London.,Christmas exodus...[ 1942 ]

Break in snow aids Christmas exodus

Standard co.uk.,24 Dec 2010

Pleasure boats are unable to move as the River Ouse froze overnight in York

Millions of people are expected to travel home for Christmas today as a break in snowfall gave welcome relief after the worst winter weather for a century.

Roads and rail tracks were expected to get respite from snow but forecasters warned of sharp frosts that would leave widespread ice on the ground.

And train passengers were warned to expect a reduced service with three rail operators due to cut their timetables by a quarter.

Temperatures overnight were due to plummet to as low as minus 15C (5F) in remote parts of Scotland and were unlikely to get above freezing for most of the country today.

But while some parts could see the occasional flurry, most of the country will escape heavy snow. The news will bring some late Christmas cheer to the thousands of passengers waiting to travel at Heathrow Airport, which was forced to close earlier this week because of the weather.

BAA launched an inquiry on Thursday into its planning, execution and recovery from the extreme weather that left planes grounded and passengers bedding down in terminals. An international panel of experts from airports and airlines around the world will make recommendations to BAA.

Chief executive Colin Matthews said: "The inquiry will forensically examine what went wrong at Heathrow, and look fundamentally at our ability to prepare and respond more effectively to periods of bad weather at an airport operating at its maximum capacity."

Forecasters said London and the South East would see a relatively mild frost today but temperatures would be much colder elsewhere.

Matt Dobson, forecaster with PA's weather division MeteoGroup, said: "The cold air is not going anywhere fast. Away from the south east of England where the frost is going to be a lot slighter, there's going to be a very sharp frost. Parts of Northern Ireland could be getting close to another record-breaking temperature.

He added there was a "small chance" of snow falling very early on Christmas Day across Kent, East Anglia and Lincolnshire with the highest chance of snowfall in Scotland. Bookmaker Ladbrokes stopped bets on a white Christmas on Thursday but Mr Dobson said most parts were expected to see a dry, sunny and cold day

Stockholm subway shut [ 1941 ]

Stockholm subway station shut over suspicious item

By the CNN Wire Staff

December 24, 2010 -- Updated 0437 GMT (1237 HKT)

                    Stockholm subway
 -
 (CNN) -- A Stockholm subway station shut Thursday night as Swedish police converged on an item made to look like a bomb.

Authorities got a call around 8:30 p.m. alerting them about the suspicious device at Kungstradgarden subway station in the Swedish capital, said Stockholm police Capt. Henrik Billstam.

The station was promptly evacuated. Bomb technicians determined that the device was harmless, and the station reopened.

"It did not contain any explosives, but it was clearly made to look like a bomb," Billstam said. "So this must have been some kind of bad joke."

While not historically a hotbed for terrorist activity, Sweden has been on edge since its first suicide bombing.

Earlier this month, two explosions killed the bomber, Taimour Abdulwahab, and wounded two other people in a district full of Christmas shoppers.

Authorities say Abdulwahab had lived in Iraq and sent e-mails indicating his distaste for the presence of Swedish troops in Afghanistan and the Scandinavian country's tolerance of Lars Vilks' newspaper cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed as a dog

Days later, Swedish police released a report indicating that violence-promoting Islamist radicals do exist in their country and should not be underestimated as potential threats, according to a study from Swedish Security Police.

The report -- commissioned months before the terrorist bombings -- identified almost 200 individuals, mostly young males, as Islamic extremists who advocate violence. Still, while noting the presence of such people, the study did not find any indication that their number is growing.

CNN's Per Nyberg contributed to this report.

Suicide attempt.....[ 1940 ]

Suicide attempt at the Romanian Parliament in protest over welfare cuts

Bucharest : Romania | Dec 23, 2010

By Ranasafdaralikhan

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Views: 1,245

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"We have taken away the bread to my children, " the man shouted before jumping, Agerpres agency reported, adding that this is a public television technician.

 

A 41 year old man attempted suicide today by jumping into the void from a balcony of the Romanian Parliament, in protest over welfare cuts approved by the Government.

"We have taken away the bread to my children, " the man shouted before jumping, Agerpres agency reported, adding that this is a public television technician. The man is hospitalized with multiple injuries bucarestino, although no target organ and not life threatening, medical sources said.

Without help for her autistic son

Agerpres said that the victim has an autistic son and who received social assistance had been suspended by the Government as part of its austerity policies. The Romanian Government has taken tough measures savings from his accession in 2009 to an international loan of 20,000 million euros.

The measures agreed with the International Monetary Fund in 2010 to keep the deficit below 6.8 percent including reducing public sector wages by 25 percent and the increase in VAT from 19 to 24 percent. Social benefits have also been revised downwards or, in some cases even eliminated.

