Death toll rises from Typhoon Megi..[ 1897 ]

Death toll rises in the Philippines from Typhoon Megi

By the CNN Wire Staff

October 19, 2010 -- Updated 0924 GMT (1724 HKT)

Houses in Baguio City, Philippines, lie submerged by flooding Tuesday due to heavy rains brought by Typhoon Megi.

(CNN) -- The death toll in the Philippines from Typhoon Megi has climbed to 11 as the powerful storm moved away from the country.

According to civil defense officials, four people died in Pangasinan province: Three were killed by a falling tree, and the fourth by lightning.

Three more died in a storm surge in Isabela province, and one person drowned while trying to cross a river in Nueva Ecija province.

Additionally, the National Disaster Risk Reduction & Management Council reported that one person drowned in the town of Cagayan, one was killed by a falling tree in Kalinga province, and one was killed by another tree in the city of Baguio.

On Tuesday, Megi carried sustained winds of about 167 kph (104 mph) off the coast of the Philippines in the South China Sea, CNN meteorologist Jennifer Delgado said. But parts of the Philippines could still be vulnerable to mudslides and landslides.

Video: Super Typhoon Megi hits Philippines

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• Philippines

The typhoon could approach Hong Kong and mainland China in the next few days. Megi could bring heavy rain to already-drenched areas such as Hainan and Vietnam, where state media said at least 20 people have died from recent flooding.

Journalist Eduardo Lingao in Manila contributed to this report.

UK. : Falklands Is. Missile tests..[ 1896 ]

Mercosur complains about Falklands missile tests

 

Argentina's foreign minister criticised British actions

BBC., 19 October 2010 Last updated at 00:35 GMT

Several South American countries from the Mercosur trade bloc have officially complained to the UK over planned Falkland Islands military exercises. 

A recent series of missile tests were also criticised.

Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay joined protests from Argentina, which lays claim to what it calls the Malvinas.

The official communique issued by Mercosur said it was nonsense to suggest that the military drills were merely routine exercises.

The Latin American foreign ministers concluded that if Britain continued to test missiles in or around the Falklands, it would be tantamount to a violation of international maritime law. 

The Argentine Foreign Minister, Hector Timerman, welcomed the strong show of support for his country from its neighbours.

'Acts of aggression'

"The UK's refusal to negotiate a peaceful solution to this problem and the self-confidence with which it seizes our natural resources in the seas off Patagonia and at the same time tests missiles from our islands , are seen as acts of aggression not only in Argentina," Mr Timerman said.

"Each day, there are more and more fellow South American nations that understands that a permanent member of the UN Security Council is behaving like something from the colonial past."

Tensions have increased recently between Argentina and the UK over the Falklands, since Britain began looking for oil and gas in the waters around the islands.

This week Argentina sent a protest letter to the London-based UN agency, the International Maritime Organisation, about the missile tests in the Falklands.

The Argentine government has repeatedly demanded that the military drills are cancelled, calling them an act of provocation.

Argentina and Britain went to war in 1982 after the then Argentine military rulers decided to invade the Falkland Islands.

Cuts to the budget of the flagship HMS Ark Royal,. [1895 ]

Ark Royal in 'immediate' cuts axe

 

Prime Minister David Cameron on board HMS Ark Royal, which could be scrapped 'with immediate effect'

 Standard co. uk.,, 19-10-10

Deep cuts to the defence budget will see the Royal Navy's flagship aircraft carrier, HMS Ark Royal, and its fleet of Harrier jets scrapped "with immediate effect", Government sources have said.

The move is among wide-ranging measures to be unveiled by Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday as part of the military's share of the Coalition's severe public spending squeeze.

He is also expected to confirm that the strategic defence and security review (SDSR) has concluded that the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent will be delayed.

The immediate axing of HMS Ark Royal will leave the UK without an aircraft carrier capable of flying jets for around a decade while two new vessels are built at a cost of £5.2 billion. That project was spared the axe after it was found abandoning the contract - with one of the two already under construction - would end up costing the taxpayer more.

