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Britain’s coming crunch with Europe
It did not take David Cameron long to realize that there were three parties in his coalition. A few months into government, the Prime Minister worked out that only half of the policies he was enacting came from the shared agenda drawn up when the Tories and LibDems got together. The other half comes from the EU. Or, more specifically, the Civil Service machine, which is busy implementing various EU Directives, often passed many years ago. Cameron is trying to put the brakes on this process.
As I say in my News of the World column, this has led to much frustration in Whitehall. And dismay: the Civil Service remembers how easily Labour waved through EU regulation and the piles of fat that Whitehall likes to pile on top of the EU regulation. Labour would claim that the EU rules were actually its idea, so as not to lose face. Only in government is it clear how far power has slipped; Cameron wants to claw it back.
Oliver Letwin has been tasked with stopping Whitehall from being a breeding ground for new regulations. Cameron jokingly refers to Letwin as a ‘contraceptive’, because it’s his job to stop these regulations being conceived – usually after a little European foreplay. It’s a huge task. The problem is that Read more…
Police open fire in third day of South Africa protest
By Joshua Howat Berger
WESSELTON, South Africa — Police fired rubber bullets as protestors set alight tyres in a destitute South African township on Wednesday in a third day of demonstrations to demand jobs and improved services.
Riot police deployed into the streets of Wesselton, around 200 kilometres (124 miles) east of Johannesburg, to disperse protesters who also dragged the charred remains of Tuesday’s barricades back into the road.
However calm returned on the streets of the township after South African police commissioner Bheki Cele visited the area and warned residents that law enforcements officers will not tolerate any further violent protests.
“It is their constitutional right to participate in mass action without violence, if they do that then police can go home,” he told reporters.
“But it is not their right to burn tires, it is not their right to loot, it is not their right to injure and attack people. If they do that we (police) will respond accordingly. It looks for now we have agreed on that approach. I hope that approach stays that way.”
He said 160 police officers were deployed to Read more…
Underwater Volcanoes a Hotbed of Clues to Earth’s Movements
Night view of the JOIDES Resolution, docked in Auckland, New Zealand, before its departure. Credit: D. Buchs, Australian National University.
Nearly half a mile of rock retrieved from beneath the seafloor is yielding new clues about how underwater volcanoes are created and whether the underlying hot spots of molten rock that lead to their formation have moved over time.
Geoscientists have just completed an expedition, part of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), to a string of underwater volcanoes, or seamounts, in the Pacific Ocean known as the Louisville Seamount Trail.
There they collected samples of ocean floor sediments, lava flows and other volcanic eruption materials to piece together the Read more…
In sharp reversal, U.S. agrees to rebuke Israel in Security Council
Posted By Colum Lynch
The U.S. informed Arab governments Tuesday that it will support a U.N. Security Council statement reaffirming that the 15-nation body “does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity,” a move aimed at avoiding the prospect of having to veto a stronger Palestinian resolution calling the settlements illegal.
But the Palestinians rejected the American offer following a meeting late Wednesday of Arab representatives and said it is planning to press for a vote on its resolution on Friday, according to officials familiar with the issue. The decision to reject the American offer raised the prospect that the Obama administration will cast its first ever veto in the U.N. Security Council.
Still, the U.S. offer signaled a renewed willingness to seek a way out of the current impasse, even if it requires breaking with Israel and joining others in the council in sending a strong message to its key ally to stop its construction of new settlements. U.S. officials were not available for comment, but two Security Council diplomats confirmed the proposal.
The Palestinian delegation, along with Lebanon, the Security Council’s only Arab member state, asked the council’s president late Wednesday to Read more…
Arkansas cities feel unexplained surge in earthquakes
SARAH EDDINGTON
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Jim Sutterfield was briefly puzzled by a thumping sound that seemed to slam the back of his office chair. But when the small-town Arkansas fire chief turned and saw no one was around, he quickly realized it was just an earthquake — again.
