The government is to send in the army to help tackle the floods in the Somerset Levels.

The Ministry of Defence is to deploy equipment and manpower to help those in affected areas by delivering food, transporting people and distributing sandbags.

An MoD spokeswoman said : "We have tonight deployed military planners to help Somerset county council determine what support they might need."

She added they would be in the county overnight to assess what was required in time for first light on Thursday.

Speaking to the BBC, the environment secretary, Owen Paterson, said: "As we speak the Ministry of Defence and the Department for Local Government are discussing how we could deploy specialist vehicles which could help some of those villages which have been cut off, to help people travel backwards and forwards, to get fuel and food in and out, and to help with transport from dry land.

Video shows a flyover of Keystone Canyon and the Lowe River, 1/26/2014.


A glacier-sized avalanche has blocked the river. An ice lake has formed, currently at an estimated depth of 60 feet and growing.

The Richardson Highway is flooded and the town of Valdez cut off from road access. There is some concern as to when and how the lake will release and downstream residents are on evacuation alert.

Thanks to Josh Cooley in Valdez for this video

"Incredible to be living here in Valdez during this event," says Josh. "Luckily my pantry is well stocked, and we are having food shipped in by barge."

A team of divers led by Södertörn University archaeology professor Björn Nilsson has uncovered artifacts from what could be the oldest known settlement in the region, dubbed by local publications last week as "Sweden's Atlantis."

The 11,000-year-old objects at the bottom of the Baltic Sea have been preserved exceptionally well because of the gyttja sediment and lack of oxygen. Organic objects, not only stone objects, have been preserved at this rare site near Hanö, off the southern coast of Sweden.

The Stone Age artifacts were left by nomads, and they could be the earliest evidence of a temporary settlement before the more permanent Nordic settlements were established. Nilsson described the artifacts as "world-class" and "one-of-a-kind," in an interview with The Local. One of the most impressive finds, said Nilsson, was a harpoon carved of animal bone. At the site were also the bones of auroch, a cattle-like animal that became extinct in the 17th century.

At least 19 people have lost their lives and ten others have gone missing following twin landslides triggered by torrential rains in Indonesia.

National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said on Tuesday that five houses were buried under a pile of mud cascaded down from the surrounding hills in Mekarsari village of East Java's Jombang District during the early hours of the day.

Today has been a bounty of riches of idiots: first there were the idiots who subway surfed just to feel something, then there were the more creative idiots who took to Brooklyn for the Idiotarod. But the 'idiot of the day' award surely must be awarded to Tom Perkins, a venture capitalist who wrote a letter to the WSJ comparing criticism of the 1% to the Nazi persecution of the Jews during the Holocaust. If you've ever wanted to hear what the world's most expensive miniature violin sounded like, here's your chance.

You can read the full letter to the editor below, so you don't have to give any hate clicks to the WSJ:

Progressive Kristallnacht Coming?

Regarding your editorial "Censors on Campus" (Jan. 18): Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich."

From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent. There is outraged public reaction to the Google buses carrying technology workers from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies which employ them. We have outrage over the rising real-estate prices which these "techno geeks" can pay. We have, for example, libelous and cruel attacks in the Chronicle on our number-one celebrity, the author Danielle Steel, alleging that she is a "snob" despite the millions she has spent on our city's homeless and mentally ill over the past decades.

This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendent "progressive" radicalism unthinkable now?

Tom Perkins

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Floods that stuck several parts of Indonesia in recent days might threaten domestic food supplies, according to the chief of the Indonesian Farmers and Fishermen Association (KTNA), Winarno Thohir.

"We should not underestimate the impact of large floods in Java, which supplies 60 percent of the nations food needs," he said here on Saturday.

Winarno estimated that 250,000 hectares of paddy fields nationwide were inundated during recent floods.

The floods which struck early this year were larger than those in previous years, he noted.

Thousands of trapped fish have been found dead on land near the River Thames after flood waters receded.

A mixture of perch, roach, dace, ruffe and minnow were found on Goring farmland in Oxfordshire on Thursday.

The Environment Agency (EA) said the unusual incident was due to the "severity and longevity" of the floods.

Fisheries officer Tom Sherwood said he urged the public to report any fish found in trapped areas.

The death toll in days of floods and landslides in Indonesia has climbed to 23, an official says, as torrential rain pounded the capital.

Families in Jakarta neighbourhoods waded through murky chest-high flood waters, clutching their belongings, while others were ferried to safety in rubber dinghies, local TV stations showed.

"Five people have died in Jakarta so far from drowning or electrocution in the floods," National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nurgoho said.

More than 4300 people in the capital have been displaced by the floods, which also worsened the city's notorious traffic jams.

Meanwhile the death toll rose to 18 late on Friday in the northern part of Indonesia's Sulawesi island, which has suffered flash floods and landslides.

Two people there are still missing, Mr Nugroho said.

The state's key estuary is in serious jeopardy, but can a bold new plan solve the problem?

Behind many of the shiny fruits and vegetables in the produce aisle, there's a decidedly ominous backstory: California, supplier of much of our domestic produce, is just one earthquake away from drying up.

The problem is that most of the state's agricultural water, as well as drinking water for large parts of Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, San Diego, and other major metropolitan areas, comes from a vast estuary northeast of the San Francisco Bay. It's an estuary that's about to collapse. The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, or more simply, the Delta, relies on old levees that will crumble in an earthquake or buckle under pressure from rising sea levels, say experts, and in fact already do crumble on a regular basis. A large-scale collapse would put the state's water supplies in grave jeopardy, and in turn impact the entire country, which relies on California both economically and for a large amount of its food.

A controversial new plan, developed by California's Governor Jerry Brown in conjunction with various state agencies, offers a potential solution. Dubbed the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), it suggests boring two massive tunnels to subvert the levees entirely, while simultaneously attempting to help endangered species through large-scale habitat restoration. Critics of the plan say it throws small Delta family farms under the bus by cutting off their freshwater supply, and, in fact, further imperils the estuary's tottering ecosystem in order to satisfy the needs of big ag in the Central Valley. But supporters say it's the best solution to a problem that, if not addressed, could severely impact the state's $1.8 trillion-economy and leave up to 25 million people in the state without drinking water. What both sides agree on is that something must be done before it's too late.

Towns and villages close to the River Thames in the United Kingdom have been inundated and local residents have been warned for further flooding as heavy rain caused the river levels to rise and burst its banks.

On Friday, the River Thames overflowed its banks, and parts of the river from Oxfordshire to West London were under flood warnings.

Homes close to the banks of the river went underwater, with floodwaters causing damage to ground floors and gardens.

The areas affected by flooding included the towns of Marlow and Cookham in the England's southeastern county of Buckinghamshire, as well as the villages of Shiplake and Wargrave in the southeastern county of Berkshire and parts of south Oxford.

The Environment Agency (EA) said there are 94 flood warnings in place, with most of those in the southeast and southwest of England.

The EA further noted that people living along the lower reaches of the Thames, as well as the Avon in Hampshire and the Stour in Dorset, should be prepared for the risk of flooding over the weekend as river levels continue to rise.

More flooding is also expected during the weekend in Oxfordshire, west Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Surrey.

"Communities along the river Thames, particularly below Oxford, into Berkshire and through Surrey, need to remain vigilant for further flooding," John Curtin, head of incident management at Environment Agency, said.

British climate experts have supported Cameron's remarks about the increase of "abnormal" weather events and their link to climate change.