Italy from the ...[ 2919 ]

Image of theThe Italian Boot from the sky  

This oblique, night time panorama of much of Europe was photographed by one of the Expedition 32 crew members aboard the International Space Station flying approximately 240 miles above the Mediterranean Sea on Aug. 18, 2012.
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The country of Italy is visible running diagonally southward from the horizon across the center of the frame, with the night lights of Rome and Naples being visible on the coast near the center. 
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Sardinia and Corsica are just above left center of the photo, and Sicily is at lower left. The Adriatic Sea is on the other side of Italy, and beyond it to the east and north can be seen parts of several other European nations.

Image Credit: NASA

French Alps massacre...[ 2918 ]

Girl alive under bodies in French Alps massacre

Updated 2 hours 11 minutes ago

Photo: French gendarmes block the road leading to the scene. (AFP: Jean-Pierre )

Map: France

A four-year-old girl has been found alive under bodies believed to be of her relatives who were shot dead in a car in the French Alps.

Officials say three of the four victims appear to have been a British family on holiday.
The fourth victim was a male cyclist, whose body was found on the ground just to the right of the car.
Another girl who was found shot at the scene earlier was in a stable condition after being rushed to hospital in critical condition.
The position of the bodies in the car and the large number of cartridges found at the scene gave rise to speculation the killing could have been the result of an armed robbery the cyclist may have inadvertently interrupted.
But authorities said they had not yet formed any hypothesis as to what had happened.
The identity of a dead man, described as the father of the family, has been "almost certainly" established, while two women victims are yet to be definitively identified, said Eric Maillaud, a prosecutor in the Haute-Savoie area of eastern France.
Mr Maillaud said the four-year-old girl was found alive in the British-registered car, hidden under the bodies eight hours after the killings.
"She was hidden under the bodies for some eight hours and didn't move for the whole time," he said.
Police sealed off the area around the car to allow forensic experts to go over the scene before the corpses were removed.
It was those experts who discovered the girl who had previously remained unseen in the car.

Map: Chevaline, Haute-Savoie, French Alps

The shooting took place in a tree-lined car park on the edge of the picturesque village of Chevaline, which is popular with tourists and second homeowners from all over Europe, including many Britons.
A spokesman for the Foreign Office in London said it was urgently looking into the incident, while its embassy in Paris was also liaising with the police in Britain.
The bodies were discovered by another cyclist around 3:50pm (local time) on Wednesday.
He was questioned by police Wednesday.
"We are going to try to interview people in the neighbourhood," Mr Maillaud said.
Experts from the national gendarmerie's IRCGN unit were expected to collect DNA samples, shells left at the scene for ballistics analysis and check for traces of other vehicles that may have been at the scene.
The bodies were taken to the town of Grenoble for autopsies.
Around 60 gendarmes were involved in a search for potential clues which continued during the night.
AFP

Earthquake 7.6 R in Costa Rica...[ 2917 ]

Strong 7.6 earthquake shakes Costa Rica, buildings collapsed

 The magnitude 7.6 earthquake Wednesday in Costa Rica collapsed some buildings, landslides cut off the main highway between San Jose and Puntarenas, but no deaths have been reported. A tsunami watch for Costa Rica has been rescinded.

By Danica Coto, Associated Press / September 5, 2012

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An earthquake struck off the Pacific Coast of Costa Ricka Wednesday. It was locakted about 38 miles from the town of Liberia and 88 miles west of the capital, San Jose. It was centered about 25 miles below the earth's surface.

US Geological Society

Nosara, Costa Rica

A powerful, magnitude-7.6 earthquake shook Costa Rica and a wide swath of Central America on Wednesday, collapsing some houses, blocking highways and causing panic, but officials said there were no reports of deaths.

Related stories

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The Christian Science Monitor
Weekly Digital Edition

