The Lockerbie bomber's health prognosis..[ 1622 ]

Scotland defends Lockerbie bomber prognosis doctor

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi is seen in his room at a hospital in Tripoli in this September 9, 2009 file photo.

Credit: Reuters/Ismail Zetouny

By Tim Castle

LONDON | Wed Aug 11, 2010 9:25am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Scottish authorities defended the doctor who said Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi had three months to live, after U.S. senators asked them to release the Libyan's medical records.

The senators are probing the circumstances surrounding the release in August last year of Megrahi, convicted of the 1988 bombing of an airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Megrahi is still alive a year after Scottish authorities freed him on compassionate grounds. A medical report compiled by Andrew Fraser, the Scottish Prison Service's director of health and care, said he had terminal prostate cancer and could die in three months.

Fraser was "a professional of unimpeachable integrity" who consulted a range of experts before reaching his prognosis, a Scottish government spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

Megrahi's continued survival has sustained the controversy over the Scottish decision. Most of the 270 people killed in the bombing were Americans, and Megrahi's release and triumphant homecoming in Libya provoked an outcry in the United States.

U.S. anger resurfaced recently after suggestions British energy giant BP PLC had lobbied Scotland for Megrahi's release. BP and Scottish ministers have denied the accusations.

"Dr Fraser drew on expert advice from a number of cancer specialists in coming to his clinical assessment that a three month prognosis was a reasonable estimate for Mr. Al-Megrahi -- it was not based on the opinion of any one doctor," the Scottish government spokeswoman said.

"These specialists included two consultant oncologists, two consultant urologists and a number of other specialists, including a palliative care team, and Mr. Al-Megrahi's primary care physician."

"In every regard, due and proper process was followed at every stage," she added.

Four senators wrote to Scottish First Secretary Alex Salmond on Tuesday asking the government to provide "full medical information" or to request Megrahi's permission to release the information, if that was necessary.

They referred to recent news reports that suggested the three-month prognosis was based on the opinion of a single doctor, rather than a team of specialists who had been treating the convicted bomber.

The letter was signed by Senators Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

The Scottish government said it would reply to the letter "in due course".

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee planned a hearing last month on Lockerbie, but postponed it after witnesses from Britain refused to appear, including BP's former CEO, Tony Hayward, former British Justice Minister Jack Straw, and Scottish officials.

(Editing by Peter Graff)

Perseid meteor shower..[ 1621 ]

Annual Perseid meteor shower set to peak

The annual Perseid meteor shower will reach its peak from the night of Aug. 12 to the early hours of Aug. 13, it's been learned.

(Mainichi Japan) August 11, 2010
 As a new moon fell on Aug. 10 this year, the meteor shower is expected to be observed under good conditions with clear skies free of moonlight -- if it doesn't rain.

"In the night skies above suburban areas, where the fourth-magnitude star can be seen, 12 to 15 meteors will shoot per hour," a National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) official says.

The Perseid meteor shower is one of the three largest meteor showers seen every year. Perseid meteors can be viewed across the skies as they appear from a radiant point located between the constellations Perseus and Cassiopeia. There are usually many bright meteors, and some leave an afterglow that remains visible for a few seconds.

"It will be interesting to observe the meteor shower, focusing on what percentage of meteors leave an afterglow," says Mikiya Sato, a Public Relations Center official at NAOJ.

To report the number of meteors you observed, log on to the NAOJ's "Perseid meteors 2010" campaign Web site: http://naojcamp.nao.ac.jp/phenomena/20100811/ or its mobile site: http://naojcamp.nao.ac.jp/i/phenomena/20100811/

Reports will be accepted from the night of Aug. 11 to the morning of Aug. 15.

According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, due to Typhoon No. 4, there is a chance of cloudy weather or intermittent showers in many places in Japan on the nights of Aug. 11 and Aug. 12, but there will be intervals of clear weather on the night of Aug. 13 throughout the country except some parts of the Hokuriku and Tohoku regions.

Click here for the original Japanese story

Fifa investigates N. Korea World Cup abuse claims..[ 1620 ]

Fifa investigates North Korea World Cup abuse claims

 

The match against Portugal was broadcast live in North Korea - the team lost 7-0

BBC., 11 August 2010 Last updated at 09:14 GMT 

An investigation has been launched into allegations that North Korea punished some players and the coach after its team lost all their World Cup matches.

World football's governing body, Fifa, says it is looking into claims made by Radio Free Asia last month that the squad was publicly humiliated and coach Kim Jong-hun sentenced to hard labour.

Fifa's president said a letter had been sent to North Korea's footballing body.

North Korea lost to Brazil, Portugal and Ivory Coast at the World Cup.

Radio Free Asia reported that North Korea's national team had been summoned to a public meeting in Pyongyang, where players were criticised by officials, including the sports minister, for six hours.

The players were then ordered to reprimand their coach, the report said, quoting anonymous sources in North Korea and a Chinese businessman said to be "knowledgeable" about North Korean affairs.

The report also spoke of "rumours" that the coach was sentenced to "forced labour at a residential building site in Pyongyang".

There were no reports of the meeting in North Korean state media, nor has neighbouring South Korea been able to confirm the claims.

'Torture' report

The World Cup in South Africa was North Korea's first such tournament since 1966.

After the team's impressive performance during a 2-1 defeat to Brazil, the North Korean authorities overturned a ban on showing live games.

The match against Portugal - the state's first ever live sports broadcast - could not have been worse, with the national side thrashed 7-0 in a match that stunned commentators.

Speaking at a news conference in Singapore, Fifa president Sepp Blatter said of the allegations: "The first step is the federation and we'll see what the answer will be, and then we can elaborate on that."

