Israel and Palestinians talks..[ 1734 ]

Israel and Palestinians set for face-to-face talks

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President Barack Obama (2nd R) walks in with Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak (L), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (R) before making a statement on Middle East Peace talks in the East Room of the White House in Washington September 1, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed

By Andrew Quinn and Jeffrey Heller

WASHINGTON | Thu Sep 2, 2010 5:48am EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With a diplomatic push from President Barack Obama, Israeli and the Palestinian leaders will start direct peace talks on Thursday shadowed by skepticism on all sides and fresh violence in the volatile West Bank.
 
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet at the State Department, relaunching talks after a 20-month hiatus and seeking a deal within one year that will set up an independent Palestinian state side-by-side with a secure Israel.
Obama, who has staked considerable political capital on the Washington talks during a pivotal U.S. congressional election year, urged both sides to grasp the chance for peace after separate meetings at the White House on Wednesday.
"This moment of opportunity may not soon come again. They cannot afford to let it slip away," Obama said after a day of personal diplomacy on a problem that has confounded generations of U.S. leaders.
But the issue of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank looms over the talks, with the Palestinians saying they will drop out of the negotiations unless Israel extends its self-imposed moratorium on new settlement construction when it expires on September 26.
Thursday will see both sides get down to business after the pomp of their White House reception.
 
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will host the State Department talks, with opening statements expected around 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT).
U.S. Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell, who has been shuttling between the two camps for months to lay down the parameters for the negotiations, will give a public briefing after talks conclude to explain what -- if anything -- has been accomplished.

AMBITIOUS TIMELINE

Violence flared anew as the leaders arrived in Washington, underscoring the challenges ahead.
Four Israeli settlers were killed by the Islamist Palestinian group Hamas in a shooting attack in the West Bank on Tuesday and another two people were injured in a similar attack by suspected Palestinian gunmen on Wednesday.
 
Both Netanyahu and Abbas condemned Tuesday's attack, which Obama described as "senseless slaughter."
But they put new emphasis on Israel's security concerns and Netanyahu, who heads a coalition dominated by pro-settler parties, has resisted any formal extension of the partial construction freeze, leaving a question mark over the prospects for the talks.
Obama's personal foray into Middle East peacemaking, and his ambitious one-year timeline for a deal, comes as his fellow Democrats face potentially big losses in November's congressional elections, with U.S. voters already frustrated over the slow pace of economic recovery.
The talks are also seen as a test of Obama's faltering drive to improve ties with the Muslim world as he pushes for a united front against Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Both Netanyahu and Abbas were conciliatory after their meetings with Obama on Wednesday but both also stressed their own political imperatives: security for Israel in Netanyahu's case, and a halt to settlement activity for Abbas.
Abbas in particular is in a delicate position. His Fatah party holds sway over only the West Bank after Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, and analysts say it would be politically perilous for him to accept any resumption of settlement construction on land captured in the 1967 war while talks are under way.
Obama's White House meetings on Wednesday also included Jordan's King Abdullah and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, drawing in two key moderate Arab leaders whose countries already have peace deals with Israel.
 
Mubarak spokesman Soliman Awaad said all sides should be ready for long, tough negotiations -- provided the talks are not quickly derailed by the settlement issue.
"It will take more than handshakes, smiles and photo ops to make this long-awaited peace in the Middle East. What is really needed is for the United States to step in, remain committed, remain engaged," he told reporters.

(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick, Ross Colvin, Steve Holland, Jeff Mason and Alister Bull; editing by Eric Beech)

Hurricane ''Earl" Approaches..[ 1733 ]

Some Bunker Down, Some Flee as Earl Approaches

Published September 02, 2010

| Associated Press

 

NOAA

A Sept. 1 satellite image provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows Earl, a Category 3 hurricane, moving westward toward the North Carolina coast.

BUXTON, N.C. (Fox News/AP-- 

Tourists were largely gone from North Carolina's Outer Banks, but those resolute residents who stayed behind say they were prepared Thursday to potentially face down the most powerful hurricane to threaten the coast in years.

