EARTH WATCH:OMEN OF APOCALYPSE?
Death toll in U.S. rises to 113 from Hurricane Sandy: 2.7 million, across 15 states, still without powerPosted on November 4, 2012 November 4, 2012 – NEW YORK – Life was returning to normal in parts of New York and New Jersey, five days after Hurricane Sandy hit, but other areas were dark and isolated, authorities said. About 2.7 million customers in 15 states and the District of Columbia were without power Saturday, with at least some facing perhaps another week before it is restored, CNN reported. The U.S. death toll from Hurricane Sandy rose Saturday, reaching 113, the Los Angeles Times reported, up from 97 Friday. The newspaper said 48 of the deaths were in New York, followed by New Jersey with 24, Pennsylvania 14, Maryland 11, West Virginia seven and Connecticut four, North Carolina two, Virginia two and New Hampshire one. Residents of many beach towns on the South Shore of Long Island were waiting for power to be restored, and even for some sign someone was in charge, The New York Times reported. Vikki Quinn’s house in Long Beach was flooded and her possessions were piled in the yard. “I just keep waiting for someone with a megaphone and a car to just tell us what to do,” she told the Times. “I’m lost.” President Barack Obama convened a meeting of top emergency officials in Washington, with Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey, Andrew Cuomo of New York and Dannel Malloy of Connecticut joining by telephone. White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters members of the Cabinet reported on their meetings with local officials, first responders and citizens, and the president spoke individually during the meeting with the governors and local officials, asking whether there are “additional federal resources that could be brought to bear to meet some of the needs in their communities.” Earnest said the president also got a briefing from the National Weather Service on a storm forecast to reach the U.S. Northeast Wednesday. Forecasters said the system could come with high winds, substantial rainfall and perhaps cooler temperatures. Lights were back on Saturday in most of Manhattan. Subway trains began running between Manhattan and the Long Island boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens for the first time since the storm flooded the tunnels under the East River, the Times said. Cuomo said about 60 percent of those in New York who lost power had it back by Saturday. On Long Island, however, more than half of the 1.2 million homes and businesses affected by the storm were still in the dark. “We are getting through it,” Cuomo said at a news briefing. “The worst is behind us.” Gas remained in short supply. Cuomo said 8 million gallons had been delivered, with 28 million more expected from commercial sources and 12 million from the Defense Department. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and other top officials were to visit some of the worst-hit areas. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg Friday announced the opening of the first of several disaster assistance service centers that will provide information about applying for emergency social and economic benefits. All of the centers will be operated by the city’s Human Resources Administration in cooperation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and will be open seven days a week. As of Friday afternoon, more than 98,000 people in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut had registered for federal assistance and more than $40 million in aid has been approved, a statement by the Federal Emergency Management Agency said. New York City inspectors are posting color-coded placards on buildings and homes to warn people not to enter some buildings. –EquitiesPosted in Civilizations unraveling, Climate unraveling, Cloudburst storms with flashflooding, Cyclone or Hurricane,Deluge from torrential rains, Earth Changes, Earth Watch, Electric power disruption & grid failure, Extreme Weather Event, Gale-force winds and gusts, High-risk potential hazard zone, Infrastructure collapse, Strange high tides & freak waves, Time - Event Acceleration, Unprecedented Flooding | Leave a comment Alert levels raised on Philippines volcanoes Mayon and Taal after episode of volcanic quakesPosted on November 4, 2012
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November 4, 2012 – MANILA, Philippines - The Mayon and Taal volcanoes remain at alert level 1, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Center (NDRRMC) said on Sunday, November 4. In its 8 a.m. bulletin, NDRRMC said that the alert level remains raised in both volcanoes after volcanic earthquakes were observed during the past 24 hours. One volcanic eartquake was observed in Mayon, while 5 were observed in Taal. The alert level was first raised on both volcanoes on Thursday, November 1, after 5 volcanic earthquakes were recorded in Mayor and 2 were observed in Taal. Alert level 1 means that abnormal volcanic activities are observed, though a hazardous eruption is not imminent. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) is closely monitoring the activities in both volcanoes. The public is being advised to avoid the 6km radius Permanent Danger Zone on Mayon volcano, and to avoid the entire Taal volcano island. –
November 4, 2012 – CANADA – The recent West Coast earthquake appears to have shut off the water at the popular hot springs in Haida Gwaii’s national park, but there is hope they could reappear someday. After Saturday’s 7.7 magnitude earthquake, Parks Canada workers went to check the springs and found they had run dry, according to Barb Rowsell, who owns Anvil Cove Charters. “Three people went down to check it out, and sure enough there is no hot water and the rocks are dry and cold,” said Rowsell, who has been ferrying visitors to Hotspring Island for years. The popular natural attraction in Gwaii Haanas National Park has been a major tourist draw for decades. The park’s superintendent Ernie Gladstone said the springs were still steaming last week, but now, to his dismay, there is not even a puddle left. “We did have staff on site on Thursday before Saturday’s events, and now less than a week later the water’s not flowing so we have to assume it’s a result of Saturday’s earthquakes or one of the many aftershocks since then,” said Gladstone. It’s not yet clear why or when the springs dried up, but geological experts will be investigating what may have happened in the days to come, Gladstone said. Some locals on Haida Gwaii say the hot springs have disappeared in the past after an earthquake, only to reappear a couple of years later. UBC seismologist Michael Bostock said that once the underlying plates start grinding again, stresses in the fault line are likely to build up in the same locations. “When the earthquake struck last weekend, openings along the fault line changed and the fracture that resulted in hot springs was likely closed.” He said he can’t be certain the hot springs will return, but “it seems like a good bet, given the way that things have behaved in the past.” It was the largest quake recorded in Canada in 60 years and struck just off the coast of Haida Gwaii. Dozens of aftershocks as strong as 6.3 have since rattled the region. –
November 3, 2012 – COSTA RICA - Costa Ricans are on alert, which was declared by the National Committee of Emergency due to the seismic activity in the central region. The western province of Guanacaste and the Great Metropolitan Area are the most active regions and authorities are asking residents a continued vigilance. Although other movements must occur to catalog the situation, it is peculiar the succession of recent tremors in very short periods of time, said seismological network specialist of the University of Costa Rica, Lepold Linkimer. At this time, experts analyze the phenomenon to determine if is related to Aguas Calientes tectonic fault, which caused one of the country’s most destructive earthquakes in the past century, said prensalibre.cr. During the last hours, the fault that goes through Escazu municipality has originated seven earthquakes between 2.2 and 3.1 degrees on the Richter scale, said the organization. –
November 3, 2012 – INDONESIA – Volcanic activities on Mount Raung, located on the border of Banyuwangi and Jember, continued to rise on Monday. Hendra Gunawan, from the Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center’s (PVMBG) said that since 10 a.m. tremors have been increasing in the region with the length of more than 32 millimeters. “It’s an over-scale earthquake,” Hendra told reporters on Monday, October 29. In addition to the increasing tremors, the PVMBG has also received reports from Mount Ijen monitoring office, which reported black smoke spewing out of Mount Raung reaching up to 100 meters high. However, Hendra has urged residents not to panic and wait for announcements of further monitoring from the PVMBG. “But we must remain vigilant,” said Hendra. –
November 3, 2012 – NEW YORK - Another messy - wintry – storm may cause post-Election Day problems for an already weather-weary East Coast, forecasters say. But meteorologists add that it’s six days out, so that’s rather early to get too worried. The forecast could change before it hits late next week. The National Weather Service’s forecast center in College Park, Md., which watches winter storms, put out a long-range notice Thursday saying a nor’easter was possible for mid-Atlantic and New England states by Election Day through next Thursday. Forecaster Bruce Sullivan said it wouldn’t be as bad as Superstorm Sandy and isn’t tropical. But it could include snow in interior New England and New York, beach erosion and high winds for areas hit by Sandy and moderate or heavier rainfall. Winds could be about 30 to 40 mph. “I wouldn’t get too alarmed yet,” Sullivan said. “But it’s something we’re going to be watching over the next few days and fine-tuning. Anything that could hamper clean-up efforts is something that could be watched.” Meanwhile, widespread power outages and subway shutdowns may wind up making Sandy the second most expensive storm in U.S. history, according to the forecasting firm Eqecat. That would rank it right behind Hurricane Katrina. In 16 states and Washington, D.C., 52,000 homeowners have filed insurance claims, including nearly 10,000 in New Jersey, CBS News reports. The same European computer model that first noticed and correctly called Sandy a week in advance has forecast this potential nor’easter to come along the East Coast and then hit, Sullivan said. Another computer model also said the same thing, but then lessened that chance, he said. Unlike Sandy, this doesn’t have a tropical component. This would be a normal wet storm coming through land in the Southeast U.S. and going into the water, combining with cold air coming south from the Great Lakes and then curving back into the mid-Atlantic, Sullivan said. The same high pressure system that blocked then-Hurricane Sandy from heading north and east out to sea like most tropical systems is likely to be part of the steering system that would take this storm inland to the same area Sandy struck, said Jeff Masters, meteorology director for the private service Weather Underground. The fact that it’s six days out means “there’s room for optimism,” Masters said, but he added: “From what I’m Iooking at, there’s a concern.” Eqecat said Thursday that the damage from Sandy will likely be far worse than it previously predicted, largely a result of the storm hitting the most densely populated area in the country. The firm doubled its previous estimate for the total bill and now says Sandy may have caused between $30 billion and $50 billion in economic losses, including property damage, lost business and extra living expenses. The cost to insurance companies could run as low as $10 billion and as high as $20 billion. –
November 2, 2012 – NEW YORK - The residents of Staten Island are pleading for help from elected officials, begging for gasoline, food, and clothing three days after Sandy slammed the New York City borough. “We’re going to die! We’re going to freeze! We got 90-year-old people!” Donna Solli told visiting officials. “You don’t understand. You gotta get your trucks down here on the corner now. It’s been three days!” Staten Island was one of the hardest-hit communities in New York City. More than 80,000 residents are still without power. Many are homeless, and at least 19 people died on Staten Island because of the storm. One of the devastated neighborhoods was overwhelmed by a violent surge of water. Residents described a super-sized wave as high as 20 feet, with water rushing into the streets like rapids. Staten Island resident Mike Abuzzio’s home is completely gone, with only his floor boards remaining. He, his wife and their two young daughters have been staying with relatives. “My youngest daughter yesterday said, ‘Daddy, I want to go,’” Abuzzio told ABC News. “I told her, ‘It’s going to be awhile, hon.’ She doesn’t understand. She’s 6.” In the rubble that was once his home, Abuzzio found one clean, intact plate of Christmas china. He said that plate will be special at Christmastime and will be used specifically for his mother’s cookies. For 48 hours after the storm, search teams were hunting for two Staten Island brothers, just 2- and 4-years-old. They were swept out of their mother’s arms when waves caused by storm surges crashed into the family’s SUV. Their small bodies were found today at the end of a dead-end street. Their parents were at the scene where the bodies were discovered. Staten Island officials sounded increasingly desperate today, asking when supplies will arrive. They blasted the Red Cross for not being there when it counted. “This is America, not a third world nation. We need food, we need clothing,” Staten Island Borough President Jim Molinaro said today. “My advice to the people of Staten Island is: Don’t donate the American Red Cross. Put their money elsewhere.” The Red Cross and the National Guard arrived in the area late Tuesday and are distributing food, water and gas – and city officials say things are much better. Molinaro urged New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg Wednesday to cancel Sunday’s New York City Marathon. The race’s staging area is on Staten Island and Molinaro said it would be “crazy, asinine,” to have the race after what has happened. “My God. What we have here is terrible, a disaster,” Molinaro said Wednesday. “If they want to race, let them race with themselves. This is no time for a parade. A marathon is a parade. Now is the time to put your shoulder to the wheel. If they want to prepare for something, let them prepare for the election, not a marathon. Do you realize how many police officers you need for a marathon?” he asked. “There are people looting stores on Midland Avenue. There is looting taking place in the homes on the South Shore that were destroyed. That is where we need the police.” –
November 1, 2012 – CHINA – An earthquake measuring 3.2 on the Richter scale hit a central China region where the world’s biggest water reservoir the Three Gorges Dam is located, though no harm to the structure was reported. The tremor hit Zigui County of Yichang City in Hubei Province at 3:42 am and its epicentre was located at five km below ground, according to the China Earthquake Networks Center. No casualties were reported though the earthquake was felt across Zigui, state-run Xinhua news agency said. “The minor earthquake has not affected the Three Gorges Dam, which can endure far stronger earthquakes,” Hu Xing’e, vice head of the management bureau of the project with the China Three Gorges Corporation said. She said that no earthquake-triggered landslides have been reported in the reservoir area and all power generating units and ship locks are working normally. The dam, the world’s largest water control and hydropower project which spans the Yangtze River, China’s longest waterway, was unaffected by the 8.0-magnitude earthquake that hit the country’s southwestern Sichuan Province in 2008. On Tuesday, the water level of the hydropower project reached its designed full capacity of 175 metres in a storage test that allow experts to observe, research and validate the dam’s original design and to test its hydropower turbo-generators. The test marked the third round of the full-capacity storage test conducted since 2010. “Wednesday’s earthquake was a shallow-focus earthquake rather than a structural one,” said Zhang Shuguang, head of the project’s management bureau. “It was not very destructive.” Zhang said the earthquake could have been triggered by water pouring into caves or the excavation of coal mine shafts in the region. Since the dam started to hold water in 2003, about 19,000 earthquakes, most of which have been slight or ultra-slight, have been reported in the reservoir region, according Niu Xinqiang, head of the Yangtze River Institute of Survey, Planning and Design. “No structural earthquake has been reported,” he said. “The frequency of earthquakes and landslides in this region has been lessening over the past years,” he said. However, critics of the dam allege that most of the tremors were caused by the weight of the mammoth water storage. –
November 1, 2012 – UGANDA – As of the end of October, 18 cases and nine deaths have been reported as a result of Marburg hemorrhagic fever outbreak, according to WHO. The outbreak began in mid-October, and cases have been reported from five districts in southwestern Uganda, Kampala, Ibanda, Mbarara and Kabarole, with a case fatality rate of 50%. Blood samples from nine patients have been confirmed for Marburg virus at the Uganda Virus Research Institute. Currently, 13 patients have been admitted to the hospital, and their contacts are listed for daily follow-up. The latest confirmed case was admitted to an Ibanda district isolation ward on Oct. 26. The WHO and international partners, including the CDC, the Uganda Red Cross, African Field Epidemiology Network and Médecins-Sans-Frontières, are supporting the national authorities in outbreak investigation and response. The national task force has identified additional health care workers and epidemiologists to strengthen the teams in the field. Training of health workers on infection prevention and control, surveillance and clinical case management is ongoing, and the first shipment of personal protective equipment arrived recently. WHO and its partners have deployed additional staff to support the response teams. As the investigation into the outbreak continues, WHO and partners continue to support the national authorities as needed in the areas of coordination, infection prevention and control, surveillance, epidemiology, public information and social mobilization, anthropological analysis and logistics for outbreak response. Neighboring countries have been contacted to strengthen cross-border surveillance and preparedness to prevent cross border spread of the outbreak. In September, Uganda suffered an outbreak of Ebola. –
November 1, 2012 – CHENNAI, India – Fifteen sailors were today rescued and a search was on for six other missing crew who were on board an oil tanker that drifted and ran aground off the city coast in high velocity winds before the landfall of cyclone ‘Nilam.’ Around 6.30 AM, 15 people who were stranded on board the vessel were safely rescued by the Coast Guard, Chennai Port Trust officials told PTI. A search, involving the Navy and Coast Guard is on for the missing six persons, the officials said. The vessel ‘Pratibha Cauvery,’ with 37 crewmen on board, ran aground near Elliott’s Beach in South Chennai, about 200 metres away from the shore. One crew member drowned after a life boat carrying him and his 21 colleagues capsized in choppy waters while 15 others were rescued with the help of several agencies including Navy and local fishermen yesterday. The ship belonged to Mumbai-based Pratibha Shipping Company. Two persons were killed in Tamil Nadu as Nilam crossed the coast between Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh border yesterday without causing much damage. –
November 1, 2012 – ALASKA - There was volcanic ash in the air over the Shelikof Straight and parts of Kodiak Island yesterday. A person in Port Lions called KMXT to ask if a volcano had erupted, but the Alaska Volcano Observatory showed all was normal. However, it turned out that a volcano had erupted, though it wasn’t yesterday – it was almost exactly 100 years ago. The National Weather Service office in Anchorage reported that ash from the Novarupta explosion in 1912 was being whipped up by strong northerly winds because of a lack of snow cover in the Valley of 10,000 Smokes and Katmai National Park on the Alaska Peninsula. The ash was lifted to about 4,000 feet and drifted over the Shelikof Straight and Kodiak Island. It was a significant enough amount that the weather service issued a warning to pilots, as volcanic ash can damage airplane engines. Known as the Katmai Eruption, the 1912 explosion came from a volcanic vent later named Novarupta. It was the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th Century and ash fell on Kodiak for three days. –
November 1, 2012 – KENTUCKY - People who live and work within 1.2 miles of Monday’s train derailment site in southwest Jefferson County and the entire Hardin County community of West Point were ordered to evacuate Wednesday afternoon after a fire injured five contractors working on a derailed train car containing a highly flammable chemical. Officials with Louisville Metro Emergency Management Agency said one of the contractors was in very critical condition, a second contractor was in critical condition and a third contractor was in serious condition. Two others refused treatment at the scene. An EMA official said the contractors were using a blowtorch to try to separate a derailed car containing butadiene from another car when chemical vapors accidentally ignited. “The workers that are here are highly trained, and this is one of those accidents that occur, unfortunately,” he said. The EMA official said crews were confident the fire would remain contained to one rail car. They were hopeful the fire would be out by 6 p.m. Crews said the safest way to approach the fire was to let it burn itself out. Emergency crews said 1,800 gallons of water were flowing on the insulated, double-walled tanker car to keep the situation in check. As a precaution, adjacent cares were also being cooled. In addition to the evacuations that were ordered, a “shelter in place” warning was issued for people within five-miles of the derailment. Shelter in place means to close all windows and doors, bring pets inside and turn off HVAC systems. A Code Red alert was sent to residents in the shelter in place zone. The Red Cross set up the following two shelters for evacuees. –
November 1, 2012 – LONDON — Unemployment in the 17-country eurozone hit a record high of 11.6 per cent in September, official figures showed Wednesday, a sign the economy is deteriorating, as governments struggle to get a grip on their three-year debt crisis. The rate reported by Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, was up from an upwardly revised 11.5 per cent in August. In total, 18.49 million people were out of work in the eurozone in September, up 146,000 from the previous month, the biggest increase in three months. While the eurozone’s unemployment rate has been rising steadily for the past year as the economy struggled with a financial crisis and government spending cuts, the United States has seen its equivalent rate fall to 7.8 per cent. The latest U.S. figures are due this Friday. With the eurozone economy fading, most economists think unemployment will keep increasing over the coming months and that the deteriorating economic picture will soon spook investors again after a brief hiatus. “Financial markets have calmed somewhat, but we expect that the deteriorating economy will soon enough lead to more crisis headlines,” said Tim Ohlenburg, senior economist at the Centre for Economics and Business Research in London. Five countries in the eurozone are already in recession — Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Cyprus — and others are expected to join them soon. The region as a whole is expected to be confirmed to be in recession when the first estimate of eurozone economic activity in the third quarter is published mid-November — a recession is officially confirmed after two consecutive quarters of negative growth. “With surveys suggesting that firms are becoming more reluctant to hire, the eurozone unemployment rate looks set to rise further, placing more pressure on struggling households,” said Ben May, European economist at Capital Economics in London. Recession and unemployment make it more difficult for the eurozone to deal with its debt problem — governments need to pay more benefits to the jobless and receive less tax revenue. That could push countries to take even more austerity measures, which in turn weighs on economic activity. Once again, Spain held the ignominious position of having the highest unemployment rate in the eurozone, at 25.8 per cent. Greece may yet surpass that — its unemployment rate mushroomed to 25.1 per cent in July, the latest available figure, and is due to increase in the face of what many economists are calling an economic depression. The country is forecast to enter its sixth year of recession next year. Both countries, which are at the heart of Europe’s three-year debt crisis, have youth unemployment above 50 per cent. That risks creating a lost generation of workers and is straining the countries’ social fabric. Extremist political groups in Greece and regional separatist parties in Spain have grown in popularity as the economy worsened. Concern over the social impact of unemployment has also weakened governments and hobbled political decision-making. In Greece, the three parties in the coalition government have tried for months to agree on an austerity package that is necessary for the release of bailout loans to prevent the country’s bankruptcy. –
September 17, 2012 – JAPAN - The US and Japan have agreed to set up a second missile defense system on Japanese soil in an effort to counter the ballistic missile threat from North Korea, officials say. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made the announcement in Tokyo with Japan’s defense minister. But the exact location of the system has not yet been determined. While both sides insist the system is not aimed at China, analysts say the decision is bound to anger Beijing. Mr. Panetta’s trip comes amid fresh tensions between Japan and China over disputed islands known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan, after Japan sealed a deal to buy three of the islands. Japan and the US have worked on a joint missile defense system over the years. This new system would enable Japanese ships to cover other parts of the region, officials say. “It will enhance the alliance’s ability to defend Japan, our forward deployed forces and the US homeland from a ballistic missile threat posed by North Korea,” Mr. Panetta said. In April, North Korea conducted a failed long-range rocket launch that it said was an attempt to put a satellite into orbit. Critics said the launch was a disguised test of missile technology, banned under UN resolutions. Mr. Panetta also discussed with Japanese Defense Minister Satoshi Morimoto the deployment of US Osprey aircraft to Okinawa, which has angered local residents concerned about safety. Mr. Panetta is on a week-long tour of Asia that includes China and New Zealand. –
September 17, 2012 – TERNATE, Indonesia – Mount Gamalama in Ternate, North Maluku, spewed out volcanic ash on Sunday, showering some parts of the provincial capital that is currently hosting an international sailing event: Sail Morotai 2012. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage. However, guests of Corner Palace Hotel panicked when a rain of ash fell for about 15 minutes. State volcanologist Kristianto says Mount Gamalama in the Molucca Islands sprang to life last week. It unleashed two strong eruptions over the weekend, sending volcanic ash as high as 1 kilometer (0.62 miles). Kristianto, who uses only one name, says slow-moving red lava was visible at the peak of the eruption Monday. Matut, 48, a local resident, said ask also rained down on Saturday night at 11 p.m. until the small hours of Sunday morning, Antara news agency reported. Volcanic ash mostly blanketed the eastern and southern parts of Ternate, the capital of North Maluku province. Villages have been blanketed with thick ash but no evacuations have been ordered. Gamalama last erupted late last year, and its mudflows killed four villagers two weeks later. Indonesia is a vast archipelago with millions of people living on mountains or near fertile flood plains. Seasonal downpours here often cause landslides. –
September 17, 2012 – CANARY ISLANDS – Volcanic activity on Spain’s El Hierro Island has resumed far below the Earth’s surface in a similar manner to last July, albeit slightly stronger, the director of the National Geographic Institute, or IGN, in the Canary Islands, Maria Jose Blanco, told Efe on Sunday. Blanco said that a peak of seismic activity is under way, a continuation of the volcanic process – a shifting of magma many kilometers (miles) underground – that began in July 2011 which, although the main activity ended at the time with an undersea eruption, that did not mean that the overall activity had come to a definitive conclusion. The IGN official said that at present it is not expected that the seismic movements that have been registered – which have occurred at depths of some 20 kilometers (about 12.5 miles) – exceed 3.2 on the Richter scale, a fairly low level. Blanco could not specify how long this new round of activity would last, although she did say that seismic peaks like the current one would, in all likelihood, continue to occur. Therefore, she said, the IGN is studying the idea of convening the scientific committee of the Civil Protection Plan for Volcanic Risk in the Canaries after this reactivation in the depths of the El Hierro volcano, where over the past three days more than 330 minor seismic movements have been registered. Officials with the regional government of the Canaries told Efe that experts had verified “an acceleration of released seismic energy accompanied by deformations” in underground structures. For the present, the largest movement registered so far was the one measured at 3.2 on the Richter scale, which was felt on Saturday for some 13 hours and 15 minutes by the residents of the municipality of El Pinar, according to IGN data.
