Libya protests: 84 killed in growing unrest, says HRW Click to play Former UK envoy to Libya: "The most exciting question is what happens in Tripoli" (Footage from Libyan TV and amateur sources) The number of people killed in three days of protests in Libya has risen to 84, according to the New York-based group Human Rights Watch. The main focus of the demonstrations against Col Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year rule has been the second city Benghazi, where security forces are said to have attacked protesters again on Saturday.On Friday, one hospital in the city reported 35 deaths. State media have warned of retaliation if the unrest continues. Media restrictions make it difficult to verify reports independently but the BBC has confirmed that websites including Facebook and al-Jazeera Arabic were blocked. Security forces opened fire in Benghazi on Friday when protesters approached a compound used by Col Gaddafi when he visits the city, which is about 1,000 km (600 miles) from the capital Tripoli, eyewitnesses say. Continue reading the main story Mid-East unrest: Libya
The city's al-Jala hospital received the bodies of 35 people killed in the shooting, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW) and media reports. In a statement on its website, HRW says there were demonstrations in at least four other eastern cities on Friday - al-Bayda, Ajdabiya, Zawiya, and Darnah - after security forces shot dead a number of protesters in the previous days.A senior hospital official told the group: "We put out a call to all the doctors in Benghazi to come to the hospital and for everyone to contribute blood because I've never seen anything like this before." A Benghazi resident told Reuters news agency early on Saturday that many protesters were still camped outside the courthouse. Later another eyewitness told the Associated Press that special forces had fired tear gas and cleared the area. Benghazi residents also told the BBC on Saturday that security forces had taken critics of the government from their homes. In al-Bayda, video footage showed bloodstained bodies in a mortuary and protesters torching a municipal building and demolishing a statue of Col Gaddafi's Green book. In Darnah, east of al-Bayda, police stations are said to have been evacuated. Oea newspaper, owned by one of Col Gaddafi's sons, reported that demonstrators had lynched two policemen in the city. One protester told the BBC that soldiers had switched sides in some areas and joined the demonstrations. "The soldiers say we are citizens of this country and we cannot fight our citizens," he said. 'Red lines' No major disturbances have been reported in the capital Tripoli, where pro-Gaddafi supporters have been demonstrating. Amid the crackdown, the semi-independent Quryna newspaper reported that the government would replace many state executives and decentralise and restructure the government. It was unclear whether the political move was in response to growing unrest. Earlier, the pro-government Al-Zahf Al-Akhdar newspaper threatened that the authorities would "violently and thunderously respond" to the protests. "The people's power, the Jamahiriya [system of rule], the revolution, and Colonel Gaddafi are all red lines and those who try to cross or come near these lines are suicidal and playing with fire," it said. Col Gaddafi is the Arab world's longest-serving leader, having ruled oil-rich Libya since a coup in 1969. Libya is one of several Arab countries to have experienced pro-democracy demonstrations since the fall of long-time Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak was forced from power on 11 February. The British Foreign Office is now advising UK citizens against all but essential travel to Benghazi, Ajdabiya, al-Bayda, al-Marj, Darnah, Ajdabiya, Tobruk and areas bordering Sudan, Chad, Niger and Algeria. Britain - More heavy snow - 19 Feb 11 Record cold in Sweden - 16 Feb 11 Frost Destroys Wheat Crop in Coahuila, Mexico - 13 Feb 11 Waist-deep snowfall paralyzes South Korea - 13 Feb 11 Glaciers growing in Italy - 8 Feb 11 See What's Happening in Other Parts of the World India - Record snowfall revives 2,000 glaciers Already more snowfall than 1998 record for entire monthlink |
| Think you'll see this in the mainstream media? |
17 Feb 11 - "Record snowfall in Himachal (a state in Northern India) this year has revived more than 2,000 glaciers," says this article in the India Times.
"It is difficult to understand the environment," said Almora's G B Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development's senior scientist J C Kuniyal. "As we start talking about the dry winters, record snowfall leaves stunned everyone."
"It is difficult to understand the environment," said Almora's G B Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development's senior scientist J C Kuniyal. "As we start talking about the dry winters, record snowfall leaves stunned everyone."
| Probably won't take too long before they stop talking about being "stunned," and start saying that they expected the record snowstorms - due to global warming, of course. |
Lahaul-Spiti has received more than 175-cm (69 inches) snow in first 16 days of February, breaking the earlier record of 148-cm for the entire month, set in 1998.
| Ironically, this article is posted in the "global warming" section. |
See entire article:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/environment/global-warming/record-snowfall-in-hp-revives-2000-glaciers/articleshow/7512964.cmsReport: the death of 5 million aquatic animals in Mara River?