Hurricane Earl with winds swirling at around 140 mph continued to barrel toward the Eastern Seaboard and forecasters were trying to pinpoint exactly how close the strongest winds and heaviest surge would get to North Carolina's fragile chain of barrier islands. They also were trying to figure out whether the storm would stay off the Northeast coast or bring hurricane-force winds to Long Island, the Boston metropolitan area and Cape Cod.

"There is still concern that this track, the core of the storm, could shift a little farther to the west and have a very significant impact on the immediate coastline. Our present track keeps it off shore, but you never know," National Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said.

Earl's first encounter with the U.S. mainland should come around midnight Thursday, as the storm is forecast to just off Cape Hatteras, bringing wind gusts of up to 100 mph and several feet of storm surge both from the Atlantic and the sounds to the west of the islands.

Early Thursday though, the Outer Banks had only light winds and high clouds as the eye of Earl was hundreds of miles south of Cape Hatteras. Those conditions were expected to deteriorate throughout the day, said National Hurricane Center forecaster Todd Kimberline.

While thousands of tourists heeded calls to evacuate Hatteras Island, locals familiar with hurricanes vowed to ride out Earl, preparing to spend days stranded from the mainland. Dare County officials said the daring should be ready to fend for themselves for up to three days.

Residents like Nancy Scarborough, who manages the Hatteras Cabanas, said Outer Banks residents have a tight-knit community that takes care of its own.

"I worry about not being able to get back here,"' she said. "I'd rather be stuck on this side than that side."

Along with the 30,000 residents and visitors asked to leave Hatteras Island, 5,000 more tourists were ordered to leave Ocracoke Island, which is only accessible by ferry and airplane.

Farther to the south, Carteret County Emergency Services Director Jo Ann Smith said the evacuation order for people on the barrier island known as Bogue Banks was starting at 5 a.m. It wasn't immediately known how many people the order would affect.

"We just stress to them the importance of if they are going to stay that they contact relatives and let the relatives know that they are staying," she said.

Many people -- boaters, beachgoers and residents alike -- were adopting a wait-and-see approach, making simple preparations like stocking up on food or attaching hurricane shutters to their houses. But with the likelihood that the storm's ultimate path will become clear on Thursday, officials expect planning to shift into high gear.

"Post-Katrina, people are really sensitive to storm preparedness," said Atlantic Beach, N.C., Mayor Trace Cooper. "I don't think we're going to see too many people sticking around and saying they're going to have hurricane parties. You see enough pictures of people waiting on their roofs to be rescued and you decide to take precautions."

The North Carolina National Guard is deploying 80 troops to help and President Barack Obama declared an emergency in the state. The declaration authorizes the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate all disaster relief efforts.

As Earl whirled into a powerful Category 4 storm, the governors of North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland declared states of emergency, the USS Cole hustled to return to its port in Virginia and volunteers carried sea turtle nests to safety. The highest storm category is 5 that has winds of 155 mph and higher.

Farther up the East Coast, emergency officials urged people to have disaster plans and supplies ready and weighed whether to order evacuations as they watched the latest maps from the hurricane center -- namely, the "cone of uncertainty" showing the broad path the storm could take.

If Earl moves farther east, Friday might just be modestly wet and blustery for millions in the Northeast. If the storm runs along the western edge of the forecast, dangerous storm surge, heavy rain and hurricane-force winds could slam the populous region.

In Boston, some boaters had already pulled their crafts from the water in anticipation of rough seas, said Harwich Assistant Harbor Master Heinz Proft. The Labor Day weekend is about the time of year when people start pulling their boats anyway, so some are just accelerating the process.

"It's been a small percentage so far, but we are encouraging people to be proactive," he said.

In Virginia, Gov. Bob McDonnell activated the National Guard and sent 200 troops to the Hampton Roads area on Chesapeake Bay. The area was not expected to get the brunt of Earl, but many remember the surprise fury of Isabel, which killed 33 people and caused $1.6 billion in damage in September 2003.

Tugboat captain Randy Francis planned to ride out the storm on his 40-foot trawler named "Invictus" at a marina in Norfolk, Va. He said most people didn't appear to be taking the hurricane seriously.

"I was somewhat frustrated that they were somewhat nonchalant about it here," Francis said. "I'd just rather be safe than sorry."

