February 8, 2016 - EARTH - The
following constitutes several of the latest reports of fireballs, seen
in the skies, across the globe.
Meteor fireball brighter than full moon filmed over United Arab Emirates
This fireball over the United Arab Emirates had similar brightness than a
full moon.It was captured 06 February 2016 at 21:54:23 UT by the
cameras of the UACN project.UACN
The UAE Astronomical Cameras Network (UACN)
consists of sky-pointed astronomical cameras located at several
locations in the United Arab Emirates, which automatically record a
video file once a meteor is detected.
Hundreds of Danes reported the sky was suddenly lit up and a loud bang
followed shortly after what most likely was a meteor streaking the sky
over Copenhagen at around 10:08 pm Saturday 6. of February, 2016. The
meteor was also spotted from Poland and Sweden.
" Bright flash, very loud boom followed by a long lasting rumble
for 20-30 seconds, at Roskilde. Birds awoke and started chirping in the
gardens and nearby wetlands. As a part time fire fighter I was on my
way out of the door, as I thought it was a powerful explosion."
Anette Glentvor in Vesterbro wrote:
"The sky was gradually lit fully up. After that the sky turned green and
ended with a short purple flash. About five minuttes after a long
rumbling was heard. It sounded like thunder, except that the sound
continued for a very long time."
Mikkel Pedersen from Roskilde told DR:
"We were driving home from Hillerød to Roskilde, when at 10 pm we were
just outside Slangerup and a strong light suddenly lit up the sky and a
huge fireball with a long tail flew right above our car,".
A meteorite at about 50 g was found by a woman who was out for a smoke
in Ejby, on the outskirts of Copenhagen. It will be on display at The
Geological Museum between 4-6 PM, today Monday 8. February, before it is
sent to Italy for tests.
Unfortunately no recordings of the actual meteor have been published (as
far as we know), but several surveillance cameras caught the flash on
tape:
January 20, 2016 - DENMARK - Danish authorities have warned hospitals over possible outbreak of
infectious diseases as several cases of diphtheria, tuberculosis and
malaria carried by the refugees have already been registered.
“The infection can be very dangerous if one isn’t vaccinated against it. The dangerous type is very rare and we last saw it in Denmark in 1998,” Kurt Fuursted, spokesperson for the Danish State Serum Institute (SSI) told Metroxpress referring to the potential return of diphtheria. This disease was last diagnosed in Denmark about 20 years ago.
“There is no doubt that infectious diseases are coming in with the refugees that we aren’t used to. There have been discussions on whether all refugees who come to Denmark should be screened," he added.
At present Denmark doesn’t follow the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation to vaccinate incoming migrants, unlike some other European countries.
“Refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants should be vaccinated without unnecessary delay according to the immunization schedule of the country in which they intend to stay for more than a week,” reads a joint WHO-UNHCR-UNICEF guidance on general principles of vaccination of refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants in Europe, published on November 23 last year. It urges countries to provide migrants access to the “full vaccination schedule.”
The immigration officials and the Danish Health and Medicines Authority, a supreme healthcare authority in Denmark, are expected to review screening policy, according to Health Minister Sophie Lunde.
In recent months, Denmark has begun to tighten the screws in an effort to curb the refugee influx. On Thursday the Danish Parliament is set to vote on a bill proposing to strip refugees of valuables, including cash and jewelry, to cover the costs the country bears in connection with their stay. It would allow authorities to claim individual items valued at more than 10,000 kroner (US$1,450).
In the Danish cities of Thisted, Sonderborg and Haderslev, local club owners have started to introduce ‘language controls’, turning people away if they don’t speak Danish, English or German.
In 2015, some 18,000 refugees sought asylum in Denmark according to the migration agency, a far cry from almost 163,000 refugees in the neighboring Sweden. - RT.
A life-threatening superbug as viewed under a microscope. Picture: Supplied
December 10, 2015 - DENMARK -For years experts have warned there would come a day when antibiotics would cease being effective.
And it seems that day could be sooner than first thought after scientists discovered a new superbug that is not just impervious to the last line of defence medication, but has the ability to infect other bacteria.
But instead of destroying its virulent cousins this new strain of e.coli actually strengthens them by giving them the same antibiotic shield.
The unstoppable superbug was first found in China a few weeks ago.
Chinese and British scientists identified the first strain in a pig, then in raw pork meat and then in a small number of people.
Experts, while worried about the potential effect this discovery would have, hoped it would remain in China.
But this week those hopes were dashed when researchers in Denmark revealed they had found a similar strain in poultry from Germany as well as in a Danish man who had never travelled outside the country.
The superbug has also been found in Malaysia.
Further tests carried out on food samples from 2012-2014 by the Technical University of Denmark’s National Food Institute in Søborg and the State Serum Institute in Copenhagen, found the deadly mutation was present.
This sparked calls from the head of NFI’s genomic epidemiology group, Frank Aarestrup, for other universities with similar databases to carry out testing, online health magazine STAT reported.
What makes this strain different from other e.coli is that it carries a gene named mcr-1.
It is thought this gene is what gives the strain its super-strength and the ability to infect other bacteria.
A poultry farm in Hefei,
eastern China's Anhui province is being inspected after the discovery of
a deadly and fast-spreading bacteria resistant to last-line
antibiotics. Picture: AFP
Dr Sanjaya Senanayake from ANU College of Medicine, Biology and
Environment told news.com.au the Danish discovery was a real worry.
“It was a problem when we heard they were found in China a couple of weeks ago but one had hoped that it would just be in China and wouldn’t spread too quickly but they have now found it in Denmark,” he said. “These are very bad superbugs to have.”
He explained while the risk to Australia was not as serious as other parts of the world, the rate at which the bacteria can spread, and how easily, could be devastating.
“We in Australia are a lot better off than other countries in terms of dealing with resistant bacteria but we are starting to see them come here,” Dr Senanayake said. “The issue of course is Australians travel and when people travel and visit other countries, they drink the water, eat food, walk around and you pick up the local bacteria.
“A number of studies have shown that travellers going to countries that have resistant bacteria in them will often come back with those resistant bacteria sitting in their bowels. If it doesn’t cause an infection then it’s OK and usually after a few months they lose that bacteria. But if it does it can cause serious problems.”
He explained the emergence of medical tourism also posed a risk adding that hospitals in general are known to have a higher proportion of superbugs.
If a person travelled to a country where the superbug had been found and underwent a procedure in a hospital, he said they had a greater risk of contracting the drug-resistant bug.
WHY IS THE EMERGENCE OF THIS SUPERBUG SUCH AS BAD THING?
Well,
it basically means the bacteria that causes common gut, urinary and
blood infections in humans, can now become “pan-resistant” to all
antibiotics currently available.
Not only that, but it will make some infections incurable, unless new kinds of antibiotics are developed.
Plus this new strain has the ability to make other bacteria from different families resistant, opening up another can of worms.
The discovery of a new superbug has prompted calls for more antibiotics to be developed. Picture: AFP Martin Bernetti
HOW COULD A POTENTIALLY DEADLY SUPER-RESISTANT BACTERIA EVOLVE?
One of the main theories is the overuse of antibiotics.
While there has been much discussion about the overprescribing of antibiotics by doctors, the bigger concern is the overuse in the agricultural industry.
Since the discovery in Denmark, experts from around the world have begun calling for a ban on the use of the antibiotic colistin in the agricultural industry.
Colistin is an old drug that was rarely used because of the emergence of newer drugs.
But since antibiotic resistance has increased, the need to preserve the drug in the fight against resistance has been imperative. So imperative that in 2012 the World Health Organisation designated it as critically important for human medicine, STAT reported.
