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New War Rumors: U.S. Plans To Seize Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal
Comparisons to Washington’s war in Indochina have been mentioned. [11] But Pakistan with its 180 million people and nuclear weapons is not Cambodia and Iran with its population of over 70 million is not Laos.Massive solar storm to hit Earth in 2012 with ‘force of 100m bombs’link
Melbourne, Aug 26 (ANI): Astronomers are predicting that a massive solar storm, much bigger in potential than the one that caused spectacular light shows on Earth earlier this month, is to strike our planet in 2012 with a force of 100 million hydrogen bombs. Several US media outlets have reported that NASA was warning the massive flare this month was just a precursor to a massive solar storm building that had the potential to wipe out the entire planet’s power grid.
Despite its rebuttal, NASA’s been watching out for this storm since 2006 and reports from the US this week claim the storms could hit on that most Hollywood of disaster dates – 2012. Similar storms back in 1859 and 1921 caused worldwide chaos, wiping out telegraph wires on a massive scale. The 2012 storm has the potential to be even more disruptive.
“The general consensus among general astronomers (and certainly solar astronomers) is that this coming Solar maximum (2012 but possibly later into 2013) will be the most violent in 100 years,” News.com.au quoted astronomy lecturer and columnist Dave Reneke as saying. “A bold statement and one taken seriously by those it will affect most, namely airline companies, communications companies and anyone working with modern GPS systems.
“They can even trip circuit breakers and knock out orbiting satellites, as has already been done this year,” added Reneke. No one really knows what effect the 2012-2013 Solar Max will have on today’s digital-reliant society. Dr Richard Fisher, director of NASA’s Heliophysics division, told Reneke the super storm would hit like “a bolt of lightning”, causing catastrophic consequences for the world’s health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken.
NASA said that a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences found that if a similar storm occurred today, it could cause “1 to 2 trillion dollars in damages to society’s high-tech infrastructure and require four to 10 years for complete recovery”.
The reason for the concern comes as the sun enters a phase known as Solar Cycle 24. Most experts agree, although those who put the date of Solar Max in 2012 are getting the most press. They claim satellites will be aged by 50 years, rendering GPS even more useless than ever, and the blast will have the equivalent energy of 100 million hydrogen bombs. “We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be,” Fisher told Reneke. “Systems will just not work. The flares change the magnetic field on the Earth and it’s rapid, just like a lightning bolt. That’s the solar effect,” he added. The findings are published in the most recent issue of Australasian Science. (ANI)
A Robin hovers over the cold ice as it goes about gathering food during the cold spell over Christmas. Photograph by John Kelly.
Every email and website to be stored
Every email, phone call and website visit is to be recorded and stored after the Coalition Government revived controversial Big Brother snooping plans. link
The plans are expected to involve service providers storing all users details for a set period of time Photo: GETTY IMAGES
It will allow security services and the police to spy on the activities of every Briton who uses a phone or the internet.
Moves to make every communications provider store details for at least a year will be unveiled later this year sparking fresh fears over a return of the surveillance state.
The plans were shelved by the Labour Government last December but the Home Office is now ready to revive them.
It comes despite the Coalition Agreement promised to "end the storage of internet and email records without good reason".
Any suggestion of a central "super database" has been ruled out but the plans are expected to involve service providers storing all users details for a set period of time.
That will allow the security and police authorities to track every phone call, email, text message and website visit made by the public if they argue it is needed to tackle crime or terrorism.
The information will include who is contacting whom, when and where and which websites are visited, but not the content of the conversations or messages.
The move was buried in the Government's Strategic Defence and Security Review, which revealed: "We will introduce a programme to preserve the ability of the security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies to obtain communication data and to intercept communications within the appropriate legal framework.
"This programme is required to keep up with changing technology and to maintain capabilities that are vital to the work these agencies do to protect the public.
"Communications data provides evidence in court to secure convictions of those engaged in activities that cause serious harm. It has played a role in every major Security Service counterterrorism operation and in 95 per cent of all serious organised crime investigations.
"We will legislate to put in place the necessary regulations and safeguards to ensure that our response to this technology challenge is compatible with the Government’s approach to information storage and civil liberties."
But Isabella Sankey, director of policy at Liberty, said: "One of the early and welcome promises of the new Government was to ‘end the blanket storage of internet and email records’.
