NASA, image of the day May 11th..[ 2271 ]

The latest NASA "Image of the Day" image.

Flooding From Mississippi River Levee Breach

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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers detonated explosives at the Birds Point levee near Wyatt, Missouri, at 10:02 p.m. on May 2, 2011. Water from the intentional breach flooded a 130,000-acre stretch of land. Two more breaches were detonated on May 3 and 5. 

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This image from the Advanced Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft shows the resultant flooding of farmland west of the Mississippi 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of the levee breach. On the image, vegetation is displayed in red, bare fields in gray and water in blue. The image covers an area of 30.7 by 39 miles (49.5 by 63 kilometers), and is located near 36.5 degrees north latitude, 89.4 degrees west longitude. 

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With its 14 spectral bands from the visible to the thermal infrared wavelength region and its high spatial resolution of about 50 to 300 feet, or about 15 to 90 meters, ASTER images Earth to map and monitor the changing surface of our planet. ASTER is one of five Earth-observing instruments launched Dec. 18, 1999, on Terra. 

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The instrument was built by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. A joint U.S./Japan science team is responsible for validation and calibration of the instrument and data products. The broad spectral coverage and high spectral resolution of ASTER provides scientists in numerous disciplines with critical information for surface mapping and monitoring of dynamic conditions and temporal change. 

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Example applications are monitoring glacial advances and retreats; monitoring potentially active volcanoes; identifying crop stress; determining cloud morphology and physical properties; wetlands evaluation; thermal pollution monitoring; coral reef degradation; surface temperature mapping of soils and geology; and, measuring surface heat balance. 

Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team
Τετάρτη, 11 Μάιος 2011 7:00:00 

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An...." Earthquake Survival Kit" ..[ 2270 ]

Preparing for the Big One

The author holds her own evacuation kit.

 

(Mainichi Japan) May 9, 2011

Earthquake Survival Kit. The first time I ever thought about these words was shortly after arriving in Tokyo from my native London over three years ago.
My very first Japanese earthquake had just struck in the middle of the night and I had slept through the entire experience in my new apartment in Tokyo.
Although my bed had barely shaken, it did not take long for one of my sisters in London to start pestering me about getting an EARTHQUAKE SURVIVAL KIT (yes, in capital letters, as yelled down the phone).
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But I confess, I didn't have a clue what it should include. Trying to ease my sister's concerns, I remember saying: "It's fine, honestly. Umm. Well. I have a bottle of Evian water. In the fridge."
"And a torch somewhere under the sink, I'm not sure about batteries though. [Long pause]. Do you think I need a helmet?"
I'd never had to worry about this kind of thing before: perhaps because in my native U.K., earthquakes are generally confined to the foreign news section of any paper.
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Admittedly, there was a teeny tiny 2.2 earthquake off the Lancashire coast recently but so rare are even small U.K. tremors that some people thought news reports were an April Fools Day joke.
Back in Japan, a country where minor earthquakes are as common as brushing your teeth, life continued and I quickly got used to the occasional (and always harmless) jolts and shakes.
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I never did sort out an earthquake survival kit. Fast-forward to 2011 and the issue of earthquakes has undoubtedly become a more serious subject.
Despite the devastating scale of the March 11 disaster, the nation's levelheaded preparation no doubt helped: from school children and offices well trained in evacuation drills to households' survival kits.
I was traveling outside Japan on a sabbatical at the time of the earthquake -- but when I returned, I did something I should have done a long time ago: I finally created my earthquake survival kit.
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After sending e-mails to my most sensible Japanese friends asking them for recommendations, I wrote a long shopping list and headed to my local supermarket.
Soon, my basket was piled high with a random selection of goods including (in no particular order) bottles of water, torch batteries, face masks, packets of mochi, Calorie Mate, gas canisters, Pocari Sweat, candles and matches.
Getting into the spirit of things, I also threw in a packet of dried mango (a favorite treat), just to lighten up the slightly depressing load of crisis items in my basket.
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Next, I packed everything into a small black rucksack, which now lives happily in the corner of my apartment. Now I just have to make sure my boyfriend doesn't raid it for emergency midnight snacks when the cupboards are empty.
But other than that? Fingers crossed, I'm hoping the bag will never have to be used. (By Danielle Demetriou)
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(Profile)

Danielle is a British writer and photographer based in Tokyo since September 2007. She worked as a news reporter and features writer in London for The Independent, The Evening Standard and the Daily and Sunday Telegraph.