Despite this, vast quantities of it have been used to help animals grow. In China, the drug is used more in animal production than it is on people, Timothy Walsh, a medical microbiologist from Cardiff University in Wales, told STAT.
“We needed to have definitive borders between antibiotics that are used in human medicine and those that are used in the veterinary sector,” he added.
Dr Senanayake told news.com.au while the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture is a major factor, so was the overprescribing and over use by humans.
“Doctors can prescribe antibiotics better, and we have to decide whether we need to give antibiotics, and if we do we should give a narrow antibiotic that doesn’t attack other bacteria,” he explained. “As patients or consumers we should also decide if we should be asking for an antibiotic at all.
“But one of the bigger factors is that animals consume a lot of antibiotics. In the US, for example, about 80 per cent of antibiotics used are used in animals not humans.
“They are being given to animals to prevent infection but also to promote growth. They think antibiotics help animals grow. This is actually an issue that is being looked at. Vets and doctors are trying to monitor and curb antibiotic use in the animal industry.”
CAN IT BE DEFEATED?
Researchers from the US and Denmark are trying to track its origin but it is thought it would most likely be China given its prevalent use of colistin.
The bulk of the 12,000 tonnes of colistin fed to livestock yearly around the world is used in China.
According to New Scientist, antibiotic growth promoters were banned in Europe and Denmark, ironically, was among the first to ban them.
But in 2013, the European Medicines Agency reported that polymyxins (the group of drug colistin belongs to) were the fifth most heavily used type of antibiotic in European livestock.
WHY NOT DEVELOP MORE ANTIBIOTICS?
Dr Senanayake explained research and development of new antibiotics had actually slowed over the last decade because there were so many already on the market.
But he said there has been a push in recent years by governments, in particular the US to find more.
“The US government is trying to provide incentives for pharmaceutical companies to make antibiotics,” he explained. “They are doing things like trying to reduce the regulatory burden for them.
“It has been estimated that by 2050 around 100 trillion dollars will be spent on antibiotic resistant bacteria and there will be about 300 million deaths.
“And even now in the US they say there are over two million illnesses attributed to antibiotic resistant bacteria and about 23,000 deaths.”
Dr Senanayake said while developing new antibiotics was one major part of tackling the resistance problem, less prescribing and less reliance was also needed as well as a major rethink about how they are used in the agricultural industry.
“The chief medical officer in the UK recognised antibiotic resistance as a catastrophic threat and wanted it put into the international register of civil emergencies along with terrorism and natural disasters,” he said. “I think that is a positive thing that top people in government are starting to recognise it as a big problem.
“And while it’s not the biggest problem in the world it certainly is an important problem.” - News.
December 8, 2015 - DENMARK - Just three weeks after Chinese academics discovered that superbugs
had breached the last line of antibiotic defences for the first time, a
patient in Denmark has become infected with an untreatable form of
salmonella.
The Chinese team had warned that the hyper-resistant bugs were likely to spread fast, but experts said the speed at which it had travelled to Europe was extremely serious.
Until recently, colistin – a drug classed as “critical” to human medicine – was the only antibiotic to work after all others had failed.
But the first germs to become resistant to the drug were identified last month, and experts warned of the “inevitable” spread of uncontrollable superbugs which attack the blood and lungs.
The scientists discovered a mobile gene called MCR-1, which made bacteria such as E.coli, salmonella and germs which cause pneumonia, untreatable.
The gene was found to be easily transferrable to other types of bacteria, meaning it could spread quickly between animals and humans.
Scientists at the Technical University of Denmark started searching for signs of the MCR-1 gene in their own country as soon as they read the Chinese report.
Six samples were found: one in the blood of a sick patient, and five in imported chicken.
“This is a very alarming discovery,” said Professor Frank Møller Aarestrup, a microbiologist at the university. “It is something I had feared, but hoped I would not see.”
“I would be very much surprised if it was not in the UK already. It is a much bigger country than Denmark, with more travel and more food imports,” he added.
Professor Aarestrup said the Danish patient had suffered from a blood infection earlier this year, and in subsequent checks had tested positive for salmonella bacteria with the MCR-1 gene.
The patient’s name and current health status were not disclosed.
The professor said the bugs had probably come from China via imported meat, or been brought in by people travelling from the Far East.
Experts fear this is the start of a global epidemic of untreatable infections, according to the Daily Mail.
Dr Lance Price, of George Washington University in the US, who worked with the Danish team, said: “History shows that these mobile resistance genes can spread around the world quickly, silently riding in people, animals, and food.
“The news that MCR-1 has been discovered in Denmark suggests that this scenario is playing out in real time.
“We must act swiftly to contain the spread of colistin-resistant bacteria, or we will face increasing numbers of untreatable infections. Leaders from every nation should immediately implement a ban on the use of colistin in animal agriculture,” Dr Price added.
The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture has launched an immediate risk assessment of colistin use.
British expert Professor Mark Enright, a microbiologist at Manchester Metropolitan University, said that patients infected with such superbugs would have very few treatment options.
“Colistin is a top-shelf antibiotic – it is the antibiotic of last defence when nothing else works,” he said.
“This gene is going into bugs which are resistant to everything else, which is very worrying.
“If a patient is resistant there is not a lot you could do.”
Professor Enright said people are probably getting the bug by handling infected meat. He warned that once it got into hospitals, it would be very hard to control.
A major problem is that colistin is widely used in farming.
The more that antibiotics are used, whether in humans or animals, the easier it is for bacteria to evolve to become resistant against them.
Yet colistin was reportedly the fifth most-widely used antibiotic in European agriculture in 2010.
Dame Sally Davies, the British Government’s chief medical officer, has repeatedly warned of the disastrous consequences of antibiotic resistance, putting it on a par with terrorism and climate change.
She has called for a vast reduction in the use of antibiotics in farming, in order that drugs are not rendered useless in humans.
Last year she even proposed the slaughter of sick animals, rather than treating them with drugs.
Yet while many experts said they were alarmed at the findings, and called for urgent restrictions of the use of colistin drugs among animals, Professor Neil Woodford, head of Public Health England’s antimicrobial resistance unit, said that people should be reassured that “our current assessment is that the public health risk is very low.” - Caribbean 360.
China's President Xi Jinping (C) poses for photos with the guests at the
Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank launch ceremony
at the Great Hall
of the People in Beijing October 24, 2014. (Reuters/Takaki Yajima)
April 15, 2015 - CHINA - The China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has
approved 57 countries as founding members after including an extra
seven, according to China’s Finance Ministry.
Sweden, Israel, South Africa, Azerbaijan, Iceland, Portugal and
Poland were all included as founding members, according to a
statement released by the ministry on Wednesday. The
ministry added that although the March 31 deadline for founding
membership application has passed, the bank will continue to
accept new members. China has rejected requests from North Korea
and Taiwan to join the investment bank.
The AIIB is an “open and inclusive multilateral development
bank,” China's Vice Finance Minister Shi Yaobin was cited as
saying by Xinhua news agency. The 57 founding members cover five
continents, including Asia, Oceania, Europe, Latin America and
Africa, according to Shi. The founding members will have priority
over other countries which might sign up later, as they possess
the right to establish the rules for the bank.
Chinese Vice-Minister of Finance Yaobin Shi (Reuters/Joshua Roberts)
Russia became a founder of the AIIB after applying for membership two weeks ago.
Joining the bank means Russian companies will be able to take
part in infrastructure projects in the Asia-Pacific region as
well get access to foreign investment in Russia.