Although the first is set to come into service in 2016, converting it to allow it to be used by jets from allied nations could take several years. Neither will be able to be used for British military jets until 2020 and one could yet be mothballed and possibly sold under future options still being looked at by the military.

Defence Secretary Liam Fox has insisted the long gap in Britain's aircraft carrier capability will not affect its defence abilities - despite warnings from former Navy chiefs.

But Mr Cameron was reported to have told the Cabinet it was one of the hardest decisions he had faced since becoming Prime Minister.

He earlier laid the ground for the reductions by signalling a shift in the UK's security priorities towards the threat of terrorism and cyber attacks.

Publishing a National Security Strategy Mr Cameron said the present defence and security structure was "woefully unsuitable for the world we live in today".

A large-scale conventional military attack was ranked only in the third tier of threats to the UK which Labour said was being used as "cover" for a "rushed" defence review.

Mega-Typhoon.." Megi. ".[ 1894 ]

Super Typhoon Megi

 

download Google Earth file  acquired October 18, 2010

 

On October 18, 2010, Typhoon Megi approached and made landfall in the northeastern Isabela Province of the Philippines. Spanning more than 600 kilometers (370 miles) across, Megi was the 15th tropical storm and 7th typhoon of the season in the western Pacific Ocean. It was the most intense tropical cyclone of the year to date.

This image was taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite at 10:35 a.m. Philippine Time (02:35 UTC) on October 18, 2010. Megi was bearing down on Palanan Bay as a “super typhoon” with category 5 strength on the Saffir Simpson scale. As of 8:00 a.m. local time, the storm had sustained winds of 268 kilometers (167 miles) per hour, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

The storm had grown to “super” typhoon status on October 16, and wind speeds peaked at an estimated 287 kilometers (178 miles) per hour while the storm was still over the Pacific Ocean on October 17. Megi began to downgrade as it moved onshore around 11:30 a.m. on October 18 and then crossed over the Sierra Madre mountain range (average elevation 1,800 meters, or 5,900 feet).

News reports indicated at least one death and an unknown number of injuries, as power and communications was cut off to more than 90 percent of Isabela and Cagayan provinces. In addition to the immediate damage, officials were concerned about the long-term damage to the rice crop, a staple of the national diet.

The official international name of the storm is Megi, which means “catfish” in Korean. But the storm is known locally as Juan, as the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration has its own naming system.

Forecasters were predicting that the storm would continue moving west and north, entering the South China Sea and re-intensifying before a potential landfall in China or Vietnam later this week. China’s National Meteorological Centre urged local governments to make preparations for extreme weather.

NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Michael Carlowicz.

Instrument: Terra - MODIS

NASA Image of the Day, Oct 18th..[ 1893 ]

   The latest NASA "Image of the Day" image.

Where Stars Are Born

Found among the Small Magellanic Cloud's clusters and nebulae NGC 346 is a star-forming region about 200 light-years across, pictured above by the Hubble Space Telescope. A satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is a wonder of the southern sky, a mere 210,000 light-years distant in the constellation of the Toucan. 

 

Exploring NGC 346, astronomers have identified a population of embryonic stars strung along the dark, intersecting dust lanes visible here on the right. Still collapsing within their natal clouds, the stellar infants' light is reddened by the intervening dust. 

A small, irregular galaxy, the SMC represents a type of galaxy more common in the early Universe. But these small galaxies are thought to be a building blocks for the larger galaxies present today. 

 

Within the SMC, stellar nurseries like NGC 346 also are thought to be similar to those found in the early universe. This image, like many Hubble images, has a curious stair-step shape. 

These images come from a scientific instrument called the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, or WFPC2 -- which was removed from the telescope in mid-2009. It is WFPC2’s unique design that underlies the oddly-shaped images in Hubble’s portfolio. For more information on how the WFPC2 constructed images, visit the Hubble site. 

 

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Nota (ESA/STScI) et al.

Δευτέρα, 18 Οκτώβριος 2010 7:00:00 πμ