February 20, 2011 – KENYA – The National Environmental Management Authority (Nema), Public Health Ministry and Kenya Wildlife Service are investigating the deaths of fish in Mara River. Conservationists suspect the deaths that started last week might have been caused by agro chemicals from farms, that drain into the river. Hoteliers in Masai Mara Game Reserve are now expressing fear that the chemicals might kill animals that depend on the river. “The deaths could have been caused by agro chemicals from large scale farms on the upper side of the river. The chemicals might also kill hippos, crocodiles and other animals that drink water from the river,” said Ben Kipeno, a conservationist from the northern side of the reserve. Mr Kipeno said on Wednesday there were unconfirmed reports that apart from fish, a crocodile and a hippo have already succumbed to effects of the chemicals. He urged the Government to rein in farmers along the river who use potent chemicals and claimed that despite several complaints to Nema no action has been taken. Officials from KWS who were dispatched from Nairobi took samples of the fish to the Government Chemist for further tests to ascertain the cause of the deaths. When The Standard visited the river, dead fish were floating with scavengers, including the Marabou stork, feeding on them. The Narok South Nema officer in charge Gabriel Tambushi said initial reports had indicated that more than five million fish were killed at the confluence of the seasonal Moyan River in Transmara with the Mara following a heavy flood. “The sudden change of weather that resulted into heavy mist covering the water surface, inhibiting fish and other animals that depend on the river from breathing might have been the cause of the deaths,” said Tambushi. He did not rule out poisonous agro chemicals from farms, which depended on Mara River for irrigation. -Standard Media Kenya
Lake Baikal: the mysterious rift of fire at 900 fanthoms?
Lake Baikal is not only the deepest lake in the world (1,637 meters) — it is also the oldest freshwater lake. According to scientists, the lake is more than 25 million years old, and holds about 20% of the world’s surface freshwater. The world’s largest fresh water lake is mysteriously warming for unknown reasons and Dr. Lyubov, a Russian scientist, believes she knows why – climate change. Lyubov believes one of the world’s oldest bodies of water is intimately and inexplicably linked to changes going on in the environment which are accelerating the planet’s temperature. For example, her research team found that changes in Lake Baikal’s temperature varied along with monthly El Niño variations in the surface temperature of the Pacific Ocean thousands of miles away. The researchers also found connections between the jet stream and Lake Baikal. Changes in the jet stream’s strength and direction forecast seasonal changes in the lake by about three months. Overall they found the lake is also warming. The lake’s temperature even reflected decade-scale changes in the Earth’s speed of rotation.
Given Lake Baikal’s immense depth, we believe there can only be one thing capable of influencing the Southern Oscillation (El Niño) and impacting the planet’s rotation while contributing to the gradient rise in the Lake’s temperature and it is the most abundant viscous substance on planet Earth – it is magma. A rift is likely widening under the lake and though no volcanic activity has been specifically identified to date, hot springs are present both on land and deep under water. What is perhaps more well-known is the lake’s violent past seismic history. Multiple earthquakes shook the Lake Baikal region between December 30, 1861 and January 1, 1862, causing widespread panic and destruction, unleashing a tsunami of icy water that rolled over the Tsagan steppe, and left more than 200 square kilometers of land permanently underwater along with the homes and livestock of the Buriats who lived there. A 7.3 magnitude quake shook the lake in 2001 and a 6.3 quake struck at a depth of 10 km in 2008. Ice quakes were measured on the frozen surface of the lake by Russian scientists in 2008 and a 6.7 quake again struck the lake in September of 2010. Researchers have long theorized there may be a divergent plate boundary centered beneath Lake Baikal. To its west is the Eurasian Plate and to its east is the Amurian Plate which is moving away from the rift toward Japan at about 4 (maybe even up to 7) mm per year. GPS measurements indicate that the Amurian plate is slowly rotating counter-clockwise. We believe Lake Baikal will become more of a hazard zone as Earth-changes intensify.