The US and Japan are the two major countries that have abstained
from joining the AIIB. While the US has been pressing its allies not to join the institution
which is expected to challenge the Washington-based World Bank,
Japan hesitated over its relations with Washington and the AIIB's
potential rivalry with the Asian Development Bank. Earlier this
month, Washington reportedly questioned Japan following the
rumors of its possible participation but Tokyo has denied
everything.
The Asian Bank for infrastructure investment (AIIB) was established in 2014 by China. The bank will finance
infrastructure projects in the Asia-Pacific Region; its
headquarters will be in Beijing. The initial subscribed capital
of AIIB will be $50 billion and is planned to be increased to
$100 billion. The AIIB will provide financing for roads,
railways, airports and other infrastructure projects in Asia. It
is expected to be established by the end of this year. - RT.
China's President Xi Jinping (3rd R) meets with the guests at the Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank launch ceremony at the Great Hall of the
People in Beijing October 24, 2014. (Reuters/Takaki Yajima)
April 12, 2015 - CHINA - The founding states of the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) have approved the applications of Brazil, Georgia, Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands as founding members, the Chinese Finance Ministry announced Saturday.
"With the consent of the existing founding members, the Netherlands, Brazil, Finland, Georgia and Denmark officially became founding countries of the AIIB on April 12," the ministry said in a statement on its website, adding that the total number of founders has now reached 46.
The founding members have a priority over others, as they possess the right to establish the rules for the bank’s activities.
Applications to join the bank with the rights of founding members were filed by 52 countries, including Russia. The final list of AIIB founding members will be announced April 15.
The United States and Japan are the two big holdouts who have abstained from joining the AIIB. Earlier media reported that China had rejected the request of North Korea; however, the country’s Foreign Ministry hasn’t confirmed this information, saying that it "doesn’t possess any relevant information." Taiwan has applied for membership in the AIIB despite the animosity and lack of formal diplomatic relations between the island and continental China.
Experts consider AIIB a potential competitor to such global financial institutions as the US-led IMF and World Bank. However, IMF chief Christine Lagarde said earlier in March that the IMF and the World Bank would be "delighted" to cooperate with the AIIB. Beijing has repeatedly said that AIIB will be a fine complement to the existing international financial institutions.
In October 2014, 21 countries signed the agreement on establishing the AIIB, which is intended to finance infrastructure projects in the Asia-Pacific Region. The bank plans to rapidly increase its initial subscribed capital of $50 billion to $100 billion. - RT.
February 15, 2015 - ISRAEL -
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday urged European Jews
to move to Israel after a Jewish man was killed in an attack outside
Copenhagen's main synagogue.
"Israel
is your home. We are preparing and calling for the absorption of mass
immigration from Europe," Netanyahu said in a statement, repeating a
similar call after attacks by jihadists in Paris last month when four
Jews were among the dead.
Two police officers were also wounded in Sunday's attack in Copenhagen, one of two fatal shootings in the normally peaceful Danish capital on the weekend.
In the first attack on Saturday, a 55-year-old man was killed at a panel discussion about Islam and free speech attended by a Swedish cartoonist behind controversial caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.
"Extremist Islamic terrorism has struck Europe again... Jews have been murdered again on European soil only because they were Jews," Netanyahu said in the statement.
The Israeli prime minister said his government was to adopt a $45 million (39.5 million euro) plan "to encourage the absorption of immigrants from France, Belgium and Ukraine".
"To the Jews of Europe and to the Jews of the world I say that Israel is waiting for you with open arms," Netanyahu said.
He had made a similar call after three days of bloodshed in Paris that started with the January 7 attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo where 12 people were gunned down, followed the next day by the shooting death of a policewoman just outside the city.
On January 9, the gunman who killed the policewoman took hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris. He killed four Jewish hostages before police shot him dead when they raided the store.
The bodies of the four were later flown to Israel where they were buried.
Officials in Copenhagen described the weekend attacks as an act of terror and said the man believed to be behind the shootings was shot dead after opening fire on police at a rail station.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman sent condolences to Danish counterpart Martin Lidegaard over the attacks, telling him Israel "appreciates Denmark's cooperation in maintaining the security of Israelis and Jews in Denmark."
The foreign ministry quoted Lieberman as telling Lidegaard that Israel was "ready for any cooperation required on this issue".
The Palestinians also condemned the attack "in the strongest terms," with PLO official Saeb Erakat calling the Copenhagen attacks "absolutely unjustifiable."
"Terrorism knows no religion or nationality, and our opposition to such violence must be firmly united. We stand in solidarity with the Danish people," Erakat said in a statement. - Yahoo.
Report: US cuts Israel out of Iran talks
A Israeli report claims the US administration has stopped updating Israel about developments in nuclear negotiations between world power and Iran, allegedly in response to Prime Minister Netanyahu's decision to accept an invitation by Republicans to address Congress on the issue.
According to the report by Israel's Channel 2, US Undersecretary of State, Wendy Sherman, who is involved in the talks has announced she will no longer be updating Israelis about the talks. Susan Rice, US President Obama's National Security Advisor, has also reportedly announced she is cutting ties with her Israeli counterpart, Yossi Cohen, who serves as Netanyahu's National Security Advisor.
The White House denied the allegations in the Channel 2 report, saying they were "patently false. National Security Advisor Rice maintains regular contact with her Israeli counterpart National Security Advisor Cohen on the full range of issues of mutual concern to our nations, and will in fact meet with him later this week at the White House."
The State Department also denied any breakdown in communication between the Obama administration and Israel on the sensitive negotiations with Iran. "Secretary Kerry continues his conversations with Prime Minister Netanyahu about this issue, as has always been the case.
US House Speaker John Boehner says the White House might have tried to quash his plan to have Israeli prime minister speak to Congress if it had gotten wind of the invitation. That helps explain why Boehner made the offer to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu without letting the White House know in advance. Netanyahu's speech is set for March 3.
Some Democrats plan to skip it because they consider it a divisive stunt and a breach of protocol that suggests the US is taking sides in coming Israeli elections.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Boehner was asked by "Fox News Sunday" why he told Israel's ambassador to the United States not to mention the invitation to the White House in advance. Boehner says he "wanted to make sure that there was no interference."
“There’s a serious threat facing the world," he told Fox News. "And I believe Prime Minister Netanyahu is the perfect person to deliver the message of how serious this threat is.”
The statement makes clear that Boehner made the invitation without telling the Obama administration that he was in contact with Israeli ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer.
"There's no secret here in Washington about the animosity that this White House has for Prime Minister Netanyahu. I frankly didn't want them getting in the way and quashing what I thought was a real opportunity," he said.
The majority of Americans think Obama should meet with Netanyahu when the Israeli premier visits Washington next month to speak in front of joint session of Congress, according to a poll conducted by international internet-based market research firm YouGov and the Huffington Post.
In a survey of 1000 US adults interviewed from February 4-8, 2015, 49 percent said it was inappropriate for a member of Congress to invite a foreign leader to speak in the US without first consulting with the White House – 26 percent found that such an invite would be appropriate while 25 percent said they were unsure.
When the question specifically addressed the case of House Speaker Boehner inviting Netanyahu to address Congress without approval, and mention the White House calling the invitation a breach of protocol, 47 percent found the invitation inappropriate, 30 percent found it appropriate and 23 percent were unsure. - YNET News.
An armed security officer runs down a street near a venue after shots were fired where an event titled "Art, blasphemy and the freedom of expression" was being held in Copenhagen, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2015. Kenneth Meyer / AP Photo
February 14, 2015 - COPENHAGEN, DENMARK - A
gunman opened fire on a Copenhagen cultural center, killing one man and
wounding three police officers in what authorities called a terror
attack against a free speech event featuring an artist who had
caricatured the Prophet Muhammad.
