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Powerful Shallow Earthquake Hits Gulf Of California
The Gulf of California, a body of water that separates the Baja California Peninsula from the Mexican mainland, was struck by a powerful shallow earthquake Tuesday morning.
The 5.8 magnitude quake struck at 11.44a.m. local time. The epicentre was situated 86 km (53 miles) southwest of Los Mochis, Sinaloa; 138 km (85 miles) north-northeast of La Paz, Baja California Sur; and 142 km (88 miles) west-southwest of Guamuchil, Sinaloa (Mexico).
The US Geological Survey (USGS) measured the seaquake depth at Read more…
Giant Meteorite Discovered in China
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| A group of researchers led by Baolin Zhang, a meteorite specialist at the Beijing Planetarium, study a giant meteorite that was found in a remote, mountainous region in northwest China. CREDIT: China Central Television |
This story was updated at 5:36 p.m. EDT.
A massive space rock – one that could rank as one of the largest meteorites ever recovered – has been found in a remote and mountainous region in northwest China, according to news reports.
The huge and oddly-shaped rock was found in the Altai mountains in China’s Xinjiang Uygur province, according to Sky and Telescope magazine. Earlier this month, Baolin Zhang, a meteorite specialist at the Beijing Planetarium, led a small team up a 9,500-foot (2,900-meter) summit to investigate reports of the supposed meteorite.
“This is a huge iron meteorite,” Zhang said in footage from China Central Television. “It may be the second largest iron meteorite, which can cause a sensation in China and also attract attention from [the] world’s meteorite fields. It comes from outside solar system and it is of great appreciating value and of more scientific Read more…
Missile system aimed at Russia? ‘US can’t guarantee it’s not’
New Zealand’s Record Snow Storm 25 July 2011
Sunday and Monday the worst winter storm in seventy years hit New Zealand, beginning in the south and moving north. New Zealand is near Antarctica (and the south pole), and during the winter months, Antarctic storms will move north. (It still seems strange to call them “Antarctic storms”, since I’ve always lived with Arctic storms.)
Some places, such as Auckland, haven’t had snow since June 1976. (Remember that winter is during June, July and August here in New Zealand.) People were stranded at airports and ski resorts, especially in the South Island, which was hardest hit.
We received no snow here where we live in Whakatete Bay, just north of Thames, but across the Firth of Thames, the Hunua Ranges (mountains) received a dusting.
Monday is supposed to have been the coldest day of 2011. Here at home, it was the Read more…
Guns in Mexico crimes came from US sting: report
At least 122 weapons recovered at crime scenes in Mexico have been linked to a US government weapons sting operation gone awry, two US members of Congress said in a report Tuesday.
Operation “Fast and Furious,” run by the US Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), lost track hundreds of weapons it allowed to be sent into Mexico between 2009 and 2010 in an attempt to track smuggling routes.
“So far, the Justice Department has provided documents that reference at least 48 separate recoveries involving 122 weapons connected to ‘Operation Fast and Furious,'” read the report, issued by Representative Darrell Issa and Senator Charles Grassley.
The two Republican legislators have been leading investigations into the program, which started in late 2009.
Two of the weapons were found at the scene of the killing of Brian Terry, a US Border Patrol agent shot and killed in Arizona on December 14 while trying to arrest armed men preying on illegal immigrants.
“The faulty design of Operation Fast and Furious led to tragic consequences. Countless United States and Mexican citizens suffered as a result,” read the report.
