Anastasia Moloney
ReutersThu, 14 Aug 2014 01:39 UTC
© www.bluechannel24.comExtreme and persistent drought conditions affect most of Central America.
An unusually hot season and extended dry spells have brought drought to areas in eastern and western Guatemala and El Salvador, southern Honduras and northern and central Nicaragua, destroying swathes of bean and maize crops, the region's staple foods, and putting pressure on subsistence farmers and food prices.
"Extremely poor households across large areas of Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador will experience a rapid deterioration in their food security in early 2015.
"Atypically high levels of humanitarian assistance, possibly the highest since Hurricane Mitch in 1998, will likely be required in order to avoid a food crisis," said a recent report by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), run by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Comment: The problem with FEWS NET working in conjunction with and funded by USAID smacks of it being an information source and subsidiary front for the CIA. How better to gain the confidence of starving people and troubled farmers/ranchers than to send tentacles into their communities through humanitarian aid organizations and research groups engaging local talent and resources for strategic fixes.
USAID (CIA) has had known undercover activities directly, through NGOs, contracted companies or various agencies in: Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Egypt, Iran, Cuba, Haiti, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Peru, Palestine, Philippines, Laos, South Vietnam, Thailand, Palau, Malaysia, Uruguay, Albania, Kazakhstan, Senegal, Nigeria, Gabon, Gambia, Madagascar, Uganda, Tanzania, Java, Sumatra, Honduras, Nepal, Costa Rica, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Caucasus, Eritrea, Tanzania, Zaire, South Africa...to name a few.
USAID (CIA) under-cover activities include: fomenting rebellions, NSA info gathering, political coups, installing dictatorships, reengineering economies, cronyism, destabilizing banking systems, undermining governments and elected politicians, spying, bribery, training special forces in torture tactics, weapons purchase and distribution, election interference, absconding and re-appropriating funds, funding or training guerrilla armies and movements, propaganda broadcasts, destabilizing regimes, distributing narcotics as rewards, links to terrorist organizations, assisting border wars, "accidental" assassinations, funding figureheads, breaking U.S. laws, money funneling to contras, co-opting national movements, exploitation of local resources, instability assessments, fraud and smuggling.
What are the chances FEWS NET is what it says it is?
Dennis Bowman
CBSFri, 15 Aug 2014 17:11 UTC
Pittsburgh is dealing with one of the coldest summers in history, and it's having an effect on the trees.
Friday morning temperatures fell into the
40s in Western Pennsylvania.
Meteorologists say these cold temperatures are leading to trees changing colors in the middle of August.
"This is extraordinary for August, and certainly is a reflection of the
prevalence of cool weather," KDKA Meteorologist Dennis Bowman said.
Nigerians move along a flooded road in Okpe, Nigeria. Heavy rains for weeks flooded most of the oil rich Niger delta region.
Heavy rains and flooding in western and central Niger have killed 12 people and left thousands without food or shelter.
The landlocked West African country has been hit by an alternating series of droughts and floods in recent years, causing hunger.
Saadatou Malam Barmou, the prime minister's humanitarian adviser, said Friday that hundreds of fields have been swamped.
© Bellevue, Wash., Police Department/APThis photo provided by the Bellevue, Wash., Police Department on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2014,, shows cars submerged under flood waters along Factoria Boulevard in Bellevue, Wash.
Overnight rainstorms on Wednesday shattered a 32-year-old Seattle record and aided in suppressing multiple wildfires throughout the Northwest, officials said.
According to the National Weather Service,
1.31 inches of rain fell at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in a 24-hour period that ended Wednesday morning. By 6 a.m. Wednesday, 0.85 of an inch of rain had fallen since midnight, shattering the date's record of 0.33 of an inch set in 1982.
The
monthly average rainfall for all of August is under an inch.
"This is fairly uncommon for summer months," said Josh Smith, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Seattle City Light reported it had about 4,300 customers without power early Wednesday in the White Center area. The power was restored later Wednesday morning.
© Unknown
Lightning killed a farmer in Meherpur, three people in Brahmanbaria, two in Bogra and one in Moulvibazar districts yesterday and the day before.
A farmer was killed and three others were injured in separate incidents of lighting at different villages in Gangni upazila of Meherpur district yesterday.
The deceased is Shamsuzzaman Bhadu, 45, of Kunjanagar village, reports our Kushtia correspondent.
Sources said lightning struck Bhadu while he was working at his cropland around 11:00am yesterday, leaving him dead on the spot.
Meanwhile, in another incident, a woman and two minor girls were injured at Chandpur village when thunderbolt struck them at their house yard.
At least 34 people have been killed and hundreds of others gone missing in Nepal as heavy downpour continued for over three days across the country, triggering landslides and flood in rivers.
At least 11 people have died in Surkhet district, nine in Gorkha, Chitwan, Rukum districts, eight in Lalitpur, Udayapur, Dang and Manang districts, and six in Nawalparasi, Khotang, Sindhuli, Dhanusha, Makawnapur, Dhanusha districts, according to various media reports here.
Thousands of people have been displaced and huge chunks of arable land across the country covered by flood and debris. Hilly areas have witnessed landslips while plains are inundated.
Life in the plains has gone out of gear. Many people have started fleeing to safer places and sought immediate government help.
© Eric Lobbecke
What if David Archibald's book
The Twilight of Abundance: Why Life in the 21st Century Will Be Nasty, Brutish, and Short turns out to be right? What if the past 50 years of peace, cheap energy, abundant food, global economic growth and population explosion have been due to a temporary climate phenomenon?