Iran and N. Korea in one trench against common foe: Iran and North Korea have signed an agreement to collaborate in the fields of science and technology, showing that nearly a decade of US efforts to isolate the two states internationally might have actually pushed them closer together. Iranian state television said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and North Korea’s nominal head of state Kim Yong Nam were both present in Tehran for the signing of the agreement on Saturday. The two states will cooperate in biotechnology, engineering, renewable energy, sustainable development, research, joint laboratories and the environment, and facilitate more student exchanges, Reuters cites Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) as saying. On the same day, Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi called for the strengthening of economic ties between the two states, the agency cites Iranian state TV as reporting. North’s Korea’s No. 2 was in Tehran along with 119 other world leaders for the 16th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement. The summit, whose agenda included nuclear disarmament, human rights and the Syrian conflict, is one of the few multilateral forums in which Pyongyang participates. It had previously been speculated that North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong-un would be in attendance. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met with Kim Yong Nam and was quick to underscore the force underpinning growing collaboration between the two states. “The Islamic Republic of Iran and North Korea have common enemies, because the arrogant powers do not accept independent states,” the ILNA quoted Khamenei as saying. Khamenei’s harsh rebuke was most almost certainly targeted at the United States, which vilified the two states as being part of an “Axis of Evil” (along with Iraq) in 2002 despite the lack of any overt ties between the three states. Iranian and North Korean officials have previously characterized their countries as being in “one trench” in the fight against the United States and the West. Western powers have accused them, meanwhile, of being close partners in nuclear and missile technologies. –
World at dangerous crossroads for WW3: Whatever action the U.S. takes in the Middle East, whether against Iran itself or Syria; Iran is now determined to enlarge the conflict into an Armageddon war (Al-Malhamah Al-Kubrah) that will result in the destruction of Israel, the U.S, and will cleanse the Middle East of western influence, whilel ushering in the reign of the 12th Iman. This crisis is already now that dangerous. “Ahmadinejad has aligned himself with the virtually invincible combined power of the East: Russia, China, North Korea, and to some extent, even India; making any potential future conflict in the area, involving Iran, a dangerous trip-wire for dragging other nations into the conflict. The future of the Middle East hangs in the balance, awaiting the outcome of this Iran-Israel high-stakes game of Stratego. A miscalculation by either side holds the potential for global disaster.” –The Extinction Protocol, page 82
September 1, 2012 – SURVIVAL – Imagine the world you know ends tomorrow. Imagine electrical grids failing, supermarkets closing and the safety nets of modern civilization crumbling, leaving millions of Americans without food and drinkable water. Though the idea seems extreme to most people, some are preparing for such a scenario. So called “preppers” or “survivalists” are amassing food, shelters and knowledge to withstand a world different from the one that exists today. Even small-scale disasters can prove stressful if not disastrous, as tens of thousands of Monmouth County residents learned in July when a water pipe line collapsed, disrupting drinking water from the tap. That’s a scenario Jason Borrelli, a 2005 Point Pleasant Beach High School graduate, is prepared to face. Borrelli and his fiancée have amassed a collection of water bottles so vast, the storage space under his queen-size bed is stuffed with the containers. “I’ve stockpiled water like it’s nobody’s business,” said Borrelli, 26. The space under another queen-size bed in the couple’s Florida home is completely filled with toiletries that they plan to barter for food and supplies, if needed. In addition, several closets in the couple’s home store nonperishable food. Though he fears a disease pandemic, economic collapse is most likely to cause the kind of catastrophic disaster he is preparing for, he said. Such a collapse “is going to happen sooner or later,” Borrelli believes. A prepper is an “all-encompassing term that defines someone whether they prepare for a disaster or whether they’re interested in sustainable living,” said Tom Martin, founder of the American Preppers Network. The network started as a social media website in 2009 with about 100 hits a day and has since grown about a million individual visitors a month, Martin said. Visitors there discuss concerns about recent events in the news, such as fires in the western United States, rising food prices, access to oil and economic instability, he said. And there’s a wilderness survival school. Led by master tracker and author Tom Brown Jr., 62, of Waretown, about 100 students gathered miles into the woods for lessons on curing animal hide, primitive cooking, shelter-building and hunting prey without the use of modern devices. It is here that the most serious of survivalists come to train for a world without frozen foods, factories and electricity. Modern humans are “alien to their own environment. They don’t belong. If something happens … they’re dead,” Brown said. The school “gives them insurance policy that no matter what happens, whether it’s deep in the wilderness or in a city/suburban environment, they will survive,” Brown said. With the right knowledge, Brown said “no matter how bad it gets in the world, you pull that car off the side of the road, step off that bus or train, walk into the wilderness and never need another damn thing for the rest of your life. … That’s freedom.” -
Israel in race against time for war: In a shocking new revelation, Israeli officials have admitted that more than a million citizens of the Jewish state do not have access to essential personal forms of protection in the event of an enemy missile or chemical attack. Making their comments against the backdrop of a possible Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities and a potential retaliation aimed at the Israeli homeland, the officials stated that 1.7 million Israelis are unable to avail themselves of bomb shelters or bunkers. They also revealed that 40% of the country’s population is unable to obtain gas masks, and that the majority of schools in Israel do not have enough space to contain all their students in a protected area. The unsettling information shows that the disparity in access to protective measures is reflective of the wide income gap between residents of wealthy communities and those living in underprivileged areas. Most defense experts concur that – while Israeli cities are quite likely to be targeted in the aftermath of an Israeli attack on Iran – local defense capacities are often woefully inadequate. According to the experts, even if the government renews its production of gas masks and allocates $320 million to the only two factories in the country that manufacture them, there would not be enough time to produce a sufficient number of masks to cover the entire population. The reality of the current production situation is even more sobering. Itai Bar-On, deputy general manager at one of the gas mask factories told the Washington Post that the production line is only functioning at 7 percent of its total capacity. Bar-On added that approximately one-third of the factory’s employees were terminated from their jobs in recent months. Aside from the severe gas mask shortage, a recent review by officials of Israel’s Home Front Command concluded that approximately 60% of the Jewish state’s public bomb shelters are unfit for use. Hundreds of vital mobile shelters are lacking in Israel’s southern communities, a number that generates notable concern given the recent increase in rocket attacks on the area. “There are some 1.7 million residents living in Israel who don’t have a bomb shelter or a bunker,” asserted MK Zeev Bielski, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Subcommittee for the Examination of Home Front Readiness. “We’re talking about some 400,000 homes and apartments, most of which were built in the 1950s. In case a war breaks out, these residents will be told: ‘Sit under a doorpost.’” –
September 1, 2012 – TOKYO – Japan’s government on Wednesday unveiled a worst case disaster scenario that warned a monster earthquake in the Pacific Ocean could kill over 320,000 people, dwarfing last year’s quake-tsunami disaster. Tokyo’s casualty toll estimate was based on a catastrophic scenario in which a powerful undersea quake of about 9.0 magnitude sparked a giant tsunami that swamps Japan’s coastline south of Tokyo. The Cabinet Office’s hypothetical disaster would see the quake strike at nighttime during the winter with strong winds helping unleash waves that reach 34-metre (110 feet), sweeping many victims away as they slept. Many of the estimated 323,000 victims would be drowned by the tsunami, crushed under falling objects or in fires sparked by the disaster, it said. On March 11 last year, a 9.0 magnitude quake struck seismically-active Japan in the early afternoon, triggering tsunami waves that reached 20 meters. About 19,000 were killed or remain missing while the tsunami slammed into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, sending reactors into meltdown and sparking the worst atomic crisis in a generation. “As long as we live in Japan, we cannot deny the possibility of a huge earthquake and tsunami,” Masaharu Nakagawa, state minister for disaster management, told reporters Wednesday. The report was designed to paint a worst-case scenario and help officials boost their disaster preparedness. An estimate in 2003 assumed casualties of about 25,000 people, but that scenario envisioned a less powerful 8.4 magnitude quake striking a smaller area. The deadliest quake in Japanese history struck the central Kanto region in 1923, killing at least 100,000 people. –
September 1, 2012 – SPACE – The Sun is capable of disrupting electrical systems on Earth in a variety of ways, from solar flares and coronal mass ejections to proton storms. Typically, it is only objects far above the Earth’s surface, or systems at high altitudes at polar latitudes, that are considered at risk except during the most powerful storms. Notable recent examples include solar activity during March 1989 and October 2003 (the “Halloween Storms”), which knocked out power in Quebec, Canada, and Sweden, respectively. Research by Marshall et al., however, finds that even a moderate event can have destructive effects far from the typical regions of concern. At 1:20 UT on 6 November 2001, a high-density pocket of solar wind, 18 nanoPascals above the background pressure, sped past the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) satellite, which was orbiting 197 Earth radii above the Earth toward the Sun. In half an hour, this high-pressure wave traveled more than a million kilometers (620,000 miles) to the Earth’s magnetopause. The high- pressure pulse induced currents both in the magnetopause and in power lines across New Zealand, causing alarms to be tripped and a transformer to fail catastrophically. Extending from 35 degrees South to 46 degrees South, New Zealand is typically considered outside the region susceptible to such solar activity. A Northern Hemisphere equivalent would be a zone extending from Maine to North Carolina. The authors find currents of up to 27.4 amperes in transformer earth lines that were supposed to be neutral. For comparison, the Halloween Storms 2 years later caused peak currents of 23.4 amperes and no serious damage, though the authors suggest that this may have been due to damage prevention measures implemented following the 2001 event. –
August 31, 2012 – CHILE - Some unrest is going on at Reclus volcano in southern Chile, located between Aguilera and Monte Burney in Patagonia, the Eruptions Blog writes: “Over the summer, earthquakes began to be felt in towns in the region of the volcano and a potential for new activity from the Reclus has prompted geologists to visit the volcano later this spring (southern hemisphere). Interestingly, one article mentions that an over-flight of the volcano in 2008 spotted cracks on the glaciers that cover the volcano along with traces of ash. However, the direct connection between the seismicity in Patagonia and Reclus is still tenuous, so further observations of the remote volcano will need to be done.” Reclus has had at least 4 historical eruptions around, 1908, 1879, and in 1869. Although these were small, the volcano has produced larger explosive eruptions in the past and should be closely monitored. – 
August 31, 2012 –TEHRAN - Iran’s first atomic power plant, a symbol of what the Islamic Republic says is its peaceful nuclear ambition, is now operating at full capacity, Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom said on Friday. The Russian-built 1,000-megawatt reactor near the Gulf city of Bushehr, was plugged into Iran’s national grid last September, ending years of delays and suspicions that Moscow was using the project as a diplomatic lever. Oil-rich Iran says electricity generation is the main motivation for nuclear work that its adversaries say is really aimed at getting atomic weapons capability. However, the Bushehr plant is not considered a major proliferation threat by nuclear inspectors whose concern is focused on sites where Iran enriches nuclear fuel, in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding it stop. Bushehr was started by Germany’s Siemens before the 1979 Islamic Revolution and was taken over by Russian engineers in the 1990s. The United States for years urged Russia to abandon the project, fearing it could help Tehran develop nuclear weapons. Those concerns were eased by an agreement under which Russia will supply enriched uranium for the reactor and repatriate spent fuel that could be reprocessed into weapons-grade plutonium. Russia sees Iran as a counterweight to U.S. clout but is a partner of the United States and four other powers in efforts to rein in Tehran’s nuclear activities. The U.N. nuclear agency said this week that Iran, in just a few months, had doubled the number of uranium enrichment centrifuges it has in an underground bunker, showing Tehran continued to expand its nuclear program despite Western sanctions and the threat of an Israeli attack. Russia has warned Israel and the United States against attacking Iran and said it opposes pressuring Tehran with further sanctions beyond the measures approved in four U.N. Security Council resolutions, the most recent in 2010. –
August 31, 2012 – HEALTH - Some 10,000 people who stayed in tent cabins at Yosemite National Park over the summer may be at risk for the deadly rodent-borne hantavirus, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a health advisory on Friday. The advisory urges lab testing of patients with symptoms consistent with the lung disease, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, and recommends that doctors notify state health departments when it is found. “An estimated 10,000 persons stayed in the ‘Signature Tent Cabins’ from June 10 through August 24, 2012,” the CDC said in the advisory. “People who stayed in the tents between June 10 and August 24 may be at risk of developing HPS in the next 6 weeks.” Two men have died from hantavirus linked to the Yosemite outbreak and four other people were sickened but survived, California health officials have said. Most of the victims were believed to have contracted the virus while staying in tent-style cabins this summer in a popular Yosemite camping area called Curry Village. Park officials earlier this week shut down 91 insulated tent cabins after finding deer mice, which carry the disease and can burrow through pencil-sized holes, nesting between the double walls of the structures. Park authorities have already notified 2,900 parties of visitors who rented the tent cabins from June through August who they may have been exposed to hantavirus. Nearly 4 million people visit Yosemite each year, attracted to the park’s dramatic scenery and hiking trails. Roughly 70 percent of those visitors congregate in Yosemite Valley, where Curry Village is located. Hantavirus is carried in rodent feces, urine and saliva, which dries out and mixes with dust that can be inhaled by humans, especially in small, confined spaces with poor ventilation. People can also be infected by eating contaminated food, touching contaminated surfaces or being bitten by infected rodents. The virus starts out causing flu-like symptoms, including headache, fever, muscle ache, shortness of breath and cough. Initial symptoms may appear up to six weeks after exposure and can lead to severe breathing difficulties and death. Although there is no cure for hantavirus, treatment after early detection through blood tests can save lives. The virus, which has never been known to be transmitted between humans, kills 38 percent of those it infects. –
August 31, 2012 – JAPAN - The impasse in Japan’s parliament has raised fears among investors that the world’s third largest economy is being driven towards a “fiscal cliff,” Reuters reported. “The government running out of money is not a story made up. It’s a real threat,” Finance Minister Jun Azumi told a news conference, making a last-ditch appeal for cooperation by opposition parties to pass the bill. “Failing to pass the bill will give markets the impression that Japan’s fiscal management rests on shaky ground,” he said. Unless the bill clears the current parliamentary session that ends next week, the government will start suspending or reducing some state spending to avoid running out of money for as long as possible, the finance ministry said. Noda’s ruling Democratic Party passed the deficit-financing bill through the lower house on Tuesday. But the opposition boycotted the vote, signaling the bill has little chance of clearing the opposition-controlled upper house. Under the proposed contingency for suspending some spending, the finance ministry said government bond redemptions and interest payments on outstanding debt would not be affected as they will be made in full using reserves set aside for this purpose. All state spending will be targeted, except for those that will severely affect public livelihood such as police, national security and disaster relief, Reuters reported. Subsidies to local governments and state-run universities will be cut by half from the originally planned amount until the bill passes parliament, the finance ministry said. The upper house has also passed a censure motion against Noda, piling more pressure on him to make good on his promise earlier this month to call an election to parliament’s lower house. Several ruling party and opposition lawmakers have suggested that Noda would probably wait out the stalemate until the current parliament session ends on September 8 and call a snap vote during an extra session in October to secure the deficit financing bill’s passage. The term “fiscal cliff” is commonly associated with around $500bn (£316bn) in expiring US tax cuts and spending cuts that could kick in automatically next year, triggering a “significant recession,” according to the Congressional Budget Office. –
Spain’s banking crisis worsening: The Spanish government will immediately inject financial aid into Bankia after the troubled lender announced losses of (EURO)4.4 billion ($5.6 billion) in the first half of the year, authorities said Friday. The money will come from the fund for the orderly restructuring of banks, or FROB, a bank rescue fund set up to help Spain’s deeply troubled financial sector. The fund said in a statement late Friday that it planned to transfer capital into Bankia SA and its parent group Banco Financiero y de Ahorros SA with immediate effect after “the accounts declared significant losses.” The fund did not specify how much it would inject into Bankia. But it said the money was an advance loan prior to Spain receiving a package of up to (EURO)100 billion ($126.1 billion) from other eurozone countries so that it can bail out all of its troubled banks. Bankia was nationalized in May and has called for (EURO)24 billion ($30.3 billion) in public aid. At its Friday cabinet meeting, Spain’s government approved a new package of measures to create a “bad bank” to handle the country’s toxic property investments and give the central bank more powers to shut down troubled lenders. The reform is the fifth such package Spain has introduced since its financial difficulties began in 2008. Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said the new “bad bank” would be up and running by the end of November and will be controlled by the central bank but would also involve the private sector. -
August 31, 2012 – FOOD – Global food prices have leapt by 10% in the month of July, raising fears of soaring prices for the planet’s poorest, the World Bank has warned. The bank said that a U.S. heatwave and drought in parts of Eastern Europe were partly to blame for the rising costs. The price of key grains such as corn, wheat and soybean saw the most dramatic increases, described by the World Bank president as “historic.” The bank warned countries importing grains will be particularly vulnerable. From June to July this year, corn and wheat prices each rose by 25% while soybean prices increased by 17%, the World Bank said. Only rice prices decreased – by 4%. In the United States, the most severe, widespread drought in half a century has wreaked havoc on the corn and soybean crops while in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, wheat crops have been badly damaged. The World Bank said that the use of corn to produce ethanol bio-fuel – which represents 40% of US corn production – was also a key factor in the sharp rise in the U.S. maize price. Overall, the World Bank’s Food Price Index – which tracks the price of internationally traded food commodities – was six percent higher than in July of last year, and one percent over its previous peak, in February 2011. The organization is urging governments to bolster programs to protect their most vulnerable communities from the increase in the cost of food. “We cannot allow these historic price hikes to turn into a lifetime of perils as families take their children out of school and eat less nutritious food to compensate for the high prices,” World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said. He said countries in North and Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East were among those most exposed to such price increases because much of their food was imported and food bills make up a large proportion of average household spending. –
Fish kill: POCATELLO, Idaho — State fisheries biologists are reporting an increase in the number of mountain whitefish dying in eastern Idaho streams and rivers. Idaho Fish and Game experts say the die-off is troubling and they are counting on the public to help figure out why. The Idaho State Journal reports that dead fish have turned up in recent weeks on the South Fork of the Snake River and the main stem of the Snake River. Reports of dead whitefish have also come from the Teton and North Fork of the Salmon Rivers. Regional Fisheries Manager Dan Garre says the cause is a mystery. He says it’s interesting that the die-off is targeting whitefish typically under 10 inches – and not trout. Tissue samples have been sent to a state lab for analysis. –
August 31, 2012 – PHILIPPINES - A magnitude 7.9 earthquake shook some parts of the Visayas, particularly Eastern Samar, at 8:47 p.m. Friday. The earthquake was later downgraded to a 7.6 by the USGS. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) reported in its website that the quake’s epicenter was located at 112 kilometers east of Guiuan, Eastern Samar. The quake’s origin is tectonic and it has a depth of 10 kilometers. August 31, 2012 – It was also located at 175 kilometers northeast of Surigao, 187 kilometers east southeast of Tacloban, Leyte and 749 kilometers southeast of Manila, the US Geological Survey said in its latest bulletin. The USGS issued a tsunami warning in the Philippines, as well as in Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan and Guam. Phivolcs Director Renato Solidum advised residents in Surigao del Norte, Eastern Samar, Southern Leyte and Bicol to be on alert for possible aftershocks. He also advised those living in coastal villages in these areas to evacuate due to the tsunami warning. Southern Leyte Governor Damian Mercado said in a radio interview that he told all town mayors in the province to evacuate all families living in coastal areas. Evacuation is also ongoing in Eastern Samar and Surigao. No damage has been reported as of this posting Friday. –
August 31, 2012 – MISSOURI – Two men in Missouri who became severely ill after sustaining tick bites were found to be infected with a new type of virus, according to a study from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Both men were admitted to hospitals after experiencing high fevers, fatigue, diarrhea and loss of appetite. They were originally thought to be suffering from a bacterial infection, but doubts arose when they didn’t improve after being treated with antibiotics. Further tests revealed their blood contained a new virus, which the researchers dubbed the Heartland virus. It belongs to a group called phleboviruses, which are carried by flies, mosquitoes or ticks, and can cause disease in humans. While the genetic material of Heartland virus appears similar to that of other phleboviruses, the particular proteins it produces are different enough to call it a new species, said study researcher Laura McMullan, a senior scientist at the CDC. Because the Heartland virus causes such general symptoms, it could be “a more common cause of human illness than is currently recognized,” the researchers wrote in the Aug. 30 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. More studies are needed to identify the natural hosts of the virus, learn how many people are infected with it and find risk factors for infection, McMullan said. Because both men experienced tick bites shortly before they became ill — one man, a farmer, reported receiving an average of 20 tick bites a day — the researchers said it’s likely that the Heartland virus is spread by ticks, although more research is needed to confirm this. The new virus’s closest relative is another tick-borne phlebovirus, called SFTS virus, which was identified last year in China, and causes death in 12 percent of cases. The Missouri men, who were both infected in 2009, recovered after 10 to 12 days in the hospital, although one of the men has reported recurrent headaches and fatigue in the two years since his hospitalization. The researchers suspect a species of tick commonly found in Missouri, called Amblyomma americanum, is one of the hosts of the Heartland virus. –
Deer deaths in Indiana: Residents of a central Indiana county have reported nearly 100 dead deer in what wildlife officials believe might be a disease outbreak. An Indiana Department of Natural Resources biologist says most of those dead deer have been found in southern Putnam County. Biologist Dean Zimmerman tells the Banner Graphic that 17 counties around the state have had suspected cases of epizootic hemorrhagic disease among deer, although Putnam County seems to have a large outbreak. The illness is a viral disease transmitted by small flies that typically occurs during late summer and early fall. It doesn’t affect humans. Zimmerman says the flies that carry the disease reproduce more successfully in dry weather and that it will take a killing frost to end the outbreak. –
August 31, 2012 – ALASKA – A series of small earthquakes which began Wednesday night and continued into Thursday near a long-dormant volcanic peak in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands has prompted researchers to raise the alert level for the Little Sitkin volcano. The nearly 4,000-foot-high Little Sitkin volcano is named for the island where it resides, located in the Rat Islands in the Aleutian chain. The volcano has shown little activity since scientists have started observing it, with only three questionable eruptive events at the volcano since that time. The most recent eruption may have come in 1900, according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory. However, the Smithsonian Global Volcanism program documents the last eruption as 1830. Still, the AVO page for Little Sitkin mentions there may have been a “cataclysmic eruption” on the island sometime after the last ice age, which ended more than 11,000 years ago. Seismic equipment located near the volcano began detecting a “”warm of high-frequency earthquakes” at about 7:15 p.m. Wednesday, the AVO reports. The earthquakes continued through the night into Thursday, prompting the alert level at the volcano being raised. The alert level is currently at yellow, which means that the “volcano is exhibiting signs of elevated unrest above known background level.” Additionally, aircraft traveling in the area are advised to exercise caution. The volcano is located in a remote part of the Aleutians, about 35 miles northwest of the World War II outpost of Amchitka and 200 miles west of Adak. Little Sitkin joins two other Alaska volcanoes, Iliamna and Cleveland, currently sitting at elevated alert levels. –
Arctic quakes increasing: A powerful earthquake shook the Norwegian island of Jan Mayen, about 700 kilometres north of Iceland, shortly before 2 p.m. local time on Aug 30. The magnitude of the earthquake, which had its epicenter 428 km east-northeast of Ittoqqortoormiut in eastern Greenland, was initially measured at 7.0 on the Richter scale, used to determine how strong an earthquake is. But the earthquake’s magnitude has now changed to 6.6. The station manager at the Norwegian research facility station on the island of Jan Mayen said the earthquake was dramatic. Thor Paul Gjelseth said the ground “was shaking, and people found it difficult to stand upright. Stuff from the walls fell down from the walls everywhere, and we now have our hands full cleaning up,” Gjelseth told VG Nett. Iceland’s Meteorological Office also reported an earthquake near Reykjavik, with a magnitude of 4.1. Over the past 80 years, about 2,000 earthquakes have been recorded in Nunavut. Most are of these have been minor, falling below a magnitude of 4.0 on the Richter scale. These light earthquakes may make a low rumbling noise, but they produce little movement of the ground. But Nunavut and northern Nunavik, where a 2006 earthquake of 4.0 magnitud
e shook Puvirnituq, are among the most earthquake-prone zones in Canada. According to data gathered by the Geological Survey of Canada, the northeast coast of Baffin Island and the High Arctic islands have a particularly high incidence of earthquakes. In nearby Greenland, the annual number of glacial earthquakes is rising, a study from 2006 shows. From 1993 to 2002, there were between six and 15 a year, but in 2003, earthquake scientists — or seismologists — who track the movements of the earth, recorded 20 glacial earthquakes; in 2004, they recorded 24; and, for the first 10 months of 2005, they recorded 32. The seismologists also found that the earthquakes occurred mainly during the summer months, which suggested these movements were associated with rapidly melting ice. -
