All of Britain covered in snow ... Again Twice in the same year! link And the would-be dictators in Cancun keep screaming about global warming. |
 2 Dec 10 - The University of Dundee's satellite receiving station captured this image of how the heavy snow of the past week has affected the UK.
The picture, which was received at 1145 GMT on Thursday from Nasa satellite Terra, shows almost the entire country covered by a blanket of snow. See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-11901718 Thanks to Raul Franco and Thomas Loher for this link Or see: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/02/uk-covererd-in-snow-for-the-second-winter/
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Colombia landslide: Dozens feared buried near Medellin
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Local people searched the debris with bare hands
Rescuers say they have recovered 12 bodies, following a landslide near the Colombian city of Medellin.
Officials say they fear up to 145 people may be buried after a hillside collapsed on Sunday after the heaviest rains in the country for decades.Local residents initially used their bare hands to dig into tonnes of mud that engulfed some 30 houses. Seven people have been saved so far.
Thousands of people have fled the area, fearing further landslides.
The landslide hit the La Gabriela district of Bello, Antioquia province, at about 1900 GMT.
"There are 145 people missing, including the 12 dead who have been recovered up until now," local governor Luis Alfredo Ramos was quoted as saying by Reuters.
The BBC's Jeremy McDermott in Medellin said local residents were initially digging for survivors with their bare hands, after a large section of hillside fell onto the poor La Gabriela area of the city. Emergency teams then arrived with specialist equipment and sniffer dogs.
Most major rivers in Colombia have burst their banks as a result of the heavy rain, and tens of thousands of people have been left homeless.
"I've lost half my family - my mother, four brothers, nephews and my 13- and 10-year-old daughters," she said.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said: "This tragedy we are experiencing, not only in the Atlantic coast but across the country, has no precedent in our history."
He was speaking after flying over the western Atlantic region to personally assess the damage.
"We estimate that there will be more than two million people affected."
Mr Santos has said recovering from the disaster is going to be very expensive, and that he is considering calling a national state of emergency if the rains continue.
"Unfortunately, this tragedy has just kept growing," he said.
Our correspondent says the country's emergency services are already struggling to cope with the scale of the disaster.
Extreme weather Neighbouring Venezuela is also experiencing heavy flooding.
Some 70,000 people have been driven from their homes there.
President Hugo Chavez has said his government plans to seize private land to house some of those forced to abandon their homes.
The May-November rainy season in Mexico, Central America and the northern part of South America has been extremely severe this year.
The extreme weather is attributed to the La Nina climatic phenomenon, which is caused by colder than usual water currents along the Pacific coast.
Wikileaks: Swiss bank freezes Julian Assange's account
Last week Wikileaks moved its website to a Swiss host The Swiss post office's bank, PostFinance, has frozen the accounts of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
The whistle-blowing website says the freeze includes a defence fund and personal assets worth 31,000 euros. Wikileaks has published hundreds of secret US diplomatic cables, angering the US government and triggering moves by several companies including PayPal and Amazon to end their services.
Meanwhile, a warrant for Mr Assange's arrest has reached the UK authorities.
Sources have told the BBC that the European Arrest Warrant for Mr Assange arrived on Monday afternoon.
Swedish prosecutors want to question Mr Assange in connection with allegations of rape, which he denies.
He is believed to be in hiding somewhere in south-east England. Once the police have located him, he would be expected to appear at a magistrate's court within 24 hours, pending extradition to Sweden, says the BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner.
Setbacks for Wikileaks Sweden first issued an arrest warrant for Mr Assange on 18 November but it was invalidated by a procedural error. A new warrant was issued on 2 December.
The move by Switzerland's PostFinance to freeze the Wikileaks accounts is the latest setback to hit the whistle-blowing website since it began publishing the US cables last week.
On its website, PostFinance said Mr Assange had "provided false information regarding his place of residence" during the account opening process.
"(Mr) Assange entered Geneva as his domicile. Upon inspection, this information was found to be incorrect.
"(Mr) Assange cannot provide proof of residence in Switzerland and thus does not meet the criteria for a customer relationship with PostFinance. For this reason, PostFinance is entitled to close his account."
For its part, Wikileaks says it and Mr Assange have lost 100,000 euros in assets in a week.
"Late last week, the internet payment giant PayPal froze 60,000 euros of donations to the German charity the Wau Holland Foundation, which were targeted to promote the sharing of knowledge via Wikileaks," Wikileaks said in a statement.
'Verging on the criminal' On Monday, Wikileaks released an extensive list of facilities around the world that, according to the latest leaked cables, the US describes as vital to its national security.
The list includes pipelines, communication and transport hubs.
Several UK sites are listed, including cable locations, satellite sites and BAE Systems plants.
This is probably the most controversial document yet from the Wikileaks organisation, says BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus.
Former UK Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind said WikiLeaks' actions were "verging on the criminal".
He told the BBC: "It's not just negligence, it's not just stupidity, it is something which can be of active assistance to terrorist organisations."
UK Defence Secretary Liam Fox echoed Sir Malcolm's remarks, saying: "I think you have to ask about the motives for those who are behind some of the WikiLeaks material. Do they see themselves as some sort of force of anarchy?
"These are some comments, these are selective leaks designed to drive a wedge between us and the Americans and I don't think we should tolerate that."
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