The European Union Times |
- Europe will face a 9/11 within 2 years – Colonel Gaddafi’s cousin
- Cholera claims 41 lives in Mozambique
- Millions Of East Coast Americans Could Die if Hit by Tsunami
- Researchers find Indo-European language source
- Dutch government apologizes for ignoring dangers over gas field earthquakes
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Posted: 03 Mar 2015 06:49 AM PST
 Colonel Gaddafi’s cousin predicts a “9/11 in Europe within two years,” as Islamic State militants join thousands of migrants beating a path to Europe. His warning comes as Home Secretary Theresa May says Britain’s terror threat is “grave and growing.” Ahmed Gaddafi al-Dam, formerly one of Gadaffi’s most trusted security chiefs, estimates a minimum of 500,000 migrants will make their way from Libya to Europe in 2015, as the Islamic State [IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL] increases its foothold in the North African state. “There are many terrorists among them, between 10 and 50 in every thousand,” he told the Mail Online. “They are going all throughout Europe [sic]. Within one year, two years, you will have another September 11.” The former security chief made the remarks in Cairo on Monday, during an interview with the newspaper. He has reportedly since fled. Following his comments, Britain’s Home Secretary Theresa May said Britons continue to face the risk of a terror attack. She added everyone in the UK needs to play their part to help fight the spread of radicalization. IS gaining ground in Libya Considered alarmist by some, Gaddafi al-Dam’s warning will likely alarm Western governments. Following the brutal massacre of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians by IS militants in Sirte, northern Libya, concern is mounting that instability in the region poses a risk to the West. Militants linked to IS have made gains in Libya in recent times, and are thought to have conquered three towns, including Sirte. Gadaffi’s cousin says the Islamic State in Libya could be in possession of over 6,000 barrels of uranium, previously guarded by the state’s armed forces. “They are not stupid anymore. They know how to make money. They will try and sell it,” he added. Colonel Gadaffi’s family has remained largely out of the media spotlight since the Libyan dictator’s death during the state’s 2011 revolution. Gadaffi’s passing marked the end of his 42-year reign as state leader. Rival insurgents have battled for power ever since, ousting Libya’s internationally recognized rulers from the state’s capital and sparking fears of a full-blown civil war. Last month, Britain’s ex-director of MI6 Sir John Sawers called for a debate about UK military intervention in Libya. Sawers said the country has descended into “growing chaos” after Britain joined US airstrikes to bring down Gaddafi’s regime. However, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has rejected calls for military intervention, insisting a political solution must be found to Libya’s struggle against the Islamic State. Hammond stresses efforts to install a national unity government will help Libya in its struggle against terror groups. A state of unrest Libya has remained restless since the demise of its autocratic ruler in 2011. After the uprising, sharp political divisions surfaced in the country, yielding two opposing governments each of which runs its own institutions and armed forces. The separate parliaments, located in the eastern city of Tobruk and Libya’s capital Tripoli, currently vie for supremacy. Since Libya’s 2011 uprising, accompanied by NATO airstrikes, critics argue the state has been abandoned by the West and left without any foreign assistance to foster stability. There has been no attempt to manage a transition to a new system of rule, as Western allies did in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan. Following the release of a video depicting the brutal beheading of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya earlier this year, the Egyptian government launched airstrikes against IS targets in the region. Libya has also appealed to the UN Security Council to lift its arm embargo, in a bid to counter threats from the Islamic State and other militants. Source           |
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Posted: 03 Mar 2015 06:39 AM PST
 Mozambique Ministry of Health spokesman, Quinhas Fernandes, told a press conference on Monday that 4,518 cases of cholera and 41 deaths have been recorded since December 25, 2014. The number of confirmed cases has more than doubled and the number of fatalities has risen by almost 50 percent over the past two weeks. The spread of cholera went up after widespread flooding broke out in Mozambique between December and January, killing 158 people and affecting 170,000. According to Fernandes the worst-hit region is the western province of Tete, where more than 1,650 cases have been recorded over the past two months. Although Tete was not hit by the flooding, the pace of infection is the highest there while elsewhere the situation is stabilizing. There have been 1,562 cholera cases only in the provincial capital city of Tete. The city has a poor supply of drinking water, unhealthy sanitation and high population density which have contributed to the rapid spread of the disease, Fernandes added. Mozambique regularly suffers outbreaks of cholera and diarrhea during summer, between October and March, when the country faces heavy rains and floods. Source      |
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Posted: 03 Mar 2015 06:11 AM PST