August 30, 2012 – HEALTH - Almost half of tuberculosis patients who received prior treatment were resistant to a second-line drug, suggesting the deadly disease may become “virtually untreatable,” according to a new study. Among 1,278 patients who were resistant to two or more first-line tuberculosis drugs in Estonia, Latvia, Peru, Philippines, Russia, South Africa, South Korea and Thailand, 43.7 percent showed resistance to at least one second-line drug, according to a study led by Tracy Dalton at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The findings were published in the Lancet medical journal today. About 1.4 million people died from TB, the second-deadliest infectious disease globally after AIDS, and 650,000 cases were multi-drug resistant in 2010, according to the World Health Organization. Rising infection rates prompted the U.K. to announce in May it will require pre-entry tuberculosis screening for migrants from 67 countries seeking to enter the country for more than 6 months. “The global emergence of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis heralds the advent of widespread, virtually untreatable tuberculosis,” the study authors said in the published paper. Previous treatment with second-line drugs was the strongest risk factor for resistance to these drugs, the authors said. The prevalence of drug resistance, which ranged from 33 percent in Thailand to 62 percent in Latvia, also correlates with how long second-line drugs have been available in each country. South Korea and Russia had the longest histories of availability — more than 20 years — and the highest rates of resistance. In contrast, Thailand, Philippines and Peru, where second-line drugs were introduced 10 years ago or less, had the lowest resistance rates. Unemployment, alcohol abuse and smoking were also associated with resistance to second-line injectable treatment across countries. This is one of the few studies that have followed patients with the multi-drug-resistant form of TB for several years, Justin Denholm, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, said in a phone interview. Patients not taking their medicines properly is a major driver for resistance, said Denholm, who is studying TB transmission patterns in Australia’s Victoria state. –
August 30, 2012 – CALIFORNIA – The southern California town of Brawley has taken the unusual step of declaring a state of emergency after a swarm of earthquakes rattled nearly 20 mobile homes off their blocks and forced a slaughterhouse to close, the mayor said on Wednesday. It is uncommon for quake-hardy California cities to declare emergencies due to tremors, but Brawley mayor George Nava said the earthquake swarm is a unique case because it has lasted for days and caused millions of dollars in damage. The cluster of relatively small quakes, which are caused by water and other fluids moving around in the Earth’s crust, began on Saturday evening and climaxed the next day with a 5.5 temblor, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The tremors were continuing on Wednesday and geologists say there have been hundreds in total. Nava said leaders in Brawley, a city of 25,000 residents south of the state’s inland Salton Sea and 170 miles (275 km) southeast of Los Angeles, declared a local emergency late on Tuesday. Officials with surrounding Imperial County made a similar declaration on Wednesday. Nineteen mobile homes were knocked off their blocks and their residents forced out, Nava said. The auditorium at Brawley Union High School has been damaged and closed off, and the National Beef slaughter plant in Brawley has been temporarily shut down due to damage, he said. Local businesses have suffered millions of dollars in losses from closures and from customers staying away, Nava said. But he could not give an exact account of quake-related losses. The Red Cross and local government agencies will offer services to residents on Friday and Saturday at a local center. The emergency declaration allows Brawley to receive more assistance from Imperial County, Nava said. At one point, about 10,000 residents in the city were without power, and the quakes have also caused water line disruptions, Nava said. “When you don’t have an AC or running water, it’s just not a good thing in this weather,” he said. Jeanne Hardebeck, research seismologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, said earlier this week that the cluster of quakes is not a sign that a larger temblor is imminent. –
August 30, 2012 – CALIFORNIA - The 4.1 earthquake that jolted Yorba Linda on Wednesday afternoon appears to be an aftershock of the cluster of quakes that hit the region earlier this month, seismologists said. The jolted area included southeastern Los Angeles County, Orange County and the Inland Empire. The quake occurred in about the same location of an earthquake doublet, two 4.5 quakes that occurred on Aug. 7 at 11:23 p.m. and Aug. 8 at 9:33 a.m. The area was also hit by a 4.0 quake on June 14. Wednesday’s quake, which hit at 1:31 p.m., was located near the center point of the magnitude-5.5 Chino Hills earthquake that reverberated through the Los Angeles Basin in the summer of 2008, U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones told The Times. Wednesday’s quake appeared to be located in the “Yorba Linda trend,” a seismic area identified by Caltech geophysicist Egill Hauksson in 1990, that might be a buried fault. Many who felt the quake said it was relatively mild. At Vinjon’s Kennel in Yorba Linda, the quake hit just as Carisa Feeney, 22, was giving a bath to a year-and-a-half-old boxer mix. When the quake delivered its single strong jolt, the dog leaped up in the tub –- and both quickly ran outside. “I’m pretty much covered in water,” Feeney said. Nancy Ferguson, who owns SGO Designer Glass in Old Town Yorba Linda, said, “We had a big jolt, just for a few seconds, then everything just kind of swayed.” Ferguson, who has hundreds of pieces of glass on display in her store, said she holds her breath every time there’s an earthquake. “But nothing fell over today, so we’re feeling pretty lucky,” she said. It is unlikely that the earthquake swarm that has hit Imperial County with hundreds of quakes since the weekend is related to Wednesday’s quake in Yorba Linda, Jones said. –
August 29, 2012 – HEALTH – One of the worst outbreaks of West Nile virus to ever hit the United States continues to expand, with 66 deaths and 1,590 illnesses reported as of Tuesday, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Cases have jumped 40 percent nationwide since just last week, the agency added. Cases have now reached their highest level since the mosquito-borne virus was first found in the United States in 1999, agency officials said in a Wednesday press briefing. While almost all states have reported at least one case of West Nile illness, over 70 percent of cases have come from six states — Texas, South Dakota, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Michigan. The outbreak has hit hardest in Texas, where nearly half (45 percent) of the total U.S. cases have been reported. “The number of people reported with West Nile virus continues to rise,” said Dr. Lyle Petersen, director of the CDC’s Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases. “We have seen this trend in previous West Nile epidemics, so the increase is not unexpected,” he added. “In fact, we think the reported numbers will get higher through October.” According to Peterson, of the cases reported so far, 56 percent are what is called neuroinvasive disease, when the virus enters the nervous system causing conditions such as meningitis or encephalitis. The remaining reported cases (44 percent) are non-neuroinvasive. “These numbers represent a 40 percent increase of last week’s report of 1,118 total cases and 41 deaths,” Petersen said. These numbers can be somewhat misleading since most cases of West Nile are non-neuroinvasive and are mostly unreported, the CDC said. That means that the number of unreported cases probably far exceeds reported ones. Neuroinvasive disease is the most serious for of West Nile infection and these patients usually are hospitalized, Petersen said. The size of the outbreak is based on these cases since they are the ones easily identifiable, he added. The only states that have not reported cases are Alaska and Hawaii, he said. “Based on current reports, we think the number of cases may come close to, or even exceed, the total number reported in the epidemic years of 2002 and 2003, when more than 3,000 cases of neuroinvasive disease and more than 260 deaths were reported each year,” Petersen said. The reasons for a major outbreak this year aren’t clear, Petersen said. The drought in Texas may have played a role, but there were probably other factors as well, he added. The best way to avoid the virus is to wear insect repellant and support local programs to eradicate mosquitoes, Petersen said. There are currently no treatment for West Nile virus and no vaccine to prevent it, he added. Speaking at the press conference, Dr. David L. Lakey, Commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services said that, “As I look at the data, I am not convinced that we have peaked. Since last week, there have been 197 new cases and 10 more deaths in Texas, Lakey said. “Those numbers will continue to go up,” he added. –
August 29, 2012 – ALASKA – Alaska is known for pioneering, self-reliant residents who are accustomed to remote locations and harsh weather. Despite that, Gov. Sean Parnell worries a major earthquake or volcanic eruption could leave the state’s 720,000 residents stranded and cut off from food and supply lines. His answer: Build giant warehouses full of emergency food and supplies, just in case. Weather isn’t the only thing that can wreak havoc in Alaska, where small planes are a preferred mode of transportation and the drive from Seattle to Juneau requires a ferry ride and 38 hours in a car. The state’s worst natural disaster was in 1964, when a magnitude-9.2 earthquake and resulting tsunami killed 131 people and disrupted electrical systems, water mains and communication lines in Anchorage and other cities. “We have a different motivation to do this, because help is a long ways away,” said John Madden, Alaska’s emergency management director. The state plans two food stockpiles in or near Fairbanks and Anchorage, two cities that also have military bases. Construction on the two storage facilities will begin this fall, and the first food deliveries are targeted for December. The goal is to have enough food to feed 40,000 people for up to a week, including three days of ready-to-eat meals and four days of bulk food that can be prepared and cooked for large groups. To put that number into perspective, Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage, has about 295,000 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and Juneau, its third largest, about 31,000. It’s not unusual for states that routinely experience hurricanes or other large-scale disasters to have supplies like water, ready-to-eat meals, cots and blankets. But Alaska is interested in stocking food with at least a five-year shelf life that meets the nutrition, health and cultural requirements of the state’s unique demographics. That means, as part of the effort, trying to incorporate cultural foods like salmon for Alaska Natives as well as foods that would be more common in urban areas, state emergency management spokesman Jeremy Zidek said. An estimated 90 percent of commodities entering Alaska are delivered through the Port of Anchorage. Air service is also a critical link to the outside world and generally the only way to reach many rural communities. A volcanic blast emitting a large amount of smoke and ash could disrupt supply lines by air and water for an extended period, Madden said, and an earthquake could knock out airport runways or ports. Those are just some of the disasters that might require emergency supplies. –
August 29, 2012 – UGANDA - A thief in Uganda has contracted Ebola after stealing the mobile phone of a hospital patient suffering from the potentially fatal infection. Security and medical officials in Kibaale District, mid-west Uganda, told the Daily Monitor website that the man went into the isolation ward at Kagadi Hospital and stole a cellular phone from one of the Ebola patients. The patient, who later died from the hemorrhagic fever, reported the theft. Police began tracking the thief when he started using the phone, the Daily Monitor reported. But by the time they found him he had gone to hospital with symptoms similar to those of Ebola. He reportedly confessed to stealing the phone. Kibaale District Health Officer Dr Dan Kyamanywa, told the Daily Monitor: “The suspect is admitted at Kagadi Hospital with clinical signs of Ebola. He is receiving medication. We have obtained samples from him,” Mr Kyamanywa added. The Uganda Virus Research Institute is yet to release the results of the tests. –
April 20, 2012 – COLOMBIA - Colombia’s government has called for high risk areas to be prepared for the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano. The Interior Ministry has ordered the fire departments of 19 municipalities in the central Caldas and Tolima departments to be on high alert after the Colombian Geological Survey (SGC) announced that an eruption is “probable” in the coming days or weeks. The alert level was raised from yellow to orange in March as the volcano became increasingly active. Last week a column of gas and steam approximately 1,200 meters tall extended from its crater. The national director of the firefighting system warned that there is urgent need for a special contingency plan that outlines tactics to be used in emergency volcanic situations, especially for search and rescue groups. He called for a focus on high risk areas in or near the paths of rivers that originate in the Ruiz, whose levels may be elevated by pyroclastic fragments and the melting of ice. The director of the Colombian Fire Department Federation in the town of Riosucio explained that local firemen are preparing a plan and educating communities. In 1985 The Nevado del Ruiz erupted, wiping out the town of Armero and killing 25,000 people. –
April 20, 2012 – JERUSALEM – The next three months could be extremely tense for the world, especially in the Middle East. The Russians have said that Israel will mount its attack on Iran by summer and Israel has itself stated, in so many words, that after May; the time of diplomacy and sanctions to work may be over. Are we approaching a singularity point in Jewish history? Perhaps so. It was reported by The Times of Israel that an attack on Iran would happen this summer as the article read: ‘A major Israeli TV station reported Sunday that the nation is gearing up for an attack against Iran this summer.” Whether this is misdirection or not; we’ll soon know but that is not so much an issue as the fact is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said 2012 was the most important year in Israel’s history. There are some leaders inside the Jewish State that are quite frightened that Israel will face another holocaust scenario this year. The reason for the foreboding involves several factors which up to now haven’t been discussed much in the public. It’s quite creepy and it plays out something like this. There is considered to be a cursed date in Jewish history called the 9th of Av. On this date, in history, the Temple and most of Jerusalem was destroyed twice; once in 423 B.C. on the date by the Babylonians and again on the date by the Romans in 69 A.D. This is also the date for the Jewish expulsion from England in 1290, the Spanish Expulsion in 1492, and the date the generation was condemned to die in the desert in 1312 B.C. during the Exodus. Also, Betar, the last stronghold in the heroic Bar Kochba rebellion, also fell to the Romans on the 9th of Av of the year 3893 (133 CE) after 
a three-year siege. 580,000 Jews died by starvation or the sword, including Bar Kochba, the leader of the rebellion. It is also said that on the 9th of AV, 1942, the Nazis turned on the gas chambers at Treblinka, Poland and the holocaust began. This year, the 9thof Av falls on July 28, 2012. The Shabbath also comes after the 64 year anniversary of Israel (May 14, 1948) as an independent state. In numerology, the number 64 is the symbol of paramount chaos. According to the gospel of Luke, there are 64 generations from Adam to Christ, the Messiah. The number is also connected to an end of the world myth. ‘The mathematician W. R. Ball reports the following legend: In a temple of Benares, there is a dome under which a plate of bronze marks the center of the world. On this plate, there are three vertical stems of one cubit height. During the creation of the world, God placed on one of the stems 64 discs of gold of different sizes, the largest at the base, the others going decreasing in the top, to the smallest disc. This accumulation is the tower of Brahma. Night and day, without stop, the priests relay to transfer the discs from a stem to another. Only one disc must be taken at once and it is forbidden to place a disc on another of lower diameter. When the 64 discs will be transferred from the tower of Braham to another stem, the temple and the Universe will crumble. This will be the end of the world. 
April 29, 2012 – MANAGUA – Nicaraguan Experts reported Sunday more seismic activity at Masaya volcano, about 20 kilometers south of Managua, with an increase in expulsions of sulfur gases, which keeps the disaster warning system in high alert. According to the report, a crack in the main crater causes higher emissions and a sound similar to a jet engine. Specialists of the National System for Prevention, Mitigation and Attention to Disasters (SINAPRED) and the Nicaraguan Institute of Territorial Studies (INETER), told the press that they detected this unusual behavior several days ago, but for now there is no reason for alarm. The INETER geophysics director, Angelica Munoz, told the site El 19 Digital they monitor the situation closely because of rising emissions and temperature above the normal range. Technical teams assess the seismic tremor, but there is no emergency declared and the gates of Masaya Volcano National Park remain open to the public, said the director of INETER, Jorge Castro, and the executive secretary of SINAPRED, Guillermo Gonzalez. –
April 29, 2012 – IRAN - An official of the Iranian military said last week that the country’s navy has the ability to move a naval vessel within three miles of the East Coast of the United States. Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, speaking on Tuesday to students of the University of Yazd, Iran, at the anniversary of a failed U.S. military operation in April 24, 1980 (Operation Eagle Claw), said that “The power of our naval forces is such that we have a presence in all the waters of the world and, if needed, we can move to within three miles of New York.” The U.S. launched “Operation Eagle Claw” in 1980 to rescue American hostages held captive at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. The top ranking naval officer added: “The Americans’ only tool to rule the world is their naval dominance of the Persian Gulf, and they will face any other power that threatens their status.” The Daily Caller reports that a Pentagon official reacted to Fadavi’s claim on Friday. He said: “You should ask the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps what their plans are. We support freedom of the seas and encourage all countries to follow international laws.” Daily Caller speculates that Iran could use a commercial vessel sailing under the flag of another country to approach the American shoreline to strike. The website notes that Iran possesses the capability to launch ballistic missiles from a ship. The Daily Caller also reports that on Friday, Iran’s top air force commander, Brigadier General Amri Ali Hajizadeh, told Fars News Agency that the Iranian military has the capability to disable and sink U.S. aircraft carriers. According to YNet News, Hajizadeh said: “First, sinking an aircraft carrier is not a complicated task. Second, an aircraft carrier is equipped with so many advanced, delicate, and sensitive devices… that it could be incapacitated by even the smallest explosion.” Iran’s latest threats were apparently in response to the news that the United States has deployed advanced jet fighters only 200 miles from Iran’s mainland. Digital Journal reports that the U.S. deployed F-22 stealth fighters to an allied base close to Iran’s mainland. According to Digital Journal, “F-22 Raptors that have never been tested under combat conditions are now stationed at the Al Dafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates… the U.S. has been quietly assembling a powerful air-to-air fighting team at bases near Iran. Before the F-22s were deployed, the Air Force deployed the Massachusetts Air National Guard’s 104th Fighter Wing, with 20 F-15Cs, to Southwest Asia.” –
April 28, 2012 – IRAN – America’s most sophisticated stealth jet fighters have been quietly deployed to an allied base less than 200 miles from Iran’s mainland, according to an industry report, but the Air Force adamantly denied the jets’ presence is a threat to the Middle East nation. Multiple stealth F-22 Raptors, which have never been combat-tested, are in hangars at the United Arab Emirates’ Al Dafra Air Base, just a short hop over the Persian Gulf from Iran’s southern border, the trade publication Aviation Week reported. Air Force spokesperson Lt. Col. John Dorrian would not confirm the exact location of the F-22s, but told ABC News they had been deployed to a base in Southwest Asia — a region that includes the UAE. Dorrian also stressed that the F-22s were simply taking part in a scheduled deployment and are “not a threat to Iran. This is a very normal deployment to strengthen military relationships, promote sovereign and regional security, improve combined tactical air operations and enhance interoperability of forces,” Dorrian said. The F-22 has only been in the UAE once before for training missions in 2009 with “coalition partners.” Dorrian declined to say what the Raptors’ mission was in the region this time around or how many planes had been deployed, citing operational security. However, Dorrian said that because of the F-22′s next-generation capabilities, any number of planes deployed to the region is “significant.” Though the F-22 has been officially combat operational since December 2005, no planes from the Air Force fleet — which are made by defense contracting giant Lockheed Martin and cost an estimated $79 billion — have seen combat. The plane was not used in Iraq, Afghanistan or in the U.S.-led no-fly mission over Libya. The Air Force has said the sophisticated jets simply haven’t been needed yet. But Jeff Babione, Lockheed Martin’s vice president for the F-22 program, told ABC News last year that the plane was “absolutely’ suited for taking on more sophisticated adversaries and could be used in deep penetration strike missions in well-defended combat zones inside places like North Korea or Iran. –
y could not even endure resist against Hezbollah weapons, with a maximum range of 70 kilometers, and [were forced to] raise their hands in surrender after 33 days. So how will they ever withstand Iranian missile might?” The US, Israel and some of their allies have accused Tehran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear energy program. Iran has refuted the allegations over its nuclear energy program, arguing that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Tehran is entitled to the peaceful use of nuclear technology. The IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities, but has never found any evidence indicating that its nuclear energy program has been diverted towards nuclear weapons production. –
World may not be able to figure out if Iran has a bomb warns intelligence official: American officials are adamant. The U.S. will respond – possibly with military force – if Iran crosses a red line and decides to actually make nuclear weapons. But will the U.S. know with a degree of certainty that a line has been crossed? The decision itself to push ahead really comes down to one person, according to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Clapper told a Senate hearing recently that any decision would be based on ‘the supreme leader’s world view and the extent to which he thinks that would benefit the state of Iran or, conversely, not benefit.” Clapper was referring to Ayatollah Ali Khameini, the supreme leader of Iran. “It’s Khameini, period, full stop, end of sentence,’ agreed Kenneth Pollack, an Iran expert at the Brookings Institution. But trying to read one person’s mind is no easy thing, observed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently, noting how Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was misread by U.S. intelligence. “People sometimes say and do things that are at variance with what one might expect,’ the secretary of state said. “It’s still quite bewildering to me why Saddam Hussein wanted everyone to believe that he had chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons of mass destruction when apparently he did not.” Ephraim Asculai, a retired Israeli nuclear scientist, said there are three ways the world will know if Iran has decided to break out and make a dash to nuclear weapons: Iran tells everyone, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) discovers it, or the intelligence community figures it out. But he is not terribly confident any intelligence service – whether it’s the United States’ or Israel’s or some other nations– will discover it. “Depending on the intelligence community – this is not very good,” Asculai said. –
March 26, 2012 – INDONESIA – According to the regional VAAC, the Batu Tara volcano has erupted and is emitting a dense ash cloud. The aviation alert-status for the region has been raised to orange. Batu Tara volcano is located 50 km north of Pulau Lembata in the Flores Sea. The crater is in the middle of the island with dimensions of 900 m x 700 m. The uninhabited island of Batu Tara is the steep-sided summit of an active stratovolcano and has a small summit crater which is open to the east. The base of the island lies about 3,000 meters below sea level. Batu Tara is the northern-most active volcano in the Adonara Pantar sector of the Sunda arc. This is at the boundary of the collision of the north moving Australia tectonic plate, and the Sunda-Banda arc. Batu Tara volcano is located 230 km above the Benioff zone in a region where the arc crust is relatively young and thin. Rocks from Batu Tara contain crystals that formed in different magmas. Batu Tara last eruption was in 2010. –The Extinction Protocol
March 26, 2012 – FRANCE – A mountain looming over a French commune with a population of just 200 is being touted as a modern Noah’s Ark when doomsday arrives – supposedly less than nine months from now. A rapidly increasing stream of New Age believers – or esoterics, as locals call them – have descended in their camper van-loads on the usually picturesque and tranquil Pyrenean village of Bugarach. They believe that when apocalypse strikes on 21 December this year, the aliens waiting in their spacecraft inside Pic de Bugarach will save all the humans nearby and beam them off to the next age. As the cataclysmic date – which, according to eschatological beliefs and predicted astrological alignments, concludes a 5,125-year cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar – nears, the goings-on around the peak have become more bizarre and ritualistic. For decades, there has been a belief that Pic de Bugarach, which
, at 1,230 meters, is the highest in the Corbières mountain range, possesses an eerie power. Often called the “upside-down mountain” – geologists think that it exploded after its formation and the top landed the wrong way up – it is thought to have inspired Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Since the 1960s, it has attracted New Agers, who insist that it emits special magnetic waves. Upwards of 100,000 people are thought to be planning a trip to the mountain, 30 miles west of Perpignan, in time for 21 December, and opportunistic entrepreneurs are shamelessly cashing in on the phenomenon. While American travel agents have been offering special, one-way deals to witness the end of the world, a neighboring village, Saint-Paul de Fenouillet, has produced a wine to celebrate the occasion. Jean-Pierre Delord, the perplexed mayor of Bugarach, has flagged up the situation to the French authorities, requesting they scramble the army to the tiny village for fear of a mass suicide. –
March 26, 2012 – MEXICO - The National Center for Disaster Prevention (Cenapred) reported that in the last 24 hours the Popocatepetl volcano registered 33 exhalations of low intensity, accompanied by emissions of water vapor and gas. The body of the Ministry of the Interior (Interior Ministry) explained that on Saturday one of these incidents occurred at 22:29, 23:21 and 23:56 hours on Sunday while they were at 5:14, 5:41 and 8:32 hours. In a statement, adding that Cenapred at 08:42 hours, an earthquake of low magnitude was followed by 96 minutes of spasmodic tremor segments, while the other parameters concerning the volcano remain unchanged. On Saturday night, there were numerous reports of incandescence material seen glowing in the mouth of the crater, though clouds made visibility poor for portions of the evening. The volcanic alert remains at phase two and yellow. Moderate exhalations are likely, some with ash emissions, sporadic bursts of low to moderate probability of emission of incandescent fragments short and a mild glow of the volcano in the crater may also be likely. The Cenapred recommended maintaining the safety radius of 12 kilometers. -
March 25, 2012 – HONOLULU – Many people from the Big Island to Oahu felt a magnitude 4.9 earthquake Saturday morning. The quake struck a little after 10:45 a.m., centered just west of Honomu in East Hawaii, at a depth of 27 miles. There are no reports of major damage or injuries. Scientists say the earthquake was too small to generate a tsunami and the weight of the Big Island settling is the likely cause. Geologists at the Hawaiian Volcanoes Observatory say there have been no aftershocks so far, and there’s been no change in the ongoing eruption at Kilauea Volcano. -
March 24, 2012 – ASIA – A North Korea missile launch could send the missile over the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell is reported to have asked the three countries to condemn the launch. North Korea says the rocket will take a new southern trajectory instead of a previous route east over Japan. Japan is readying anti-missile defenses around the southern islands of Okinawa, which could be under the flight path. North Korea says the rocket is intended to put a satellite in space, but the U.S. and others say the launch is a cover for a long-range missile test – a potential delivery system for nuclear weapons. The launch is expected to dominate a security summit on Monday in the South Korean capital Seoul, which will be attended by U.S. President Barack Obama. Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald said Mr. Campbell had briefed Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr on Friday on the rocket’s southward trajectory. “If the missile test proceeds as North Korea has indicated, our judgment is that it will impact in an area roughly between Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines,” the paper quoted Mr. Campbell as saying. “We have never seen this trajectory before. We have weighed into each of these countries and asked them to make clear that such a test is provocative and this plan should be discontinued.” North Korea’s last rocket launch in 2009 triggered UN sanctions BBC Asia analyst Charles Scanlon says Pyongyang appears to be trying to soften the political impact of its planned rocket launch. It has chosen a new southerly route mainly over open sea, avoiding what is regarded as a more provocative easterly trajectory over the main Japanese island. North Korea’s state-run KCNA news agency said: “A safe flight orbit has been chosen so that carrier rocket debris to be generated during the flight would not have any impact on neighboring countries.” North Korea has shown a growing mastery of ballistic technology during its three previous long range tests. However, experts say that none has succeeded in reaching orbit, and debris has fallen to earth at various stages during the launches. –