“That was only my second time to feel one, but others here have felt them for three or four months now,” Greenbrier chief Jim Sutterfield said after feeling the latest tremor on Wednesday. “Now when it happens, people say, ‘Well, there’s another one.'”
Several small earthquakes ranging in magnitude from 1.8 to 3.8 have rattled the north-central Arkansas cities of Greenbrier and Guy this week, and the cause is unknown.
The U.S. Geological Survey has reported more than 30 earthquakes in the area since Sunday, including a magnitude 3.8 quake Thursday morning and at least 16 others occurring Wednesday, two of which were magnitude 3.2 and 3.5. More than 700 quakes have occurred in the region over the past six months.
Scott Ausbrooks, geohazards supervisor for the Arkansas Geological Survey, said the quakes are Read more…
Washington proposes $5.50 fee for Canadians entering U.S. by air, sea
The U.S. has been charging that fee to other international passengers, except Canadians, Mexicans and Caribbean nationals who have been exempt from paying it since 1997.
Obama said the fee would raise $110 million yearly to help reduce the country’s budget deficit. The fee would also apply to air and sea travelers from Mexico and the Caribbean.
An average of 16 million Canadians fly to their North American neighbor yearly. The $5.50 fee, if approved by the U.S. Congress, would raise about $110 million and help defray the cost of beefed up boundary security.
The fee would not apply to Read more…
Video purporting to show the first minute of the attack on protesters in Manama, Bahrain
New York Overdue For an Earthquake
New York City could start shaking any minute now.
Won-Young Kim, who runs the seismographic network for the Northeast at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said the city is well overdue for a big earthquake.
From Metro New York:
The last big quake to hit New York City was a 5.3-magnitude tremor in 1884 that happened at sea in between Brooklyn and Sandy Hook. While no one was killed, buildings were damaged.
Kim said the city is likely to experience a big earthquake every 100 years or so.
“It can happen anytime soon,” Kim said. “We can expect it any minute, we just don’t know when and where.”
New York has never experienced a magnitude 6 or 7 earthquake, which are the most dangerous. But magnitude 5 quakes could topple brick buildings and chimneys.
Seismologist John Armbruster said a magnitude 5 quake that happened now would be more devastating than the one that happened in 1884.
The USDA Says Americans Need More Sugar…and More GMOs
By Josh Corn
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is worried about an impending nationwide sugar shortage. This is the reason, officials said last week, that they gave farmers the green light to plant Monsanto’s previously outlawed genetically engineered Roundup Ready sugar beets. Currently, 30% of the world’s sugar is produced from beets.
Ironically enough, the USDA just weeks ago released its latest set of dietary guidelines for Americans, which place stronger emphasis on the importance of reducing calorie consumption and avoiding things like trans fats, refined flours — and added sugars.
“The 2010 Dietary Guidelines are being released at a time when the majority of adults and 1 in 3 children is overweight or obese and this is a crisis that we can no longer ignore,” said USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack in an official press release.
So in light of this crisis and these new recommendations, why is the Read more…
NASA: Huge Solar Flare Jamming Radio And Satellite Signals, Could Affect Electric Grid, Bright Auroras Expected
According to NASA, a large solar eruption triggered a giant geomagnetic storm that has disturbed radio communications and could disrupt electrical power grids, radio and satellite communication in the next days
The calm before the storm. Three CMEs are enroute, all a part of the Radio Blackout events on February 13, 14, and 15 (UTC). The last of the three seems to be the fastest and may catch both of the forerunners about mid to late day tomorrow, February 17. Watch this space for updates on the impending — G2, possibly periods of G3 — geomagnetic storming.
Watch Today’s Space Weather for the most recent activity.
This is a composite image of the Sun at the moment of the X2.2 flare. Image courtesy of SDO
(NASA)
Credit: NASA/SDO
A strong wave of charged plasma particles emanating from the Jupiter-sized sun spot, the most powerful seen in four years, has already disrupted radio communication in southern China.
Solar Activity Forecast: Read more…
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