After
searching for the gunman for hours, police reported another shooting
near a synagogue in downtown Copenhagen after midnight Sunday. One
person was shot in the head and two police officers were shot in the
arms and legs, police said, adding it wasn’t clear whether the two
incidents were linked. The gunman fled on foot.
WATCH: Copenhagen synagogue shooting - 1 shot in head, 2 police injured, gunman at large.
Sebastian
Zepeda, a 19-year-old visitor from London, said he didn’t want to leave
his hotel room after hearing of the first shooting and was text
messaging with his mother when the second shooting happened on the
street below.
“I was on my bed and I heard gunshots. And my heart raced,” Zepeda said. “All of a sudden the road was packed with police.”
The
earlier shooting came a month after extremists killed 12 people at a
satirical newspaper in Paris that had sparked Muslim outrage with its
depictions of Muhammad.
There was no immediate
claim of responsibility for the first shooting, which took place shortly
before 4 p.m. Saturday. Danish police said the gunman used an automatic
weapon to shoot through the windows of the Krudttoenden cultural
center, which TV footage showed were riddled with bullet holes. The
gunman then fled in a carjacked Volkswagen Polo that was found later a
few kilometers (miles) away, police said.
WATCH: Deadly attack at free speech meeting at a cafe with cartoonist who depicted Muhammed.
They
said the victim was a man about 40 who was inside the cultural center.
He has not yet been identified. Two of the wounded officers belonged to
the Danish security service PET, which said the circumstances
surrounding the shooting “indicate that we are talking about a terror
attack.”
Lars Vilks, a Swedish artist who has
faced numerous death threats for caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad, was
one of the main speakers at Saturday’s panel discussion, titled “Art,
blasphemy and freedom of expression.” He was whisked away by his
bodyguards unharmed as the shooting began.
Vilks, 68, later told The Associated Press he believed he was the intended target of the shooting.
“What
other motive could there be? It’s possible it was inspired by Charlie
Hebdo,” he said, referring to the Jan. 7 attack by Islamic extremists on
the French newspaper.
“At first there was panic. People crawled down under tables,” Vilks said. “My bodyguards quickly pulled me away.”
The cultural center had a lecture hall as well as a cafe. Vilks said no one in the hall was wounded.
“We
were well isolated in there. It would have been much worse if this
happened during the break, when people walk out,” Vilks said.
He said he deplored the death and the injuries but was unfazed as to what it meant for his own safety.
“I’m not shaken at all by this incident. Not the least,” he told AP by phone.
Police
initially said there were two gunmen but later said they believed there
was only one shooter. They described him as 25 to 30 years old with an
athletic build and carrying a black automatic weapon. They released a
blurred photograph of the suspect wearing dark clothes and a scarf
covering part of his face.
“I
saw a masked man running past,” said Helle Merete Brix, one of the
event’s organizers. “I clearly consider this as an attack on Lars
Vilks.”
Niels Ivar
Larsen, one of the speakers at the event, told the TV2 channel he heard
someone shouting and firing automatic weapons. “Police returned the
fire and I hid behind the bar. I felt surreal, like in a movie,” Larsen
said.
Visiting the scene of the first shooting,
Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt called it a “political
attack and therefore an act of terror.”
Police spokesman Joergen Skov said it was possible the gunman had planned the “same scenario” as in the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
François
Zimeray, the French ambassador to Denmark who was at the event to speak
about the Charlie Hebdo attack, tweeted that he was “still alive.”
Police said he was not wounded.
French
President Francois Hollande called the Copenhagen shooting “deplorable”
and said Thorning-Schmidt would have the “full solidarity of France in
this trial.” French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve was arriving
Sunday in Copenhagen.
Conflicting reports in local media said there were two attackers
in the synagogue, with one of them possibly arrested in the
ongoing police operation. Police helicopters have been circling
above the city’s central streets.
Police arrest one, However police say it's unrelated to manhunt, at least 1 shooter still at large.
Leaders across Europe
condemned the violence and expressed support for Denmark. Sweden’s
security service said it was sharing information with its Danish
counterpart, while U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette
Meehan said U.S. officials were ready to help with the investigation
and have been in touch with their Danish counterparts.
Vilks
has faced several attempted attacks and death threats after he depicted
the Prophet Muhammad as a dog in 2007. A Pennsylvania woman last year
got a 10-year prison term for a plot to kill Vilks. In 2010, two
brothers tried to burn down his house in southern Sweden and were
imprisoned for attempted arson.
Vilks told the
AP after the Paris terror attacks that, due to increased security
concerns, even fewer organizations were inviting him to give lectures.
The
depiction of the prophet is deemed insulting to many followers of
Islam. According to mainstream Islamic tradition, any physical depiction
of the Prophet Muhammad – even a respectful one – is considered
blasphemous.
While many Muslims have expressed
disgust at the deadly assault on the Charlie Hebdo employees, many were
also deeply offended by its cartoons lampooning Muhammad. - Global News.
January 16, 2015 - EARTH - Despite claims by NOAA and NASA that Earth just experienced it's hottest year on record in 2014, evidence is mounting that the planet is actually undergoing an overwhelming period of global cooling.
Temperatures forecast to plummet to -15C in Scotland
Weather
Channel UK meteorologist Liam Brown warned: "We should prepare for
freezing temperatures and very icy conditions for the coming days, and
probably much of next week too.
Blizzards swept across the country yesterday - as Scots were warned that the worst of the wintry weather was yet to come.
Travel chaos is set to continue as severe gales of up to 80mph hit the
country, while heavy rain and a thaw caused by slightly milder
temperatures could lead to localised flooding.
Snow
is forecast to return from tomorrow, when the mercury will fall again -
and by early next week temperatures could plummet to a teeth-chattering
-15C.
Weather Channel UK meteorologist Liam
Brown warned: "We should prepare for freezing temperatures and very icy
conditions for the coming days, and probably much of next week too.
"There is a risk of some more widespread snow early next week. We can
also expect some of the lowest temperatures of the winter so far.
"Temperatures below -10C are quite likely in Scotland, perhaps as low as -15C."
Commuters across the country faced difficult journeys to work - even
though gritters had been out in force throughout the night.
There were long delays on the A9 after two lorries got stuck in heavy snow at Blair Atholl, Perthshire.
And the A82 was closed at Invergarry, Inverness-shire, after a lorry and a car collided.
The
snowgates on the A82 were closed for a time at Tyndrum, Perthshire, and
in Aberdeenshire the A93 Glenshee to Braemar, B974 Banchory to
Fettercairn and A939 Ballater to Corgarff roads were shut.
More than 20 minor collisions were reported in the Highlands.
The
weather warnings prompted ScotRail to cancel all trains from Glasgow to
Fort William, Mallaig and Oban, between Helensburgh and Dumbarton
Central, from Kilwinning to Largs and Ardrossan, and between Kyle and
Dingwall from 6pm last night to 6pm today.
Flights at Aberdeen and Orkney airports were delayed or cancelled and CalMac had to cancel ferries on many routes.
But there was some good news for residents of Coll when they finally
received a delivery of vital supplies after being cut off by raging seas
for a week.
Paula Smalley, who runs Tigh na Mara guesthouse on
the island, said: "The ferry finally got in around 10am and brought
bread, milk, fruit and vegetables. We were lucky as by the afternoon the
weather had worsened again."
Nearly
100 schools and nurseries in the Highlands and Moray were closed after
the area was badly affected by overnight snow. Eight schools in Perth
and Kinross, five in Shetland and three in Stirlingshire were also shut
by the weather.
Meanwhile, 1100 households in Shetland were left without power after lightning struck a main line.
