 41st-floor office at Pemex headquarters in this capital city.
“You have to bear one thing in mind,” he said. “Pemex is the biggest operator in the Gulf — including everyone — both in production and in the number of rigs we operate. We are operating more than 80 rigs offshore.”
Drug-Resistant Malaria Is Spreading, and It Could Be a Public Health Disaster
Artemisinin-resistant malaria parasites first emerged in Cambodia in 2006. Now researchers say the deadly bugs are quickly spreading.
Malaria remains one of the world’s great unnecessary killers. More than 650,000 people succumb to the disease each year — that’s more than one per minute — mostly in the poor nations of sub-Saharan Africa, but as deadly as malaria is, it doesn’t have to kill. Prevention and better treatment can stop the progression of the disease, and death tends to be a matter of extreme poverty.
Indeed, in recent years great progress has been made in controlling malaria, with deaths down 30% over the past decade. That’s thanks largely to more effective treatment regimens that make use of artemisinin, a plant-derived antimalarial drug originally developed in China. Artemisinin is the closest thing we have to a miracle drug for malaria.
That’s what makes the results of two studies out this week in the Lancet and Science so disturbing. Health officials have known for a while that some malaria parasites in the Southeast Asian nation of Cambodia have begun to develop resistance to artemisinin, but they hoped the resistance wasn’t spreading. Now researchers in the region have shown that artemisinin is becoming dramatically less potent in malaria cases in western Thailand, and they know it’s due to growing drug resistance in the malaria parasites themselves. If resistance to artemisinin were to spread to sub-Saharan Africa, the result could be a “public health disaster,” in the words of lead Lancet author Standwell Nkhoma of the Texas Biomedical Research Institute.
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The winner of the Republican presidential primary will have more than $20 million waiting for him once he clinches the nomination.
The Republican National Committee said Thursday that it has fully funded its Presidential Trust, a fund that the GOP can use to coordinate directly with its nominee. Federal Election Commission rules for 2012 set the cap for that fund at $21.6 million.
The full kitty may be a sigh of relief to the GOP candidates, who are likely to have drained most of their own resources by the time one of them locks up the nomination. Already the campaigns are showing signs of financial stress, with many big-dollar donors maxed out for the primary.
A Cashless Society May Be Closer Than Most People Would Ever Dare To Imagine
Most people think of a cashless society as something that is way off in the distant future. Unfortunately, that is simply not the case. The truth is that a cashless society is much closer than most people would ever dare to imagine. To a large degree, the transition to a cashless society is being done voluntarily. Today, only 7 percent of all transactions in the United States are done with cash, and most of those transactions involve very small amounts of money. Just think about it for a moment. Where do you still use cash these days? If you buy a burger or if you purchase something at a flea market you will still use cash, but for any mid-size or large transaction the vast majority of people out there will use another form of payment. Our financial system is dramatically changing, and cash is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. We live in a digital world, and national governments and big banks are both encouraging the move away from paper currency and coins. But what would a cashless society mean for our future? Are there any dangers to such a system?
Is the U.S. economy going to be okay? Well, if the only source you listened to was the mainstream media, you would be left with the distinct impression that the U.S. economy is heading toward a full recovery and that everything is going to be alright. Unfortunately, that is not the case at all. The United States is rapidly becoming poorer as a nation and less competitive in the global marketplace. At the same time, consumer debt levels are rising, corporate debt levels are rising, state and local government debt levels are rising and the U.S. government is indulging in a debt binge unlike anything the world has ever seen. Considering the insane amount of money the U.S. government has been pumping into the economy, we should have seen a much more robust recovery by now. Instead, the employment statistics have barely moved and government dependence is at an all-time high. That is really sad, because this is as good as “the recovery” is going to get. The next major economic downturn is just around the bend, and in future years millions of us will desperately yearn for the “good old days” of 2012.
US assassination drone kills four people in northwest Pakistan
A non-UN-sanctioned US assassination drone strike has killed at least four people in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border, security officials say.
The US drone raid targeted a house in a market area of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, early Friday, according to the officials.
An intelligence official also said the attack left four people dead and two injured.
Washington has increasingly turned to unmanned aircraft to carry out strikes in several countries, including Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.
On January 31, President Barack Obama confirmed that the United States used the unmanned drones in Pakistan and other countries.
Total: “may be months” to stop North Sea gas cloud
Oleg Vukmanovic, Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) – A cloud of explosive natural gas boiling up from the North Sea out of a leak at Total’s evacuated Elgin platform forced another shutdown off the Scottish coast on Tuesday as the French firm warned it could take six months to halt the flow.
Dubbed “the well from hell” by an environmentalist who said the unusually high pressure of the undersea reservoirs made it especially hard to shut off, the loss of oil and gas output from Elgin – as well as the prospect of a big repair bill – helped drive Total’s share price down six percent on the Paris bourse.
As Shell pulled its bigger Shearwater facility offline too and an air and sea exclusion zone was declared around the forlorn Elgin rig, 150 miles east of Aberdeen, green campaigners denounced dangers in the technically challenging deep drilling that energy companies have undertaken around the globe to exploit the high prices created by insatiable demand.
The Elgin well, pumping some three percent of Britain’s gas output from nearly four miles below the seabed, pushes the frontiers of technology and is one of the deepest, most highly pressurized, offshore natural gas fields in the world. It now sits empty following Sunday’s emergency evacuation of 238 crew.
Total, which said the rupture of an unused reservoir above the main production source seemed to have been caused by its own engineers, is now looking at two main options to cut off the shimmering plume of gas rising above the sea: either drilling a relief well nearby, which could take six months, or – faster but possibly riskier – sending in engineers to “kill” the leak.