The Mexican government Read more…
The Geopolitics of Water in the Nile River Basin
Prof. Majeed A. Rahman writes: In Africa, access to water is one of the most critical aspects of human survival. Today, about one third of the total population lack access to water. Constituting 300 million people and about 313 million people lack proper sanitation. (World Water Council 2006). As result, many riparian countries surrounding the Nile river basin have expressed direct stake in the water resources hitherto seldom expressed in the past. In this paper, I argue that due to the lack of consensus over the use of the Nile basin regarding whether or not “water sharing” or “benefit sharing” has a tendency to escalate the situation in to transboundary conflict involving emerging dominant states such as the tension between Ethiopia-Egypt over the Nile river basin. At the same time, this paper further contributes to the Collier- Hoeffler conflict model in order to analyze the transboundary challenges, and Egypt’s position as the hegemonic power in the horn of Africa contested by Ethiopia. Collier- Hoeffler model is used to predict the occurrence of conflicts as a result of empirical economic variables in African states given the sporadic civil strife in many parts of Africa. In order to Read more…
Internet takeover: New legislation would allow state to arbitrarily shut down, seize websites
Freedom of speech is under attack once again as the bloated US federal government continues its quest to destroy the last bastion of free and open communication — the internet.
Sen. Patrick Leahy’s (D-Vt.) “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property” bill, also known as the Protect IP Act, is more oppressive and restrictive to free speech than even communist China’s internet censorship protocols, and a group of law professors recently wrote an open letter warning that the bill would allow the government to freely pull websites without any proper legal restrictions.
Last November, NaturalNews reported that the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had already begun seizing website domains and ordering that they be shut down permanently for supposed copyright infringement — and the agency did this apart from due process or a proper trial (http://www.naturalnews.com/030542_c…).
No law or legal precedent permitted this rogue agency — which is a tyrannical spawn of post-9/11 hysteria that is not even constitutionally legitimate to begin with, by the way — to undergo its website seizing operation. The agency simply decided to break the law and do as it pleased.
Now, certain members of Congress are pushing to turn this oppressive, illegal tyranny into law through the Protect IP Act, which by all appearances is even more severe than Read more…
Israel, US to hold massive missile defense drill next year
Exercise aimed at improving operational coordination between countries’ defense systems in face of Iran’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons.
In the face of Iran’s continued pursuit of a nuclear weapon, Israel and the United States will hold a large-scale missile defense exercise in the beginning of next year aimed at improving operational coordination between both countries’ defense systems.
Called Juniper Cobra, the exercise will be held in early 2012 and will include the Arrow 2 and Iron Dome as well as America’s THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) and the ship-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. The exercise will likely include the actual launching of interceptors from these systems.
The Israeli Air Force’s Air Defense Division, the United States Missile Defense Agency and the US Military’s European Command (EUCOM) have held the Juniper Cobra exercise for the past five years. The upcoming exercise though is planned to be one of the most complex and extensive yet.
Last week, Air Force commander in the EUCOM Gen.Mark Welsh visited Read more…
Big gaps in Australia’s cyber defences
Australia has not plugged all the gaps in its online defences despite the threats posed by the rapid rise of cyber espionage and “hacktivism”, a government-commissioned report has found.
The report discusses the results of cyber war games called Cyber Storm, involving Australia and 12 other countries last year, which simulated a large-scale international cyber security incident.
Citing “gaps” in the cyber security procedures of both government and Australian industry, the report’s author, former army intelligence officer Miles Jakeman, noted that there were areas where “communications and planning could be further developed”.
The gaps were acknowledged by the federal Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, during a speech at a cyber security conference in Canberra yesterday.
“[The report] did highlight gaps within existing government and business cyber incident processes … this feedback allows both government and businesses to take steps to improve our cyber security,” he said.
The report is further evidence that the Read more…
Chinese jets chase U.S. surveillance jet over Taiwan Strait
A colonel in the Canadian Forces takes photos through the window of a civilian aircraft playing the role of a hijacked airliner as it is escorted by two Su-27 Russian fighter jets. (Associated Press)
By Bill Gertz
Two Chinese warplanes intercepted an American spy plane over the tense Taiwan Strait last month in China’s most aggressive challenge to U.S. surveillance flights since a 2001 collision that touched off an international crisis.
According to defense officials, the intercept took place June 29. The two Chinese jets flew from a base in China to head off an Air Force U-2 spy plane over the dividing line in the 100-mile wide Taiwan Strait.
“In general, these reconnaissance flights are conducted in international airspace, as are the PRC [Chinese] intercepts, which Read more…
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