"Any move to amass more of our sensitive data and increase powers for processing would amount to a significant U-turn. The terrifying ambitions of a group of senior Whitehall technocrats must not trump the personal privacy of law abiding Britons.”
Guy Herbert, general secretary of the No2ID campaign group, said: "We should not be surprised that the interests of bureaucratic empires outrank liberty.
"It is disappointing that the new ministers seem to be continuing their predecessors' tradition of credulousness."
It comes despite the Coalition Agreement promised to "end the storage of internet and email records without good reason".
Any suggestion of a central "super database" has been ruled out but the plans are expected to involve service providers storing all users details for a set period of time.
That will allow the security and police authorities to track every phone call, email, text message and website visit made by the public if they argue it is needed to tackle crime or terrorism.
The information will include who is contacting whom, when and where and which websites are visited, but not the content of the conversations or messages.
The move was buried in the Government's Strategic Defence and Security Review, which revealed: "We will introduce a programme to preserve the ability of the security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies to obtain communication data and to intercept communications within the appropriate legal framework.
"This programme is required to keep up with changing technology and to maintain capabilities that are vital to the work these agencies do to protect the public.
"Communications data provides evidence in court to secure convictions of those engaged in activities that cause serious harm. It has played a role in every major Security Service counterterrorism operation and in 95 per cent of all serious organised crime investigations.
"We will legislate to put in place the necessary regulations and safeguards to ensure that our response to this technology challenge is compatible with the Government’s approach to information storage and civil liberties."
But Isabella Sankey, director of policy at Liberty, said: "One of the early and welcome promises of the new Government was to ‘end the blanket storage of internet and email records’.
"Any move to amass more of our sensitive data and increase powers for processing would amount to a significant U-turn. The terrifying ambitions of a group of senior Whitehall technocrats must not trump the personal privacy of law abiding Britons.”
Guy Herbert, general secretary of the No2ID campaign group, said: "We should not be surprised that the interests of bureaucratic empires outrank liberty.
"It is disappointing that the new ministers seem to be continuing their predecessors' tradition of credulousness."
New War Rumors: U.S. Plans To Seize Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal
Two recent news items emanating from the United States have begun to reverberate in Pakistan and give rise to speculation that growing American drone strikes and NATO helicopter attacks in that country may be the harbingers of far broader actions: Nothing less than the expansion of the West’s war in Afghanistan into Pakistan with the ultimate goal of seizing the nation’s nuclear weapons.
The News International, Pakistan’s largest English-language newspaper, published a report on October 13 based on excerpts from American journalist Bob Woodward’s recently released volume “Obama’s Wars” which stated that during a trilateral summit between the presidents of the U.S., Afghanistan and Pakistan on May 6 of 2009 Pakistani head of state Asif Ali Zardari accused Washington of being behind Taliban attacks inside his country with the intent to use them so “the US could invade and seize its nuclear weapons.” [1]
Woodward recounted comments exchanged at a dinner with Zardari and Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (2007-2009), to Iraq (2005-2007) and Afghanistan (2003-2005). Khalilzad was also a close associate of Jimmy Carter administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, architect of the U.S. strategy to support attacks by armed extremists based in Pakistan against Afghanistan starting in 1978, when he joined the Polish expatriate at Columbia University from 1979-1989.
The baton for what is now Washington’s over 30-year involvement in Afghanistan was passed from Brzezinski to Khalilzad in the 1980s when the latter was appointed one of the Ronald Reagan administration’s senior State Department officials in charge of supporting Mujahedin fighters operating out of Peshawar in Pakistan. He joined the State Department in 1984 on a Council on Foreign Relations fellowship and worked for Paul Wolfowitz, then-Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, at Foggy Bottom. His efforts were augmented by the Central Intelligence Agency’s deputy director at the time, Robert Gates, now U.S. defense secretary. Two of their three chief clients, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani, are founders and leaders of Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin and the Haqqani network, against whom Gates’ Pentagon is currently waging war on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
According to Woodward’s account of the Pakistani president’s accusations to Khalilzad in May of last year, “Zardari dropped his diplomatic guard. He suggested that one of…two countries was arranging the attacks by the Pakistani Taliban inside his country: India or the US. Zardari didn’t think India could be that clever, but the US could. [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai had told him the US was behind the attacks, confirming the claims made by the Pakistani ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence].” [2]
Khalilzad, whose résumé also includes stints at the Defense Department, the National Security Council, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the National Endowment for Democracy, the RAND Corporation (where he assisted in establishing the Middle East Studies Center) and the Project for the New American Century, reportedly took issue with Zardari’s contention, which led to the latter responding that what he had described “was a plot to destabilize Pakistan,” hatched in order that, according to Woodward’s version of his words, “the US could invade and seize [Pakistan's] nuclear weapons.”