(c) Al Jazeera Discovery News, Siberia’s Lake Baikal Feeling the Heat, 2011
Coronal hole: Journey to the farside of the Sun
February 19, 2011 - In this 3-D simulation of the rotating Sun, we can see a large coronal hole on the side of the Sun that is not facing Earth. Regions of coronal holes on the Sun can be 100 times less dense than surrounding material. For this reason, magnetic field lines in coronal holes allow dense streams of proton particles to propagate away from the Sun into surrounding space. We could be looking at some more energetic bursts of solar activity during this period when the Sun rotates. Stay tuned…
Update: MEANWHILE ON THE FARSIDE: For the past week, all eyes have been on the Earth-side of the sun, where sunspots 1158 and 1161-1162 have unleashed some of the strongest flares in years. Meanwhile, the farside of the sun has been busy, too. A huge active region is transiting the farside and crackling with flares; it will turn toward Earth in about a week. -Space Weather
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NASA sends final command to WISE telescope
NASA loses valuable eyes in the sky
February 19, 2011 – PASADENA, CA – A prolific sky-mapping telescope that has spent more than a year scanning the heavens for asteroids, comets and other cosmic objects received its last command today (Feb. 17). NASA shut down its WISE spacecraft – short for Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer – at 3:00 p.m. EST (2000 UTC) today. The mission’s principal investigator, Ned Wright of the University of California in Los Angeles, sent the final command to the now-hibernating spacecraft, according to an update from the WISE mission’s official Twitter account. “The WISE spacecraft will remain in hibernation without ground contacts awaiting possible future use,” NASA officials said via Twitter. WISE launched on Dec. 14, 2009 to begin a 10-month mission to collect data to be stitched together into a composite map of the entire sky. The spacecraft surveyed the cosmos in infrared light, which allowed it to peer through dense layers of dust to capture stunning space photos of previously unseen objects in unprecedented detail. In addition to spotting asteroids and comets, the $320 million space telescope is designed to detect the faint glow of distant objects, such as strangely cool brown dwarf stars. Over the course of its mission, WISE scanned the sky 1 1/2 times, taking about 1.8 million images of asteroids, stars and galaxies. The spacecraft also spotted 19 previously unseen comets and more than 33,500 asteroids, including 120 near-Earth objects, which are objects with orbits that pass relatively close to Earth’s own orbit around the sun. In late September 2010, WISE ran out of the coolant needed to chill its infrared detectors. -Space.com
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Cocos plate tension agitated by seismic upheaval in Chile
February 19, 2011 – The 4.8 quake that struck off the shore of Guatemala at 71 km and the 4.4 earthquake at 79.4 km reflect the growing seismic tension of the Cocos Plate with its dueling neighbor, the Caribbean Plate as seen in the recent 3.3 quake in the Dominican Republic at 83 km. This is one more example of how the unrest of the Nazca Plate affecting Chile is also unnerving other surrounding plates in the region. Finally, the seismic tension in Chile in rippling down through the South Pole, showing the enormous amount of power the Nazca Plate has on the globe. Below- Chile (left) and Antarctica (right) showing a similar seismic pattern on seismographs.
Natural disasters triple in Germany since the 1970′s
February 19, 2011 – MUNICH (Bloomberg)— German insurers’ losses from natural catastrophes are rising as global climate change causes more inundations and storms, Munich Reinsurance Co. said. Weather-related events have more than tripled in the country over the past 40 years, Peter Hoeppe, who heads the Munich-based reinsurer’s Geo Risks Research Department, told journalists in Dusseldorf, Germany, on Thursday. A rising trend is also measurable worldwide, he said. Insurers’ claims costs related to natural disasters rose last year. Allianz S.E., Europe’s biggest insurer, recorded “high losses from natural catastrophes and bad weather conditions” in the three months ended September 2010, it said in the quarterly report on its website. Flooding, windstorms and a hailstorm cost the firm about €137 million ($186 million) in Germany in the period, it said. Munich Re, the world’s biggest reinsurer, also owns primary insurer Ergo Versicherungsgruppe. European winter storm Xynthia, which swept across Portugal, Spain, France and Germany in February 2010, cost insurers about $3.4 billion, while the earthquake that hit Chile in the same month may have cost the industry $8 billion, according to estimates by Munich Re. That led to an increase in natural disaster claims last year by more than two-thirds to $37 billion, exceeding the annual average of $35 billion over the preceding 10 years, the reinsurer said last month. -Business Insurance
Planetary Crisis: We think this is only the beginning of a trend that will eventually bankrupt insurance companies around the world and will facilitate the collapse of the global financial system.