The rest of the UK also suffered severe weather, with "thundersnow"
reported in south Wales and homes being damaged by mini-tornadoes in
London, Cornwall and Wales.
In Northern Ireland, more than 100 schools were closed.
The AA had been called out to 8200 breakdowns across the UK by
mid-afternoon yesterday and patrol officers rescued 57 motorists whose
cars got stuck. - The Daily Record.
'Siberian' winter temperatures predicted to hit Denmark
Wednesday offered "blink and you'll miss it"
snow, but the real winter wallop may be coming as early as this weekend.
Photo: Søren Bidstrup/Scanpix
Storm-strength
winds are once again hammering parts of Denmark on Thursday and winter
is set to truly make its presence felt next week.
After a
beautiful blanket of snow hit parts of Denmark on Wednesday and then
disappeared again in about an hour, many were left wondering if and when
true winter conditions will set in.
Meteorology institute DMI
predicts that winter will truly make its presence felt as early as this
weekend, with temperatures falling below the freezing point Saturday
night and then remaining there for much of the next week.
The
national forecast calls for rain to turn to snow on Sunday, with small
amounts predicted through the middle of next week. By late next week,
DMI's forecast is short and to the point: "Cold, windy and snow
showers."
But those who might welcome some snow and cold should perhaps be careful what they wish for.
DMI
warns that cold biting temps might stick around all the way until April
due to conditions in the stratosphere that a senior researcher says
could bring lingering "Siberian temperatures" to Denmark.
"What's happening in the stratosphere right now is a strong indicator
that in the coming period we will primarily experience winds from the
east bring low, Siberian temperatures," Bo Christensen told Jyllands-Posten.
So yes, it seems that winter is coming to Denmark after all. - The Local.
Grand Rapids sets new record low temperature
If you were up and outside at 5:30 this morning, you experienced the coldest temperature in 18 years for Grand Rapids. The temperature briefly dipped to -13 in Grand Rapids at 5:25am. That's
the coldest temperature in Grand Rapids since February 4, 1996 when the
temperature fell to -17.
Kent City thermometer (Photo: Robert)
This is the second day in a row with record cold temperatures. The previous record for today was -6. The average low this time of year is 18... above.
NASA/NOAA satellite image from above the Great Lakes taken just after 1:30 p.m. Monday
Lake Erie was less than six percent frozen last Tuesday with ice covering only a sliver of the lake's western basin.
But, after a week with frigid temperatures in the single digits, heavy
lake-effect snows and high winds, Lake Erie is freezing up fast.
Nearly 60 percent of the lake waters were frozen today, according to graphs by the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL).
Most of the western half of the lake is already under ice coverage.
In some areas - the western basin, along the U.S. and Canadian
shorelines, near Long Point, Ont. and close to Buffalo - it's nearly 100
percent iced over, according to GLERL charts.
As Lake Erie iced, so too have the Great Lakes at large.
Just a week ago, more than eight percent of the surface area of all of the lakes was frozen.
But by Monday, nearly one-quarter of the Great Lakes were under ice.
Iced-covered
lakes generally choke off the possibility of lake-effect snow such as
the events that pummeled areas of Western New York last week at rates of
three inches or more of snow per hour.
When the lakes freeze,
it robs opportunity for cold unstable air masses to suck up lake waters
through evaporation and then drop the moisture, usually in the form of
heavy snowfall, over land areas east of the lakes.
The middle
of Lake Erie from just east of Cleveland to about Sturgeon Point remains
wide open this morning, according to data from GLERL.
Here's a
look at how the cold snap of the last week has helped accelerate the
average ice concentration on both lakes Erie and Ontario as well as a
look at figures for the entire Great Lakes since New Year's Day:
DAY HI/LO @ Buffalo Lake Erie Lake Ontario Great Lakes
On Jan. 13, 2014, Lake Erie was 63 percent frozen and Lake Ontario was
just 5.9 percent covered in ice. The Great Lakes, as a whole, was 19.6
frozen.
Last winter, the Great Lakes started taking on
significant ice buildup in December 2013 but the coverage waxed and
waned until the middle of January when it quickly accelerated its
freezing.
By March 6, the Great Lakes were 92.2 percent ice covered - the highest concentration since 1979. - The Buffalo News.
December 18, 2014 - EARTH - The following constitutes the latest reports of unusual and symbolic animal behavior, mass die-offs, beaching and stranding of mammals, and the appearance of rare creatures.
Mysterious creature with sharp claws and pointy teeth discovered on California beach
A mysterious creature with sharp claws and pointy teeth was discovered on Tuesday at a beach in Santa Barbara, after the area received some brutal storms and damage.
The brownish animal was discovered near a drain washout and has remained unidentified.Residents are baffled by its presence and have been unable to identify the species of animal or where it came from.
No other animals with a similar appearance have been found in the area.
In June of 2012, another pig-like creature was discovered in San Diego
by a 19-year-old snowboarder from Lake Tahoe. According to the teenager,
the animal was about 2 feet long with a body like a pig. The animal's
teeth were also described as "ridiculously" large.
In September, Santa Barbara also saw an invasion of an unusual sea creature known as the "by-the-wind sailor", or Velella velella with close relations to jellyfish. - Opposing Views.
Over 3,000 seals have die this year off the coast of Sweden and Denmark
Swedish authorities say some 3,000 seals have possibly died of the bird flu along the coast of Sweden and Denmark this year.
Swedish
authorities say bird flu was most likely the cause of death of some
3,000 seals off the coast of Sweden and Denmark this year.
The
Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management said on Tuesday that the
number of seals to die from the bird flu this year was much higher than
previously thought.
"So far this year about 3,000 harbor seals
have died in Swedish and Danish waters and were probably infected with
the bird flu virus H10N7," the agency said in a statement.
Figures
released in October suggested that about 700 seals had died, but
researchers say the exact number is still unknown as most of the dead
animals had sunk.
Dead seals infected with the virus were first found in April off the coast of Gothenburg, located southwest of Sweden.
The
Swedish agency said some of the seals may have developed antibodies
which have prevented all of its 10,000 seals from dying of the virus.
Last
month, authorities in the northern German region of Schleswig-Holstein
said 1,600 of the region's 13,000 seals had died from the bird flu.
Separate cases of seal deaths related to the bird flu have been also reported in the Netherlands and Norway. - Press TV.
4,000 Birds killed due to avian flu in Miyazaki, Japan
There is believed to be no risk of the virus spreading to humans
Japan has culled around 4,000 chickens following an outbreak of bird flu at a poultry farm in the southwest of the country.
Three
birds tested positive for the highly pathogenic H5 strain of avian
influenza at the site in Miyazaki prefecture, and an official said on
Tuesday that all birds were subsequently slaughtered.
The local government also asked nearby poultry farms to restrict movements of livestock, the official said.
There is believed to be no risk of the virus spreading to humans through consumption of chicken eggs or meat, he said.
Miyazaki
Prefecture is Japan's top producer of broiler chickens, raising about
28 million birds, or around 20 per cent of all chickens in Japan,
according to an official at the Agricultural Ministry.
In April, Japan confirmed its first bird flu case in livestock since 2011 at a farm in Kumamoto prefecture, southwestern Japan.
Bird
flu, or avian flu, is an infectious viral illness that spreads among
birds. In rare cases it can affect humans and two types have caused
serious concern in recent years. These are the H5N1 and H7N9 viruses.
Last
month 6,000 birds were culled at a duck breeding farm in Yorkshire
after an outbreak of avian flu. However, the strain was not deemed a
threat to humans. - Independent.