The account stated Zardari “could not explain the rapid expansion in violence otherwise. And the CIA had not pursued the leaders of the Pakistani Taliban, a group known as Tehrik-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan or TTP that had attacked the government. TTP was also blamed for the assassination of Zardari’s wife, Benazir Bhutto.”
In the Pakistani president’s words: “We give you targets of Taliban people you don’t go after. You go after other areas. We’re puzzled.”
When Khalilzad mentioned that U.S. drone attacks inside Pakistan “were primarily meant to hunt down members of al Qaeda and Afghan insurgents, not the Pakistan Taliban,” Zardari responded by insisting “But the Taliban movement is tied to al Qaeda…so by not attacking the targets recommended by Pakistan the US had revealed its support of the TTP. The CIA at one time had even worked with the group’s leader, Baitullah Mehsud,” Zardari asserted. [3] (Three months later a CIA-directed drone strike killed Mehsud, his wife and several in-laws and bodyguards.)
In August of 2009, while still commander of all U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, then-General Stanley McChrystal issued his classified COMISAF (Commander of International Security Assistance Force) Initial Assessment which asserted the “major insurgent groups in order of their threat to the mission are: the Quetta Shura Taliban (05T), the Haqqani Network (HQN), and the Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin (HiG).” [4] The first is an Afghan Taliban group which as its name indicates is based in the capital of Pakistan’s Balochistan province.
Steve Coll, Alfred McCoy and other authorities on the subject have documented the CIA’s involvement with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani: That they were shared with if not transferred by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence to the CIA as private assets. Coll has additionally claimed that Haqqani sheltered and supported Osama bin Laden starting in the 1980s.
At the meeting between Obama, Zardari and Karzai in May of 2009, the American president slighted his two counterparts for alleged lack of resolve in prosecuting the war on both sides of the Durand Line, although even as he spoke Pakistan was engaged in a major military assault in the Swat Valley which led to the displacement of 3 million civilians.
Four days after the dinner exchange between Zardari and Khalilzad, the Pakistani president appeared on the May 10 edition of NBC’s Meet the Press on a program which also included Afghan President Karzai and Steve Coll, now president and CEO of the New America Foundation and author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (2004) and The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century (2008).
Zardari’s comments to his American audience included the claim that the Taliban “was part of your past and our past, and the ISI and the CIA created them together. And I can find you 10 books and 10 philosophers and 10 write-ups on that….” [5]
That the leaders of the other two armed groups identified by McChrystal – Haqqani and Hekmatyar – were among the three Mujahedin leaders financed, armed and trained by the CIA (the late Ahmed Shah Massoud being the third), makes the pattern complete: Robert Gates the defense secretary is leading a war against forces that Robert Gates the deputy director of the CIA earlier supported through one of the Agency’s longest and most expensive covert programs, Operation Cyclone.
After retiring from public life, George Kennan, the main architect of U.S. Cold War policy, cited a line he ascribed to Goethe to warn that in the end we are all destroyed by monsters of our own creation. To emend Voltaire, the White House rather than God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
Woodward’s account of last year’s comments by Pakistan’s president and Zalmay Khalilzad could be dismissed as merely anecdotal if not for an article that appeared in the New York Post on October 3 and developments in Pakistan itself over the past six weeks.
Arthur Herman, a visiting scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank, stated in an article entitled “Our Pakistan problem: Obama’s approach is failing” that “The bitter irony is that even as Obama is trying to get out of the war in Afghanistan, he may be heading us into one in Pakistan.”
The author detailed that whereas in 2009 the U.S. launched 45 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) attacks inside Pakistan, it had tripled that number by the time his article appeared, and that half as many as last year’s total strikes had been launched this September alone.
Also mentioning the NATO helicopter attack in the Kurram Agency of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas on September 30 which killed three members of the Frontier Corps and that “Raids by the CIA’s Counterterrorism Pursuit Team – with its 3,000 Afghan troops – into Pakistan are also becoming routine,” Herman warned:
“All this adds up to a US effort in Pakistan highly reminiscent of the one we undertook in Laos in the 1960s – one of the springboards into the Vietnam quagmire.