(Mainichi Japan) May 9, 2011

Pakistan rejected allegations about Bin Laden..[ 2269 ]

Pakistan PM says bin Laden accusations absurd

By John Chalmers

ISLAMABAD | Mon May 9, 2011 12:37pm EDT
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(Reuters) - Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani Monday rejected allegations that the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. troops in the country showed Pakistani incompetence or complicity in hiding the al Qaeda leader.

Opposition politicians have stepped up their criticism of Pakistan's leaders over the killing of bin Laden in a raid by U.S. special forces in a northern Pakistani town on May 2.

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Pakistan welcomed the death of bin Laden, who plotted the September 11, 2001, airliner attacks on the United States, as a step in the fight against militancy but also complained that the raid was a violation of its sovereignty.

The fact that bin Laden was found hiding in the garrison town of Abbottabad, 50 km (30 miles) from the capital, has led to accusations that Pakistani security agencies were either incompetent or sheltering the world's most wanted man.

"Allegations of complicity or incompetence are absurd," Gilani said in a televised address to parliament, adding that it was disingenuous for anyone to accuse Pakistan, including its spy agency, of "being in cahoots" with the al Qaeda network.

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The U.S. raid has added to strains in ties between Islamabad and Washington, which are crucial to combating Islamist militants and to bringing stability to Afghanistan.

The United States has stopped short of accusing Pakistan of providing shelter to bin Laden but Islamabad is under pressure to explain how bin Laden found refuge.

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Gilani warned that unilateral actions such as the U.S. Navy SEALs swoop on bin Laden's hideout ran the risk of serious consequences, but he added that Pakistan attached high importance to its relations with the United States.

Pakistan's main opposition party has called on Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardari to resign over the breach of sovereignty by U.S. special forces who slipped in from Afghanistan on helicopters to storm the compound where bin Laden was holed up.

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"I think it is a big blow to Pakistan's sovereignty, Pakistan's independence and Pakistan's self-respect," former prime minister Nawaz Sharif told reporters in Lahore. "Pakistan is in a grave crisis and is surrounded by big danger."

Domestic critics say the U.S. raid also raises questions about the safety of Pakistan's cherished nuclear weapons but Gilani said any move against them would be met with "a matching response."

"Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate with full force," he said.

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TENSE RELATIONS WITH WASHINGTON

Pakistani-U.S. relations were already fragile after a string of diplomatic disputes over issues including a big attack by a U.S. drone aircraft in March and Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor who shot dead two Pakistanis in the city of Lahore in January.

Potentially stirring tension further, a Pakistani TV channel and a newspaper published what they said was the name of the undercover CIA station chief in Islamabad.

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The U.S. embassy declined to comment, but said no one of that name worked at the mission in Pakistan.

Last year, after the chief of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency was named in a U.S. civil case over attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai, the then-head of the CIA's Islamabad station was named by Pakistani media and forced to leave the country.

The government and military have been embarrassed by the discovery of bin Laden in Abbottabad, near the country's main military academy.

"If he was really living in that compound for five years ... then why didn't our agencies discover him?" former foreign minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri told reporters. "This has given anti-Pakistani elements a chance to ridicule us."

But Gilani said he had full confidence in the armed forces and the military's ISI which he called a "national asset." The military would brief parliament in a closed session Friday.

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OBAMA SUSPECTS SUPPORT NETWORK

U.S. President Barack Obama said Sunday that bin Laden likely had "some sort" of a support network inside Pakistan, but added it would take investigations by Pakistan and the United States to find out just what the nature of that support was.

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"We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan. But we don't know who or what that support network was," Obama said.

"We don't know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government, and that's something that we have to investigate, and more importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate," he added.

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Suspicion has deepened that the pervasive ISI, which has a long history of contacts with militant groups, may have had ties with the al Qaeda leader -- or that some of its agents did.

Some Pakistani analysts suspect powerful figures knew where bin Laden was hiding.