The suicide attempt occurred when the prime minister, Emil Boc, was beginning his speech. All opposition MPs withdrew from the full after the incident.

NASA Image of the Day, Dec 23rd..[ 1939 ]

The latest NASA "Image of the Day" image.

Where Stars Are Born

This mosaic image is the sharpest wide-angle view ever obtained of the starburst galaxy, Messier 82 (M82). The galaxy is remarkable for its bright blue disk, webs of shredded clouds and fiery-looking plumes of glowing hydrogen blasting out of its central regions. 

 

Throughout the galaxy's center, young stars are being born 10 times faster than they are inside our entire Milky Way Galaxy, which results in a huge concentration of young stars carved into the gas and dust at the galaxy's center. The fierce galactic superwind generated from these stars compresses enough gas to make millions of more stars. In M82, young stars are crammed into tiny but massive star clusters. These, in turn, congregate by the dozens to make the bright patches, or starburst clumps, in the central parts of M82. The clusters in the clumps can only be distinguished in the sharp Hubble images. 

 

Most of the pale, white objects sprinkled around the body of M82 that look like fuzzy stars are actually individual star clusters about 20 light-years across and contain up to a million stars. The rapid rate of star formation in this galaxy eventually will be self-limiting. When star formation becomes too vigorous, it will consume or destroy the material needed to make more stars. 

 

The starburst then will subside, probably in a few tens of millions of years. The observation was made in March 2006, with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys' Wide Field Channel. Astronomers assembled this six-image composite mosaic by combining exposures taken with four colored filters that capture starlight from visible and infrared wavelengths, as well as the light from the glowing hydrogen filaments. 

 

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); Acknowledgment: J. Gallagher (University of Wisconsin), M. Mountain (STScI), and P. Puxley (National Science Foundation)

Πέμπτη, 23 Δεκέμβριος 2010 7:00:00 πμ

Waening for..."sacred war" [ 1938 ]

North Korea warns of "sacred war" in standoff with South

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South Korea K-9 self-propelled guns fire live rounds during air and ground military exercises on the Seungjin Fire Training Field, in mountainous Pocheon December 23, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Park Ji-Ho/Yonhap

By Jack Kim and Sylvia Westall

SEOUL | Thu Dec 23, 2010 11:49am EST

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea threatened a nuclear "sacred war" on Thursday and South Korea vowed a "merciless counterattack" if it was attacked again as both sides raised the rhetoric on a day of more military exercises in the South.

South Korea's land and sea exercises prompted North Korea, which has threatened to reduce the South to ashes on many occasions, to denounce its richer neighbor as a warmonger.

"To counter the enemy's intentional drive to push the situation to the brink of war, our revolutionary forces are making preparations to begin a sacred war at any moment necessary based on nuclear deterrent," North Korea's KCNA news agency quoted Minister of Armed Forces Kim Yong-chun as saying.

North Korea has wielded its nuclear capability threat before but analysts say it has no way to launch a nuclear device.

Tension reached a peak last month when North Korea shelled a southern island, Yeonpyeong, killing four people, in response to a South Korean live-fire drill in what the North said were its waters.

The North has since made a conciliatory gesture, offering to re-admit U.N. nuclear inspectors worried about its nuclear weapons programme.

"We've seen North Korea flip-flop from threatening the South with nuclear war before the military exercises, then a day later ignore that the exercises took place, launch a peace initiative, and now, just days later, once again threaten with nuclear war," said Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"The flip-flopping is part of North Korea's tactic to keep everyone guessing and off balance."

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said on a tour of a forward army base overlooking North Korea that the South would not relax its readiness to counter any further aggression.

"We had believed patience would ensure peace on this land, but that was not the case," Lee, criticized for a perceived weak earlier response to North Korean attacks, told troops.

South Korea held a big land drill in the Pocheon region between Seoul and the heavily armed demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas. It also continued naval live-fire exercises 100 km (60 miles) south of the maritime border.

The drill involved a larger scale of firepower and personnel than usual for an exercise at the army training ground, a further indication that Lee wants to show the public his government can stand up to the North.

A large contingent of mechanized units operating tanks, three dozen self-propelled artillery, fighter jets and multiple rocket launchers took part in the live-fire drill just miles from the border. It lasted just less than an hour.

A British Foreign Office spokesman defended South Korea's decision to hold the exercises.

"South Korea has every right to conduct defensive military exercises in its territory," he said. "We urge North Korea to cease its aggressive rhetoric and refrain from provocative actions. North Korea must accept that engagement with the international community is better than isolation."