“If Obama’s growing pressure on Pakistan destabilizes that government, the only thing keeping that country’s nukes out of the hands of al Qaeda may have to be US troops. That’s a shooting-war scenario that will make Obama wish his name was Lyndon Baines Johnson.” [6]
Herman attributes the expansion of the Afghan war into Pakistan at a qualitatively more dangerous level to the machinations of former CIA officer and current Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution Bruce Riedel and the commander of 152,000 U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan General David Petraeus.
A report of October 13 documented that since Petraeus took command of the war effort in Afghanistan in June there has been a 172 percent increase in U.S. and NATO air strikes, from 257 assault missions in September of 2009 to over 700 last month. In addition, “Surveillance flights increased to nearly three times the number from September 2009 and supply flights are up as well….Petraeus is sometimes seen as more willing to risk the so-called ‘collateral damage’ of civilian deaths….[7]
Last month’s drone attacks were the most in any month since the targeted assasinations were started in 2004 and the amount of deaths they caused – over 150 – the highest monthly total to date.
By the middle of this month there have been at least eight drone attacks and no fewer than 66 people killed.
According to Steve Coll’s New America Foundation, 1,439 of the 1,844 deaths caused by drone attacks in Pakistan since 2004 have occurred in 2009 and so far this year. [8]
Similarly, the deaths of 1,111 of 2,160 U.S. and NATO soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001 occurred in the same period. Seventeen foreign soldiers were killed between October 13 and 16 alone.
On October 13 the Pakistani press reported that NATO helicopters, until then operating solely in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (in four attacks between September 25-30 against the Haqqani network), violated the nation’s airspace over the province of Balochistan, leading Islamabad to lodge a formal protest with NATO.
Since the revelations from Bob Woodward’s new book and the publication of Arthur Herman’s article, commentaries in Pakistani newspapers have appeared which indicate the seriousness with which recent developments and even more ominous portents are being viewed.
An October 13 feature in The Nation stated that “the ongoing war on terror in Afghanistan is aimed to take the operations into Pakistani territory….The real target is Pakistan’s nuclear potential; they [the U.S. and NATO] have no plausible security threat from the ill-equipped Taliban or ragtag extremists.”
Commenting on the New York Post feature cited earlier, Pakistani commentator A R Jerral further claimed that what “Herman suggests in his write-up is in fact a policy direction to the US administration. He implies that the policy of sending drones and attacking militant hideouts in the Pakistan territory has not worked….[T]he thrust is Pakistan’s nukes. It is a tacit way to tell the policymakers in Washington to keep the pressure on our country, which will weaken the Pakistani government’s standing, causing instability. That will provide the reason for the US troops to move in.”
He added: “We know about the drone attacks as these are reported in the media, but what we do not know and our media does not report is the fact that US-led NATO forces are launching crossborder raids into Pakistan….For this, CIA is operating Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams in Afghanistan.
“These teams are regularly mounting ground raids into Pakistani territory.”
“In this way, things are getting hot as far as the war on terror is concerned. Pakistan is moving to become centre stage in this war. Bruce Riedel, a former CIA and NSC [National Security Council] official, has advised Mr Obama to shift the focus of war ‘from Afghanistan to Pakistan’; this is what we are witnessing in the shape of heightened war effort into the Pakistan territory.” [9]
A Pakistani commentary of the preceding day stated: “[W]e have…been dragged into giving the US access to Balochistan from where it has been attempting to destabilise the Iranian regime through support for the terrorist group Jundullah….Even more threatening, unless we change course now, we will have lost the battle to retain our nuclear assets because that is where the NATO-US trail is eventually leading to.”
“The free-wheeling access to US covert military and intelligence operatives, both officials and private contractors, is another destabilising factor that we seem to be unable or unwilling to check. And now there are the NATO incursions into our territory and targeting of even our military personnel, which shows how servile a state we are living in at present. [10]
As the war in Afghanistan, the largest and longest in the world, proceeds with record casualties among civilians and combatants alike on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border, plans are afoot to further expand the war into Pakistan and to threaten Iran as well.
Melbourne, Aug 26 (ANI): Astronomers are predicting that a massive solar storm, much bigger in potential than the one that caused spectacular light shows on Earth earlier this month, is to strike our planet in 2012 with a force of 100 million hydrogen bombs. Several US media outlets have reported that NASA was warning the massive flare this month was just a precursor to a massive solar storm building that had the potential to wipe out the entire planet’s power grid.