March 24, 2012 – MALTA - A magnitude 3.2 earthquake was registered in Libyan waters at 10.28 am yesterday, and felt in Gozo. According to the University of Malta Seismic Monitoring and Research Unit, its epicenter was 177km southwest of Malta. Other seismic activity was recorded in Crete, on Thursday. The Italian website Meteoweb.eu, also reported the tremor, although the information it gave was different to that officially issued. It said the earthquake’s epicentre was in Gozo and that it had a magnitude of 2.9 on the Richter Scale. According to the same website, the tremor was felt in Gozo. No damage was caused. The last significant seismic activity in Malta, was recorded over the weekend of 23 and 24 April, last year. A series of five earth tremors, with the first occurring at around midnight, were felt in various localities in Malta and people reported objects moving on the shelves. The tremors had a magnitude of between 2.5 and 4.0. –
March 24, 2012 – CHICAGO – Tornadoes touched down in a half-dozen states on Friday, killing one woman whose mobile home was flipped by a twister and causing damage to homes and businesses, authorities said. The 60-year-old woman died in Jefferson County, Illinois, when a suspected tornado flipped her mobile home and blew it across a road into a farm field, said county coroner Eddie Joe Marks. There was at least one other person injured in the county, located in the southern tip of Illinois. “A young boy had just stepped into his home when the storm hit. He got away with minor scrapes and bruises but went to the hospital,” Marks said. The tornadoes appeared to be smaller and touched down only briefly as compared to a deadly tornado outbreak in the region early this month, authorities said. A few homes sustained damage from a suspected tornado in Fern Creek, Kentucky, a town southeast of Louisville, emergency management official Monica French said. In Alabama, a suspected tornado damaged three homes and some chicken houses in the town of Troy, emergency management spokeswoman Yasamie August said. Georgia, Indiana, and Missouri also had tornadoes touch down, with no reports of injuries. “There have been a lot of tornado reports but they’ve all been brief touchdowns or rope-like tornadoes, not large tornadoes,” said Steve Weiss of the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. Tornadoes have caused 55 U.S. deaths so far this year, most of them on February 29 and March 2 when swarms of tornadoes wreaked havoc across the Midwest and the South. Tornadoes were blamed for 550 deaths in the United States last year, the deadliest year in nearly a century, according to the Weather Service. The storm front bringing rain and severe weather to the nation’s midsection broke a spell of record-breaking, summer-like temperatures. Among the southern Illinois towns in the severe weather zone that was pelted by hail on Friday was Harrisburg, where seven people were killed when a powerful tornado February 29 flattened part of the town. –
March 24, 2012 – CHILE - A moderate earthquake of 5.3 magnitude (5.1 USGS) on the Richter scale struck near Santiago on Saturday morning in the central area of the country, according to the Seismological Service of the University of Chile. The epicenter of the quake, which occurred at 4:28 am was located 43 kilometers northeast of the town of Casablanca, on the border regions of Valparaiso and Santiago, at a depth of 68.9 kilometers. It was in the capital and the fifth region where the earthquake was felt more strongly. According to reports received by the National Bureau of Emegencia (Onemi), the quake reached an intensity of V degrees on the Mercalli scale in Santiago, the Andes, Talagante, Tiltil, Valparaiso, Viña del Mar, Quintero, San Antonio, San Felipe, and German Village. V grades also recorded in Los Vilos, in the Coquimbo Region. In the Region of O’Higgins, meanwhile, the earthquake was felt with a force of IV degrees in Rancagua and III degrees on Christmas, Pichilemu, San Fernando and Santa Cruz. In the El Maule reached II degrees in Curicó and Order. It reached in the Fourth Region II degrees in La Serena. The Onemi received no reports of damage or injured as a result of the earthquake. –
March 24, 2012 – SAUDI ARABIA – A tremor has hit three villages in Sabya governorate in Jizan region – Mashlaha, Al-Hayja and Al-Wajeeh. The Director General of the National Center for Earthquakes and Volcanoes Hani Zahrani said the earthquake, which measured 3.1 on the Richter scale and was felt in Al-Kudmi took place 80 km from Jizan. He insisted it was ordinary and did not cause any damage or casualties. The area in which the tremor occurred is seismically active and is regularly hit by tremors of different intensities. The Director of Civil Defense in Jizan region Brig. Hassan Bin Ali Al-Qufaili said “there are plans readied by the Directorate of Civil Defense to deal with damage that occurs because of earthquakes. These plans include coordination with authorities affiliated to Civil
Defense. The plans will be implemented in case damage occurs, God forbid.” The Acting Spokesman of the Directorate of Civil Defense in Jizan region, First Lt. Musslih Al-Ghamdi revealed that the Command and Control Center in the Civil Defense received a report from the National Center for Earthquakes and Volcanoes on the occurrence of an earthquake northeast of Jizan measuring 3.05 on the Richter scale at 1.19 AM Wednesday. He said: “Some of the residents of Al-Kudmi felt the earthquake. Immediately, Civil Defense teams were dispatched to inspect the location. Thanks to Allah, there was no damage to property or any casualties.’ A resident of Al-Kudmi Muhammad Al-Najmi told Okaz/Saudi Gazette that he and his family were asleep when they heard a terrifying explosion at 1:00 A.M. followed by an earthquake. Expatriate Abdul Qader said: “When the earthquake hit the area, some of the furniture toppled. Fortunately, no cracks occurred in the building. Some citizens came rushing out of their homes for fear that they might collapse especially since these homes are not strongly built.” –
March 23, 2012 – MONTSERRAT - A “noticeable” increase in seismic activity at the Soufirere Hills Volcano has resulted in the closure of the Zone C area near the volcano, which had been reopened for daytime entry in December. Dr Paul Cole, director of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory, told a radio station Friday that it was a precautionary measure as authorities continue to monitor the volcano. “Following two volcano-tectonic swarms on the March 22 and 23, 2012 involving 49 and 54 events respectively, mild ash venting began at Soufriere Hills Volcano at around 8:00am local time on March 23,” the MVO said in a statement. “The venting was sourced from the floor of the Feb. 11, 2010 collapse scar, immediately south of the old English’s crater wall and to the west of the long-lived hottest fumarole previously identified.” The Zone C area, which is comprised of Cork Hill, Weekes, Foxes Bay, Richmond Hill, Delvins and extends 500 meters out to sea is part of the island’s exclusion zone. It reopened in Decem
ber 2011, after the hazard level in the area was lowered. The level will likely not be lowered, however, despite the area’s closure. According to the statement, the ash venting was “clearly pulsatory,” and sent ash 6,000 feet above sea level. It sent black jets of ash rising a few hundred meters above the floor of the collapse scar. The activity was described as “phreatic,” meaning activity formed when superheated rock meets groundwater, causing the rocks to fragment and generate ash. “[Volcano-tectonic] earthquakes are related to fracturing rocks probably as a result of increases in pressure,” the statement said. “It is likely that these increases and the resulting earthquakes are related to uprising magma below the volcano.” Similar types of activity have apparently occurred at the volcano up to several months prior to magma extrusion, both in 2005 and 2008. –
March 23, 2012 – JAPAN – The Japanese parliament has approved a resolution condemning North Korea’s planned missile launch, and the country is also preparing contingencies should the missile veer off course and pose a threat to Japan. Speaking in Tokyo Friday, Defense Minister Naoki Tanaka said the Japanese military will be prepared for any eventuality. Tanaka says he is ordering officials to prepare deployment of PAC-3 surface-to-air missiles and Aegis destroyers carrying a state-of-the-art anti-missile system that could attempt to shoot down the rocket. Pyongyang says it will place an earth observation satellite into a polar orbit in mid-April to honor the 100th birth anniversary of its late founder and perennial president, Kim Il Sung. Members of the international community say the launch is a pretext for a long-range missile test, which North Korea is forbidden from conducting under U.N. sanctions. South Korean and Japanese diplomats met in Seoul to share their responses to the upcoming launch. Japan’s nuclear envoy, Shinsuke Sugiyama, says Tokyo and Seoul are also in contact with other capitals. “We agreed we should keep coordinating our positions and comparing notes between ROK [South Korea] and Japan, and also including those in Washington, and of course we should be ready to talk to the Chinese, which I will do, and Russians too as a member of the six-party talks,” said Sugiyama. The six-party talks were intended to negotiate an end to North Korea’s nuclear programs. But in 2009 Pyongyang announced it would “never again” participate after the U.N. Security Council moved to condemn North Korea for a failed launch that year. -
March 23, 2012 – ISRAEL - Discussions between Iran and the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program will begin on April 13, senior U.S. and EU officials informed Israel on Tuesday. The talks are likely to take place in Geneva. Officials in Jerusalem estimate that Israel will allow at least three months for discussions, until the oil embargo on Iran comes into full effect in the beginning of July. Meanwhile, former Mossad head Meir Dagan said he believes Israel will be aware when Iran moves to the stage of nuclear weapon production – for example, enriching uranium to a degree of 90 percent. Dagan said that at that stage, Israel would have to attack the Iranian nuclear sites if the international community did not stop its program. Speaking at an event in a Haifa hospital, Dagan said that currently Israel must not attack Iran, and that a strike on its nuclear facilities should be the last re
sort. Dagan said he believed the Israeli Air Force has the capability to significantly damage Iran’s nuclear sites, yet warned that such a strike will have serious repercussions. He added that in case of an Israeli attack, hundreds of missiles will be launched at Israel, together with barrages from Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iranian-linked organizations in Gaza. President Barack Obama made a direct appeal on Tuesday to the Iranian people, saying there was “no reason for the United States and Iran to be divided from one another.” In a video message marking the Persian new year, known as Nowruz, Obama said the U.S. seeks a dialogue with the Iranian people in order hear their views and understand their aspirations. And he sharply rebuked the Iranian government for setting up an “electronic curtain” around its people that the U.S. says blocks access to much of the outside world. –
March 23, 2012 – ARMENIA – The number of earthquakes has recently increased in Armenia and the region. The National Seismic Protection Service (NSPS) of Armenia on Wednesday registered a magnitude-3 tremor, whose epicenter was 13 kilometers southeast of Martuni city. Thirteen earthquakes measuring 3 magnitude or higher have occurred in the region. In an interview with Armenian News-NEWS.am Ashkhen Tovmasyan, representative of the National Seismic Protection Service, said According to her, seismic risks are growing with urban development and with population growth. Risk increases in Armenia when new buildings are built and population grows, if there was no urban development there would be no risks. As Ashkhen Tovmasyan mentioned, currently there are no serious anomaly indicating earthquakes, so there is no need to worry about any earthquake. There are often all the indicators of an earthquake but no quake happens. The expert advised to build buildings in safe places and avoid blocking the main entrances. –
within a 40km radius of the epicenter. Geoscience Australia seismologist David Jepsen said the quake was the biggest in Australia in 15 years. “There are a number of Aboriginal communities near the epicenter and they would have felt the earthquake strongly,” he said. “It is possible there could be some minor damage up there. One of these in a major city would be a different story. “People as far north as Alice Springs and as far south as Coober Pedy and Oodnadatta could have felt this.”An SA Police spokesman said there had been no reports of damage or injuries. Dr. Jepsen said a 4.3 magnitude earthquake struck near the same location about a week ago. The earthquake was the most powerful in Australia since a 6.3 magnitude quake off Collier Bay, on Western Australia’s north coast, on August 10, 1997. It is the second largest quake to be recorded in South Australia. The biggest was a 6.5 magnitude jolt near Beachport in the South East in 1897, which caused chaos at the nearby town of Kingston and was felt in Adelaide. A magnitude 3.3 quake rumbled through Adelaide on October 19 last year. –
March 23, 2012 – ARKANSAS - Remember New Year’s Eve 2010 when thousands of birds mysteriously dropped from the sky over Beebe, Arkansas? Well, the mystery has been solved. Last May, a crew from the National Geographic Channel dropped by the NewsChannel5 Weather Office. They wanted to see what important information we had found regarding the bird deaths over Beebe. Indeed, my research indicated a unique radar signature several thousand feet above the birds just as the mass deaths were occurring. With the help of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a unique weather phenomenon was blamed for startling the birds and causing the mayhem that resulted in the demise of thousands of birds that night. On Thursday, an all-new National Geographic Special will debut explaining the Beebe event as well as several other mass animal deaths that occurred last winter. The show, “Omens of the Apocalypse,” airs on the National Geographic Channel at 10 p.m. Results from preliminary testing released today by the Arkansas Livest
ock and Poultry Commission Veterinary Diagnostic Lab show that red-winged blackbirds died from massive body trauma. The trauma was mainly in the front breast tissue of each bird. Officials say the birds suffered internal bleeding and blood clots in the body cavity. The veterinarians also examined the major organs and found them healthy, normal and not effected by disease. The gizzards and stomachs of the birds were empty. According to the report, “Further tests will be done to rule out other causes, but the birds suffered from acute physical trauma leading to internal hemorrhage and death. There was no sign of any chronic or infectious disease.” What caused the trauma is not yet known. Meteorologists reported a heavy thunderstorm over Beebe earlier in the day. It is possible that the birds were sucked into the updraft of the storm and then either struck by lightning or pummeled by hail within the storm. Fireworks were also being launched around the town just before the birds began falling. Since blackbirds have poor night vision, they may have suffered extreme anxiety and become disoriented. –
March 23, 2012 – BRAZIL - Drought has spread from Argentina and Paraguay to Brazil and is hitting soy yields at a time of concerns that regional economic growth may suffer as pressures mount on commodity prices. Argentine yields of soy were affected by drought and labor disputes in that country are making farmers and grain traders jittery. Drought caused widespread economic dislocation in Paraguay, which was also hit by cattle disease. Analysts said drought-related developments in Brazil had led to lower yield estimates, slicing about 2.8 million tons off an original estimate of 67.1 million tons for this year’s harvest. The revised estimates are subject to further review, said the analysts. Soy oil has gained importance in the energy market as a feedstock for the booming international bio-fuels sector. Soy produced by Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay accounts for about half the world’s soy exports. Although current worries have caused spikes in prices and buoyed futures trade in Chicago, Latin America and elsewhere, underlying worries over the eurozone crisis and an economic slowdown in China continue to cloud the outlook. Some analysts predicted a 10 million ton shortfall in Brazil’s soy crop when compared with last year. –
March 23, 20112 – WISCONSIN - Sharon Binger cracked basement floor was testament that something actually happened. Now authorities say a minor earthquake occurred this week near the eastern Wisconsin city where researchers have been investigating a series of unexplained booming sounds, federal geologists said Thursday. The U.S. Geological Survey said the 1.5 magnitude earthquake struck Tuesday just after midnight in Clintonville, a town of about 4,600 people about 40 miles west of Green Bay. Geophysicist Paul Caruso told The Associated Press that loud booming noises have been known to accompany earthquakes. It’s possible the mysterious sounds that town officials have been investigating are linked to the quake, he said. Earthquakes can generate seismic energy that moves through rock at thousands of miles per hour, producing a sonic boom when the waves come to the earth’s surface, Caruso said. “To be honest, I’m skeptical that there’d be a sound report associated with such a small earthquake, but it’s possible,” he said. Those reservations didn’t stop Clintonville City Administrator Lisa Kuss from declaring ‘the mystery is solved” at a news conference Thursday evening. She said USGS representatives described the event as a swarm of several small earthquakes in a very short time. “In other places in the United States, a 1.5 earthquake would not be felt,” she said. ‘But the type of rock Wisconsin has transmits seismic energy very well.” The U.S. Geological Survey says earthquakes with magnitude of 2.0 or less aren’t commonly felt by people and are generally recorded only on local seismographs. Caruso said the Tuesday earthquake was discovered after people reported feeling something, and geologists pored through their data to determine that an earthquake did indeed strike. Local residents have reported late-night disturbances since Sunday, including a shaking ground and loud booms that sound like thunder or fireworks. -
March 22, 2012 – ONTARIO – A neighborhood in Barrie’s northwest end was rattled Tuesday night when a “sonic boom” brought residents out of their homes. Rob Higgins and his two sons were watching TV around 10 p.m. when a loud noise, described as jet plane breaking the sound barrier, ripped through the Wallace Drive home. “It was like a loud sonic boom. When I went outside, numerous neighbors came out to see what happened,” Higgins said. “No one could see anything. Some people said it sounded like a major car crash.” At least 10 neighbors were on the street looking around in curiosity when Higgins and his family were surprised by the sound. “Originally, I thought it was some huge thing was thrown at our house. Not a car, but maybe a big barrel or something large,” he said. “I went outside a realized everyone heard something and it couldn’t have just been our house.” Barrie police said there were no calls for service in the area at the time or reports matching a loud sound. If anyone heard the sound or knows what it is contact the Examiner at 705-726-6537, ext 282. –
March 22, 2012 – WISCONSIN – The strange sounds heard over three straight nights in Clintonville, Wisconsin, have now been reported 70 miles to the south in Montello. What are they? Also, officials in Montello are reporting an unidentifiable slimy sludge has invaded the waste water system, never seen before. Can it have something to do with the weird booming noises residents of both towns are reporting? In Clintonville this evening, a town meeting is being held with city officials doing their best to answer questions and allay fears. But, they admit, so far they have no explanation for the mysterious, thunderous booms shaking the ground in both far-flung towns. Residents are bracing for another sleepless night, even for those not in the affected areas, because of the unease and fear this phenomenon is causing. Why is it happening only at night? Are aliens starting to work the night shift? Some believe it indicates the strange sounds are a result of some human activity which someone is trying to shield from the public eye. Possibly for illegal reasons? It wouldn’t be the first time that greedy, uncaring people put others, and the environment, at risk purely for personal gain. Unfortunately, it’s a story which has repeated itself over and over. At least in some scenarios, aliens who visit the Earth in a UFO have benevolent reasons for disrupting the lives of unsuspecting citizens. If it’s found that a group of people is doing something harmful, without thought to serious consequences, sleepy towns in Wisconsin, like Clintonville and Montello may wake from peaceful slumber in a mighty nasty mood. –
March 22, 2012 – SAN SALVADOR – The National Service of Territorial Studies, which is known as SNET is reporting that 8 earthquakes have rattled the San Salvador Volcano which is located northwest of the capital city of San Salvador- a population of about 540,000 people. An emergency declaration has been declared at the volcano as a precautionary measure. The eight tremors felt by the population have reached levels of between 2.2 and 3.3 degrees on the Richter scale, according to the National Service of Territorial Studies (SNET), which has also recorded at least 25 micro-earthquakes. The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources in a statement recalled that the last seismic swarm with epicenter in the San Salvador volcano was in 2007, when there were 142 micro-earthquakes, four of them felt by the population. The volcano last erupted in 1917. The volcano is believed to have sprung to life after a 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck the Oaxaca region of Mexico. According to the National Seismological Service (SSN), the massive Mexico earthquake unleashed more than 44 aftershocks as of Wednesday. Of the aftershocks recorded by the country, six were over 5.0 + magnitude on the Richer scale and 25 were of a 4.0 magnitude, with the rest 3.0 or smaller. Apart from the string of earthquakes in San Salvador, today SNET reported another quake of 4.3 on the Richter scale at 11.26 local time (17.26 GMT) in the Pacific Ocean, about 43 kilometers south of the estuary San Diego, in the department of La Libertad. This other quake had a focal depth of 34 miles and reached an intensity of three on the Mercalli scale in San Salvador. The Salvadoran authorities have reported no casualties or damage resulting from earthquakes. –
March 22, 2012 – GOROKA, Papua New Guinea — A strong earthquake struck the island of New Guinea in Papua New Guinea on early Thursday morning, seismologists said, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties. The 6.6-magnitude earthquake at 8:15 a.m. local time (2215 GMT Wednesday) was centered about 63 kilometers (39 miles) east-southeast of Goroka, the capital of the Eastern Highlands Province in the Oceanian country. It struck about 105.9 kilometers (65.8 miles) deep, making it an earthquake with intermediate depth, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties from the region, but the USGS estimated that approximately 147,000 people near the epicenter may have felt ‘strong’ shaking which could result in light to moderate damage. Another 3.5 million people may have felt light to moderate shaking. Because the earthquake struck fairly deep and on land, no tsunami warnings were issued. “A destructive tsunami was not generated based on earthquake and historical tsunami data,” the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said in a bulletin. Earthquakes in the mountainous nation of Papua New Guinea, which is on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, do rarely cause damage or casualties as most structures in the region are light and flexible. This allows them to bend, rather than snap when a major earthquake happens. In December 2011, a powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck near the town of Wau in Morobe province. The earthquake was felt as far away as the capital Port Moresby, about 221 kilometers (137 miles) south-southeast of the epicenter, but there were no reports of damage or casualties. In July 1998, a powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck just off the north coast of the country’s island of New Guinea, causing a landslide which resulted in a local tsunami. The disaster left at least 2,183 people killed and thousands more injured. –
March 21, 2012 – CANADA - A barn on the 4000-block of Otter Point Road collapsed after a series of unexplained tremors rumbled through the region on Thursday, March 15. Barrie Hanslip, owner of the 35-acre property where the barn was located, said the steepled barn tumbled downward after a large “boom” and rumble at 11:30 a.m. The large tremor was preceded by two smaller shakes around 9:00 a.m. Hanslip wasn’t home at the time of the collapse, but her niece, Sandra Richardson, said two seconds after the large third rumble, she heard a creak and the barn collapsed. “I thought my aunt was underneath it and was screaming for her, but I ran up to the barn and saw her car was gone,” Richardson said. Richardson, whose residence is located adjacent to the dilapidated barn, said the earthquake-like rumbles shook the stove pipe in her home. Hanslip said although the barn was 50 years old, it would’ve stood erect if left undisturbed. “It’s fairly old. It was due to come down, but it certainly wouldn’t have fallen down on its own. It was well-braced,” she said. Alison Bird, seismologist with Natural Resources Canada, said there were no earthquakes in the region during that time, adding there were calls from other residents who reported shaking. –
March 21, 2012 – OKLAHOMA - It woke up sleepy Tulsans, set-off car alarms and freaked out the family pet. Many people thought it was an earthquake that hit Tulsa at 3:33 this morning. Instead, says National Weather Service Meteorologist Steve Amburn, is was a “Super Bolt.” Amburn says a super bolt is a positively-charged cloud-to-ground stroke of lightning. Computer records indicate a single “super bolt” struck in the heart of South Tulsa just after 3:30. No damage from the super bolt is reported. -
March 21, 2012 – IRELAND – Roe Valley residents are mystified over strange late night noises high in the sky, which has left them scratching their heads. The late night noise surfaced recently in Drumsurn, according to local Sinn Fein councillor Brenda Chivers. “It’s very annoying. It starts around 7pm and can go on until 2-3am. People have been out searching to see what it is, but they see nothing. There’s no plane, just this constant drone, and nobody seems to know what it is; unless it’s flying saucers! It’s a mystery.”A similar noise was reported in Derry recently, but there was never any conclusion as to what it was. In the meantime, residents around the Roe have been “tormented” by late night “helicopter noise. People are telling me they are hearing this noise at a time when children are either going to or are in bed, and it has wakened some and prevented others from getting to sleep,” said DUP Colr. Alan Robinson, who said no one could tell him the source of the noise. “Someone knows the answer and I hope it will be discovered soon and the usual quiet Limavady nights return.” However, SDLP MLA John Dallat is convinced it is British Army helicopters. “It’s happened several times before and it’s time the Brits honoured the Good Friday Agreement and took their hardware home,” he said. “Everyone knows those helicopters are in training to kill people in Afghanistan. It’s an invasion of people’s lives and it has to stop.” –
August 26, 2012 – CALIFORNIA - People from all over El Dorado County say they’re hearing loud booms several times a week, but there are many theories on what is causing them. “I thought it was thunder,” said one person. “It’s definitely not thunder; too consistent. I thought it was just mining,” said another person. “I always considered them to be sonic booms from flying aircrafts for years,” said Loring Brunius, owner of Sierra Rock Diamond Quarry. People who live near Pleasant Valley say their days have been interrupted by loud booms, shaking the floor beneath them. “You can feel it in the ground, no question about it. But no one’s been able to figure out why,” said Pleasant Valley resident Peter O’Grady. “I tend to hear somewhere between four to six of these things during the weekdays usually between 11 p.m. and 2 p.m. “Boom, boom, boom, boom just like that,” said Lorren Gonzales, who lives near Pleasant Valley. Some think the booms are from nearby wineries using propane cannons to scare away birds. “We’ve never done it and I don’t know of any other winery that does,” said Carrie Bendick, a winemaker at Holly’s Hill Winery. According to USGS, there aren’t enough seismic stations to pinpoint the exact location. Meanwhile, some say the booms have been around so long and happen so often they barely notice them anymore. Still, others want to solve the mystery. “I would like to know what it is, yeah. And I’d like to know when it’s going to stop too,” said O’Grady. CBS13 spoke to Fallon Naval Air Station that said any supersonic flight operations they do are only allowed over Dixie Valley, which is hundreds of miles away. Some think illegal mining could be the source of the sounds, but Brunius doubts that theory. He said if that was the case, the culprit would have been caught by now. –
August 25, 2012 – SPAIN – In the small Spanish town of Marinaleda, located in the southern region of Andalusía, Mayor Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo has an answer for the country’s economic crisis and the hunger that comes with it: He organized and led the town’s residents to raid supermarkets to get the food necessary to survive. Seven people have been arrested in two raids in which trade unionists loaded shopping carts full of food and left without paying, with the support of the townspeople cheering them on and the mayor watching with approval. (reuters.com, Aug. 15) Gordillo, 60, is a leftist and a member of the Izquierda Unida political party. He sports a Palestinian kaffiyeh scarf around his neck and a Fidel Castro-like beard. Gordilla says he wants to draw attention to the plight of the common worker in Spain, a country in which the economic collapse has hit particularly hard and millions are suffering. (europeonline-magazine.eu, Aug. 14) Since 2007, poverty in Spain has risen 15 percent, while unemployment hovers around 25 percent and tens of thousands have lost their homes to bank foreclosures. The conservative national government has only made matters worse, by introducing austerity measures that have worsened the workers’ lives, while bailing out the bankers and capitalists who caused the crisis in the first place. Gordillo plans to lead a march from Jódar, one of the cities most affected by the current economic meltdown, to other Spanish towns, to try to convince other officials to fight back against the ruling class’s demands of cutbacks and increased hardship for the workers. He is fighting dismantlement of state social services, bank payoffs, and the throwing of the common Spaniard under the bus to the benefit of those exploiting them. Gordillo hopes he can convince other mayors to stage a real resistance to the government’s demands. –