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Number 1162 enlarges sunspot complex on the Sun- flare threat increases
ANOTHER X-FLARE–ALMOST: Fast-growing sunspot complex 1161-1162 erupted on Feb. 18th, producing an M6.6-class solar flare. The almost-X category blast was one of the strongest flares in years and continued the week-long trend of high solar activity. NOAA forecasters estimate a 75% chance of more M-flares during the next 24 hours. Sunspot 1162 is the latest sunspot to form on the Sun today. Sunspot complex 1161-1162 poses a growing threat for Earth-directed solar flares. -Space Weather
The interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) is a part of the Sun’s magnetic field that is carried into interplanetary space by the solar wind.
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 12.8 nT
Bz: 3.9 nT south
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Authorities warn of eruption of Mt. Nyiragongo volcano in the Congo
February 19, 2011 – CONGO - Previous eruptions in recent times may be dwarfed by the expected next eruption of Mt. Nyiragongo, which towers over the Eastern Congolese city of Goma. Nine years ago, in January 2002, when the region’s most active volcano erupted, the reportedly rather liquid lava swiftly covered a sizeable part of the city and even brought air transport to a complete standstill, when a portion of the runway was covered by lava, which when finally cooled down, was measured to be 6 and more feet thick and as wide as a kilometer, leaving total destruction in its wake and making over 120,000 residents homeless. The absence of monitoring equipment is hampering the ability of researchers to adequately monitor the mountain and predict imminent eruptions. Neither the volcano operators nor the population at large seems overly concerned at this stage, in spite of recent pictures being taken from aircraft flying over the crater, showing it once again filling up with enormous quantities of lava. The African Rift Valley, which extends from the Red Sea across much of Africa to Malawi, has always been an active seismological zone – as another active volcano, Mt. Ol Donyo Lengai in Tanzania demonstrates – but of late, disquieting reports have emerged that the underwater rip in the Red Sea seems to be widening, as minor eruptions have been reported from the border area between Ethiopia and Djibouti. It is there that the ground has also lowered and subsequently seismic monitoring has been substantially increased to provide early alerts of imminent developments. A few months ago it was reported here that the lava’s reflections on low clouds could be seen all the way into Uganda, again underscoring that there is indeed now a growing possibility of another upcoming eruption, many of which in the recorded history of the volcano have come at 10-year intervals. -Eturbo News
See our report on the coming tear of East Africa
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Kilauea’s lava lake reaches the highest level ever seen
February 19, 2011 – KILAUEA SUMMIT (HawaiiNewsNow) – Scientists on the Big Island say it’s been an especially active week at Kilauea volcano – as it continues to erupt in two locations: on the east rift zone and at the summit. The volcanic activity along the summit has died down a little since Monday – when the lava lake at Halemaumau crater reached one of the highest levels ever observed. But it’s still fascinating for both geologists and tourists alike. Kilauea’s fiery summit cauldron ripped open this week, and its beauty is matched only by the roar of its fury. Summit activity isn’t as intense as it was earlier in the week, but the changes have delighted scientists. “It is an exciting time for volcanologists,” says Janet Babb of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. “This is the job that we’re trained to do and the kind of research that we’re involved in, so it has been exciting.” On Monday, they watched as a number of rocks fell into Kilauea’s summit vent. Sulfur dioxide emissions remain elevated. Babb explains, “Large sections of the rim of the vent fell into the lava lake below. It caused a lot of degassing, and in a few instances, some explosive events that caused a lot of dusty, ashy plumes to rise skyward.” The lava lake at Halemaumau crater reached one of its highest levels ever this week – indicating an increase in the volume of magma. It’s been rising steadily since last November, but volcanologists aren’t yet sure of its significance. “We’re still seeing these rise fall cycles in the lava lake. Rock falls are still occurring, again not as many as on Monday or Tuesday, but the vent walls continue to break apart, and we expect we’ll continue to see this activity in the foreseeable future.” -Hawaii Now
Hawaii’s increased volcanic activity has been building for months. See Hawaii
Fractual: more evidence the physical world is disintegrating?
Bats, bees, birds, crickets, fish, butterflies, oysters, coral reefs, trees are all struggling with diseases and extinction issues. Pests are becoming more resistant to poisons. Microbes are growing more disease-resistant to antibiotic treatments and some are now starting to assimilate strands of human DNA into their genetic makeup. In the South American rain forests, vines are overtaking and supressing tree growth. Are these early signs the web of life on Earth is unraveling?
February 15, 2011
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February 16, 2011 