Despite its rebuttal, NASA’s been watching out for this storm since 2006 and reports from the US this week claim the storms could hit on that most Hollywood of disaster dates – 2012. Similar storms back in 1859 and 1921 caused worldwide chaos, wiping out telegraph wires on a massive scale. The 2012 storm has the potential to be even more disruptive.
“The general consensus among general astronomers (and certainly solar astronomers) is that this coming Solar maximum (2012 but possibly later into 2013) will be the most violent in 100 years,” News.com.au quoted astronomy lecturer and columnist Dave Reneke as saying. “A bold statement and one taken seriously by those it will affect most, namely airline companies, communications companies and anyone working with modern GPS systems.
“They can even trip circuit breakers and knock out orbiting satellites, as has already been done this year,” added Reneke. No one really knows what effect the 2012-2013 Solar Max will have on today’s digital-reliant society. Dr Richard Fisher, director of NASA’s Heliophysics division, told Reneke the super storm would hit like “a bolt of lightning”, causing catastrophic consequences for the world’s health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken.
NASA said that a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences found that if a similar storm occurred today, it could cause “1 to 2 trillion dollars in damages to society’s high-tech infrastructure and require four to 10 years for complete recovery”.
The reason for the concern comes as the sun enters a phase known as Solar Cycle 24. Most experts agree, although those who put the date of Solar Max in 2012 are getting the most press. They claim satellites will be aged by 50 years, rendering GPS even more useless than ever, and the blast will have the equivalent energy of 100 million hydrogen bombs. “We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be,” Fisher told Reneke. “Systems will just not work. The flares change the magnetic field on the Earth and it’s rapid, just like a lightning bolt. That’s the solar effect,” he added. The findings are published in the most recent issue of Australasian Science. (ANI)
Ireland Faces Big Freeze For Winter 2010-11link
Forecasters are predicting another Big Freeze this coming winter.A Robin hovers over the cold ice as it goes about gathering food during the cold spell over Christmas. Photograph by John Kelly.Positive Weather Solutions, the long range forecasting agency which predicted the last Big Freeze as well as the wet Summer in 2009, say January and February will bring snowfall across much of Ireland and the UK. PWS also say that a White Christmas is likely in some parts.
Senior forecaster Jonathan Powell said: “It is very unusual to have two very harsh winters back-to-back, but this winter will be similar to last winter…Local authorities need to be warned that they’ll have to handle another very cold winter.”
Ireland experienced its coldest winter in more than 65 years last winter when sub zero temperatures and snow affected much of the country during December and January. The prolonged cold spell also put severe pressure on grit and salt supplies with some local authorities having to be resupplied with imported grit from the Continent.
Meanwhile, some forecasters say this winter could be the coldest Europe has seen in the last 1,000 years. They say the dramatic change is connected with the speed of the Gulf Stream, which they say has shrunk in half in just the last couple of years.
Polish scientists say that it means the stream will not be able to compensate for the cold from the Arctic winds. According to them, when the stream is completely stopped, a new Ice Age will begin in Europe.
Winter 2010-2011 Forecast From Positive Weather Solutions
December: Chilly, some wintry weather around.
A chilly but dry start to December with some dry and bright weather around, but also some rain - amounts of which are not expected to give cause for concern. Through mid-month, high pressure consolidates, so expect a run of dry weather, which will combine chilly and bright daytimes, with clear and crisp nights, leading to sustained frost and fog activity, some of which will persist throughout the day, predominantly inland and in more so valley locations. During the final segment of December, unsettled weather chiefly affecting the higher ground across the eastern and north-eastern side of the UK, and possibly higher ground pushing westward for a time, may well deliver a White Christmas.
January: Mainly dry start, wintry weather developing.
A cold but dry start to January, quite raw at times, with a continuation of dry and bright conditions by day, with some sharp night frosts, particularly inland. By mid-month, with the cold theme continuing, sleet and snow showers will become increasingly more widespread, with moderate falls of snow possible, which have the potential to cause disruption - particularly for eastern and upland regions. PWS will continue to assess how the detail of the expected snowfall develops, but confidence is high that this eventuality will occur. January ends with dry and bright conditions alternating with periods of wintry weather, with the north and northeast again most likely to experience the worst of the conditions, with the south and west seeing more of a rain/sleet combination for the most part.