Elephants kill 3 people in Satkania, Bangladesh
The incident took place near Cox's Bazar-Chittagong highway of the area on Wednesday
Three people have been killed in an attack by elephants in Nayakhal
area of Kheochhiya union under Satkania upazila in Chittagong.
The deceased are Mahbubul Alam Talukdar, 35, son of late Abul Hossain
Talukdar of the area, Shakil, 15, son of Md Forkan of Kaliaish area of
the upazila and Shahadat Hossain, 30, son of Ameer Hossain.
Sub-inspector of Satkania police station Kazi Golam Kibria said: "The
incident took place near Cox's Bazar-Chittagong highway of the area on
Wednesday."
Some 14 elephants came down to crop field beside
the highway around 5:30pm. As the people tried to stop them from
destroying the crops, the elephants got furious and attacked the people, leaving one of them dead on the spot, the SI said.
Two injured were taken to a local clinic where the doctors declared them dead, he added.
Woman killed by fostered dogs in Flour Bluff, Texas
Investigators
revealed Tuesday that a Flour Bluff woman who was found dead in her
home Monday night appears to have been attacked by dogs she was
fostering, and that attack is what resulted in her death.
The
Nueces County Medical Examiner determined that 64-year old Rita Woodard,
known to many as Rita Ross, died from a heart attack after multiple dog
bites. One of her dogs was put to sleep after being severely injured by
the attacking dogs.
Ross, who spent much of her time rescuing
stray dogs, was discovered around 6:30 p.m. Monday. Several dogs were
found feeding on her remains.
The Medical Examiner released a
report late Tuesday stating that Ross had died from coronary artery
atherosclerosis following multiple dog bites. Corpus Christi Police
Department Commander John Houston, who supervises Animal Care Services,
said it appeared that five of the 17 dogs found at Ross's home were
responsible for the attack.
Those five will likely be euthanized.
Many of the dogs were in cages at Ross's home, and four have already
been turned over to the group For the Love of Strays for adoption. The
remaining eight dogs will be turned over to Ross's son, who lives out of
state.
WATCH: Medical Examiner says Flour Bluff woman killed by dog attack.
Ross's Facebook page was devoted to helping find forever
homes for stray dogs, and she spent much of her time helping the rescue
group. There have already been several posts of condolences from
friends, like Melissa Rizzo, who operates the rescue group.
"She is a very caring woman. Always there for the animals whether it be
day or night. She's always there," Rizzo said. "She is a very big asset
to our organization. Very dedicated woman. Every weekend, we have our
pet adoptions. She is there faithfully with the animals, working hard
with training dogs, making sure everyone gets into a loving home."
Houston said state law calls for any dogs that attack humans to be
euthanized, or a judge can order their destruction. A final
determination has yet to be made.
Rizzo said For the Love of
Strays needs money and food to take care of the dogs that were turned
over to them, and they hope to see the remaining eight dogs put up for
adoption, either through them or Animal Care Services. - KIII.
130,000 birds to be killed due to avian flu in Lower Saxony, Germany
A truck loaded with the carcasses of terminated turkeys stands in front of a turkey farm where authorities discovered the H5N8 bird flu
recently in Barssel, Germany Photo: David Hecker/Getty Images
German
authorities have ordered the cull of thousands of turkeys and chickens
days before Christmas after a new outbreak of bird flu at a poultry farm
in Lower Saxony.
All 19,000 turkeys at the
farm have already been culled, together with 12,000 more at an
adjoining farm.
The cull will also be extended to some 109,000 chickens
at two nearby farms as a precautionary measure.
The
virus has been identified as the same H5N8 strain that was found at a
duck farm in East Yorkshire last month, and in earlier outbreaks in
Germany and the Netherlands.
As
millions of Germans prepare to celebrate Christmas with meals of roast
turkey, authorities have offered assurances that there is no risk to
public health.
"H5N8 is not dangerous
to humans," a spokeswoman for the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Germany's
animal health authority, told the Telegraph. "So far there has not been
a single case of human infection worldwide."
Officials
have stressed that the strain of the virus is not the same as the H5N1
strain, which has caused human infections and deaths.
The turkeys
at the German farm where the virus was found were not yet ready for
slaughter, but officials are checking that no infected birds have
entered the food chain.
While turkey is not as synonymous with
Christmas in Germany as in the UK, it is a popular alternative to the
traditional roast goose.
Authorities are concerned that the virus
could spread quickly and have devastasting effect on the poultry
industry. Cloppenburg in Lower Saxony, where the farm outbreak was
discovered, is the heartland of German poultry farming.
The same
strain was found at another farm in November in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
state. Scientists believe it may have been transmitted to European
livestock by migratory birds.
"We've checked and there is no other
common factor between the farms where it has been found," said the
spokeswoman for the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut. - Telegraph.
Deer enters store in Charlotte, North Carolina
A dust-up between the people of Walmart and a confused deer inside a North Carolina store was caught on camera by a customer.
The deer, apparently a doe, wandered into the store Monday afternoon in
Charlotte's University City neighborhood and ended up being tackled and
pinned to the ground by a group of Walmart workers and customers.
Witness Edmond Ratcliffe captured cellphone video of the incident.
WATCH: Deer wrangled in North Tryon Walmart.
"You never know when you have seen it all... I'm in Walmart today and a
wildlife shopper decided that he needed to stop by Walmart for a
celebrity appearance," Ratcliffe posted on Facebook.
He said the deer tacklers had a "struggle, but they got him."
"It was kind of a stay out of the way situation because I know if I'm in the way, it could be trouble," he told WSOC-TV.
The deer was taken away by Animal Control officers. Its fate after leaving the store was unknown Tuesday. - UPI.
1,200 Birds found dead, 30,000 to be killed due to avian flu near Venice, Italy
This is the first outbreak of a highly pathogenic bird flu virus in Italy since September 2013. Photo: AP
Italy
has reported an outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N8 bird flu virus
on a turkey farm in the northeastern part of the country near Venice,
the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said on Tuesday. The
strain, which has never been detected in humans, is the same as in other
cases found in Germany, the Netherlands and Britain since early
November and which devastated bird flocks in Asia—mainly South
Korea—earlier this year.
More than 1,200 birds were found dead
from the virus at a fattening turkey farm in Porto Viro, the Paris-based
OIE reported on its website, citing the Italian health ministry. “High
mortality was reported during the last two days. Control measures will
be applied in the restriction zones established,” the ministry said in
the report. Culling on the farm of more than 30,000 birds was due to
start on Tuesday, it said. It was the first outbreak of a highly
pathogenic bird flu virus in Italy since September 2013, it said. - Livemint.
Hundreds of dead seals have been washing up on Germany's North Sea coast
since the beginning of October.
Researchers have now found the cause of
death: the avian flu virus.
November 19, 2014 - EARTH-
The following constitutes the latest reports of unusual and symbolic
animal behavior, mass die-offs, beaching and stranding of mammals, and
the appearance of rare creatures.
Hundreds of seals have washed up dead since October along North sea coast in Germany
Since
early October, 609 dead or dying seals have been found on the coasts of
the German North Sea islands of Sylt, Heligoland, Amrum and Föhr.
"That
is more than we normally find," Hendrik Brunckhorst tells DW.
Brunckhorst is a biologist and spokesman for the Schleswig-Holstein
Wadden Sea National Park, a favorite habitat for the seals.
Typically,
according to Brunckhorst, one to two thousand seals wash ashore in this
part of Germany every year. Six hundred in less than a month,
therefore, is indeed an "increased death rate."
