Giant whale shark caught...[ 2685 ]

Pakistani fishermen have caught a 12m whale shark after finding it floating dead in Karachi

By admin on Feb 8, 2012 | In Pakistan News

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It took several cranes four hours to lift the massive fish off the boat and onto the pier in Karachi as hundreds of onlookers watched, the Express-Tribune reported.
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Fisheries dealer Qasim Niazi paid 200,000 rupees ($2000) for the giant shark, and will now charge viewers to see it.Whale sharks are the largest fish in the world, and feed largely on plankton .
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12 meters whale-shark cought by Pakistani fiserman...

Watch video

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La Nina compared to El Nino in Australia....[ 2684 ]

La Nina ~ More Wet Australian Summers to Come

Posted by Linda Lin on Jan 27, 2011 //nature.com 

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If you've wondered what's with all the massive floods this year and last year (Australia, Brazil, Pakistan etc.), well, La Nina, Spanish for "the girl", is to blame. It is a climate event and counterpart to El Nino, "the boy". Opposite and sometimes following "him", La Nina is characterized by a colder surface temperature in the oceans, by about 3-5 degree celsius. 

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The cold can mix in with a cloudier atmosphere and higher winds, resulting in a change in weather patterns in the Pacific (if you're in the north, you can look forward to some extra cold spells this winter). For us in the southern hemisphere, this translates to a rise in tropical storms, copious rainfall and lower temperatures during the summer. 2010 has had record highs in precipitation across Australia, and this isn't going to change. 

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At best, it will die down by autumn in April, only to return for a few more summer in the years to come.

(flikr CC, Queensland floods by robandstephanielevy)
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Perhaps it's connected to global warming, some speculate that higher world temperatures can enhance a climatic event. Not a good deal of studies are available on La Nina compared to El Nino, but it is a natural phenomenon. In the past, there have been 4 strong La Nina events in Australia. The last one was in 1988-89. This was followed by droughts, which typically is what El Nino brings to these parts. 

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It's been interesting to see the local effects of the wet summer, here in Canberra. Allergies have been more intense for everyone this season, because flowers are happier with more rain. There's more bugs and spiders around, and Australian spiders can get pretty big and hairy. Animals are noticeably more fertile as well. 

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I swear there's been a spike in the population of feral rabbits around Canberra. And nearly everyone's seen a pair of ducks with a brood of 14 ducklings around the ANU.

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From the Australian Bureau of Meterology
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Austerity agreement and the Greek Default?...[ 2683 ]

Is Merkel Too Comfortable With Greek Default?

Posted 7/2/2012 -Published: Monday, 6 Feb 2012 | 1:09 PM

By: Bob Pisani//CNBC Reporter

Austerity watchers take note: the Prime Minister of Romania resigned today (Monday), the latest European leader felled by anti-austerity fury.

Bloomberg / Bloomberg via Getty Images A European Union, left, and a Hungarian national flag, fly outside the Magyar Nemzeti Bank, Hungary's central bank, in Budapest.

Romania was the receiver of a 20-billion euro loan in 2009, on condition of deep austerity cuts.

The euro has rallied on headlines that Greek politicians are getting down to the nitty-gritty, with reports they may be willing to cut 15,000 public sector jobs as part of the austerity package. 
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But the talk over the weekend was about the key player, Angela Merkel: is she more comfortable with letting Greece default? 
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Oh, she protests, telling German TV today that they will not allow a Greek bankruptcy. 
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But at the same time she is digging in her heels: she has insisted it's time for Greece to decide on whether they want in or out. No money without an austerity agreement, and all parties must sign off. 
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It's not just Merkel insisting on getting the Greeks to agree on a painful austerity budget. She has also floated a trial balloon for the EU to take over control of the Greek budget. 
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The Greeks, obviously, do not want to do that. They may simply choose to default. Surely Merkel must understand that the probability of a default has risen. 
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Merkel seems to be calculating that a Greek default might not be all that disruptive. The stock and bond markets seem not to be so worried, and the banking system is certainly in stronger shape than it was three months ago. But is it sufficiently strong? 
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If all this is a comfort to you, you should hear the response of the inimitable Art Cashin, who, after I presented the above thesis to him, said: "Merkel may be increasingly comfortable, but they were all comfortable before Lehman Brothers."
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[1603], Δηλώσεις Merkel -Sarkozi…(Greek text)

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Norway ,mass shooting suspect stays jailed...[ 2682 ]

Saying he deserves a medal, Norway mass shooting suspect stays jailed

By the CNN Wire Staff

February 7, 2012 -- Updated 0232 GMT (1032 HKT)

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Anders Behring Breivik appears in court Monday in Olso, Norway. He will be kept in custody until his trial in April.