February: Bitterly cold month, wintry weather.
Another largely cold start to another month, with the ongoing threat of wintry conditions, in the form of organised bands of rain, sleet, and snow, interspersed with drier and brighter weather. Through mid-month, the likelihood and confidence of more widespread and disruptive snowfall increases, most likely once again to the north and east, with for a time, the south and west affected too, and some level of disruption can be expected. PWS will continue to monitor this segment of the forecast. By late month, although the cold conditions show signs of receding somewhat, further wintry weather especially to the north and east cannot be ruled out, with the south and west more likely to see a rain/sleet mix.
Senior forecaster Jonathan Powell said: “It is very unusual to have two very harsh winters back-to-back, but this winter will be similar to last winter…Local authorities need to be warned that they’ll have to handle another very cold winter.”
Ireland experienced its coldest winter in more than 65 years last winter when sub zero temperatures and snow affected much of the country during December and January. The prolonged cold spell also put severe pressure on grit and salt supplies with some local authorities having to be resupplied with imported grit from the Continent.
Meanwhile, some forecasters say this winter could be the coldest Europe has seen in the last 1,000 years. They say the dramatic change is connected with the speed of the Gulf Stream, which they say has shrunk in half in just the last couple of years.
Polish scientists say that it means the stream will not be able to compensate for the cold from the Arctic winds. According to them, when the stream is completely stopped, a new Ice Age will begin in Europe.
Winter 2010-2011 Forecast From Positive Weather Solutions
December: Chilly, some wintry weather around.
A chilly but dry start to December with some dry and bright weather around, but also some rain - amounts of which are not expected to give cause for concern. Through mid-month, high pressure consolidates, so expect a run of dry weather, which will combine chilly and bright daytimes, with clear and crisp nights, leading to sustained frost and fog activity, some of which will persist throughout the day, predominantly inland and in more so valley locations. During the final segment of December, unsettled weather chiefly affecting the higher ground across the eastern and north-eastern side of the UK, and possibly higher ground pushing westward for a time, may well deliver a White Christmas.
January: Mainly dry start, wintry weather developing.
A cold but dry start to January, quite raw at times, with a continuation of dry and bright conditions by day, with some sharp night frosts, particularly inland. By mid-month, with the cold theme continuing, sleet and snow showers will become increasingly more widespread, with moderate falls of snow possible, which have the potential to cause disruption - particularly for eastern and upland regions. PWS will continue to assess how the detail of the expected snowfall develops, but confidence is high that this eventuality will occur. January ends with dry and bright conditions alternating with periods of wintry weather, with the north and northeast again most likely to experience the worst of the conditions, with the south and west seeing more of a rain/sleet combination for the most part.
February: Bitterly cold month, wintry weather.
Another largely cold start to another month, with the ongoing threat of wintry conditions, in the form of organised bands of rain, sleet, and snow, interspersed with drier and brighter weather. Through mid-month, the likelihood and confidence of more widespread and disruptive snowfall increases, most likely once again to the north and east, with for a time, the south and west affected too, and some level of disruption can be expected. PWS will continue to monitor this segment of the forecast. By late month, although the cold conditions show signs of receding somewhat, further wintry weather especially to the north and east cannot be ruled out, with the south and west more likely to see a rain/sleet mix.
Thousands in China evacuated ahead of Megilink
In addition to the more than 150,000 evacuations, provincial flood control officials said 53,100 fishing boats were recalled to port, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Weather officials said Megi is forecast to make landfall in Guangdong Province Saturday.
Authorities posted red warnings, the highest level, meaning the storm could cause huge, devastating waves along coastal sea areas, including Guangdong and Fujian provinces and the Taiwan Strait. The State Oceanic Administration issued a yellow storm surge warning as well, Xinhua reported.
"The storm surge could be so devastating that buildings, docks, villages and cities could be destroyed by it," said Bai Yiping, director of South China Sea Forecasting Center of the State Oceanic Administration.
Bai said Megi could cause a "50-year storm surge" if it is a severe typhoon when it makes landfall.
Typhoon Megi pummeled the northern Philippines earlier this week, killing at least 11 people.
Spending Review: Cuts 'to affect the poorest most'link
The IFS described the Spending Review's impact as regressive across most of the income distribution The impact of the government's Spending Review will hit the poorest families harder than the better off, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said.