The number of
unreported cases is far higher, since only a percentage of the dead
animals are actually found: Most of them are lost in the oceans. Avian flu for seals
National
park authorities have declared that the increased death rate is due to
an avian flu virus of the strain H10N7. Researchers of the University of
Veterinary Medicine Hanover discovered the virus in the dead seals'
bodies. H10N7 can infect all kinds of birds.
So far, it has occurred among turkeys and emus in the United States,
among farmed Peking ducks in South Africa, and chickens in Canada und
Australia.
"This is the first time we have verified this virus in our seals," Brunckhorst says.
Most
of the infected animals died of pneumonia caused by bacteria,
Brunckhorst says. This often occurs as a secondary ailment when the
animals catch the flu virus.
Seals at the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park
Spreading illnesses
Even
though this virus has never been found in seals before, it is not
unusual for seals to be infected with different kind of viruses.
Brunckhorst
still remembers the last outbreak of phocine distemper in 2002: The
virus infected thousands of animals, and about half of national park's
seal population died as a result. Seals from the polar sea had
originally introduced the phocine distemper virus to those in the North
Sea.
Now, it is an influenza virus - and one that has probably
spread from Denmark. Seals around Anholt and the Danish Wadden Sea are
also dying at a much higher rate than usual.
Researchers at the
Technical University in Frederiksberg in Denmark confirmed that these
animals were infected with the same flu strain as the seals in Germany. 'Not an epidemic yet'
For the moment, authorities remain relatively calm.
"We
have a seal population of about 12,000 animals here in
Schleswig-Holstein," Brunckhorst says. "That some of them die is very
normal. At the moment, we're not even calling it an epidemic yet."
The
World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) shares this opinion. The seal
population is not threatened, the organization writes on its website.
"At this state of knowledge, we have to assume that this is a natural
process and that there is no danger of a mass mortality," said
Hans-Ulrich Rösner, a Wadden Sea expert with WWF who's based on the
North Sea.
And in any case, there's nothing authorities can do,
Brunckhorst says. "Even if there was a vaccine, we wouldn't be able to
vaccinate thousands of wild marine animals."
Beachgoers, however, should be careful not to touch any dead or dying seals, say the national park authorities.
The animals can carry diseases that may also infect humans. - DW.
California's Chinook salmon Fall spawning run slowed by drought
The
annual fall migration of Chinook salmon has been delayed by warmer
water temperatures and slow-flowing streams in parts of California as
the state's three-year drought drags on, hatchery officials said Monday.
Cool November temperatures usually bring thousands of adult
salmon from the Pacific Ocean into streams and rivers to spawn. But this
year, fish have been slow to migrate up the American River to the
state's hatchery near Sacramento, said William Cox, manager of the fish
production and distribution program at the California Department of Fish
and Wildlife.
"They haven't come into the river at the same time that they would normally," Cox said.
Wildlife researchers check the strength of the fall salmon run by going
out to creeks and rivers and counting them. This year in the American
River and its tributaries, the survey crews found just 210 corpses of
salmon that had presumably spawned and died in the streams, a tenth of
the number normally encountered, Cox said.
At another hatchery,
near the Central Valley city of Merced, a higher than normal number of
male salmon are arriving unable to provide viable sperm to spawn, he
said.
State wildlife experts are not entirely sure why the
salmon are late, but some speculate that warmer temperatures and slower
flow in the American River might be to blame.
"Folsom reservoir
is low and warm right now, so the water coming down isn't as cold as
the fish prefer," said Kevin Thomas, a supervising environmental
scientist with the state.
Gary Novak, who manages the Nimbus
Hatchery, said the facility is still taking in its normal capacity of
about 500 fish for each of its twice-weekly spawning activities.
During the season, from November to around December, hatchery workers
open a gate in the water most Sundays and Tuesdays, allowing fish to
swim inside where they spawn and the young are fed and raised to
fingerling size and released.
The slow start to the salmon run
does not mean that the fish are in danger, or that spawning will be
reduced this year, Cox said. There are signs that more salmon are
starting to make the trek upstream, and that could mean that the run is
simply starting later, as the water cools down and fall rains swell the
river.
"Chinook salmon are big fish, and they like to go where there's big water," Cox said.
10 seals wash up dead, HUNDREDS dead in past two months in Denmark and Netherlands
Picture: WIkimedia Commons/Boyd Amanda, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Seal sanctuary Pieterburen and scientists from Erasmus University have confirmed that seal flu is now also in the Netherlands.
In
September and October 10 to 15 percent of the seal population in
Germany and Denmark died because of this flu. The expectation is that
the H10N7 virus will cause as much damage to the seal population in the
Netherlands.
In the past week 10 dead seals washed up in the
Dutch Wadden area. A veterinarian from Pieterburen took monsters and
scientists at the Erasmus University subsequently confirmed that all
these animals were suffering from H10N7 virus.
The H10N7 virus is
an influenza virus that originates from birds. The virus is not
dangerous to birds, but is very dangerous for seals. There is no
connection between this virus and the current outbreak of bird flu in
chickens in Hekendorp.
The virus is most probably not dangerous
to humans, says virologist Ab Osterhaus. “We are working on a vaccine,
but we first have to get permission to vaccinate the seals.” - NL Times.
Coyote attacks woman and her dog in Greenland, New Hampshire
A
woman and her dog are recovering after they were attacked by a coyote
while walking on their property Monday morning, police said.Husband fires gun in bid to scare animal away.
A woman and her dog are recovering after they were attacked by a
vicious coyote while walking in a field on their property Monday
morning.
The woman was returning to her house
on Post Road around 9:15 a.m. after taking her dog out for a morning
walk when the two were attacked.
"It came charging across the field and was hell-bent on attacking them,"said the woman's husband, who was armed with a gun when he rushed to their aid. The attack happened in an open field on the property about 100 yards from the house.
The woman's husband, who asked that their names be withheld, said he was inside their house when he heard his wife screaming.
He jumped into his pickup truck and raced over to help.
As he drove toward them, he kept thinking, "I've got to get this coyote away from them and I've got to be careful."
Coyotes have been seen around the property many times before, but this was the first time one has attacked.
He estimated the coyote weighed about 60 pounds; it was the largest he's seen.
"It was very aggressive. I have never ever seen a coyote attack a
person and a 90-pound dog. He was attacking them for a full 10 minutes.
He was just circling and circling," he said.
His wife tried to fend it off while the couple's dog, a Chesapeake Bay retriever, struggled to protect her. "There was something wrong with it," she said of the coyote. "It just charged at us."
Her husband said he fired his gun at the coyote a few times but missed. The gunshots eventually scared the animal off.
His wife and the dog then got into the truck while the coyote scurried away.
She suffered bites on her hand and leg while the dog received multiple
bite wounds. The dog was rushed to a local veterinarian while she was
brought to Portsmouth Regional Hospital for treatment.
The dog was up to date on his rabies vaccinations, but received numerous stitches.
"He's not a happy boy," the husband said.
The couple must also now undergo a series of shots to prevent rabies.
Even though he wasn't bitten, the husband said he ended up with some
blood on him from the attack. Drops of blood were still visible on the
patio of their home Monday afternoon.
Greenland police and Fish and Game officers were called to the home after the incident.
"I think it's important for people to realize that wildlife is wildlife
and there's a variety of different things that can cause them to
react," Greenland Police Chief Tara Laurent said.
It's not known why the coyote attacked.
It's possible that it was trying to protect a nearby den or a food source that was recently killed, she said.
The property consists of about 100 acres and has large open spaces, Laurent said.
Laurent said this is the first coyote attack she's investigated in her 18 years in law enforcement.
Meanwhile, the woman who was attacked was too shaken to talk much about the ordeal.
"She'll be shook up for a long time," her husband said, adding that he
and his wife are licensed to carry firearms and will make sure they're
armed when they're out around the property in case the coyote returns.