Red Cross officials in New York prepared to open as many as 50 shelters on Long Island that could house up to 60,000 people in an emergency.

Emergency officials on Cape Cod braced for their first major storm since Hurricane Bob brought winds of up to 100 mph to coastal New England in August 1991.

Click for Photo Gallery

 

NASA Image of the DaymSep 1st..[ 1732 ]

The latest NASA "Image of the Day" image.

The Red Hills

Backdropped by red hills, the Development Motor-2, or DM-2, ignites during an Aug. 31, 2010, static test that was conducted by ATK Aerospace Systems in Promontory, 

 

Utah. DM-2, the largest and most powerful solid rocket motor designed for flight, is managed by the Ares Projects Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. 

 

Image Credit: NASA

Τετάρτη, 1 Σεπτέμβριος 2010 7:00:00 πμ

Τhe lost treasure of the Tsars..[ 1731 ]

Has the lost treasure of the Tsars been found at the bottom of the world's deepest lake?

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:25 AM on 1st September 2010

A Russian mini-submarine may have found billions of pounds worth of lost Tsarist gold on the floor of the world’s oldest and deepest freshwater lake in Siberia, it was revealed yesterday.

Explorers have long searched for treasures dating from the Bolshevik Revolution when forces loyal to the deposed royal family fled the advancing Red Army.

Legend has it that 1,600 tons of gold, which could now be worth billions of pounds, was lost when anti-Communist commander Admiral Alexander Kolchak’s train plunged into Lake Baikal.

Search: The Mir-2 mini-submarine is lowered into the waters of Lake Baikal. It may have found billions of pounds worth of lost Tsarist gold on the floor of the world's oldest and deepest freshwater lake in Siberia

Last year remnants of a train and ammunition boxes were found in the lake but in recent days the Mir-2 submersible found 'shiny metal objects' on the murky lake bottom, some 1,200 feet below the surface at Cape Tolsty.

'Deep-sea vehicles found rectangular blocks with a metallic gleam, like gold, 400 metres below the surface,' said one source.

Moscow News reported the story with the headline ‘Lost gold of the Whites found in Baikal’. Explorers attempted to grab hold of the shiny objects with the mini-sub’s manipulator arm but failed due to the loose gravel on the lake’s floor.

Sources say that the submariners know the exact spot and are planning a new mission to determine if they have found the gold, and if so to bring a sample to the surface.

Doomed: Tsar Nicholas II and his family were slain by Bolshevik troops on July 16, 1918 but much of their wealth was spirited away by loyalist forces

Kolchak, portrayed in the blockbuster Russian-language film Admiral in 2008, was a hero in the First World War who later led the pro-Tsarist White Army against the Bolsheviks after the 1917 October Revolution.

He had a few early successes but was eventually arrested by Lenin’s henchmen and executed by firing squad in January 1920.

The Russians reneged on a promise to hand him over to the British military mission in Irkutsk.

His body was hidden by revolutionaries under the ice of the Angara River which flows out of Bailkal. Had he escaped it is likely he would have sought exile in London - bringing the gold with him.

Lake Baikal is the world's oldest and deepest lake

If the treasure has been found, it could spark an ugly scramble between the Russian state, descendants of the last Tsar Nicholas the Second, and countries - possibly including Britain - that could argue they are owed outstanding debts by the fallen Romanov regime

The mini-sub team - currently conducting a mapping exercise in the lake - have not said when they will return to the scene.

The vast Lake Baikal contains 20 per cent of the world’s fresh water.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1307750/Has-lost-treasure-Tsars-the-worlds-deepest-lake.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0yFsRGXkc

Hurricane " Earl "..[ 1730 ]

Hurricane Earl could sideswipe East Coast

7:08pm EDT

Hurricane Earl and Tropical Storm Fiona in a satellite image taken August 31, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/NOAA

By Jane Sutton

MIAMI | Tue Aug 31, 2010 8:24pm EDT

 

MIAMI (Reuters) - Powerful Hurricane Earl churned toward the eastern U.S. seaboard on Tuesday and looked to sideswipe the densely populated coast from North Carolina to New England, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Forecasters expected the main core of the Category 4 hurricane to stay offshore as Earl moved parallel to the coast during the upcoming Labor Day holiday weekend that traditionally marks the end of summer.