Spain and the Mayan calendar: According to Eugene Olkhovsky, Masterforex-V Academy’s leading expert, analysts and economist are divided over the destiny of the eurozone. In particular, Mario Draghi, President of the CB says he sees light at the end of the tunnel of the eurozone crisis. At the same time, Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank, warns that quantitative easing won’t help the eurozone to solve its financial problems, this is a temporary solution but it won’t help the currency union to resolve the fundamental problems that have caused the crisis. Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the Euro Group, confirmed the info that the EU and the ECB are getting ready for a joint intervention in the currency market. Meanwhile, the central banks of eurozone members are now studying the chances of carrying extra losses if the Greek debt is liquidated. Jim O’Neill, Chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, assumes that Spain may become the locomotive of a eurozone collapse. The IMF called for creating a financial and banking union within the eurozone, thus saying that the crisis has reached its climax. The coalition government of Greece strives to receive a bridge loan in order to settle the budget deficit issue and to cut the public spending by 11.7 bn euro in order to calm down international lenders. According to Roboforex, the ECB will work out a mechanism for a direct intervention in the market of bonds. More and more experts start saying that the financial “end of the world” is near. According to Masterforex-V Academy, the current stereotype is that the bearish direction is the major one for all markets, especially for stock markets. However, December 2012 may well become some kind of a “pivot point” when the stereotype will be broken. In this case, traders and investors will have to reconsider their approach towards capital markets as the conventional ways of analyzing and trading those markets will most likely become inefficient. The SRP Department of Masterforex-V Academy, managed to calculate that the time of the probable financial apocalypse, which (if any) will match the popular doomsday scenario for late December 2012. –
August 25, 2012 – INDONESIA – An increase in seismic activity at Tangkubanperahu volcano near Bandung, the capital of West Java, has been detected since 13 August and promted the Indonesian Volcanological survey (PVMBG) to increase the alert level of the volcano from 1 (normal) to 2 (alert) on 23 August. Between 1 July and 23 Aug, 264 volcanic earthquakes were recorded, which is almost double to values measured during similar periods of time at the beginning of the year. In addition, pulses of volcanic tremor could be recognized. Tangkubanperahu has 2 main craters, each about 1000 m wide and 400 m deep, filled by crater lakes, Kawah Ratu (queen) and Kawah Upas, respectively. The craters and lakes along with fumaroles and warm springs are popular tourist destinations. It is recommended not to climb the volcano’s crater, which is a popular tourist destination in the area. The last eruptions of the Tangkubanperahu were phreatic explosions in 1994. –
August 25, 2012 – PAKISTAN – Flash floods and landslides triggered by heavy rain have killed at least 26 people and destroyed hundreds of houses in northern Pakistan, officials said on Thursday. Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, the prime minister of Pakistan-administered Kashmir said at least 17 people have been killed and nine others injured in six districts since Monday. “Some 685 houses and 125 shops have been damaged and roads washed away,” Majeed said, adding that a request has been made to the federal government for financial help. Irshad Bhatti, a spokesman for the country’s National Disaster Management Authority, said the extent of the damage was still being assessed. The majority of the deaths in Kashmir came when buildings collapsed due to the rains, and a further nine people died in flooding in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, officials said. Adnan Khan, an official from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said he feared the death toll there could rise. “Dozens of families have suffered and their houses were destroyed, several people are still missing,” Khan told AFP. Weather officials are predicting heavy rain in the next three days and rescue teams are closely monitoring the situation, Bhatti said. Floods in Pakistan in the summer of 2011 affected 5.8 million people, with floodwaters killing livestock, destroying crops, homes and infrastructure as the nation struggled to recover from record inundations the previous year. -
August 25, 2012 – BOSNIA – Bosnian authorities put the entire country on red alert Thursday against a heat wave that has seen the Balkan nation bake in its hottest summer on record, the national weather institute said. Meteorologist Dzenan Zulum said the months of June, July and August had been the hottest since measurements were first recorded 120 years ago. In some places, the mercury has soared to 41 degrees Celsius (105.8 Fahrenheit) and temperatures in the capital Sarajevo have in recent days been about seven degrees Celsius warmer than normal. “We predict a similar temperature for the next two or three days followed by a slight cooling from Sunday,” Zulum said. Farmers say between 50-80 percent of their crops have been damaged in the heat wave, and water distribution to several towns has been disrupted. Bosnia is also battling dozens of forest fires in the south and east of the country, with many hundreds of hectares (acres) of land burned. –
August 24, 2012 – COLOMBIA - According to INGEOMINAS, the Observatorio Vulcanológico and Sismológico de Popayán reported that during 8-14 August seismic activity at Sotará increased. The seismic network recorded 110 magnitude 0.2-1.6 events mainly located in an area 0.1-5 km NE of the peak, at depths of 2-6 km. Inflation was detected in the NE area, coincident with the zone of increased seismicity. Web-camera views showed no morphological changes. The Alert Level was raised to III (Yellow; “changes in the behavior of volcanic activity”), or the second lowest level. (Smithsonian Institute) -
August 24, 2012 – ECONOMY - The Obama administration will pressure European governments not to let Greece fall out of the eurozone before November’s Presidential elections, British Government sources have suggested. Representatives from the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission are due to arrive in Athens next month to assess Greece’s reform efforts. They are expected to report in time for an 8 October meeting of eurozone finance ministers which will decide on whether to disburse Greece’s next €31bn aid tranche, promised under the terms of the bailout for the country. American officials are understood to be worried that if they decide Greece has not done enough to meet its deficit targets and withhold the money, it would automatically trigger Greece’s exit from the eurozone weeks before the Presidential election on 6 November. They are urging eurozone Governments to hold off from taking any drastic action before then – fearing that the resulting market destabilization could damage President Obama’s re-election prospects. European leaders are thought to be sympathetic to the lobbying fearing that, under pressure from his party line Congress, Mitt Romney would be a more isolationist president than Mr. Obama. The President discussed the eurozone crisis with David Cameron during a conference call on Wednesday and both welcomed statements by the European Central Bank that it was “standing firmly behind the euro” The ECB is expected to present a plan in the next few weeks to help indebted countries like Spain and Italy by buying their government bonds. Today, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras will travel to Berlin to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel, and to France tomorrow for talks with President François Hollande. He is asking that Greece be given more time to meet its deficit targets and implement its reforms as its economy is struggling through a fifth year of recession. But Germany’s Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, said it was only months since creditors drew up a second bailout package and agreed on a massive debt write-down for Greece. –
Israel concealing intentions with leaks: Talk in Israel of a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities has reached a fever pitch. Last week brought the news of an alleged “war plan” leaked to a blogger. This week, a well-informed military correspondent in Jerusalem reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “determined” to attack Iran before the U.S. election. Two weeks ago, an outgoing government minister told Israelis to prepare for a war that would last 30 days. Some analysts dismiss the speculation as an effort to intimidate Iran or put pressure on the U.S. to get tough on Tehran. David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy has his own contacts in the Israeli leadership. He says there’s more going on here than just war talk. “I think there’s a 50-50 chance before the U.S. election of an Israeli strike,” he says. In any case, it’s clear there’s a lot of war thinking going on in Jerusalem. The alleged war plan that was recently leaked said an Israeli strike would begin with an unprecedented cyber attack designed to paralyze the Iranian regime and blind it to what was happening on its territory. The Internet, telephones, radio and television transmissions, the electrical grid would all be taken out. That’s an attention-grabber: The world has never seen a cyber attack remotely that dramatic. John Bumgarner, chief technology officer at the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, says the plan does make sense — at least in theory. So, some of the war talk in Israel is apparently exaggerated. But this may only reflect the debate going on in the country. Someone could circulate a poorly thought-out scenario to discredit the Netanyahu government’s war planning. Makovsky says the volume and variety of speculation about an Israeli strike on Iran just underscores how seriously the idea is taken. Even apparently outlandish plans, he says, should not be discarded out of hand. “You’re going to see all sorts of things out there, and some of it might be disinformation or psychological warfare. There’s no way we’re going to know,” he says. “The Israelis do pride themselves on, you know, surprise elements that no one is thinking about.” After all, three years ago, Israel and the U.S. joined in the Stuxnet cyberattack against an Iranian nuclear facility in Natanz – a surprise too many. Seemingly far-fetched war talk could amount to propaganda and little else, but it could also mean an Israeli strike on Iran is around the corner. Makovsky says an attack before the U.S. election is a 50-50 proposition. The decision may not yet be made. “Israel has very good cyber capabilities. Some of the best computer scientists in the world come out of the Israeli military and intelligence branch,” he says. “Some of the best cyber-tools that are currently used in the world come out of Israel. -
August 23, 2012 – SYRIA - British Prime Minister David Cameron has joined President Barack Obama in warning Syria the use of chemical weapons would trigger a re-think in their approach. The rise in western rhetoric came as unverified footage showed Syrian tanks on the streets of Damascus. Opposition activists reported 40 people were killed in bombardments timed with the departure of the United Nations observer mission. Heavy shelling has also continued in suburbs across Aleppo as both regime forces and Syria rebels claim to be gaining ground. The plight of civilians remains the focus for the UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator, Valerie Amos: “The humanitarian situation has worsened since my visit in March. The most urgent and growing needs are for health care, shelter, food, water and sanitation. There are serious public health issues in the school buildings that are being used as shelters.” In such a school, those taking refuge blame the president for their plight. More than 500 families have fled the fighting in nearby Aleppo and no one knows when they will be able to return home. –
August 23, 2012 – RUSSIA - Russian authorities said Wednesday that a flash flood had killed four people in the southern Krasnodar region where 172 people drowned in rising waters last month, many trapped in their homes. “Four people have died,” a spokeswoman for the regional emergency situations ministry told AFP. “Three people are listed as missing,” the Krasnodar regional government said in a statement. Heavy rain battered the coastal Tuapse area overnight causing many rivers to overflow and flood the houses and apartments of around 1,837 people, the regional authorities said. In July, 172 people were found dead after severe flooding in the Krymsk area not far from Tuapse. Around 35,000 people lost some or all of their possessions. The local authorities faced widespread censure for their failure to warn people in time of the need to evacuate. Three officials have been arrested and accused of negligence leading to the deaths. On Wednesday the regional government stressed that this time the warning system had functioned “in time” so that the public was not caught unaware by the flooding. “There will not be a second Krymsk,” the regional government promised, saying that residents had been warned this time with an onscreen message on local television and officials driving the streets with loudspeakers. –
August 23, 2012 – HEALTH – The United Nations health agency today reported that the cholera outbreak in Sierra Leone was escalating and stressed the need to rapidly scale up the response to the spread of the of the frequently fatal water and food-borne disease. In a press briefing in Geneva, Glenn Thomas, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization (WHO), confirmed the spread of cholera to an additional two districts of the West African country, noting that since the beginning of 2012, there had been 11,189 reported cases and 203 deaths due to the outbreak. Mr. Thomas told reporters that the WHO was supporting the Government of Sierra Leone in the areas of epidemiology and social mobilization and had sent three cholera experts from its regional office to respond to the deteriorating crisis, UN News Service reports. Cholera is an acute intestinal infection caused by eating food or drinking water contaminated with the bacterium known as vibrio cholerae. The disease has a short incubation period and produces a toxin that causes continuous watery diarrhea, a condition that can quickly lead to severe dehydration and death if treatment is not administered promptly. Vomiting also occurs in most patients. In his briefing, Mr. Thomas also provided an update on the outbreak of Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where a total of 15 cases of viral contamination, including nine deaths, have been reported. He said that the WHO was supporting the DRC Ministry of Health in conducting a series of epidemiological investigations as well as surveillance, public information and social mobilization initiatives. Ebola is transmitted by direct contact with the blood, secretions, other bodily fluids or organs of infected persons or animals such as chimpanzees, gorillas, monkeys and antelopes, and it has an incubation period of two to 21 days. Sufferers can experience fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headaches and a sore throat, as well as vomiting, diarrhea, rashes and impaired kidney and liver function. In the most severe cases, the virus leads to both external and internal bleeding. The most recent outbreak happened last month in Uganda with a total of 20 cases, including 14 deaths, reported across the western part of the country.–
August 22, 2012 – TEL AVIV - Israel’s economy would incur damages of as much as 167 billion shekels ($42 billion) should Israel attack Iran over its nuclear program, business information group BDI-Coface has projected. Direct economic damage would reach 47 billion shekels, BDI-Coface, a respected research group, said on Tuesday. That would be equivalent to 5.4 percent of Israel’s gross domestic product last year. Indirect damages would amount to 24 billion shekels a year for three to five years due to the collapse of businesses, it said. There has been an upsurge in rhetoric from Israeli politicians this month suggesting the country might attack Iran’s nuclear facilities ahead of U.S. presidential elections in November. Israel, widely believed to be the only atomic power in the Middle East, views Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat, citing threats made by leaders of Islamist Iran to destroy the Jewish state. BDI noted that 32 days of war with Lebanon in 2006 led to a 0.5 percent reduction in Israel’s economic growth. Direct costs such as civil property and infrastructure damage cost the economy another 1.3 percent. “In the event of a war of the same magnitude, duration and damage, it is possible to expect damage of 16 billion shekels,” it said. The war with Lebanon took place mainly in Israel’s north, which produces just 20 percent of the country’s output. “It is reasonable to assume that in the event of a war, it would also involve the center of the country, which produces 70 percent of Israel’s economic activity,” BDI said, noting Israel’s gross domestic product was 870 billion shekels in 2011. Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer warned this month of an economic crisis in the event of a war with Iran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is frustrated that Western diplomacy to try to force Iran to rein in its nuclear program has so far proved fruitless. Senior Israeli officials have said a final decision about whether to attack Iran has not yet been taken, with the military hierarchy unhappy about the prospect of going it alone without full U.S. backing. -
August 22, 2012 – ECUADOR - Tungurahua’s eruption continues. This morning, a tall ash plume was rising to 32,000 ft (ca. 10 km) altitude and drifting west. A slight decrease in tremor is visible on the latest seismograms. So far, effects of the eruption have been limited to ash fall. In canton Quero, the ash fall during the past days has damaged more than 5000 hectares of plant cultivations and hit about 2.000 families. In the meanwhile, scientists from the volcano observatory have made an over flight of the volcano and posted the following interesting update (freely translated) for 20-21 Aug: The volcano emits a near constant eruption column, associated with explosions, that reached a maximum height of 5 km and an average height of 1.5 km above the crater, with moderate ash content, drifting to the west. There were no new reports of ash fall. An increase in the number and size of the explosions was observed since 15:00 local time on 20 Aug. Until 16:00 on 21 Aug, there were 16 large explosions producing strong cannon-shot noises heard in villages near the volcano and in cities as far away as Ambato, Riobamba and Miracle. The seismic activity at Tungurahua shows a constant tremor signal associated with steam, gas and ash emissions. Otherwise, the roaring noises have decreased in intensity and duration with respect to the previous days. In the evening observatory staff observed constant expulsion of hot material in jets. Lava blocks landed outside the crater and rolled up to 1.5 km from the top of the volcano’s flanks. An explosion at 14:11 on 21 Aug generated an ash column rising 4 km above the crater that produced a small pyroclastic flow that descended approximately 2.5 km along the Achupashal creek. Thermal images show near continuous explosive activity from the inner crater, ejecting incandescent material onto the upper flanks of the volcano, where temperatures ranged between 116 and 150°C. About 110 families living within close proximity of the volcano have been evacuated. –
August 22, 2012 – ECONOMY – The odds the United States will slip back into recession next year have risen, ratings agency Standard & Poor’s said, citing risks from the European debt crisis and budget tightening at year-end. The US ratings firm raised the chance of the US falling into recession to 25 percent, up from a 20 percent chance estimated in February, as the world’s largest economy struggles to recover from a severe 2008-2009 slump. It also pointed to the looming possibility of the government being forced by existing law to severely cut spending and increase taxes on January 1, the so-called fiscal cliff that would crunch the economy. “Economic activity has downshifted sharply from earlier this year,” S&P said in a report on North American credit conditions amid global uncertainty, dated August 20. “At the same time, possible contagion from the European debt crisis, the potential so-called ‘fiscal cliff’, and the risk of a hard landing for China’s economy have added greater uncertainty to US economic prospects,” it said. In the second quarter, the world’s largest economy grew at a 1.5 percent annual rate, a sharp slowdown from late last year as unemployment remained stuck above 8.0 percent. S&P underscored concern about the impact of a recession in the 17-nation eurozone, whose economy contracted 0.2 percent in the second quarter. S&P forecast a 0.6 percent contraction this year. “A double-dip recession in Europe that transmits financial turmoil to the US could push it into recession,” the agency said. However, S&P said its baseline scenario for the US economy — remained “modest growth,” projecting a gross domestic product expansion of about 2.1 percent for this year. S&P also said it expected that politicians would agree before year-end to change the current severe budget cut and tax hike mandates to avoid the fiscal cliff fate. However, it said, “We do not believe the US and European economies will improve substantially in the next year.” –
August 21, 2012 – TEHRAN – Amid increasing talk of a possible Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities, Iran has begun construction of a new, state-of-the-art, anti-aircraft missile base. The new base, located near the city of Abadeh, in southern Iran, will cost $300 million, be home to 6,000 personnel, and host seven battalions, Iran’s Fars news agency reported Tuesday. The Deputy Commander of the Khatam ol-Anbia Air Defense Base, Mohammad Hosseini, said the base, the largest of its kind in Iran, will also include one of the most important military training centers in the country. Last month, a senior Iranian air defense commander asserted that all Iranian air defense units and systems are fully prepared to repel possible enemy air raids. Also on Tuesday, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled an upgraded version of a short-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile just weeks after it was test-fired, Iranian state media reported. At the ceremony unveiling the Fateh-110, or Conqueror, Ahmadinejad told a group of defense officials that Iran wants to advance its defense technology “not in an aggressive context, but as a deterrence. We do not seek it for conquest, domination of neighboring countries and the world. We do not want it because of defiance,” said Ahmadinejad, according to state TV. Iran considers both the United States and Israel as potential adversaries. Neither country ha
s ruled out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program, which they claim is aimed at developing nuclear weapons. Iran says its program is for peaceful purposes. The official IRNA news agency reported Tuesday that the new version of Fateh-110 has a quicker launch capability, a longer life and can be used in adverse weather conditions, but gave no other details. The missile has been in service in Iran over the past decade. Iran claimed earlier in August that it successfully test-fired the missile, saying at the time that Fateh-110 has an improved accuracy to strike land and naval targets within a 300 kilometer (185 mile) range. Since 1992, Iran has tried to set up a self-sufficient military program. The country’s military leaders have said they believe future wars will take place in the air and on sea, and Tehran has sought to upgrade its air defense systems and naval power in anticipation of such a possibility. Iran has also been pushing to upgrade its missiles, which already can target Israel and US bases in the Middle East. The Pentagon released a report in June noting significant advances in Iranian missile technology, acknowledging that the Islamic Republic has improved the accuracy and firing capabilities of its missiles. Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi said Iran will commission a new generation of fighter jets, missiles, unmanned drones and submarines by the Iranian New Year, which falls in March 2013. –
Tapping SPR, an effort to stabilize the price of oil before war? The Obama administration is monitoring oil markets and a release from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve remains “an option that is on the table” if prices rise or supply is disrupted, said Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman. The administration discussed planning for using the reserve earlier this year when the average retail price of gasoline in the U.S. increased to almost $4 a gallon and the European Union prepared to impose a ban on Iranian oil imports. Oil has climbed 3.4 percent this week on concern that Israel will strike to delay Iran from producing nuclear weapons and as the United Nations Security Council conceded it couldn’t stem the violence in Syria. The U.S. got 16.4 percent of its imported oil from the Persian Gulf in 2011, according to Energy Department figures. Discussion about the reserve comes a sensitive time in U.S. politics as President Barack Obama runs for re-election against Republican Mitt Romney with the sluggish recovery as the central issue. A steep rise in gasoline prices may crimp consumer spending, which accounts about 70 percent of the U.S. economy. In the event of any attack on Iran, the country has said it will block all oil shipments moving through the Strait of Hormuz. –
August 21, 2012 – SYRIA - President Obama warned Syria on Monday that it would face American military intervention if there were signs that its arsenal of unconventional weapons was being moved or prepared for use. It was Mr. Obama’s first direct threat of force against Syria, as he has resisted being drawn into the bloody 18-month rebellion. The president’s warning raises the pressure on President Bashar al-Assad, whom Mr. Obama again called on to relinquish power. And it underscores the deepening alarm among American officials that, as Syria sinks further into civil war, its unconventional weapons could be seized by radical forces tied to terrorist groups like Hezbollah or Al Qaeda. The warning brings Mr. Obama, who has brushed aside calls to impose a no-fly zone or to arm the Syrian rebels, a step closer to direct American engagement. The specter of unconventional weapons being loosed in the heart of the Arab world, he said, would upend his calculation that military intervention would only worsen the situation. “We cannot have a situation in which chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people,” Mr. Obama said in response to questions at an impromptu news conference at the White House. “We have been very clear to the Assad regime but also to other players on the ground that a red line for us is, we start seeing a whole bunch of weapons moving around or being utilized.” “That would change my calculus,” he added. “That would change my equation.” Western authorities say that Syria’s arsenal includes chemical weapons but that they are uncertain whether the country has stockpiled biological weapons. The president said the Pentagon was drafting a range of contingency plans, working with American allies in the region, including Israel and Turkey. He expressed little confidence that the Syrian government could keep its weapons stockpile under lock and key, given the widespread strife in the country. Last month, American officials said they had unspecified evidence that Mr. Assad’s forces had moved some parts of the stockpile out of storage, although the transfer was never confirmed. Experts on Syria speculated at the time that the move reflected the government’s worry about the security of the weapons, not any intent to use them. The Syrian Foreign Ministry announced in July that it would deploy chemical weapons only against foreign intervention, never against its own citizens. –
Syrian violence spreading to Turkey? A car bomb that exploded near a police station in southeastern Turkey has killed eight people and wounded 64 others. Police say the blast happened Monday night in the town of Gaziantep, near the country’s border with Syria. The remote-controlled explosion also set several vehicles on fire. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing. Rebels from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) are active in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast. More than 40,000 people, mostly Kurds, have been killed since the PKK took up arms in 1984 to demand autonomy. –
August 21, 2012 – ALASKA - Cleveland Volcano experienced yet another explosion on Friday morning – its twentieth since Christmas. Cleveland is one of the Aleutian Islands’ most active volcanoes. It’s been on watch for the better part of the past two years, and in June it blew ash 35,000 feet high. Today’s explosion was small by comparison and didn’t produce a visible ash cloud, according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory. Since there isn’t any real-time monitoring equipment on Cleveland, the explosion was detected using infrasound and seismic equipment on nearby volcanoes. Cleveland lies on uninhabited Chuginadak Island, about 115 miles away from Unalaska and 900 miles from Anchorage. While there isn’t a population center near the volcano, it does lie below a major international flight path and could cause major air traffic problems in the event of a serious eruption. –
October 18, 2012 – New Hampshire — An “unusual event” indeed. The 4.0 magnitude earthquake that rumbled across the Seacoast and beyond Tuesday evening triggered normal safety protocols at the Seabrook Station nuclear power plant. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission declared an “unusual event” — NRC-speak for the lowest of its four levels of emergency classifications — at 7:20 p.m. Tuesday. The declaration was prompted by on-site ground motion resulting from an earthquake centered near Hollis, Maine — about 50 miles from the plant. “There was absolutely no impact to the plant from the earthquake,” said Al Griffith, spokesman for NextEra Energy, the plant’s owner. Griffith said a series of mandated safety checks were conducted at the plant, concluding at 1:49 a.m., some six and a half hours after the tremor. Citing the “robustness” of the plant’s design, Griffith assured that it is capable of withstanding a far, far greater impact than Tuesday’s quake. There are seismic monitors on site and Griffith said officials will be conducting “a very thorough examination and analysis of all of our data.” An NRC resident inspector assigned to Seabrook responded to the site last night to confirm that there were no immediate safety issues at the plant, which is currently shut down for a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage. “The reactor was fully shut down at the time the earthquake occurred,” said Neil Sheehan, regional public officer for the NRC. “Following procedures used when there is seismic activity affecting the plant, NextEra personnel conducted initial walkdowns, i.e., visual inspections, and confirmed that all key safety systems were functioning properly and that there was no significant structural damage,” Sheehan said in a statement. “The company will subsequently gather more seismic data and perform more detailed inspections.” Asked about the need to be vigilant in preparing for and reacting to any seismic activity, particularly in the wake of the March 2011 disaster following an earthquake and tsunami at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, Sheehan said, “What happened at Fukushima served as a vivid reminder” of why the highest safety protocols are put in place and enforced. Last April, NextEra Energy conducted a tsunami drill Tuesday at the Seabrook Station plant in order to identify strengths and weaknesses of the plant in case of such a disaster. –
October 18, 2012 – DOMINCIAN REPUBLIC – A 4.7 magnitude quake rattled the Central Mountain towns of Padre las Casas and Constanza Tuesday night, panicking residents. It’s the third moderate tremor in as many days in the country’s south-central region, felt in several towns in the area. According to the United States Geodetic Survey, the quake occurred at 11:30pm, at a depth of 12.7 kilometers (around 8 miles). Inhabitants of the villages of Guayabal and Sabana Yegua also felt the shake and another, less intense aftershock minutes later. No damages have been reported thus far. –