"Somebody in a position of authority had to know," said security analyst Ayesha Siddiqa, author of "Military Inc," which analyses the army's tight security, political and economic hold over Pakistan.

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Siddiqa said the army and ISI's entrenched strategy of using violent militant groups as a counterweight against India may have been why the security establishment turned a blind eye to bin Laden, possibly regarding his network of followers as an asset against Indian influence.

Talat Masood, a retired general and defense analyst, said that if there was official collusion to keep bin Laden secure it was most likely provided at a local level.

"I feel definitely there were influential people who were protecting him," he said.

Pakistani security officials have reacted with skepticism to a U.S. assertion that bin Laden was actively engaged in directing his far-flung network from his Abbottabad compound.

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Washington has said that, based on a trove of information that would fill a small college library seized in the raid, the hide-out was an "active command and control center" for al Qaeda where he was involved in plotting attacks on the United States.

(Additional reporting by Augustine Anthony, Kamran Haider, Michael Georgy and Chris Allbritton in Islamabad, Donna Smith and Steve Holland in Washington; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Panathinaikos of Athens wins Eurobasket cup..[ 2268 ]

Eurobasket:   Panathinaikos Athens won the Euroleague basketball cup

Barcelona May 8,3011

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   Panathinaikos Athens won the Euroleague basketball cup for the sixth time in its history and the third in the last five years after beating Maccabi Tel Aviv 78-70 at the Palau Sant Jordi Arena in Barcelona on Sunday evening, in its 10 presence in the Euroleague's final four competition.

    The "King" of Greek basketball returned to its "throne" and made its titles six(1996, 2000, 2002, 2007, 2009, 2011). Panathinaikos' coach Zelimir Obradovic increased to eight the trophies he has won.

    The 10-minute intervals had the following results: 15-22, 30-33, 43-54, 70-78.

Egypt: sectarian violence :..] 2267 ]

At least 6 (or 9) dead in Egyptian sectarian violence

By Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Ian Lee, For CNN

May 8, 2011 -- Updated 0653 GMT (1453 HKT)

Egyptians gather as firefighters extinguish a blaze at a church following clashes at another church between Muslims and Christians in Cairo on Sunday.

Cairo, Egypt (CNN) -- At least six (or nine)  people were killed and 120 injured in sectarian clashes outside a church in Cairo on Saturday, officials said.
A group of Muslim Salafists attacked the Saint Mena Coptic Orthodox Church. Gunfire rang out as people sprinted for cover.
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"With my own eyes I saw three people killed and dozens injured," said Mina Adel, a Christian resident. "There's no security here. There's a big problem. People attacked us, and we have to protect ourselves."
Egyptian Interior Ministry spokesman Alla Mahmoud said in a statement that six people were killed and 120 injured.
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He said the clashes were sparked by reports of a Christian woman who married a Muslim man and was allegedly being held inside the church.
State TV, citing a source at the Health Ministry, said that eight people died and 144 were wounded in the violence.
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Nearby, firefighters responded to a blaze at the Saint Virgin Mary's Coptic Orthodox Church. Hundreds of residents stood outside as it burned and two men were seen jumping from a window of the building.
Authorities sent soldiers and police to help secure the area.
Tensions have risen this year between Egypt's Muslim majority and its Coptic minority.
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A Coptic church in the town of Alexandria was bombed on New Year's Day, killing 23 people -- the deadliest attack on Christians in Egypt in recent times.
Ten days later, a gunman killed a Christian man and wounded five other Christians on a train in Egypt.
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In November, a group with ties to al Qaeda in Iraq announced that all Christians in the Middle East would be "legitimate targets," as the group's deadline for Egypt's Coptic church to release alleged Muslim female prisoners expired.
The group's claim that the Coptic Church in Egypt is holding female prisoners is based on widespread rumors of Coptic women in Egypt converting to Islam and being detained by the church in an attempt to compel or persuade them to return to their original faith.
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About 9% of Egypt's 80 million residents are Coptic Christians. They base their theology on the teachings of the Apostle Mark, who introduced Christianity to Egypt, according to St. Takla Church in Alexandria, the capital of Coptic Christianity.
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The religion split with other Christians in the 5th century over the definition of the divinity of Jesus Christ.