 Could you imagine what would happen if a tsunami hundreds of feet high slammed into the east coast of the United States at several hundred miles an hour? Just because it has never happened during any of our lifetimes does not mean that it can’t happen. In fact, scientists tell us that there is a very good chance that it will happen someday. And if it does happen, there is a very good chance that the number of dead Americans could be in the millions. Even though there are “Tsunami Hazard Zone” signs on Florida beaches to remind us of this potential threat, we have built giant cities right along the edge of the water all along the Atlantic coast. Today, an astounding 39 percent of all Americans live in counties that directly border a shoreline. The potential damage that a major east coast tsunami could do would be unimaginable. Remember, those living along the Indian Ocean never expected a tsunami in 2004, and those living in Japan never imagined what would hit them in 2011. These things do happen, and it might very well happen to us one day. If you do not think that this is within the realm of possibility, just consider what the Washington Post has had to say on the matter… However, while there is no indication it could happen soon (but could), there are scientifically sound reasons for concern that at some point a mega-tsunami could engulf the entire East Coast with a wave almost 200 feet high sweeping everything and everybody up to 20 miles inland. The consequences of such a relatively unlikely but very possible event in loss of life and property are inestimable and beyond the realm of imagination (at least for me). Yes, there has not been a major tsunami event along the perimeter of the Atlantic Ocean during any of our lifetimes. But it has happened. The most famous Atlantic Ocean tsunami during recorded history happened in 1755… The most widely known Atlantic Ocean tsunami struck Lisbon, Portugal on November 1, 1755 . It was caused by a magnitude 8.6 earthquake beneath the floor of the Atlantic about 100 miles offshore. This earthquake and associated tsunami destroyed most of the city of Lisbon. Waves up to 12 meters high hit the coastlines of Spain and Portugal just minutes after this earthquake. Over nine hours later waves with seven meter runup heights arrived in the Caribbean and caused significant damage. The earthquake and tsunami killed between 60,000 and 100,000 people. And National Geographic says that there have been 37 verified tsunamis in the Caribbean since 1498. So these things do happen from time to time. But why should we be concerned now? What could possibly cause a mega-tsunami to slam into the east coast today? Well, according to the Washington Post, there are a couple of scenarios that scientists are focused on… The first is a submarine landslide at the edge of the continental shelf off the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina where unstable sections of the shelf could collapse into the trenches of the deep ocean. Should that occur scientists believe an 18-foot-high tsunami would propagate towards the coast and strike in a matter of hours. The second time bomb is a mega-tsunami caused by a massive landslide as a large section of La Palma, one of the Canary Islands in the Eastern Atlantic, collapses into the ocean following a volcanic eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma. If (when) this occurs, modeling results indicate a wall of water up to 300 feet high would race across the Atlantic and reach the East Coast in about nine hours with devastating effects. If a 300 foot tall tsunami did “race across the Atlantic” and slam into the United States, the devastation would be beyond anything that any of us have ever seen before. The following excerpt from an article posted on Modern Survival Blog gives you a little bit of an idea how incredibly vulnerable we are… Regardless of the factors, I felt that you may be curious to see following elevation graphics that I layered together which increment 75 feet all the way to 300 feet in height along the U.S. East Coast. I would guesstimate that if you live within 20 miles of the coast, you may be vulnerable to a Canary Island ‘event’. Fortunately, these don’t happen very often… Several observations regarding a 300 foot tsunami would be the probable devastation of the following major East Coast cities… Portland, ME (~ 50′) Boston, MA (~ 30′) New Haven, CT (~ 50′) Bridgeport, CT (~ 40′) New York City, NY (~ 20′) Jersey City, NJ (~ 30′) Newark, NJ (~ 50′) Atlantic City, NJ (~ 10′) Wilmington, DE (~ 80′) Philadelphia, PA (~ 40′) Virginia Beach, VA (~ 10′) Wilmington, NC (~ 20′) Myrtle Beach, SC (~ 20′) Charleston, SC (~ 10′) Savannah, GA (~ 10′) Daytona Beach, FL (less than 10′) West Palm Beach, FL (less than 10′) Fort Lauderdale, FL (less than 10′) Miami, FL (less than 10′) There are countless cities in between these coastal cities. The Eastern Seaboard of the United States includes some of the largest metropolitan areas in the country. Over one third of the country (more than 100 million people) live along the East Coast. Evacuation would be virtually impossible for most (except for the astute who act quickly) due to only hours notice, probable doubt, and the subsequent immediate gridlock that would follow. And since nearly the entire state of Florida is close to (or below) sea level, there would be next to nothing to stop it from sweeping across the entire state. The following is an excerpt from an articleabout how incredibly flat Florida is… South Florida has two big problems. The first is its remarkably flat topography. Half the area that surrounds Miami is less than five feet above sea level. Its highest natural elevation, a limestone ridge that runs from Palm Beach to just south of the city, averages a scant 12 feet. With just three feet of sea-level rise, more than a third of southern Florida will vanish; at six feet, more than half will be gone; if the seas rise 12 feet, South Florida will be little more than an isolated archipelago surrounded by abandoned buildings and crumbling overpasses. And the waters won’t just come in from the east – because the region is so flat, rising seas will come in nearly as fast from the west too, through the Everglades. Even worse, South Florida sits above a vast and porous limestone plateau. “Imagine Swiss cheese, and you’ll have a pretty good idea what the rock under southern Florida looks like,” says Glenn Landers, a senior engineer at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This means water moves around easily – it seeps into yards at high tide, bubbles up on golf courses, flows through underground caverns, corrodes building foundations from below. “Conventional sea walls and barriers are not effective here,” says Robert Daoust, an ecologist at ARCADIS, a Dutch firm that specializes in engineering solutions to rising seas. Personally, I am not that concerned about a potential Canary Island event creating a giant tsunami. I am much, much more concerned about what would happen if a giant meteor were to