October 18, 2012 – CLIMATE – Are there more tropical cyclones now than in the past? – or is it just something we believe because we now hear more about them through media coverage and are better able detect them with satellites? New research from the Niels Bohr Institute clearly shows that there is an increasing tendency for cyclones when the climate is warmer, as it has been in recent years. The results are published in the scientific journal PNAS. How can you examine the frequency of tropical cyclones throughout history when they have not been systematically registered? Today cyclones are monitored from satellites and you can follow their progress and direction very accurately. But it is only the last approx. 40 years that we have been able to do this. Previously, they used observations from ships and aircraft, but these were not systematic measurements. In order to get a long-term view of the frequency of cyclones, it is necessary to go further back in time and use a uniform reference. Climate scientist Aslak Grinsted of the Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen therefore wanted to find some instruments that have stood and registered measurements continuously over a long period of time. “Tropical cyclones typically form out in the Atlantic Ocean and move towards the U.S. East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico. I found that there were monitoring stations along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States where they had recorded the daily tide levels all the way back to 1923. I have looked at every time there was a rapid change in sea level and I could see that there was a close correlation between sudden changes in sea level and historical accounts of tropical storms,” explains Aslak Grinsted. Aslak Grinsted now had a tool to create statistics on the frequency of cyclones that make landfall – all the way back to 1923. He could see that there has been an increasing trend in the number of major storm surges since 1923. –
October 18, 2012 – HAWAII – Kilauea Volcano has been putting on quite a show lately… as the lava lake within the Halemaumau Crater has reached its highest level since the summit eruption began in 2008. The lava lake at Kīlauea’s summit was only about 150 feet below the floor of Halemaʻumaʻu crater on Sunday — the highest it has reached, according to the scientists of the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. For the past several months, lava within the summit vent has been slowly rising. As of October 5, 2012, lava reached a level that covered the previous high-lava “bathtub” ring within the vent. It was around this time that the bangs and booms of the volcano began to be heard as far away as the Jaggar Museum Overlook in Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park, thrilling crowds day and night. This video shows the heat from the high lava lake level in the overlook vent, causing the walls of the vent above the lava surface to expand and fracture. Scientists say this is the source of the cracking and booming noises emanating from the vent in recent days. Here, we see small fragments of rock exploding from the wall and scattering onto the lake surface. The HVO says the rise in lava level within the vent is associated with a modest uplift and expansion of Kilauea’s summit area. The root cause for this expansion isn’t clear. Scientists don’t believe there’s an increase in magma supply from below. They do believe there could be a connection in the volcanic plumbing system between the summit magma reservoir and the active Pu`u `O`o eruptive vent on Kilauea’s east rift zone. On at least three occasions between March and September 2011, the level of the lava lake within the summit vent was unusually elevated. This condition caused increased pressure within the east rift plumbing system, resulting in notable eruptive outbreaks: the short-lived Kamoamoa fissure eruption just uprift of Pu`u `O`o and two subsequent events in which Pu`u `O`o was split open along its flanks. This time, however, it appears that the associated high summit pressure has not significantly transmitted down the volcano’s east rift. The lava level within Pu`u `O`o crater, while elevated, is not extraordinarily so. And even though lava is flowing through a tube near the base of the Pu`u `O`o cone, flows haven’t reached the ocean in nearly a year. According to the HVO, a steady decrease in Kilauea’s east rift zone gas emissions since August 2012 also suggests a decrease in magma flow between the summit and east rift zone. Scientists say one possible outcome of continued summit expansion and lava level rise could be an eventual outpouring of lava on the floor of Halema`uma`u Crater. Alternatively, the increased pressure might overcome the apparent constriction, resulting in an outbreak somewhere between the summit and Pu`u `O`o, akin to the March 2011 Kamoamoa fissure eruption. –
October 17, 2012 – GEOLOGY - An extremely brief reversal of the geomagnetic field, climate variability and a supervolcanic eruption. 41,000 years ago, a complete and rapid reversal of the geomagnetic field occurred. Magnetic studies of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences on sediment cores from the Black Sea show that during this period, during the last ice age, a compass at the Black Sea would have pointed to the south instead of north. Moreover, data obtained by the research team formed around GFZ researchers Dr. Norbert Nowaczyk and Prof. Helge Arz, together with additional data from other studies in the North Atlantic, the South Pacific and Hawaii, prove that this polarity reversal was a global event. Their results are published in the latest issue of the scientific journal “Earth and Planetary Science Letters.” What is remarkable is the speed of the reversal: “The field geometry of reversed polarity, with field lines pointing into the opposite direction when compared to today’s configuration, lasted for only about 440 years, and it was associated with a field strength that was only one quarter of today’s field,” explains Norbert Nowaczyk. “The actual polarity changes lasted only 250 years. In terms of geological time scales, that is very fast.” During this period, the field was even weaker, with only 5% of today’s field strength. As a consequence, the Earth nearly completely lost its protection shield against hard cosmic rays, leading to a significantly increased radiation exposure. This is documented by peaks of radioactive beryllium (10Be) in ice cores from this time, recovered from the Greenland ice sheet. 10Be as well as radioactive carbon (14C) is caused by the collision of high-energy protons from space with atoms of the atmosphere. The polarity reversal now found with the magnetisation of Black Sea sediments has already been known for 45 years. It was first discovered after the analysis of the magnetisation of several lava flows near the village Laschamp near Clermont-Ferrand in the Massif Central, which differed significantly from today’s direction of the geomagnetic field. Since then, this geomagnetic feature is known as the ‘Laschamp event.’ However, the data of the Massif Central represent only some point readings of the geomagnetic field during the last ice age, whereas the new data from the Black Sea give a complete image of geomagnetic field variability at a high temporal resolution. Besides giving evidence for a geomagnetic field reversal 41,000 years ago, the geoscientists from Potsdam discovered numerous abrupt climate changes during the last ice age in the analyzed cores from the Black Sea, as it was already known from the Greenland ice cores. This ultimately allowed a high precision synchronization of the two data records from the Black Sea and Greenland. The largest volcanic eruption on the Northern hemisphere in the past 100 000 years, namely the eruption of the super volcano 39400 years ago in the area of today’s Phlegraean Fields near Naples, Italy, is also documented within the studied sediments from the Black Sea. The ashes of this eruption, during which about 350 cubic kilometers of rock and lava were ejected, were distributed over the entire eastern Mediterranean and up to central Russia. These three extreme scenarios, a short and fast reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field, short-term climate variability of the last ice age and the volcanic eruption in Italy, have been investigated for the first time in a single geological archive and placed in precise chronological order. –
October 17, 2012 – INDONESIA - Jakarta: An earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale jolted off North Sulawesi province in eastern Indonesia on Wednesday but neither tsunami alert was triggered nor casualties or damages were reported. Indonesian Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said that the quake happened at 11:42 a.m. Jakarta time (04:42 GMT) with epicenter at 113 km northwest of Kepulauan Sangihe in the province at the depth of 308 km under sea bed. The U.S. Geological Survey said that the earthquake measuring 6. 0 on the Richter scale jolted Celebes Sea between Sulawesi and Mindanao. Head of Disaster Management and Mitigation Agency in Sangihe district, Rintj Sambato, said that there was no building damages or casualties. Indonesia sits on the so called “Pacific Ring of Fire” vulnerable to seismic and volcanic activity. –
October 17, 2012 - PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — An earthquake in southern Maine has rattled nearby New England states. The U.S. Geological Survey said the epicenter of the 4.0 magnitude quake was about 3 miles west of Hollis Center, Maine, and about 3 miles deep. That location is about 20 miles west of Portland. The quake was felt in Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, including Boston, and as far south as Rhode Island and Connecticut. The Maine Emergency Management Agency had no immediate reports of damage. The York County Communications Center near the epicenter was inundated with emergency calls, and dispatchers were too busy to talk. -
Loud rumbling noise: Some heard a loud bang. Others felt rolling vibrations. Still others thought it was a large truck, airplane, or helicopter. The 4.0-magnitude earthquake that hit west of Hollis Center, Maine, at 7:12 p.m. Tuesday was different things to different people as it rumbled across New England. “We heard it coming – it sounded like an airplane at treetop level. The quake probably only lasted about five seconds. It felt like it went up my driveway, under the kitchen and out the back yard. It was pretty cool,” Bill from Northborough wrote on the “Feel the Quake?” forum on boston.com. The earthquake surprised residents who rarely experience the phenomenon. Fortunately, no real damage was reported. More than 7,000 people across Massachusetts, including people from 344 of the state’s 351 communities, submitted reports of feeling the quake to the US Geological Survey’s website. More than 500 people in Boston and 300 in Cambridge filed reports, according to the agency. Hundreds of people also contributed accounts of the quake to boston.com. “I live in a house that’s over 100 years old. I’ve never felt any motion before. The house is solid, but this evening I felt it sway and almost ran out of the house. It was very disconcerting. I live in Lexington on a high hill,” Ashley Lieberman wrote. Mary shared her experience from York, Maine, which is about an hour from the epicenter of the quake. “At first, after feeling what seemed like a big bang, including a loud sound, I thought something in the neighborhood blew up or that a car hit the house, but then the house started shaking and I realized what was happening. It was pretty scary! I was glad it discontinued after a few seconds. Hope I never feel one again,” she wrote. Dan B. from Newburyport said his house shook for five seconds and he first ran to the basement to check his furnace. “I thought it was a large low flying helicopter,” he wrote. “It shook the nerves of my three children, all under 10 years old. We also have a calm dog who began to bark during the shake.” John Ebel, director of the Weston Observatory and professor of geophysics at Boston College, said some people might have had a few items rattled off shelves but that he has not received any reports of real damage. -
October 16, 2012 – ICELAND – Chief of Police in Hvolsvöllur, a representative of the Icelandic Road Administration and geophysicist Magnús Tumi Guðmundsson will discuss at a meeting on Thursday whether the levees to the east of Vík, which lies across the Ring Road near the river Múlakvísl, must be raised to prove effective in case of a volcanic eruption in Katla. Geologist Ari Trausti Guðmundsson stated in an article in Morgunblaðið yesterday that it is important to raise the levees judging by the information available on the volume and depth of flooding from Katla, ruv.is reports. The volcano lies underneath the Mýrdalsjökull icecap and a volcanic eruption is likely to cause a major glacier outburst. The levees are the responsibility of the Icelandic Road Administration and according to a report conducted by Einar Hafliðason, a representative of the Road Administration, last spring there was no need to raise the levees given the conditions at hand. The levees are now five meters high and 4,000-5,000 meters long. Scientists are monitoring the volcano closely due to ongoing seismic activity. –
The goal of the plan seems to be that of contaminating the strait so as to temporarily close the important shipping route for international oil tankers, thereby “punishing” the Arab countries that are hostile to Iran and forcing the West to join Iran in a large-scale cleanup operation — one that might require the temporary suspension of sanctions against Tehran. Western intelligence experts speculate that Jafari’s planned operation is an expression of growing frustration. Contrary to claims made by Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi in an interview with SPIEGEL last week, the embargo imposed on Tehran is causing far more than “discomfort.” Iran derives more than 50 percent of its government revenue from oil exports, which declined from about 2.4 million barrels a day in July 2011 to about 1 million barrels in July 2012. But Iran has only cut back production by less than a quarter, because of the technical complexity and expense involved in temporarily capping wells. Iran can hardly sell its oil because of the embargo. Even countries that don’t feel bound to uphold the sanctions are shying away from deals, because no one wants to insure the oil shipments. The storage tanks on the Iranian mainland have been full for some time, and there are no neighboring countries to which Tehran’s leaders would entrust their treasure. For weeks now, tankers have been carrying 40 million barrels of oil through the Gulf around the clock. Most of the giant 15 VLCC supertankers and five smaller Suezmax ships, sailing under the Iranian flag, have switched off their automatic identification system. This makes it more difficult for foreign spies to detect them, but it also increases the risk of accidents. Countries bordering the Gulf have apparently complained to Tehran about the risky practice several times. –
October 16, 2012 – NEVADA – Some rattling and rolling in the area has earthquake experts on alert. In the past week more than 100 small earthquakes have shaken the earth beneath Spanish Springs. So far they’ve been too small to feel, but quake experts want you to know they’re happening. There’s no reason to panic – but it’s a good reminder to make sure you’re prepared. “People can consider certain mitigation steps in case these earthquakes increase in intensity and there’s a larger one,” said Ken Smith, associate director of the Nevada Seismological Laboratory. Smith says most injuries from earthquakes are caused by falling or flying objects – and you don’t want to wait for a big quake to get ready. “Secure your water heaters. Secure your valuables. Secure your book cases,” Smith said. It’s not strange for a dozen quakes this size to happen in a week, but there have been at least 115 since October 8, and about 60 of those have been since Thursday. “These things are totally unpredictable,” Smith said. “It could stop today, or it could keep going at a level of very small events that no one would feel.” Or they could get stronger. So far, they’re small – with the biggest two quakes shaking at magnitude one – but there’s potential for one that really rocks Reno. “We have faults around here that are capable of magnitude seven type events,” Smith said. So this week the Great Nevada Shakeout will teach people to drop, cover and hold-on just in case there’s a big quake. It’s Nevada’s largest earthquake drill and it’s this Thursday, October 18 at 10:18 am. –
Chinese warships deployed near disputed islands: (Oct 16) Japanese aircraft have spotted seven Chinese warships in waters off a southern Japan island and about 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the uninhabited isles at the center of a territorial dispute between the two countries. Japanese officials say the ships were sighted about 49 kilometers (30 miles) from the island of Yonaguni, in Japan’s Okinawa prefecture (state). The ships were believed to be returning to China after training in the Pacific. Japan considers the area part of its contiguous waters, but it is not illegal for foreign vessels to transit them. Defense Minister Satoshi Morimoto said Japan is monitoring the ships’ movement. China and Japan have stepped up their naval activities in the area around Okinawa because of the dispute, but there have been no clashes between their warships. -
October 15, 2012 – COLOMBIA - According to the Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Manizales, an earthquake measuring 2.6 on the Richter scale occurred yesterday at 11:54 am. The statement also notes that the incident “is associated with rock fracturing within the volcanic edifice.” The volcano-tectonic earthquake was presented to the southeast of the main dome at a depth of 12.33 miles. Although the movement was felt in the district Tapias, rural Ibagué, Eduardo Rodríguez, director of the Departmental Committee for Risk Management, confirmed that no emergencies have been reported so far. The Cerro Machin volcano alert remains yellow. There have been three earthquakes reported in the vicinity of the volcano within a week. On Sunday two movements were recorded at 9:32 and 9:35 pm with a magnitude of 4.6 and 3.9 on the Richter scale, respectively, located 12 kilometers southeast of depth to the main dome. The two municipalities where the tremors were felt are Cajamarca and Ibague. Cerro Machin last erupted 800 years ago. –
El Hierro: It seems a new earthquake swarm has started at El Hierro volcano yesterday, when the number of quakes rose from an average of about 8-10 to 23 quakes per day. Today, so far there have been 14 events recorded, and their number is likely to rise further. The quakes are very small (mostly under M1, largest M2.0) and are concentrated at about 10 km depth in the western El Golfo and scattered in the SW part of the island at greater depths.
October 14, 2012 – INDONESIA - A new eruptive phase began on Thursday, 9th October (or possibly the 8th October) at Paluweh volcano, the volcano has been dormant since 1985. Paluweh is also known as Rokatenda. The volcano has shown signs of revival since October 1st. The MODVOLC (MODIS) detected thermal anomalies on 9th October followed by an emission of large ash plumes that could be seen from Flores Island, plus reports of “huge fire” issuing from the top of the volcano. Several villages reported intense ash fall. 6000 people have been reported to have evacuated the area. Dust masks are being distributed. The head of the East Nusa Tenggara chapter of BNPB, Tini Thadeus, said Rokatenda was currently on Alert Level II status, “Waspada,” out of four statuses, with the fourth being the most dangerous. Tini said two other volcanoes in the province, namely Mount Lewotolok in the district of Lembata and Mount Sirung in the subdistrict of Alor, were on the “Waspada” status as well.–
October 14, 2012 – WELLINGTON, NZ – News of the ‘Wellington hum’ has reverberated across the country with the local council inundated with calls on theories about the phenomenon. The Wellington City Council says calls have flooded in since the noise was first reported in parts of the city three days ago. The cause of the noise is still unknown but council spokesperson Clayton Anderson says there are several theories floating around. “We’ve had around 20 phone calls and got around a dozen emails from around New Zealand from people speculating what it is,” he says. One theory is that the Wellington sewerage pump station is reverberating through the pipes into people’s house. Another caller said the work being carried out on the Mt Victoria Tunnel ventilation shaft could be producing a low-pitched hum. The most bizarre theory was from a man convinced Daleks – fictional mutant aliens from the TV series Doctor Who – had surrounded the city. But Daleks or not, it appears the noise is spreading with the council receiving its first call from a resident in Berhampore last night. It takes the total to around 20 noise complaints from Mt Victoria, Mt Cook, Newtown, Berhampore and Karori. “We’ve put the word out to our business units about what could potentially be making that noise and they’ve all come back saying it’s not us,” says Mr Anderson. He says the council will continue to go out and monitor noise complaints. -
July 19, 2012 – IOWA – The worst drought in a half century will continue to plague most of the U.S. Midwest crop region for at least the next 10 days, with only occasional showers providing some relief mainly in the east, an agricultural meteorologist said on Thursday. America’s top two corn and soybean producing states, Iowa and Illinois, are now in the center of the drought as the dryness spreads to the northwest to leech what little moisture remains in already parched soils. “It looks a little wetter today for Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, but the west is still dry with above-normal temperatures,” said Jason Nicholls, meteorologist for AccuWeather. Rain for the next 10 days will run the gamut from just 40 to 75 percent of normal, with the greatest stress in the western Midwest crop states such as top producer Iowa. “It got up to 102 to 103 degrees Fahrenheit in Iowa yesterday with no rain, and will be in the 90s today with no rain,” Nicholls said. Rainfall overnight Wednesday left up to 1.5 inches in Chicago and an inch in Rockford, Illinois. “Only isolated rains, no drought buster,” he stressed. In addition to rain in northeastern Illinois, showers fell in southern Wisconsin, Indiana and southwestern Michigan. “It will be cooler on Friday but the heat will be back for the weekend into early next week. The 11- to 15-day forecast shows the ridge moving west over the Rockies so that may help cut back on the heat, but there is still no significant rain in sight,” he said. An atmospheric high pressure ridge has entrenched itself over the heart of the U.S. corn and soybean producing states, preventing moisture from moving into the crop belt, leading to a buildup of heat, causing crop losses and spawning record-high corn and soy prices. Commodity Weather Group (CWG) on Thursday predicted the heat would last longer next week than had earlier been forecast. More than half of the Midwest was severely dry. “The most concern is in west central Indiana, much of Illinois, far northern Missouri, most of Iowa, southwest Minnesota, southern South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas,” said CWG meteorologist Joel Widenor. As the drought, rated the worst since 1956, expands to the northern and western Midwest, areas that had previously been spared, analysts were slashing corn yield estimates by the hour. Some were also starting to cut their forecasts on the number of acres that will be harvested as farmers opt to plow under some of their parched fields to claim insurance. –
July 19, 2012 – JAPAN – On 7/17/2012, around one thousand of small fish such as Japanese dace were found dead for 500m of Kasumi river Aoume city Tokyo. A citizen reported it to the city office at 17:15 of 7/17/2012. According to their water-quality test, oxygen concentration is normal, chlorine or cyanogen were not detected. Tokyo metropolitan government is going to check if a factory dumped waste water or agricultural chemical in the upper stream. Last November, about 5000 of small fish such as Japanese dace were found dead at the same location too, but they could not identify the cause either. –
July 19, 2012 – JAPAN – Japan’s nuclear safety watchdog on Wednesday ordered a probe into claims the country’s only working nuclear power station sits on an active tectonic fault. The order came as Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO) readied to refire a second reactor at the Oi plant, western Japan, just weeks after the first unit was restarted, ending a brief nuclear-free period in earthquake-prone Japan. A spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said KEPCO had to re-examine the Earth’s crust underneath Oi, while the operator of the Shika plant in nearby Ishikawa also had to carry out further studies. The decision came after geological experts argued both plants are likely sitting on active faults and could be vulnerable to earthquakes if tectonic plates shift. Japan’s entire stable of nuclear reactors was shut down in the months after the disaster at Fukushima when an earthquake-sparked tsunami knocked out cooling systems causing meltdowns that spread radiation over a large area. A parliamentary report earlier this month called for further research into the effect on the reactors of the earthquake itself, adding it was not possible to say for certain the tsunami was the sole cause of damage at Fukushima. Despite widespread public fears over the safety of nuclear power, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda in June ordered the restarting of reactors at Oi amid fears of a summer power crunch. Unit No. 3 was back up at full operating power by mid-July and KEPCO said its plans to re-fire Unit No. 4 on Wednesday would not be affected by the probe order. “The company from its evaluations believes the fault has not been active for between 120,000 and 130,000 years,” a spokesman said. “Now the company has received the order to reinvestigate the matter and swiftly report, we will comply fully with this order,” he said. –
July 19, 2012 – MIDDLE EAST – Emirates Nuclear Energy Corp., the state company developing nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates, has begun construction of the first facility and will start the second in 2013. Safety concrete for the first unit was poured yesterday at the site in Barakah in Abu Dhabi’s Western Region, Emirates Nuclear said today in a statement. Emirates Nuclear will apply for an operating license for the first unit in 2015 and will pour concrete for the second unit in 2013, it said. The first of the four 1,400 megawatt plants will be ready in 2017, with each additional unit becoming operational every year through 2020, according to the statement. The U.A.E. is aiming to be the first Gulf Arab nation to develop nuclear power. Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEP) (KEP) was awarded the contract to build the plants in 2009. –
July 18, 2012 – BULGARIA – A deadly explosion on a bus carrying Israeli tourists in Bulgaria is “clearly a terrorist attack,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Wednesday. “We have several people killed and dozens of wounded people,” Barak said. He said the attack was probably initiated by a group under the auspices of “either Iran or other radical Muslim groups,” and named Hezbollah and Hamas as likely suspects. “We are in a continued fight against them. We are determined to identify who sent them, who executed and to settle the account,” Barak said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed the finger at Iran, saying it has been behind a string of recent attempted attacks on Israelis in Thailand, India and Georgia, among others. “All the signs (are) leading to Iran,” he said, according to a statement from his office. Netanyahu said his country “would respond with force to Iranian terror.” Venelin Petkov, a reporter for bTV in Bulgaria, said more than 30 people were taken to the hospital, three in a critical condition. Vania Valkova, director of the Bulgarian interior ministry press office, earlier confirmed at least three people were in the blast on a bus outside Burgas Airport, on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast. She was not able to confirm the nationalities of those killed but said the flight came from Tel Aviv. Deputy Israeli Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon also said there were three dead in the explosion. He told Israel Radio, “We cannot confirm yet that this is a terrorist incident, but Iran and Hezbollah have been responsible for incidents like this in the past.” The incident comes on the 18th anniversary of the attack on a Jewish community center in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, in which 85 people were killed. The tourists’ plane landed in Bulgaria at 5 p.m., the Israeli Foreign Ministry said. Valkova said the bus was in the parking zone when the blast occurred. -
July 18, 2012 – CANARY ISLANDS - Spanish authorities evacuated a town of 1,800 residents on the Canary Islands on Tuesday, after three days of firefighting efforts failed to prevent a raging wildfire from reaching it. Residents were evacuating from the town of Vilaflor, south of the Teide national park that spans the centre of the Spanish island of Tenerife, as flames reached parts of the town. Emergency services ‘are evacuating residents from Vilaflor due to the advance of the fire from the east,’ the regional government said in a statement Tuesday evening. It said the 1,800 people of the village were leaving by road. Authorities provided buses for some 200 people who did not have their own vehicles. Authorities had prepared a shelter for the evacuees in the nearby town of Granadilla, the statement added. Authorities earlier said the fire had crept a few metres into the Teide Park, a major tourist attraction on the archipelago off northwest Africa, as firefighters battled to keep the flames away from populated areas. Some 800 firefighters were battling the blaze, which broke out Sunday and has spread with strong winds and high temperatures, regional authorities said. More than 90 people were evacuated from other parts of the island on Monday, of whom 60 remained away from their homes before the latest evacuations. The fire had affected an area of about 3,000 hectares, of which half had been burnt, a spokeswoman for the regional emergency services said. Firefighters said they were using five helicopters and three water-bombing planes that arrived Tuesday from mainland Spain, but authorities later said the thick smoke at Vilaflor was hampering efforts. Another four helicopters and 300 firefighters were working to put out a blaze on one of the neighboring islands, La Palma, that has engulfed around 500 hectares and forced more than 150 evacuations. The spokeswoman said this fire had been ‘stabilized’ on Tuesday afternoon after 160 people were evacuated. –
July 18, 2012 – GREAT FALLS, Va. – One lane of Georgetown Pike in Great Falls is now open after a 40-ton tree crushed a 2008 Mercedes CL600, killing the driver Tuesday evening. Traffic is alternating directions. WTOP Traffic still recommends Route 7 as an alternative. Traffic along Georgetown Pike/Va. 193 between Springvale Road and Walker Road completely shut down after the tree came down around 6:45 p.m. Tuesday. Fairfax County Police identified the driver who died as Albert Carl Roeth III, 64. He was the only one in the car. Police say alcohol and speed did not factor into the accident. While it hasn’t been determined why the 100-foot tall, 40-ton tree fell at 9916 Georgetown Pike, it’s believed recent storms weakened the aging tree. One tree expert says the tree has been in serious decline for years. “That tree has been a problem waiting to happen,” Vic Price of Vic’s Tree Service of Great Falls tells WTOP. “It had no leaves. It had no root system to speak of. Gravity was going to take it down. In a busy area like that, I love trees as much as the next person, but sometimes they need to come down,” he says. -