A hurricane watch was issued for most of the North Carolina coastline as officials warned any westward deviation from the forecast track could prompt coastal evacuations or even bring the storm ashore.

"A small error of 100 miles in the wrong direction could be a huge impact difference," National Hurricane Center Director Bill Read told a conference call with journalists.

"Even a minor shift back to the west could bring impacts to portions of the coastline from the mid-Atlantic northwards."

The hurricane watch, issued by the Miami-based hurricane center, alerts residents that hurricane conditions -- sustained winds of 74 mph -- are possible within 48 hours. It covered the North Carolina coastline up from Surf City to the state's border with Virginia, including the Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds.

Earl, the second major hurricane of the 2010 Atlantic season, was moving west-northwest in the open Atlantic on Tuesday, keeping well east of the Turks and Caicos Islands.

At 8 p.m., it was centered about 835 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

Earl was forecast to clip the barrier islands of North Carolina's Outer Banks on Thursday night and bring drenching rain, rough seas, pounding surf and gusting wind to the Atlantic Coast from North Carolina to New England and Atlantic Canada.

Evacuations were ordered, or expected, for Wednesday for the most vulnerable spots on the Outer Banks, including the Cape Lookout National Seashore and Ocracoke Island, which has about 800 year-round residents and is accessible only by boat. It is one of the barrier islands where the pirate Blackbeard once roamed.

Earl had top sustained winds of 135 miles per hour, making it a Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale. It was expected to stay just shy of a maximum Category 5.

SOME UNCERTAINTY OVER FINAL PATH

It was too early to predict how close the hurricane would come to New York when it churned offshore east of the city during the weekend.

"We're just telling everybody to keep their eyes on the track and just keep checking back," hurricane center meteorologist Barry Baxter said.

The hurricane center said Earl's forecast track in the coming days shifted slightly to the west, which could bring its outer fringes closer to the U.S. coast.

U.S. and Canadian East Coast oil refiners said they were monitoring Earl but that it was too early to begin to take any precautionary measures.

Hurricane Earl posed no threat to major U.S. oil and gas installations in the Gulf of Mexico.

Tropical storm warnings and watches were in effect for the Turks and Caicos, where flights were suspended, and for the sparsely populated southeast Bahamas.

On Monday, Earl battered the northeastern Caribbean islands and Puerto Rico, downing power lines, blowing off roofs, toppling trees and causing some flooding. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

"We have been quite fortunate. We did not take a direct hit ... it was not as serious as it could have been," Puerto Rico Governor Luis Fortuno told CNN.

Tropical Storm Fiona followed in Earl's wake on a similar path, though farther east.

At 8 p.m. (0000 GMT), Fiona was 300 miles east-southeast of the Caribbean Leeward Islands on a course that was expected to take it northeast of those islands on Wednesday. Most forecast models kept Fiona far away from the Gulf of Mexico.

With sustained winds of 40 mph, Fiona was just barely a tropical storm and the much more powerful Earl was hindering Fiona's development. Earl churned up the seas and brought cold water to the surface, starving Fiona of the warm water needed for rapid strengthening.

The storms were far apart but Fiona was moving much faster. If Fiona closes the gap, high-level winds spiraling from the top of Earl could shear off and weaken Fiona, the hurricane center's Baxter said.

"If it gets really close, Earl could actually chew it up and just kind of kill it," he said.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic, a broad area of low pressure about 525 miles southwest of the Cape Verde Islands in the eastern Atlantic had only a 20 percent chance of becoming a tropical cyclone within 48 hours, the hurricane center said.

Early computer models showed that system moving mostly west in the Atlantic but toward South America.

(For more information about hurricanes and weather models, see: www.nhc.noaa.gov/ and www.skeetobiteweather.com/)

(For more on the 2010 hurricane season, click on [nN2005])

(Additional reporting by Gene Cherry in Raleigh, Tom Brown, Kevin Gray and Pascal Fletcher in Miami and Eileen Moustakis in New York; editing by Pascal Fletcher and Mohammad Zargham)