The USGS said the 8:42 a.m. (10:42 a.m. EDT; 1442 GMT) quake struck about 38 miles (60 kilometers) from the town of Liberia. It was centered about 25 miles (41 kilometers) below the surface. The magnitude initially was estimated at 7.9.
In the town of Hojancha a few miles from the epicenter, city official Kenia Campos said the quake knocked down some houses and landslides blocked several roads.
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"So far, we don't have victims," she said. "People were really scared ... We have had moderate quakes but an earthquake (this strong) hadn't happened in more than 50 years."
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A preliminary review revealed some structural damage near the epicenter, but no reports of deaths or injuries, said Douglas Salgado, a geographer with Costa Rica's National Commission of Risk Prevention and Emergency Attention. He said a tsunami alert had been called off for Costa Rica.
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The review also uncovered a landslide on the main highway that connects the capital of San Jose to the Pacific coast city of Puntarenas, Salgado said. Hotels and other structures suffered cracks in walls and saw items knocked off shelves.
"There's chaos in San Jose because it was a strong earthquake of long duration," Salgado said. "It was pretty strong and caused collective chaos."
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Michelle Landwer, owner of the Belvedere Hotel in Samara, north of the epicenter, said she was having breakfast with about 10 people when the earthquake struck.
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"The whole building was moving, I couldn't even walk," Landwer said. "Here in my building there was no real damage. Everything was falling, like glasses and everything."
At the Hotel Punta Islita in the Guanacaste area, "everybody is crying a lot and the telephone lines are saturated," said worker Diana Salas, speaking by telephone, but she said was no damage there.
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In the coastal town of Nosara, roughly 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of the epicenter, trees shook violently and light posts swayed. Teachers chased primary school students outside as the quake hit. Roads cracked and power lines fell to the ground.
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A tsunami warning was in effect for Costa Rica, Panama and Nicaragua, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said in a bulletin. It said it was unknown if a tsunami was generated, but the warning was based on the size of the earthquake.
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Associated Press writers Jack Chang and E. Eduardo Castillo contributed to this report from Mexico City.

Greece,.Syrtaki vs hard time economically..[ 2916 ]

Volos Sets Guinness Record for Largest Syrtaki Dance

By Areti Kotseli on September 1, 2012

''Opa;;! Greece may be having a hard time economically but now is a world record holder – for the largest Syrtaki dance! The Association for Social Impact and Culture to the Municipality of Magnisia organized the event on the main beach of the town of Volos under the light of the second full moon of the month, Aug. 31.

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VOLOS,Greece., Some 5,640 people, aged from 14-to-89 danced to the music of Mikis Theodorakis’ Zorba the Greek, filling the town square and making it into the book of the Guinness World Records.

Enthusiasts from Volos, Larisa, Athens, Thessaloniki, Trikala and even from islands of the country joined the regional union of blind people, the national synchronized swimming team and many ordinary citizens, who decided to lock arms and make like Anthony Quinn dancing on the beach of Crete.
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The idea came from a Volos resident, Alexia Halvatzakou who suggested it to the municipal services an alternative way to promote the area. The President of the Association for Social Impact and Culture Costas Halevas liked the idea and set about organizing the event.
The first Guinness record in this “discipline” was recorded on the island of Rhodes in 2009, where 1,670 people joined the Syrtaki dance, providing a lot of free promotion, and then Thessaly decided to adopt this creative idea. 
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The event took place under the auspices of the District of Thessaly, the Municipality of Volos, the District units of Magnisia and Sporades, Larisa, Trikala, Karditsa and the Municipalities of Larisa, Trikala and Karditsa.
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You can see it here:

Crisis could be over...[ 2915 ]

Crisis could be over in ‘1-2 years’—EU bailout fund chief

Agence France-Presse

5:22 pm | Sunday, September 2nd, 2012

Klaus Regling, chief executive of the European Financial Stability Facility: Eurozone over in one or two years if… AFP PHOTO / PETER PARKS

BERLIN—The head of Europe’s financial bailout fund, Klaus Regling, said the eurozone crisis could be over in “one or two years” if member states stick to their pledges, in an interview to be published Monday.

“If all countries in the currency zone strictly fulfil their budgetary consolidation targets and continue to improve their competitiveness, then the crisis can be over in one or two years,” he told German news weekly Der Spiegel.

Regling, who is German, described his European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) rescue fund as successful in heading off the worst potential consequences of the crisis, now in its third year.

“If it weren’t for us, Portugal and Ireland would probably no longer be in the eurozone.”

The EFSF, which was established with a total lending capacity of 440 billion euros ($554 billion), is due to be replaced by a permanent bailout fund called the European Stability Mechanism, with 500 billion euros of firepower.

The ESM was due to come into force on July 1, but it has suffered delays, notably due to legal challenges in Germany, the fund’s effective paymaster.

Regling has been tapped to lead the ESM when it starts operations.

He said that a ruling by Germany’s highest court on September 12 on the challenges to the ESM would determine its fate.

“Without Germany, the ESM makes no sense.”