July 18, 2012 – SYRIA - President Bashar al-Assad’s brother-in-law Asef Shawkat and the country’s defense minister were killed in a massive bombing in central Damascus on Wednesday, Syrian state media said. State television said Mr. Shawkat and Defense Minister Maj. Gen. Dawood Rajha, who is a Christian, were killed in an attack against the so-called national security building in the capital’s Rawda Square, while they and other senior security and defense leaders were meeting inside. Mr. Shawkat is deputy defense minister and one of the most powerful figures in Mr. Assad’s security apparatus. It added that there were other serious injuries among those who were at the meeting, but didn’t give further details. The killings come as rebel forces have moved reinforcements into the Syrian capital, battling with government forces and bringing the fighting closer to Mr. Assad’s seat of power. – 
July 17, 2012 – ECONOMY – The risk of a new depression — a sustained, severe recession — has struck fear into the heart of markets and driven monetary policy in developed economies since the current financial crisis began. “We’re in a very unfortunate position to be here,” Richard Duncan, author of The New Depression, warned on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” Monday. “When we broke the link between money and gold, this removed all constraints on credit creation. This explosion of credit created the world we live in, but it now seems that credit cannot expand any further because the private sector is incapable of repaying the debt it has already, and if credit begins to contract, there’s a very real danger that we will collapse into a new Great Depression,” he argued. “If this credit bubble pops, the depression could be so severe that I don’t think our civilization could survive it.” The explosion in cheap credit has been widely blamed for the global financial crisis, but the debate about how to fix the problem continues. “We could keep deferring the depression, but that could just encourage the bad guys. If you do this, you possibly do more harm than good,” Roger Nightingale, economist and strategist at RND Associates, told CNBC Monday. “You can defer, but not prevent.” Nightingale argued that previous credit booms, for example in Japan in the 1980s, have led to sustained recessions. “When you throw money into the system at a rate much in excess of the requirements of the real economy, you’re trying to get people to borrow and spend, but the good guys out there won’t because they’re too cautious. It’s the bad guys who come in, the malefactors,” he said. “When the central banks realize what is going on and raise interest rates, it flings the world economy into depression.” The ideas of Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who argued that monetary policy should constantly expand, informed some of the Fed’s response to the crisis. “Policymakers really believe that if we allow credit to contract, we will reach a new Depression,” Duncan said. “The increase in government debt is making total debt grow; otherwise we would already have collapsed in to a debt-deflation death spiral. This creates great perils, but also tremendous opportunities.” -
July 17, 2012 – BONN, GERMANY – German analyst and investor sentiment dropped for a third consecutive month in July, a survey showed on Tuesday, providing further evidence that the euro zone crisis is taking its toll on morale in Europe’s largest economy. But the ZEW think tank, which conducts the monthly poll, said expectations may have now hit bottom and that the outlook for the rest of the year should prove stable. The main reading from the ZEW poll of economic sentiment slid to -19.6 from -16.9 in June, coming in slightly above the median forecast in a Reuters poll of 38 economists for a drop to -20.0. The index measuring current conditions fell to 21.1, the lowest level since June 2010, and compared with 33.2 last month. “The latest stock market stabilisation, the ECB’s rate cut, the weaker euro exchange rate and lower oil prices have all not succeeded in brightening up German investors,” said ING economist Carsten Brzeski. “(The survey) will clearly add to growing concerns about the strengths of the German economy. However, throughout the financial crisis, the ZEW index has been a euro crisis thermometer rather than a good leading indicator for German growth.” ZEW President Wolfgang Franz said the decline in expectations for the end of 2012 was flattening out gently. “This could possibly be an early sign of an encouraging development in 2013,” he said, but added that the risks should not be underestimated. “Besides the weak demand from the euro zone for German exports, the German economy is also burdened by weakening growth dynamics in other important partner countries,” he said. ZEW economist Michael Schroeder said he would not be surprised if Tuesday’s data had hit the bottom line in terms of expectations. “Our forecast is until year-end and for this year from now on it is more or less stable. From now on the (economic) development should be stable until the year end,” he said. German retailers have been feeling the effects of the debt crisis engulfing much of Europe – department store chain Karstadt said on Monday it would cut 2,000 jobs and the chief executive of Metro, the world’s No. 4 retailer, said earlier this month the debt crisis was hurting demand. -
July 17, 2012 – MIDDLE EAST - The U.S. Defense Department is speeding deployment of the Navy’s John C. Stennis aircraft carrier group to the Middle East, four months ahead of its scheduled deployment, Pentagon spokesman George Little said. Marine Corps General James Mattis, commander of the U.S. Central Command, who has responsibility for the region, sought the earlier presence of the Stennis strike group and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta approved the request, Little told reporters today. The deployment of the Stennis “is about a wide range of U.S. security interests” and not specifically tied to threats from Iran or the turmoil in Syria, Little said. Sending the Stennis group ahead of schedule was intended to avoid having just one aircraft carrier group in the Middle East when the USS Enterprise carrier group leaves the region later this year, Little said. He declined to say when the Enterprise is scheduled to depart. In June, the Pentagon announced a nine- month deployment of the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower to the area. The Stennis strike group will include the Navy’s Aegis destroyer USS Mobile Bay and a contingent of 5,500 sailors, Little said. -
July 17, 2012 – LONDON – Fabian Kessl, an academic visitor from the Department of Social Work, believes the riots are symbolic of a change that is occurring within society and unless the problems are addressed, it is only a matter of time before further riots occur. Professor Kessl explains: “As long as the politics in England go in the same direction as we have experienced in the last years: disrespecting people’s everyday needs, demolishing the idea of the public and strengthening the consumer capitalism – the pre-conditions for a new political revolt are furthermore given. It’s just the question of another “trigger’ like the death of Mark Duggan on the 4th of August last year.” Professor Kessl is undertaking a study into the 2011 riots, analyzing the perspectives of those working in the public services following an observation that those working in youth services or youth work did not offer public commentary following the riots. His research has revealed that both those taking part in the riots and the police responding to the violence described the events as surreal. The already existing data, like the current report of the Youth Justice Board, show that young people people likened the rioting to going to a theme park. One rioter, quoted by the Youth Justice Board-Report said: “It was like when you go to a theme park and go on a rollercoaster – that kind of good scared. Instead of fearing for yourself – it didn’t feel real”. Similarly, a police officer, named in the Reading the Riots Study by London School of Economics and The Guarding describes the events as being “surreal” and “like a movie”. Much commentary regarding the cause of the riots has focused on the “opportunism”. But Professor Kessl believes that this takes many forms – the opportunity to “get back” at the police, at being a sovereign consumer for a few hours even and to show their anger at racial discrimination. “It was about just being visible, being heard, and also putting down the animosities and battles between the gangs for a little time, because there was a bigger enemy,” as a interviewee said to Professor Kessl. He believes that unless the underlying causes of the riots are tackled, then there will be a repeat of the events of August last year and that the Government’s tough punishment will not change that. -
July 17, 2012 – INDONESIA – Mount Merapi, located in Yogyakarta, emitted high-pressure gas on Sunday afternoon that caused its crater wall to collapse and volcanic ash to fall on its western slope, as smoke billowed up to 1 kilometer into the sky. As the gas discharge was not followed by other dangerous volcanic activity, the phenomenon was regarded as a small-scale volcanic eruption and the volcano’s alert status remained normal. “Mount Merapi’s status remains normal because there was no dangerous volcanic activity,” said Volcanic Technology Development and Research Center (BPPTK) head Subandriyo on Monday. According to Subandriyo, the incident was due to the accumulation of gas produced by the volcano’s magma. As the gas’ exit fumarole was too narrow, the volcano eventually released all the buildup of very high pressure gas by erupting, which caused the crater wall to collapse and this emitted a massive rumble. “The incident can be called a small-scale ‘volcanic eruption’,” said Subandriyo. In Bandung, West Java, Geological Disaster Mitigation and Volcanology Center head Surono said the collapse of the crater wall of Mount Merapi on Sunday was a natural process. The collapse was not due to an increase in volcanic activity of the most active volcano in Indonesia. The lava dome collapsed because rocks and eruption material from the 2010 eruption were still not completely set and stable. “The force of gravity or the weight of the rocks has caused the crater wall to collapse,” Surono said in a text message on Monday. The lava dome collapsed on Sunday at 6:02 p.m. local time. According to Surono, officers at the Babadan observation post, located more than 5 kilometers from the mountain park, heard a rumbling sound which was a result of the collapse. They also observed smoke billowing at a height of 1,000 meters above the peak, slanting westward. Surono added that a slight ash cloud occurred, followed by the smell of sulfur. “Based on a report, a rain of ash took place in Jurang Jero and Srumbung. The smoke was not emitted from an eruption, but rather by the collapsed crater dome,” Surono said. The crater emitted thick smoke mixed with gas and ash and rose up to 1 kilometer. Its shape resembled a pyroclastic flow. According to Subandriyo, the phenomenon was the first, after it erupted in 2010. “The volcanic magma is currently rich with gas. This did not occur before the 2010 eruption,” he said. He added that in the past month, the crater dome of the 2,800-meter tall volcano often collapsed because the structure of the dome was not yet stable and due to the drought. –
July 17, 2012 – ATHENS – Greece’s hottest day this year is forcing authorities to shut down the Athens Acropolis six hours before schedule in the interests of visitor health, the site’s guards said on Monday. The country’s top monument was to shut down at 1100 GMT instead of its normal 1700 GMT closing time, a guard told AFP. The ancient citadel is perched on a rocky plateau rising amid a sea of concrete in the Greek capital of over four million, offering precious little shade to thousands of tourists who visit it daily. Temperatures in Athens were set to exceed 42 degrees Celsius (107.6 Fahrenheit) at the close of this year’s hottest week that earlier forced authorities to make air-conditioned halls available to the public. The environment ministry said air pollution was also above warning levels in various parts of the capital as it warned people with respiratory problems and heart trouble to stay indoors. –
ssor of physical ocean science and engineering at the University of Delaware, said in a statement. Jason Box, a scientist with Ohio State University’s Byrd Polar Research Center, has also been monitoring the Petermann Glacier and in September 2011 he told OurAmazingPlanet that a growing crack likely would sever the glacier once warmer weather took hold during the summer months. “We can see the crack widening in the past year through satellite pictures, so it seems imminent,” Box said at the time. Muenchow said that the newest ice island broke away on Monday morning (July 16). Although iceberg birth is a natural, cyclical process, when the process speeds up, there are consequences. The floating ends of glaciers, known as ice shelves, act as doorstops. When these ice shelves suddenly splinter and weaken or even collapse entirely, as has been observed in Antarctica, the glaciers that feed them speed up, dumping more ice into the ocean and raising global sea levels. “The Greenland ice sheet as a whole is shrinking, melting and reducing in size as the result of globally changing air and ocean temperatures and associated changes in circulation patterns in both the ocean and atmosphere,” Muenchow said. -
July 16, 2012 – BEIJING — The Chinese province of Hunan urged parents on Sunday to seek immediate treatment for children showing symptoms of hand, foot and mouth disease after official figures showed 112 people died from the illness last month. The disease, which children are especially vulnerable to, also infected more than 381,000 people, the Ministry of Health reported last week. “The disease incidence rate in June was much higher than that of last June, which has much to do with the high temperatures this summer,” said Liu Fuqiang with the provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The province urged parents and teachers to send children to hospital as soon as they showed symptoms of the disease, including mouth sores, skin rashes or fever. In June, 34,768 cases were reported and 17 people died from the disease in Hunan, the statement said. According to the Ministry of Health, over 460,000 people were infected by the disease in May, leading to 132 deaths. In recent days, health departments in numerous Chinese provinces and regions, including Gansu, Fujian, Jiangsu and Xinjiang have issued warnings over the outbreak of the disease, state press reports said. n international lending organization has slightly lowered its outlook for global growth over the next two years, warning that Europe’s financial crisis and slower expansion in China and India have weakened the world economy. -
July 16, 2012 – TEXAS – Two soccer players are dead and another is injured after lightning struck a tree that they were standing beneath to shelter from a storm in Houston. Harris County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Thomas Gilliland says rain halted a men’s league soccer club around noon on Sunday and the players all ran for cover under some nearby trees. Gilliland says lightning struck one of the trees, killing one of the men. Two others were also hit and taken to a Houston hospital, where a second man was pronounced dead. The third man is in stable condition at Ben Taub General Hospital. Authorities have not released the names of any of the men. The Houston area has been drenched by rain the past week, flooding between 50 and 100 homes. –
| An Israeli soldier cries at the funeral for Staff Sergeant Nitai Stern, 21, from Jerusalem who was buried in the Mount Herzl Military Cemetery January 6, 2009 in Jerusalem, Israel. The latest casualties take the Israeli army's death toll to five since it launched its ground assault operation in Gaza on January 3 in an effort to put an end to Hamas rocket attacks against the Jewish State. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) # People watch as the body of Israeli soldier Maj. Dagan Vertman, a 32-year-old doctor from Ma'aleh Michmash, is brought into the Mount Herzl Military Cemetery January 6, 2009 in Jerusalem, Israel. The latest casualties take the Israeli army's death toll to five since it launched its ground assault operation in Gaza on January 3 in an effort to put an end to Hamas rocket attacks against the Jewish State. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) # An Israeli soldier walks along a road during the commencement of a temporary cease fire January 7, 2009 along the Israeli, Gaza border in Israel. Israel has agreed to a daily three hour cease fire in order to open a humanitarian corridor into Gaza. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) # A Star of David is scrawled in drying blood on the floor in damaged house that was bombed by Israeli military yesterday near a UN-run school building on Janaury 7, 2009 in Jabalia, northern Gaza. An Israeli attack killed at least 42 people who had sought shelter in the UN-run building after they fled their homes at the Jabalia refugee camp. The United Nations has denied Israeli army allegations that militants were inside the school compound. (Photo by Abid Katib/Getty Images) # Women inspect a damaged house that was bombed by Israeli military yesterday near a UN-run school building on Janaury 7, 2009 in Jabalia, northern Gaza. An Israeli attack killed at least 42 people who had sought shelter in the UN-run building after they fled their homes at the Jabalia refugee camp. The United Nations has denied Israeli army allegations that militants were inside the school compound. (Photo by Abid Katib/Getty Images) # Palestinians evacuate the dead body of a child from in the rubble of a four story house that collapsed when struck by an Israeli air strike on January. 6, 2009 in Gaza City, Gaza Strip. Israeli forces killed at least 30 people today when artillery shells targeted a United Nations run school where Gazans sheltered from fighting. Israel continues to intensify its wide-scale ground assault against the Gaza Strip ignoring mounting international calls for an immediate cease-fire. (Photo by Thair Hasani/Getty Images) # Palestinians from the El Deeb family pray over the bodies of relatives killed near a United Nations school Tuesday, during their funeral in the Jebaliya refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2009. Israel's military paused its Gaza offensive for three hours Wednesday to allow food and fuel to reach besieged Palestinians, and the country's leaders debated whether to accept an international cease-fire plan or expand the assault against Hamas. With criticism rising of the operation's spiraling civilian death toll and Gazans increasingly suffering the effects of nonstop airstrikes and shelling, Israel's military said it opened "humanitarian corridors" to allow aid supplies to reach Palestinians. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa) # Palestinian boys are seen in the rubble of a building following Israeli forces' operations in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009. An Israeli bombardment struck outside a U.N. school where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge on Tuesday, the U.N. and Palestinian medics said, killing at least 30 people, many of them children whose parents wailed in grief at a hospital filled with dead and wounded. (AP Photo/Eyad Baba) # A Palestinian injured in an Israeli army operation reacts as he is treated at Kamal Adwan Hospital, in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2009. Israel tentatively welcomed a proposal Wednesday from Egypt and France for a Gaza cease-fire and briefly halted its offensive to allow aid to reach civilians, but also gave the military a green light to press ahead with its assault on Hamas. (AP Photo/Fadi Adwan) # An Israeli soldier kneels next to the grave of Staff Sgt. Nitai Stern, 21, during burial ceremonies in Jerusalem's Mount Herzl cemetery, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009. Stern and another soldier being buried Tuesday, were among four Israeli soldiers killed by shells from their own tanks, the first Israeli deaths from so-called "friendly fire" in the conflict in Gaza. (Moises Saman/The New York Times) # A Palestinian carries a wounded girl who according to Palestinian medical sources was injured in Israeli forces' operations in Gaza, to Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009. An Israeli bombardment hit outside a U.N. school where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge on Tuesday, and Palestinian medics said at least 34 people died as international outrage grew over civilian deaths. (AP Photo/AP Photo/Hatem Moussa) # Palestinian boys inspect the rubble at a building following Israeli forces' operations in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009. Israeli forces edged closer to Gaza's major population centers on Tuesday and attacked new targets, including a U.N. school, taking more civilian lives after ignoring mounting international calls for an immediate cease-fire. (AP Photo/Eyad Baba) # A Palestinian man sits in front of the rubble of a building following an Israeli airstrike in the Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2009. Israel said Wednesday that it "welcomes" an Egyptian-French ceasefire proposal for Gaza as long as such a deal guarantees a halt to militant rockets and weapons smuggling, in a possible sign that a bloody 12-day offensive could be winding down. (AP Photo/Eyad Baba) # Palestinians inspect the rubble of a building following an Israeli airstrike near a mosque in Rafah refugee camp southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2009. Israel said Wednesday that it "welcomes" an Egyptian-French cease fire proposal for Gaza as long as such a deal guarantees a halt to militant rockets and weapons smuggling, in a possible sign that a bloody 12-day offensive could be winding down. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in Paris that both Israel and the moderate Palestinian leadership in charge of the West Bank had accepted the truce proposal, but Israeli officials did not confirm that. Hamas, for its part, said it would only support a deal if it included an opening of Gaza's borders. (AP Photo/Khaled Omar) # Palestinians pray over the bodies of nineteen people killed near a United Nations school Tuesday, during their funeral in the Jebaliya refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2009. Israel's military paused its Gaza offensive for three hours Wednesday to allow food and fuel to reach besieged Palestinians, and the country's leaders debated whether to accept an international cease-fire plan or expand the assault against Hamas. With criticism rising of the operation's spiraling civilian death toll and Gazans increasingly suffering the effects of nonstop airstrikes and shelling, Israel's military said it opened "humanitarian corridors" to allow aid supplies to reach Palestinians. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa) # Israeli soldiers drive in Armored Personal Carriers to the Gaza Strip, near Israel's border with Gaza, southern Israel, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2009. Israeli tanks, infantry and aircraft hammered dozens of Hamas targets overnight Wednesday as Israel's leaders discussed whether to expand the 12-day operation meant to stop rocket fire into Israel. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner) # Israeli armored vehicles advance towards the Gaza Strip, seen in background, near Israel's border with Gaza, southern Israel, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2009. Israeli tanks, infantry and aircraft hammered dozens of Hamas targets overnight Wednesday as Israel's leaders discussed whether to expand the 12-day operation meant to stop rocket fire into Israel. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit) # Smoke caused by explosions from Israeli forces' operations rises from buildings on the outskirts of Gaza City, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009. Israeli mortar shells struck outside a U.N. school where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge on Tuesday, killing at least 30 people, many of them children whose parents wailed in grief at a hospital filled with dead and wounded. (AP Photos/Hatem Moussa) # The sun sets over Gaza City, as seen from the Israel-Gaza border, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009. An Israeli bombardment struck outside a U.N. school where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge on Tuesday, the U.N. and Palestinian medics said, killing at least 30 people, many of them children whose parents wailed in grief at a hospital filled with dead and wounded. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty) # Palestinian girls, one of them according to Palestinian medical sources injured in Israeli forces' operations in Gaza, wait at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009. An Israeli bombardment hit outside a U.N. school where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge on Tuesday, and Palestinian medics said at least 34 people died as international outrage grew over civilian deaths. (AP Photo/Ashraf Amra) # An Israeli woman lays on the floor and covers the heads of her two children as an alarm is heard warning of incoming rockets fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza, in Kfar Azza, southern Israel, near Israel's border with the Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2009. Israel tentatively welcomed a proposal Wednesday from Egypt and France for a Gaza cease-fire and briefly halted its offensive to allow aid to reach civilians, but also gave the military a green light to press ahead with its assault on Hamas. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner) # An Israeli mother protects her children as they take cover during a rocket attack alert in the southern Israeli Kibbutz of Kfar Aza, neighboring the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on January 7, 2009. Some twenty rockets fired by Gaza militants landed in southern Israel today. (JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images) # An Israeli soldier stands on his armored personnel carriers (APCs) on Israel's southern border with the Gaza Strip on January 7, 2009. Israel pounded Hamas fighters with artillery shells and air missiles in Gaza today as diplomatic efforts sped up to end the war on the Islamists that has killed at least 666 Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was mulling an invitation from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to visit Cairo today for urgent talks on the 12-day-old assault on Hamas that has sparked protests worldwide. (DAVID BUIMOVITCH/AFP/Getty Images) # A Palestinian woman walks amidst the rubble of destroyed buildings following Israeli bombardments in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip on January 07, 2009. Egypt has drawn up contingency plans to deal with a sudden influx of thousands of Palestinian refugees fleeing the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, humanitarian agencies said today. (SAID KHATIB/AFP/Getty Images) # Palestinian relatives from the Deeb family cry on January 7, 2009 during the funeral of 10 people from their family who were killed yesterday in an Israeli strike on a UN school in Gaza, in the Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza strip. Israeli forces blazed into towns across Gaza yesterday striking Hamas targets and also hitting three UN-run schools in attacks that killed at least 48 people and sparked urgent new ceasefire calls. Since Israel started it military offensive in Gaza 660 Palestinians have been killed, including about 200 children, with more than 2,950 wounded, Gaza medics say. (MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images) # Israeli artillery fire a long-range shell towards the Gaza Strip on January 7, 2009 from the Israeli-Gaza border. Israel said it would suspend bombing Gaza for three hours every day beginning today as diplomacy to end the Jewish state's war on Hamas gained momentum amid a mounting civilian death toll. (DAVID BUIMOVITCH/AFP/Getty Images) # Palestinians inspect buildings that were destroyed by an Israeli air strike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip on January 07, 2009. Major humanitarian groups today urged the European Union to suspend plans to upgrade ties with Israel until there is a comprehensive ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and unimpeded access for aid. (SAID KHATIB/AFP/Getty Images) # Palestinians transport the bodies of 13 people from the same family who were killed following an Israeli air strike overnight on a four-storey house belonging to a Hamas member in the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of Zeitun on January 6, 2009. At least 13 members of the same extended family, including seven children, were killed in the Israeli air strike on their house in Gaza City, medics and witnesses said on today. (MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images) # Smoke rises after an Israel air strike at a building near the border with Egypt in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on January 06, 2009. Israeli troops battled Hamas fighters in major cities of overcrowded Gaza today as Israel spurned appeals to halt a war on the Islamists that has killed at least 580 Palestinians. Israeli tanks firing cannons and backed by helicopter gunships rolled into the southern city of Khan Yunis in the pre-dawn hours, to be met by return fire from Hamas and other militant groups, witnesses said. (SAID KHATIB/AFP/Getty Images) # Palestinian families who fled their homes because of the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip take shelter at a school run by the United Nations in Jabalia, northern Gaza on January 7, 2009. The United Nations today denied Israeli army allegations that militants were inside a school in Gaza that was hit the previous day by an Israeli strike, killing at least 42 people. (MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images) # Palestinian boys pick up on January 6, 2009 pages from a torn Koran from the rubble of a three-storey house belonging to a Hamas member in the eastern Gaza City neighbourhood of Zeitun that was the target of an Israeli airstrike overnight. About 30 people were inside the house when it was destroyed by the air raid, neighbours said. Israeli tanks firing cannons and machine guns and supported by helicopter gunships also moved into the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip before dawn, witnesses said. (MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/Getty Images) # A Palestinian boy queues with others at a bakery to buy bread in Gaza City on January 7, 2009. The Israeli security cabinet approved today enlarging the offensive against Hamas in Gaza, but left the final decision to Defence Minister Ehud Barak, a senior defence official told AFP. (MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/Getty Images) # An artillery shell explodes over the Palestinian refugee camp of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on January 6, 2009. Israeli troops battled Hamas fighters in major cities of overcrowded Gaza today as Israel spurned appeals to halt a war on the Islamists that has killed at least 580 Palestinians. Israeli tanks firing cannons and backed by helicopter gunships rolled into the southern city of Khan Yunis in the pre-dawn hours, to be met by return fire from Hamas and other militant groups, witnesses said. (PATRICK BAZ/AFP/Getty Images) # Ludmila Mashavisky, mother of Israeli army Staff Sgt. Alex Mashavisky who died during combat in Gaza, mourns over the grave of her son during his funeral on January 07, 2009 in Beer Sheva, Israel. International calls on Israel and Hamas to introduce a renewed ceasefire deal have increased following a day of significant conflict and an increasing death toll. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images) # Ludmila Mashavisky mother of Israeli army Staff Sgt. Alex Mashavisky who died during combat in Gaza mourns over the coffin of her son during his funeral, on January 07, 2009 in Beer Sheva, Israel. International calls on Israel and Hamas to introduce a renewed ceasefire deal have increased following a day of significant conflict and an increasing death toll. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images) # Colleagues of Israeli army Staff Sgt. Alex Mashavisky who died during combat in Gaza mourn over his grave during his funeral on January 07, 2009 in Beer Sheva, Israel. International calls on Israel and Hamas to introduce a renewed ceasefire deal have increased following a day of significant conflict and an increasing death toll. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images) # Mourners of Israeli army Staff Sgt. Alex Mashavisky, who died during combat in Gaza, take cover as a rocket alarm goes on during his funeral on January 07, 2009 in Beer Sheva, Israel. International calls on Israel and Hamas to introduce a renewed ceasefire deal have increased following a day of significant conflict and an increasing death toll. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images) # Colleagues of Israeli army Staff Sgt. Alex Mashavisky, who died during combat in Gaza, mourn over his grave during his funeral on January 07, 2009 in Beer Sheva, Israel. International calls on Israel and Hamas to introduce a renewed ceasefire deal have increased following a day of significant conflict and an increasing death toll. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images) #