What if the warmth the world has enjoyed for the past 50 years is the result of solar activity, not man-made CO2?In a letter to the editor of Astronomy & Astrophysics, IG Usoskin et al produced the "first fully adjustment-free physical reconstruction of solar activity". They found that during the past 3000 years the modern grand maxima, which occurred between 1959 and 2009, was a rare event both in magnitude and duration.
This research adds to growing evidence that climate change is determined by the sun, not humans.Yet during the past 20 years the US alone has poured about $US80 billion into climate change research on the presumption that humans are the primary cause. The effect has been to largely preordain scientific conclusions. It set in train a virtuous cycle where the more scientists pointed to human causes, the more governments funded their research.
Experts say that Peru's Sabancaya has entered into a new eruptive stage
© Peru21/Ingemmet
According to Peru21, the explosion took place at around 4:30 on Saturday morning. The phenomenon went on for just under a minute. According to the Arequipa Volcanological Observatory (part of the Peruvian Geophysical Institute), the explosion generated 9,083 megajoules.
The explosion resulted in the emission of ash and gases, which rose into a column three kilometers in height. Peru21 reports that the smoke-like substance seen rising from the volcano is mostly steam, but some blue gases likely composed of sulfur dioxide have also been spotted coming out of Sabancaya.
Peru21 writes that geological authorities believe that the explosion may have been connected to the recent increased seismic activity in the region.
Authorities are warning citizens to take precautions in case another explosion occurs soon. Peru21 reports that geological and civil defense groups will meet soon in order to determine the risk to local populations.
Steven Yablonski
wvcb.comWed, 13 Aug 2014 23:40 UTC
A ferry en route to Boston from Provincetown was disabled after being hit by a large wave Wednesday, according to the Coast Guard.
Just before 4 p.m., a ferry was midway through its fourth trip of the day, to and from Provincetown and Boston, when the vessel was hit by a large set of waves that broke two of the seven windows in the pilot house, Bay State Cruise Company officials said in a statement.
The two windows that broke were in the center of the pilot house, which is where the captain navigates from.
Officials said windws in the passengers cabin, which is under the pilot house, were not broken and it appeared as though the waves were at an angle and height that they only struck at the pilot house level, which is about 20 feet above the water.
CBSWed, 13 Aug 2014 12:49 UTC
© NY Daily NewsA record-setting rainstorm flooded parts of Long Island, NY. August 13th, 2014
Multiple local government agencies on Long Island declared states of emergency Wednesday after a storm dumped nearly an entire summer's worth of rain, causing major flooding in some spots that stranded motorists and snarled the morning commute.
From Tuesday evening until Wednesday morning, Islip got more than 13 inches of rain, more than the normal total for June, July and August of 11.75 inches, said Joe Pollina of the National Weather Service. More than 5 inches of it fell in just a one-hour period, from 5 to 6 a.m. Wednesday, Pollina said.
Holbrook got nearly 11 inches.
A state of emergency was declared in Suffolk County, where county Executive Steve Bellone called the weather Wednesday morning a "storm of historic proportions. It was unprecedented and unpredicted - the size, the extent, the scale," Bellone said at a news conference Wednesday, also remarking that "this could be a 500-year storm we just witnessed."
Islip Town Supervisor Tom Croci said the storm brought "a historic amount of rain in a short amount of time." The Town of Brookhaven within in Suffolk County also declared a state of emergency. Officials warned that the ground was saturated and could cause sinkholes, collapsing cesspools, and the uprooting of trees. As 1010 WINS' Gary Baumgarten reported, some Suffolk County homes were still sitting on lakefront property on Wednesday night, as water was having trouble receding even with the help of municipal pumps.
"Had about 12 inches of water in the basement and 4 or 5 inches in the car" one West Islip resident said. While the storms had long since moved on by Wednesday night, standing water prompted officers to stand guard, and more problems were expected for the Thursday morning commute.
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Comment: The problem with FEWS NET working in conjunction with and funded by USAID smacks of it being an information source and subsidiary front for the CIA. How better to gain the confidence of starving people and troubled farmers/ranchers than to send tentacles into their communities through humanitarian aid organizations and research groups engaging local talent and resources for strategic fixes.
USAID (CIA) has had known undercover activities directly, through NGOs, contracted companies or various agencies in: Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Egypt, Iran, Cuba, Haiti, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Peru, Palestine, Philippines, Laos, South Vietnam, Thailand, Palau, Malaysia, Uruguay, Albania, Kazakhstan, Senegal, Nigeria, Gabon, Gambia, Madagascar, Uganda, Tanzania, Java, Sumatra, Honduras, Nepal, Costa Rica, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Caucasus, Eritrea, Tanzania, Zaire, South Africa...to name a few.
USAID (CIA) under-cover activities include: fomenting rebellions, NSA info gathering, political coups, installing dictatorships, reengineering economies, cronyism, destabilizing banking systems, undermining governments and elected politicians, spying, bribery, training special forces in torture tactics, weapons purchase and distribution, election interference, absconding and re-appropriating funds, funding or training guerrilla armies and movements, propaganda broadcasts, destabilizing regimes, distributing narcotics as rewards, links to terrorist organizations, assisting border wars, "accidental" assassinations, funding figureheads, breaking U.S. laws, money funneling to contras, co-opting national movements, exploitation of local resources, instability assessments, fraud and smuggling.
What are the chances FEWS NET is what it says it is?