Asian Football Confederation chief Mohamed Bin Hammam said he had met several World Cup players in North Korea last month, but coach Kim was not present.

"There was an unconfirmed report that these players have gone through torture or something like that, but I can't confirm that," he said.

"I haven't seen anything with my eyes or heard anything with my ears. Maybe this Fifa investigation can clear the air."

The Petermann Glacier..[ 1619 ]

Ice Island calves off Petermann Glacier

Posted August 10, 2010

download large image (2 MB, JPEG) acquired August 5, 2010

download large image (2 MB, JPEG) acquired July 28, 2010

download Google Earth file (95 KB, KML) acquired July 28, 2010 - August 5, 2010

On August 5, 2010, an enormous chunk of ice, roughly 97 square miles (251 square kilometers) in size, broke off the Petermann Glacier along the northwestern coast of Greenland. The Canadian Ice Service detected the remote event within hours in near-real-time data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. 

The Petermann Glacier lost about one-quarter of its 70-kilometer- (40-mile-) long floating ice shelf, said researchers who analyzed the satellite data at the University of Delaware.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured these natural-color images of Petermann Glacier 18:05 UTC on August 5, 2010 (top), and 17:15 UTC on July 28, 2010 (bottom). The August 5 image was acquired almost 10 hours after the Aqua observation that first recorded the event. By the time Terra took this image, skies were less cloudy than they had been earlier in the day, and the oblong iceberg had broken free of the glacier and moved a short distance down the fjord.

Icebergs calving off the Petermann Glacier are not unusual. Petermann Glacier’s floating ice tongue is the Northern Hemisphere’s largest, and it has occasionally calved large icebergs. The recently calved iceberg is the largest to form in the Arctic since 1962, said the University of Delaware.

The large iceberg breaking from the Petermann Glacier serves as a reminder that ice sheets are dynamic, says Robert Bindschadler, Senior Research Scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. A glacier is like a relatively slow-moving river of ice. 

When a glacier flows into the ocean, as the Petermann Glacier does, ice breaks or calves from the end, creating new icebergs. “Calving is a natural process,” Bindschadler explains. How frequently icebergs calve from a glacier depends on how fast the glacier grows because of new snow, how fast it flows into the ocean, and how fast it melts.

“Changes in calving will happen as climate changes because the environment changes,” says Bindschadler. Ice breaking from the Petermann Glacier doesn’t necessarily herald big changes on the Greenland ice sheet, he adds, but it does provide one more piece of data to help scientists understand how the ice sheet is changing as a whole.

The event is also a reminder of the usefulness of satellites in monitoring our planet’s health. “We know what the ice sheets are doing because the satellites provide us with the data,” Bindschadler observes.

1. 
   

   References

2. Scott, M. (2008, September 12). Crack in the Peterman Glacier. NASA’s Earth Observatory. Accessed August 9, 2010.
3. University of Delaware. (2010, August 6). Greenland glacier calved island 4 times the size of Manhattan, UD scientist reports. Accessed August 9, 2010.

NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using data obtained from the Goddard Level 1 and Atmospheric Archive and Distribution System (LAADS). Caption by Holli Riebeek and Michon Scott.

Instrument: Terra - MODIS

Himalayan flash floods..[ 1618 ]

European citizens among those dead in Himalayan flash floods

Three French citizens as well as two more Europeans are reported to have died in flash floods on Friday in north India, officials said on Tuesday. In total, at least 177 people are confirmed dead and authorities expect to find more casualties.

By News Wires (text)

AFP -(France 24) Latest update: 10/08/2010 

 Five European tourists, including three French nationals, were among 177 people killed in huge floods in the Himalayan region of Ladakh, an Indian official said Tuesday.
  
Hundreds of people are also missing after sudden rains caused flash floods Friday that swept away roads, houses, bridges and power cables.
  
"I can confirm to you that five foreign (European) tourists are among the dead," Aamir Ali, a government disaster management official, told AFP, adding the other two European victims were Spanish and Italian.
  
They are the first known European deaths in the disaster in the remote region popular as an adventure sports destination.
  
Other foreigners among the dead were 16 Nepali labourers and one Tibetan refugee.
  
Nearby Indian Kashmir is in the grip of a Muslim insurgency but Buddhist-dominated Ladakh with its mountains, rivers and monasteries has not been touched by unrest and is popular with tourists.
  
The announcement of the latest deaths came as soldiers and emergency relief teams sifted through flattened homes in the search for bodies in Leh, the region's main town.
  
"Some 150 bodies have been identified and their cremation and burials are on," a police officer in Leh said, asking not to be named. "We are taking photographs of 15 bodies which have not been identified to keep a record."
  
The police officer said rescuers feared hundreds more people may have died after being swept away or buried by waves of rock and mud.
  
An army statement said work has focused on the swamped village of Choglamsar on the outskirts of Leh, but progress in recovering bodies has been slow.
  
Among those feared dead are 26 Indian soldiers stationed at a small army post on the de facto border with Pakistan.
  
The Indian air force has been flying in aid, doctors and engineers to Ladakh.
  
Officials in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, said most of Leh's electricity supply should be restored by the end of Tuesday as the area struggles to get back to normality.
  
Roads are blocked due to landslides and officials said it would take at least one more week to restore the Srinagar-Leh route as army engineers repair bridges and damaged stretches of road.
  
Ladakh is a highly militarised area because of border disputes with both Pakistan and China.
  
Leh, situated in an arid mountain desert at an altitude of 3,505 metres (11,500 feet), receives virtually no rainfall all year and has no planned drainage system.
  
The floods came as neighbouring Pakistan suffered the worst flooding in its history with 14 million people affected and at least 1,600 people killed.