European bloodlines face end-time vortex of exposure
Europe’s royal élites are fragmenting over their Nazi-continuum connections with the Committee of 300
On Monday 20th February 2012, confirmatory intelligence emerged from Japan (here) that, below the surface, a widening rift in geopolitical loyalties is developing between the older and younger members of the British Royal Family bloodlines. This rift is understood to be developing and extending through most of the European Illuminati hereditary control-structures, not just in the UK, but also in countries such as The Netherlands, Spain and Sweden.
What is being referred to as the Gnostic Illuminati power group has issued a 31st March 2012 deadline to the Western banking cartel’s Committee of 300, to cease and desist in its Nazi-continuum (Odessa Group) agenda of financial theft and international exploitation.
The Committee of 300 agenda is being implemented through artificially constructed financial instruments and money laundries, and through wars, invasions and state-sponsored terrorist atrocities such as the post-WW2 conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, and the false-flag attacks of 911….
The great Easter get nowhere: RAC warns that petrol panic buying risks millions of drivers not being able to fill their tanks for holiday break
……The Petrol Retailers Association said today it was waiting for ‘practical and well-considered’ leadership from the Government during the growing fuel crisis.
‘The Government has ordered the Army to train drivers to maintain fuel deliveries and, whilst this is potentially welcome, it has been proposed without any prior consultation with industry. Just 300 Army drivers cannot possibly replace 2,000 striking civilian drivers,’ said a statement.
Shadow chancellor Ed Balls accused Prime Minister David Cameron of playing ‘schoolboy political games’ in stoking up panic over fuel to try to distract attention from his troubles with Budget tax rises and the scandal over donations to the Tories.
Mr Balls told BBC Radio Leeds: ‘I do think that political games were played. I think the Prime Minister woke up on Monday morning and thought ”I’ve got the worst weekend I’ve had in Government”, because of the Tory donation scandal after a Budget which had been judged by the country to be deeply unfair, and he thought ”Why don’t I try to divert attention?”
‘So suddenly, out of the blue, we had Government ministers talking up a strike which wasn’t even called – there’s no date for this strike. When he should have been responsible, he decided to wind this up, he sent out his Cabinet minister to say ‘Fill up your jerrycans’ and we’ve ended up with these queues, even though there’s normal petrol deliveries, there’s no strike, there has to be seven days’ notice even if there was a strike.
‘It was a political invention, the panic of the last couple of days, and the nation and some people are paying a very, very heavy price for that. I think it’s backfired because I think people have generally seen that these are schoolboy political games being played by people who should be doing responsible jobs.’
The Department for Transport announced a temporary relaxation of the enforcement of EU hours and working-time rules for drivers of fuel tankers, running from today until April 5.
The daily driving limit of nine hours will be increased to 11, while daily rest requirements will be cut from 11 to nine hours.
The weekly driving limit of 56 hours and fortnightly limit of 90 hours will both be lifted.
The enforcement of working-time rules has also been relaxed for this period to allow drivers to work up to 66 hours instead of the usual 60-hour weekly maximum.
The AA said the ‘unnecessary and self-inflicted’ shortages were due to poor advice. It urged motorists to ignore suggestions to fill up their tanks.
One senior Tory said: ‘Francis Maude has completely mucked up this week. He is to blame for the gargantuan queues outside petrol stations.’
The Petrol Retailers Association said ministers had been ‘irresponsible’ and were at fault for the panic buying.
Rising sea levels threaten about a tenth of the world’s population who live in low-lying areas and islands which are at risk of flooding, including the Caribbean, Maldives and Asia-Pacific island groups
MessageToEagle.com – Between July 12-17, 2012, comet 96P/Machholz will be visible in the SOHO LASCO/C3 field of view and will brighten to about magnitude +2.
During the 2002 passage the comet brightened to magnitude -2,and was very impressive as seen by SOHO.
Comet 96P/Machholz/Apr. 20, 2012. Photo Credits: M. Masek, J. Cerny, J. Ebr, M. Prouza, P. Kubanek, M. Jelinek
The burning trail persisted in the sky for 20 minutes afterwards, say Perth residents, who assume that a meteorite left the flaming streak across the sky
MessageToEagle.com – We have previously seen that 
Is a meteor responsible for the red rain shower on July 5th?
Enlarge photo 
MessageToEagle.com – A brief look into the future.
Apophis (circled) in a composite of five exposures taken on January 31 with the University of Hawaii 2.2-meter telescope on Mauna Kea. The doughnut in the upper left corner is an artifact caused by a dust speck on the camera. Image by D. Tholen, M. Micheli, G. Elliott, IfA.
Timelapse of Asteroid 2004 FH’s flyby (NASA/JPL Public Domain) 2004 FH is the centre dot being followed by the sequence; the object that flashes by near the end is an artificial satellite. Images obtained by Stefano Sposetti, Switzerland on March 18, 2004. Animation made Raoul Behrend, Geneva Observatory, Switzerland. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) 
MessageToEagle.com -X-ray observations have revealed something curious about the young star that illuminates McNeil’s Nebula, a glowing jewel of cosmic dust in the Orion constellation:
During outbursts, the infant star illuminating the McNeil Nebula may brighten by 100 times at X-ray energies. In this rendering, magnetic fields drive powerful flows onto the star, creating two hot spots that produce the high-energy emission. Photo Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
BRz composite V1647 Ori (Fedele et al., in prep.)