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President Obama comforted tearful residents today when he visited a stretch of the New Jersey coast devastated by Superstorm Sandy, seeing for himself how the disaster has wrecked buildings and forced thousands to abandon their flooded homes. The President revised his election campaigning plans and travelled to Atlantic City to get an aerial view of the widespread damage caused by the storm. He was joined on the presidential helicopter, Marine One, for the one-hour tour by Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has put partisan politics aside in the wake of the disaster. Scroll down for videosReassurance: President Barack Obama (left) hugs marine owner Donna Vanzant (right) during a tour of Brigantine, New Jersey, which was badly affected by Sandy Aerial view: The President saw how homes in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, have become surrounded by water after Superstorm Sandy lashed the Atlantic Coast Ripped apart: During the helicopter tour, the President was shown how Superstorm Sandy tore away part of the Mantoloking Bridge in New Jersey Up in the air: The Marine One helicopter, carrying President Obama and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, takes an aerial tour of the Atlantic Coast in New Jersey 'I want to let you know that your governor is working overtime,' Obama told victims at an emergency shelter after the tour. 'The entire country has been watching what's been happening. Everybody knows how hard Jersey has been hit.' Christie said: 'It's really important to have the president of the United States here.' Obama returned the compliment. The politicians' meeting came as people in the heavily populated US East Coast corridor battered by Sandy took the first cautious steps to reclaim their upended daily routines, even as rescuers combed neighbourhoods strewn with debris and scarred by floods and fire. By Tuesday night, the winds and flooding inflicted by the fast-weakening Sandy had subsided, leaving at least 55 people dead along the Atlantic Coast and splintering beachfront homes and boardwalks from the mid-Atlantic states to southern New England. The storm later moved across Pennsylvania on a predicted path toward western New York State and Canada. At the height of the disaster, more than 8.2 million customers lost electricity - some as far away as Michigan. Nearly a quarter of those without power were in New York, where lower Manhattan's usually bright lights remained dark for a second night. Christie, who is a vocal supporter of GOP nominee Mitt Romney, has changed his partisan tune after the storm, regularly singing Obama’s praises in relation to the federal aid given toward disaster relief support. ‘The president has been outstanding in this and so have the folks at FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency),’ Christie told the Today Show on Tuesday. Christie later told news anchor Soledad O’Brien that Obama ‘has been incredibly supportive and helpful to our state, and not once did he bring up the election.’ Christie continued his new tact of effusively praising President Obama and the work that the federal government is doing in response to the hurricane, saying that the two spent a ‘significant’ afternoon together touring the Jersey Shore in Marine One. ‘I cannot thank the president enough for his concern,’ Christie said at the 5pm press conference. ‘The president has been all over this and he deserves great credit.’ The governor said that the two have put their partisan differences aside and had spoken six times including their afternoon-long trip today. ‘It has been a great working relationship to make sure that we are doing the jobs that the people elected us to do,’ Christie said of Obama. ‘I am pleased to report that he has sprung into action immediately while we were in the car together.’ The President was slightly more reserved with his praise, as he kept the majority of his remarks focused on the efforts of FEMA and ways for those who lost homes from the storm rather than his political rival. ‘Governor Christie has been responsive aggressive, making sure the state got out in front of this incredible storm,’ Obama said. During his introduction, Christie, known for his brash demeanor, said that he forgave residents of Brigantine for not following his order to ‘get the hell out’ before the storm hit Monday night. (He jokingly said ‘you’re forgiven this time.’) More...Obama made a reference to the colorful language, turning back to give the Governor a smile during the remark. The President pledged to streamline the federal funding process, explaining that he has instituted a so-called 15 minute rule for his team, meaning that if a mayor, state politician, or governor calls them, they have to respond with firm answers in a matter of minutes. ‘We are not going to tolerate red tape,’ he said. ‘When you see neighbors helping neighbors you’re reminded of what America’s all about. ‘We’re going to have a ton of work to do. I don’t want anyone thinking that this will be cleaned up overnight. We want to make sure people have realistic expectations. Support: President Obama holds North Point Marina owner Donna Vanzant close as he tours damage done by Superstorm Sandy in Brigantine, New Jersey. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (left) stands with them Walkabout: President Barack Obama talks to a resident as he tours a neighborhood effected by Superstorm Sandy in Brigantine, New Jersey Walking with with him are two Democrat senators, Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez Tour over: President Obama waves as he follows Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Craig Fugate on to Air Force One at Atlantic City International Airport at the end of his visit to New Jersey Shopping carts full of food damaged by Storm Sandy await disposal at the Fairway supermarket in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn in New York Jackie Hoey inspects the first floor of her home which experienced heavy flooding due to Hurricane Sandy in Long Beach, New York Gary Silberman surveys his home that was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in Lindenhurst, New York Engulfed: A collapsed house along the central Jersey Shore coast What Obama saw: This aerial photograph of storm damage in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, was taken from a helicopter travelling behind Marine One Aftermath: Another view of the damage to Seaside Heights, New Jersey, taken from a helicopter travelling behind the aircraft carrying President Obama Bearing the brunt: The President took the helicopter tour to see for himself how homes in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, were destroyed in the storm Battered: The President was shown the damage to this amusement park at Seaside Heights, New Jersey, as he toured the area by helicopter Lifted: A row of beach homes rest off their foundations after Superstorm Sandy came ashore near Asbury Park, New Jersey Topsy-turvy: Part of a home rests upside-down in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, one of the areas worst affected by Superstorm Sandy Broken in two: Another view of the top of a house which was torn apart when Superstorm Sandy struck Seaside Heights, New Jersey. The rest of the property was found some way away from its original spot, sitting in the middle of a street Chaotic: Streets in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, are covered with fallen power lines and debris following heavy damage by Superstorm Sandy Major problem: Emergency workers attend homes heavily damaged by Superstorm Sandy in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. A van is stuck under debris in the foreground Electioneering: The name 'Romney' is spelled out in sand during an aerial tour of the Atlantic Coast being taken by President Obama and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie Crossing the political divide: Barack Obama comforts the New Jersey's Republican Governor Chris Christie, a Mitt Romney supporter who has sung the President's praises since Superstorm Sandy struck Tour: Barack Obama is greeted by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as he arrives in Atlantic City to inspect damage caused by Superstorm Sandy Joint effort: The President was joined by Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Craig Fugate (right) as he met the Republican New Jersey Governor (left), who has put party politics aside after the storm caused widespread damage Visit: President Obama, flanked by Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Craig Fugate (right) and New Jersey governor Chris Christie (left) prepare to take an aerial tour of the Atlantic Coast to view areas damaged by Superstorm Sandy Political gamble: Rather than using the election campaign's final Wednesday to woo voters in swing states, the President flew to New Jersey to see the devastation On his way: The shadow of Air Force One is seen as it approaches Atlantic City International Airport before the President's helicopter tour of the devastated region ‘We will not quit… We don’t leave anybody behind.’ New Jersey was one of the hardest-hit in Monday night’s storm, and power outages in the state’s two biggest cities - Newark and Jersey City - have prevented progress, as traffic lights remain out of action. The visit came after the President’s second visit to FEMA headquarters for an update on federal progress. Obama took a motorcade to FEMA's offices in D.C. to meet with agency chiefs before the flight to Atlantic City to meet with Sandy's victims and relief workers. 'This is a tough time for millions of people. But America is tougher' US President Barack Obama Days before the election, the President has kept up a steady public presence overseeing the storm response, while cancelling a series of public campaign rallies. It was Obama's second visit in four days with the agency. On Sunday, he met FEMA officials, then told reporters the government will ‘respond big and respond fast’ after the massive storm made landfall. The President also paid a visit to the headquarters of the Red Cross on Tuesday, saying he wanted ‘no bureaucracy, no red tape’ to interfere with recovery, and suggested the military might be able to help in view of the enormity of the damage. ‘This is a tough time for millions of people ... But America is tougher,’ he said. The speed of their response has prompted criticism from Michael ‘heckuva job’ Brown, the former FEMA director who was roundly criticized for the agency’s response to the devastation from Hurricane Katrina. ‘One thing (President Obama’s) gonna be asked is, why did he jump on (Sandy) so quickly and go back to D.C. so quickly when (after) Benghazi, he went to Las Vegas? Why was this so quick?’ Brown told a Denver news station. Destroyed: An aerial view of the Breezy Point neighbourhood in New York, where more than 50 homes were burned to the ground as a result of Superstorm Sandy Burned down: Residents living in the beachfront neighbourhood at Breezy Point, New York, were told to evacuate as Superstorm Sandy approached. When they returned, dozens of homes were gone Cloud of smoke: Debris smoulders as residents of Breezy Point in the Queens borough of New York assess the damage caused by a fire during Superstorm Sandy Nothing left: Tom Duffy (left) and his family look through the debris of his home which was destroyed in the fire Fire damage: Neighbors Lucille Dwyer (right) and Linda Strong (left) embrace after looking through the wreckage of their homes in Breezy Point, Queens, New York Distraught: A woman stares at the ground as she walks past damaged homes after the fire at Breezy Point in the Queens borough of New York Surveying the destruction: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (centre) views storm damage in the Breezy Point area of Queens after fire destroyed homes Exposed: This home in the Sea Gatee area of Brooklyn, New York, had one of its walls and part of its roof ripped off by the force of Superstorm Sandy Emptied: Residents take belongings out of a home in Sea Gate part of Brooklyn, New York, that was condemned after being damaged during Superstorm Sandy Meaningful: A damaged home in the Sea Gate part of Brooklyn, New York, bears the sign: 'The most important things in life... aren't things' After tamping down his partisan tone on Tuesday at an Ohio event that emphasised victims' relief, Mr Romney planned three full-blown campaign rallies today in Florida, the largest competitive state. Sandy largely spared Florida, so Mr Romney calculates he can campaign there without appearing callous. But President Obama’s revised schedule is also a political gamble. Rather than use the campaign's final Wednesday to woo voters in the tossup states that will decide the election, Obama decided to go before cameras with Christie. When Governor Christie stopped in Belmar, New Jersey, during a tour of the devastation, one woman wept openly and 42-year-old Walter Patrickis told him: ‘Governor, I lost everything.' Governor Christie, who called the shore damage‘unthinkable,’ said a full recovery would take months and it would likely be a week or more before power is restored to everyone who lost it. Water ride: John Okeefe walks on the beach as the rollercoaster that once sat on the Funtown Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, rests in the ocean No play: This US Air Force photo shows an aerial view of the rollercoaster from the Seaside Heights amusement park on the New Jersey shore submerged in surf Mangled: The rollercoaster was severely damaged as Superstorm Sandy destroyed the boardwalk and pier in Seaside Park, New Jersey Pet rescue: Olivia Loesner, 16, hugs her uncle, Deputy Fire Chief John Ruff, after she was brought from her flooded home in a boat in Little Ferry, New Jersey, Her mother, Janice Loesner, carries their dogs to safety in a basket Huge task: Workers try to clear boats and debris from the New Jersey Transit Morgan draw bridge in South Amboy, New Jersey, after the storm surge pushed them on to the train tracks ‘Now we've got a big task ahead of us that we have to do together. This is the kind of thing New Jerseyans are built for,’ he added. Governor Christie had said that he would ask the President to assign the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to start working on how to rebuild beaches and find ‘the best way to rebuild the beach to protect these towns’. President Obama cancelled his campaign appearances up to today but is staying in the public eye as commander of federal relief efforts. ‘This is a tough time for millions of people,’ the President said. ‘But America is tougher.’ Obama campaign senior adviser David Axelrod said today that the President intends to resume campaigning on Thursday. Campaign officials say the President will make stops in Green Bay, Wisconsin; Las Vegas, Nevada; and Boulder, Colorado. President Obama’s last campaign event was last Saturday in New Hampshire. He flew to Orlando on Sunday to attend a campaign rally on Monday with former President Bill Clinton but scrapped his campaign plans to return to Washington D.C. to monitor preparations for Superstorm Sandy. Mr Romney wavered in his strategy. First the campaign said he would skip a rally in Ohio on Tuesday out of sympathy for the storm victims. Then Mr Romney decided to do the event but recast it as a storm-relief effort, shorn of the usual campaign speech. Clean-up: Sanitation workers clear sand from streets in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, New York Wheels of misfortune: A BMW car was washed up on to a bench when Superstorm Sandy struck the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, New York Unusual picture: A woman takes a photograph of the car in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, New York Crushed: Freddie Nocella, Jr, looks at his grandfather's damaged Trans Am as he helps to salvage belongings from his grandparents' heavily damaged home in Babylon Village, New York Unbelievable: A woman looks at damage in the Rockaway neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, where the historic boardwalk was washed away during Superstorm Sandy Stuck: A car is pictured on Wednesday, partially buried by sand that was washed ashore by Superstorm Sandy in Atlantic City, New Jersey All that's left: The foundations to the historic Rockaway boardwalk are all that remain after it was washed away during Superstorm Sandy in Brooklyn, New York Snap: A man takes a picture of a woman in front of a crumbled public bathroom following Superstorm Sandy, on Tuesday in Belmar, New Jersey Wrecked: A closer look at the collapsed properties in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, which President viewed from the air ‘It's part of the American spirit, the American way, to give to people in need,’ Mr Romney said in Kettering, Ohio, before supporters lined up to hand him bags of canned food for storm victims. Adding to Mr Romney's dilemma are the candidate's previous statements on the federal government's role in emergency management. He said he believes state and local governments should have primary responsibility for emergency clean-up. Mr Romney refused yesterday to answer repeated questions from reporters about what he would do with the Federal Emergency Management Agency if he wins the election. 'A Romney-Ryan administration will always ensure that disaster funding is there for those in need. Period' Spokesman for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney Asked about federal aid to help recover and rebuild from Sandy, a spokesman said: ‘A Romney-Ryan administration will always ensure that disaster funding is there for those in need. Period.’ For President Obama, missing a few days of active campaigning for vital presidential duties may be a good trade, politically speaking. Lingering anger about President George W. Bush's performance when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005 could provide a backdrop to benefit President Obama if he does a solid job. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, of the University of Pennsylvania, said a natural disaster gives a president ‘unlimited access to the media to say things the public wants and needs to hear in a fashion that reinforces that he is president.’ For President Obama, the federal response to the natural disaster could make or break his bid for a second term. His reputation could suffer if the federal government's response is feeble or botched. Scenes from New Jersey: A man carries his wife through the floodwaters in Hoboken (left), and cars and vans are buried in sand on Long Beach Island (right) Unusual pile-up: An aerial photograph shows boats lying next to a house near Monmouth Beach, New Jersey, where they were washed ashore during Superstorm Sandy Resting place: A wider view shows dozens of damaged boats piled up by the house next to a marina close to Monmouth Beach, New Jersey On fire: This photo from the New Jersey Governor's Office shows damage north of Seaside, New Jersey, on Tuesday after Superstorm Sandy made landfall Severe damage: This picture provided by the US Coast Guard shows property damages along the New Jersey coast caused by Hurricane Sandy on Tuesday Underwater: This picture provided shows flooded homes in Tuckerton, New Jersey, after Superstorm Sandy made landfall on the southern New Jersey coastline Flooding: A portion of Harvey Cedars on Long Beach Island, New Jersey was underwater after Superstorm Sandy blew across the state with devastating results BEFORE AND AFTER: THE DEVASTATING IMPACT OF SUPERSTORM SANDY ON ATLANTIC CITY'S HOLIDAY HOMESThese startling before-and-after pictures reveal what is left of parts of the East Coast. Just one solitary house was left standing on the east side of New Jersey's Mantoloking Bridge in Brick. Rows of Atlantic holiday homes were wiped out by the 900-mile storm with its surging waters and winds of 95mph. How it was: This image from Google Maps shows Mantoloking Bridge in Brick, New Jersey, before the devastation was caused by Superstorm Sandy. All but one of the houses in the highlighted area above were destroyed in the storm. The only one to still be standing is circled above Severe destruction: An aerial view from Greenpeace taken by Tim Aubry of the damage caused by Superstorm Sandy along the New Jersey coast in Brick Shock: Brian Hajeski, 41, of Brick, New Jersey, reacts as he looks at debris of a home that washed up on to the Mantoloking Bridge the morning after Superstorm Sandy Contenders: US President Barack Obama (left) talks about damage done by Hurricane Sandy and rescue efforts while at the National Red Cross HQ in Washington D.C. on Tuesday; while Republican candidate Mitt Romney loads relief supplies for people affected by Hurricane Sandy into a truck at a relief campaign event in Kettering, Ohio Speech: President Obama talks during his visit to the Disaster Operation Center of the Red Cross National HQ to discuss Superstorm Sandy on Tuesday Talks: President Barack Obama visits the FEMA headquarters following Hurricane Sandy in Washington D.C. on Wednesday. Pictured with President Obama are (from second left to right) Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan From above: In this National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration image, the remnants of Tropical Sandy move across eastern America on Wednesday Gone: A boardwalk (left) and waterfront property are heavily damaged following Superstorm Sandy, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Wednesday Uprooted: This picture provided by the US Coast Guard shows property damage along the New Jersey coast caused by Hurricane Sandy on Tuesday Changed landscape This photo from the New Jersey Governor's Office shows flooding on the bay side of Seaside, New Jersey, on Tuesday after Sandy made landfall Just still there: The damage caused by Hurricane Sandy to the New Jersey coast, in a photo taken during a search and rescue mission Extraordinary: Sand and debris covers the streets near the water in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Tuesday, after the area was wrecked by Superstorm Sandy Complete devastation: A lone piece of colour in a children's playground is pictured surrounded by sand and debris near the ocean in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Tuesday Rubble: A toy truck sits among the post-Superstorm Sandy destruction on Tuesday in the devastated Atlantic City in New Jersey Rebuild project: A man in a hooded jacket and jeans walks past debris left by the floodwater from Superstorm Sandy on Tuesday in Hoboken, New Jersey No sales: A small shop that rents personal water craft rests in a huge sinkhole on the bayside in Ocean City, New Jersey, on Tuesday, after a storm surge On the rails: This photograph, provided by the state of New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, shows a boat resting on the tracks at Metro-North's Ossining Station in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy Smashed: Captain Charles Bodien, Jr, posts a condemned sign on a summer camp at Webster Lake in Franklin, New Hampshire, after a tree crashed down on it Destitute: In this U.S. Coast Guard photo, a helicopter crew from Air Station Cape Cod, Massachusetts, observe property damage in New Jersey caused by Sandy Misery on the beachfront: This aerial photograph provided by the U.S. Air Force shows how the storm left homes on the New Jersey shoreline surrounded by water What to do? Zelphia Connor stands outside her garage in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Wednesday, damaged by pieces of the boardwalk that Superstorm Sandy broke Still moving: A vehicle drives on a flooded street in Little Ferry, New Jersey, on Tuesday, after Superstorm Sandy made landfall on Monday evening Sea crash: Boats clustered together at a marina in Brant Beach, on Long Beach Island on the New Jersey shore on Tuesday, a day after Superstorm Sandy blew across Devastation: A beachfront home is gutted in Manasquan, New Jersey, following the dramatic storm which caused havoc across the US East Coast No Halloween: This photo taken on Tuesday shows a store with 'Boo Sandy' and 'Trick or Treat?' writing on wooden boards in Atlantic City, New Jersey Wreckage: The remains of a boardwalk and other debris is washed ashore following Superstorm Sandy, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Monday Aid: Bill Johnson is helped by a friend to remove one of his kayaks from a pile of debris in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Tuesday Ruined: People walk past debris in the area where a 2,000ft section of the boardwalk was destroyed, with the Showboat Casino in the background in Atlantic City Shock: People stand on a mound of construction dirt to view the area where a 2,000ft section of the boardwalk was destroyed by flooding in Atlantic City, New Jersey Smashed up: The damaged front of an auto repair shop on Atlantic Avenue is seen in the aftermath of Sandy's landfall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Tuesday Collapse: Beach houses are left destroyed in the Bell Harbor community after Sandy inundated the Rockaway Peninsular in the borough of Queens, New York Response: Firefighters try to put out blazes at Breezy Point on Tuesday in Queens, New York. A fire broke out in the flooded community late on Monday night Pointing: Two men look at damage in the Breezy Point area of Queens, New York, on Tuesday after fire destroyed about 80 homes as a result of Superstorm Sandy Taking cover: The scene at 130th St and Newport Ave in Rockaway, Queens, New York, where many houses were burned down after Superstorm Sandy hit the area Destruction: A beach house is left destroyed in the Bell Harbor community after Superstorm Sandy inundated the Rockaway Peninsular in Queens, New York Little left: Beachfront properties in Rockaway, Queens, New York, where many houses were destroyed after Superstorm Sandy hit the area Throught the wreckage: After Superstorm Sandy hit New York, extensive damage and flooding was apparent throughout the city. Breezy Point in Queens is pictured Not moving: Lucy the Elephant is still standing, seemingly unscathed on Tuesday after Superstorm Sandy blew across the area along New Jersey shore While President Obama and Mr Romney moved cautiously yesterday, their campaigns exchanged sharp words in Ohio and expanded their operations into three Democratic-leaning states. Mr Romney's campaign is running ads in Minnesota and Pennsylvania, and a pro-Romney group is doing the same in Michigan. The three states were considered fairly safe for President Obama, but his campaign is taking the threat seriously. It sent former President Bill Clinton to Minnesota yesterday and it is buying airtime in all three states. Support: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is a prominent supporter of Mr Romney and a frequent critic of the President The Republican efforts could indicate that Mr Romney is desperately searching for a last-minute path to victory without all-important Ohio, where polls show President Obama has a slight edge. Or it could mean just the opposite, that Mr Romney's so confident in the most competitive battlegrounds that he's pressing for insurance against President Obama in what's expected to be a close race. Or perhaps the Republican simply has money to burn. Use it now or never. The U.S. president is chosen not by the nationwide popular vote but in state-by-state contests. That has made a handful of states whose voters are neither reliably Republican nor Democratic the focus of the November 6 election, expected to be one of the closest in U.S. history. Ohio and Florida are prominent among those, and no Republican has been elected president without winning Ohio. In a sign that Ohio looms large for the Romney campaign: a guest-filled rally in suburban Cincinnati is planned for Friday to kick off the campaign's final four days. Set to join Mr Romney and running mate Paul Ryan are golf legend Jack Nicklaus, ex-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Texas Governor Rick Perry and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Vice President Joe Biden planned to campaign today in Florida. Mr Ryan was scheduled to campaign in his home state, Wisconsin. Meanwhile, Democratic groups bitterly complained about a TV ad the Romney camp is running in the Toledo and Youngstown areas of Ohio. The ad suggests that Jeep will move its Toledo car-making facility to China, a claim Jeep executives deny. Democrats called the ad a brazen lie and a sign of desperation. Even some Republicans worried that Mr Romney has gone too far in a state where voters follow the auto industry closely. ‘It's the kind of thing that happens late in the campaign, when everybody's tired and you're not quite yourself,’ said GOP pollster and strategist Mike McKenna, who does not work for the Romney campaign. ‘It didn't help. But I don't think it's a big thing. At this point, everybody has made up their mind.’ ONE YEAR AGO: OBAMA AND CHRISTIE PICTURED TOURING DAMAGE CAUSED BY HURRICANE IRENE IN NEW JERSEYAll smiles: Political rivals Chris Christie (left) and Barack Obama (right) were pictured together last September after Hurricane Irene hit New Jersey Barack Obama and Chris Christie were memorably pictured together one year ago when the President toured damage caused by Hurricane Irene. They looked like best friends, sharing a warm embrace and laughing in New Jersey - with the meeting coming at a time when Governor Christie was under pressure to run for the Republican presidential nomination. Governor Christie won major plaudits for his authoritative command of preparations and the following clean-up after Irene, which hit last August. He made what became a famous quote, after his frustration came through after seeing people surfing on the beach in TV interviews. 'Get the hell off the beach,' he told surfers in a press conference that was replayed on news programmes around the US. Governor Christie announced last October that he would not run for president against Mitt Romney, after weeks of speculation that he might reverse his long-held stance of staying out of the 2012 race. 'This is not the time to leave unfinished business,' Governor Christie said at the time. 'New Jersey - whether you like it or not, you're stuck with me'. Surveying the damage: Governor Christie (left) won major plaudits for his authoritative command of preparations and the following clean-up in New Jersey after Irene |
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