(CNN) -- A Norwegian court concluded Monday that Anders Behring Breivik -- the man charged with killing 77 people last July, an attack he claimed merited a medal of honor -- can legally be kept in custody until his trial starts in April, according to court documents.

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The court acknowledged that Breivik's mental health remains an issue, noting that he may not be able to get the maximum possible punishment for the crimes if he's deemed insane.

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Even so, the court found legal basis to keep him in custody for the next two months because prosecutors have said that if Breivik is found insane, they will push for him to be confined to a mental health facility, court documents state.

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Breivik is accused of killing eight people in a bomb attack in Oslo and 69 more in a gun rampage on nearby Utoya Island on July 22. It was the deadliest attack on Norwegian soil since World War II. The latter victims were among 700 mostly young people attending a Labour Party camp on the island.

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He has pleaded not guilty, though he has admitted carrying out the attacks, the judge handling his case said previously.

In November, prosecutors said psychiatrists had determined Breivik was paranoid and schizophrenic at the time of the attacks and during 13 interviews experts conducted with him afterward.

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Judge Wenche Elizabeth Arntzen told reporters in January that the court requested a second opinion because of the importance of the question of his sanity to Breivik's trial.

Arizona shooting suspect Loughner to continue receiving treatment

Two new psychiatrists were subsequently assigned to carry out the evaluation, court spokesman Geir Engebretsen said.

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Breivik reiterated some of his extremist views during Monday's court hearing, which began with him entering with a smile and offering up a raised, clenched-fist salute in solidarity.

Confirming accounts posed to him by Norwegian reporters, his lawyer, Geir Lippestad, said Breivik said he did not accept the legitimacy of the presiding judge because he didn't believe in the multicultural Norway that the judicial system is part of. The lawyer's back-and-forth with reporters was captured by Norwegian media, including national broadcaster NRK.

Breivik further claimed the shooting rampage was a matter of self-defense, meant to save Norway from being taken over by multicultural forces and prevent ethnic cleansing of Norwegians, according to Lippestad.

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Rather than punishment, Breivik said he deserved a medal of honor, a statement that prompted derisive laughs from victims and relatives of those killed on Utoya Island.

He also said nobody could believe that he was insane, describing questions about his mental makeup as ridiculous, Lippestad confirmed.

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Scheduled to begin April 16, Breivik's trial is expected to last 10 weeks.

Authorities have described him as a right-wing Christian extremist. A 1,500-page manifesto attributed to Breivik posted on the Internet is critical of Muslim immigration and European liberalism, including Norway's Labour Party.

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The manifesto predicts that a "European civil war" will lead to the execution of "cultural Marxists" and the banishment of Muslims.

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Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said in the aftermath of the attacks that his country had been fundamentally changed, but vowed that Norway would remain "an open society."

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Journalist Olav Mellingsaeter in Oslo contributed to this report.

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Australia: Queensland's flood..[ 2681 ]

Wivenhoe Dam manual 'not a priority in the field'

• by: Jareds Owens
• From: The Australian
• February 07, 2012 1:04PM

 FOLLOWING Wivenhoe Dam's manual was ''not a priority for operating in the field'' ahead of Brisbane's devastating flood, according to Seqwater's dam 

 manager. 
 

Queensland's flood, after The Australian revealed a string of inconsistencies in the flood engineers' evidence suggesting they disregarded the manual and used the wrong-flood mitigation strategy in the days before Brisbane was swamped.

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Giving evidence this morning, SEQWater dam operations manager Rob Drury continued 

to be grilled over an email he authored to a colleague at 8.23am on January 10, saying the dam was implementing a release strategy known as ''W2''.

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The official history, branded ''a fiction'' by counsel assisting Peter Callaghan SC, said the dam moved to strategy W3 two days earlier, bypassing W2 completely.

Mr Drury said: ''I didn't mean to be wrong at the time and didn't intend to be. But if the documents show it was not right, then I was wrong.''

Barrister Jim Murdoch SC, for mid-Brisbane River irrigators, then asked: ''As a senior professional, if you were wrong on that it's a humiliating error, isn't it?''

Mr Drury replied: ''The W-strategies were a priority for operating in the field. Me saying the wrong W strategy was purely off the top of my head, me saying what I thought at the time. The strategies, the releases, the (situation reports) were all the important things. There certainly wasn't comment on W-strategies though, because they were not at the time a priority nor a necessity.'

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Under the Wivenhoe manual, the engineers must always implement one of four strategies from the manual, ranging from limited releases that preserve downstream rural infrastructure, known as W1, to intensive releases to ensure the integrity of the dam, known as W4.

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Operators are saved from financial liability for damage caused by releases if they follow the manual, which prescribes environmental triggers before for each strategy can be implemented.

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Mr Drury denied knowing the email was inconsistent with the official report until he read it in The Australian last month.

The inquiry continues.