hit the Atlantic Ocean. According to the University of California at Santa Cruz website, if a giant meteor did slam into the Atlantic Ocean, it could potentially produce a gigantic tsunami with a wall of water as high as 400 feet… If an asteroid crashes into the Earth, it is likely to splash down somewhere in the oceans that cover 70 percent of the planet’s surface. Huge tsunami waves, spreading out from the impact site like the ripples from a rock tossed into a pond, would inundate heavily populated coastal areas. A computer simulation of an asteroid impact tsunami developed by scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, shows waves as high as 400 feet sweeping onto the Atlantic Coast of the United States. Could you imagine? Today, about 10,000 major near earth objects have been discovered by scientists, and approximately 10 percent of them are one kilometer or larger in size. At some point in the future, it is inevitable that one of them is going to hit us. And if one does splash down in the Atlantic, the resulting tsunami could potentially kill millions upon millions of Americans. Nobody talks about this much. And it is almost too horrifying to think about the death and destruction that such an event would cause. But it will happen one day. Let’s just hope that you are out of the way when it does. Source      |
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Posted: 03 Mar 2015 05:07 AM PST
 The study was carried out by a team of researchers from the US, Australia, and other countries by assessing multiple libraries of DNA samples from the remains of 69 people who lived some 3,000 to 8,000 years ago in Europe. The group used an enrichment procedure known as in-solution hybridization and deep sequencing of nearly 395,000 targeted Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP) to assess the DNA samples. The study was published in the Nature journal on Monday. The data from the genomes of the 69 ancient Europeans showed that the herders had migrated en masse from the continent’s eastern periphery into Central Europe, thus expanding Indo-European languages, which make up the majority of spoken languages in modern day Europe. The group discovered that early farmers traveled from the Mediterranean to Spain and on to Germany and Hungary around 7,000 to 8,000 years ago. The famers’ DNA was distinct from the indigenous hunter-gatherers they came across during their travels, but eventually both groups mixed and by 5,000-6,000 years ago the migrants’ genetic signature had melded with that of the indigenous Europeans. “Against this background of differentiated European hunter-gatherers and homogeneous early farmers, multiple population turnovers transpired in all parts of Europe included in our study,” said senior author and DNA researcher David Reich. “These results provide support for a steppe origin of at least some of the Indo-European languages of Europe,” he added. Most indigenous European languages, such as English, Russian, Greek, and French, are part of the Indo-European group and all have shared vocabulary and grammar features. “An open question for us is whether the languages spoken by these steppe migrants were just ancestral to a sub-set of Indo-European languages in Europe today — for example, Balti-Slavic and maybe Germanic — or the great majority of Indo-European languages spoken in Europe today,” Reich told BBC News. He added that the Indo-European languages used in India and Iran probably diverged from that of steppe travelers before they migrated into central Europe. Source      |
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Posted: 03 Mar 2015 04:40 AM PST
 The Dutch government apologized on Monday for discounting the dangers from earth tremors caused by natural gas extraction in the northern province of Groningen just weeks after a report blamed the government and energy companies for ignoring the dangers. The climb down by the Dutch authorities follows a report by the independent Safety Board which was released on February 18, and clearly blamed gas extraction at the Groningen field for earth tremors in the region. Although the link between gas extraction in the Groningen field and earthquakes in the area was proved in 1993, it was not recognized that they posed a risk to residents until 2013. The report found that the Dutch Economy Ministry, the State Supervision of Mines and the Shell-Exxon Mobil (NAM) joint venture which operates the gas field all worked together to maximize production and ignored safety. “The parties concerned considered the safety risk to the population to be negligible and thus disregarded the uncertainties surrounding this risk assessment,” and “failed to act with due care for citizen’s safety in Groningen,” the report said. On Monday the Economic Affairs Minister Henk Kamp finally issued an apology. “I am very sorry that the safety interests of Groningers did not receive the attention they deserved, safety will now come first,” he said. As far back as 2012, after an earthquake registered 3.6 on the Richter scale, regulators warned the government that gas production should be cut to ensure citizens safety. But the government only ordered production to be cut in 2014 and then only by a bit. Production was eventually cut by 16.5 cubic meters (bcm) in the first half of 2015. However, the issue is threatening to become a political football ahead of provincial elections on March 18. Kamp has said that production could be reduced by as much as 35 bcm annually and the Netherlands would still be able to fulfill its delivery contracts. Opposition parties, which are expected to take control of the senate from the ruling coalition, are pushing for an annual cap in Groningen of 30 bcm. Meanwhile the NAM consortium, which operates the field, has said that it is funding building improvements in 8,000 houses and inspecting a further 15,000. The Dutch parliament heard a week before the report was released that the cost of repairs to buildings damaged by earthquakes is estimated to be 6.5 billion euros with around 35,000 homes affected. Seventy-five percent of Dutch gas exports came from the Groningen field in 2012. Dutch gas accounts for around 12 percent of Europe’s demand at nearly 57.3 bcm, Reuters reported. The field is expected to produce gas for another 50 years. Source     |