It said the tax and benefit changes were "regressive", and would have a greater impact, relative to income, on people at the lower end of the scale.The think tank added that families with children would be the "biggest losers".
Chancellor George Osborne has denied that the poor will be most affected, saying he had made "fair choices".
The IFS said that while the richest 10% of society - and primarily the top 2% - would pay the most under the government's changes, the poorest families would be the worst off of the remaining population.
IFS acting director Carl Emmerson said: "The tax and benefit changes are regressive rather than progressive across most of the income distribution."Our analysis continues to show that, with the notable exception of the richest 2%, the tax and benefit components of the fiscal consolidation are, overall, being implemented in a regressive way."
Mr Emmerson added that the government should review the cuts after two years.
Mr Osborne told the BBC that the Spending Review "involved some hard choices, but I think they are fair choices".
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
End QuoteBy far the biggest losers from the coalition's benefit changes will be families with children”
He added: "The richest 10% are hit hardest... the richest pay the most but everyone makes a contribution."
Downing Street has also defended the government against the IFS's claim, with a spokesman for the prime minister saying: "We believe we are addressing the deficit at the right pace."He added: "Some say we should go more slowly, others say we should do more."
The Labour opposition has criticised the government's cuts, with shadow chancellor Alan Johnson calling them "unfair as well as unwise".
He told the BBC: "This slash-and-burn approach is something we wouldn't do."
US confirms $60bn plan to sell Saudi Arabia armslink
Click to play
State department official Andrew Shapiro on the "tremendous significance" of the sale
US officials have confirmed they intend to sell $60bn (£38bn) of arms to Saudi Arabia, including helicopters and jets.
The state department said details of the deal had been sent to Congress, which now has 30 days to object.If completed, it could be the most lucrative single arms deal in US history and could support 75,000 jobs.
The state department said Israel, traditionally wary of arms deals involving Arab states, was not expected to raise objections.
'Strong message' Announcing the plan, state department official Andrew Shapiro said it had a "tremendous significance from a strategic regional perspective".
"It will send a strong message to countries in the region that we are committed to support the security of our key partners and allies in the Arabian Gulf and broader Middle East," he said.
Analysts say the sale - which includes more than 80 F-15 fighters, and dozens of Apache, Black Hawk and Little Bird helicopters - is unlikely to face much opposition in Congress.
The plan was leaked last month, when officials were quoted as saying anti-radar missiles, precision-guided bombs, and Hellfire missiles would also be included.
But officials did not mention the missiles during Wednesday's news conference.
The Pentagon said the Saudis were expected to initially select about $30bn worth of aircraft. Delivery of the weapons is expected to be spread over 15 to 20 years.
Saudi Arabia is one of the top buyers of weapons in the developing world.
Iran and Venezuela deepen 'strategic alliance'link
The two leaders refer to each other as brothers The presidents of Iran and Venezuela have promised to deepen their "strategic alliance" against US "imperialism".
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez met Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a two-day visit to Iran. Referring to each other as brothers, the two leaders said no one could stop them strengthening ties.
Mr Ahmadinejad said they would build a "new world order" free of US domination.
Mr Chavez condemned international sanctions and "military threats" against Iran over its nuclear programme.
Both leaders said they were convinced that the age of Western domination was coming to an end.
"Imperialism has reached a decisive phase of decline and is headed, like an elephant, to its graveyard", Mr Chavez said.
"The enemies of our nations will go one day", said Mr Ahmadinejad.
"This is the promise of God and the promise of God will definitely be fulfilled".
The two leaders looked on as officials signed a number of agreements on co-operation in areas including oil and gas, trade and construction.
Venezuela's state oil company, PDVSA, said it was forming a joint shipping venture with Iran to deliver Venezuelan oil to markets in Europe and Asia.
After Mr Chavez visited a new town development outside Tehran, Iranian officials offered to help Venezuela build similar public housing projects.
Opec allies Mr Chavez has been a regular visitor to Tehran over the past decade.
He and Mr Ahmadinejad have forged a close relationship based on their strong opposition to the US.
Iran and Venezuela are both major oil producers, and they have co-operated closely in the oil exporting cartel, Opec.
Mr Chavez has been a strong opponent of international sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme.
The US and other Western powers believe Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, but Tehran insists its programme is aimed at generating energy and medical isotopes.
Before arriving in Iran, Mr Chavez was in Moscow, where he secured Russian help to build a nuclear plant in Venezuela.
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