"For a coyote to attack an adult and a 90-pound dog in a field is
extremely rare. Coyotes don't do this. As soon as they see a person they
run the other way about as fast as they can." he said.
Coyote sightings are not uncommon in the Seacoast area.
Last Thursday, a Portsmouth woman reported seeing a large male coyote about 15 yards from her Martine Cottage Road home.
Beth Simpson let her dog out into her backyard at about 6:30 p.m.
Thursday night and then noticed the dog had returned to the sliding
glass door and was looking out into a field.
Simpson said she looked outside and saw the coyote staring at her dog.
On
Monday, authorities in Wyoming said a dog pack was behind the death of a
Native American woman. The animal attack comes on the heels of a
warning last week to the public to be on the lookout for a dangerous predator. With the FBI involved, among other things, members of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe were left a bit skeptical of the pack of dogs revelation, citing a report from the NWI Times.
Deanne Lynn Coando, 40, of Fort Washakie, was found dead on the Wind
River Reservation. The terrain is rugged and bordered by mountains and
steep hills. The
Fremont County Chief Deputy Coroner, Mark Stratmoen, said the woman's
cause of death was from a combination of hypothermia and bite wounds
from a dog pack in the Wyoming mountains.
The
news of the tribal member's death sent ripples through the community of
3,900 members when federal authorities were tapped to assist in
identifying hairs that belonged to a dangerous and unknown animal. At
the time, the victim's identification wasn't publicly known, and Wyoming
officials did not mention a dog pack in their bulletin.
Kimberly Varilek, attorney general of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe,
downplayed concerns of a dangerous pack of feral dogs on the loose in
Wyoming. She contends that despite the fatality, deaths by pack dogs are
rare in the 2 million acre Indian reservation community. Varilek is not
sure where the dog pack came from, but says there are ordinances in
place to guard against, and track, resident violations where necessary.
Sergio Maldonado, Sr. echoed the comments by the attorney general. The
Northern Arapaho Tribe member also denied hearing about any past reports
of dog attacks in Wyoming, or any threats of dangerous animals that
pose a threat to the public.He did admit that it is commonplace in Wyoming to see dogs that gather in packs for warmth and to find food.
A
Wind River Law Enforcement Center spokesperson said that at least one
attack from a dog pack in Wyoming took place in recent years. Unlike the
recent incident, that encounter ended with injury only.
Unusual groundhog attack causes scare in Hampton, New Hampshire
A groundhog tries to get inside a Little River Road home in Hampton after attacking a man who ran inside. (Courtesy photo)
The
McGraths are used to friendly critters stopping by their Little River
Road backyard, but a frenetic visit Tuesday morning from their resident
groundhog was anything but a welcomed encounter.
Gary McGrath was unloading his truck when the roughly two-foot-long groundhog came
barreling toward him. What started out as a comical sight quickly
turned into a somewhat scary incident for the 65-year-old woodworker as
he watched the plump animal running at a brisk jog in his direction.
"Out of the corner of my eye I saw something move, then it came running," said McGrath. "I kicked it away, but then it got back up and came back at me again. I kicked it away again, and it came right back."
That's when McGrath ran into his garage and shut the door, only to have the groundhog circle around to the other side of the garage and get in through a different open door. "He was out to get me," said McGrath. "Fortunately he doesn't run very fast, but neither do I.
"My first thought was, 'He's being awful friendly,' when he came up to
me the first time. He's normally friendly. After he came after me again,
I thought, 'Wait, he wants something.'"
McGrath was not injured.
The groundhog, which McGrath's grandchildren enjoy looking for when they come to visit, then
bared its teeth as it chased McGrath into his house. It didn't stop
there, as McGrath said it the animal began digging at the
glass-and-metal door, furiously attempting to bite and claw its way
inside.
"We were lucky," said McGrath's wife Carol, who described the attack as
a "crazy" and "freaky" ordeal. "You're just in a kind of disbelief when
something like that happens."
The couple
called Hampton Animal Control Officer Peter MacKinnon for help, watching
in amazement as the groundhog continued to dig at the door and a corner
of leaf-covered dirt next to the front stairs before MacKinnon arrived.
The groundhog also tried to attack MacKinnon when he got out of his
truck, forcing him to jump back into the vehicle and slam the door
before the animal could get inside.MacKinnon used a rifle to kill the animal after he exited his vehicle, and the groundhog's body will now be tested for rabies.
McGrath laughed several times while recounting the story Tuesday
afternoon, although he said the incident should be taken seriously.
"I've had (enough excitement) for today," said McGrath, adding that he
didn't have a name for the groundhog despite the fact that he has named
his cars, tractor and furniture.
Tuesday wasn't the first time
the McGraths have encountered wild animals in their yard. A possibly
rabid raccoon made an appearance over the summer and they've also found
bobcat scat.
McGrath said he hopes his neighbors check their
pets and be wary of possible sick animals in the area, especially
because there are a number of dogs and cats wondering neighboring
properties, some of which are owned by families with small children.
"The public should know," said McGrath, noting that his son-in-law had
to pay $5,000 to receive just one rabies shot after he was bitten by a
bat in his Vermont home.
Aggressive, sick and injured animals
can be reported directly to the Hampton's animal control officer by
contacting the Hampton Police Department at 929-4444.
The U.S.
Centers for Disease Control recommends residents ensure their pets are
up-to-date on all vaccines to avoid contraction of the rabies virus. The
CDC also recommends to refrain from contact with wild and sick animals,
to refrain from feeding them, and to contact local animal control
authorities if they are sighted on local residential properties.
Additional information and tips about rabies can be found online here.
The groundhog incident came one day after a coyote attacked a woman in Greenland.
91-year-old woman fighting for life after her dog attacked
A 91-year-old woman mauled by her own dog is fighting for her life three days after the attack.
Police said the woman suffered serious arm injuries when the dog
attacked around 4 p.m. Friday at the victim's home on Judith Terrace in
Stratford.
The dog mauled her in the kitchen,
and although the victim was gravely hurt, she was conscious and managed
to call 911 on her own. First responders rushed her to Bridgeport
Hospital, where she remains in critical condition, hospital officials
said.
According to her daughter, the
victim has owned the black-and-white Keeshond mix for eight years and
has never had a problem with the animal. Now she's dealing with skin
grafts and kidney failure, and family members fear she is dying.
WATCH: 91-year-old woman attacked by her own dog.
Neighbors described the victim as a quiet and kind woman and said they were reeling from the news.
"To
think a dog could just turn on you and attack you like that... it's
kind of crazy," said Amy Garrison, of Stratford. "I really have no idea,
because you think you know your own dog."
Animal Control officers brought the dog to an animal shelter in
Stratford following the attack. The animal's future remains uncertain -
as does the future of the victim. - NBC Connecticut.
Thousands of fish, plus birds, otters and turtles dead due to Kerosene leak in Rome, Italy
A lightning flash, a small electric light dives into the water and fishing.
It dates back to the roost, around ten fish move their tails on the
water surface, bent on one side, with gills that are struggling to find
the strength to oxygenate the body. Our skilled fisherman returned there on the branch, but immediately begins to have the first symptoms of intoxication.
The plumage is turned off, swallowed kerosene starts to burn the
internal organs after a while, falls on the edge of the canal and died. He was a Kingfisher, a small colorful bird that lives in marshy places healthier and is the symbol of an environmental tragedy announced: that Maccarese .
It is the symbol of how there are no guarantees for the environment,
for the people, for biodiversity, where there insist potentially
polluting facilities like pipelines national. There are a few tens of kilometers north of Rome. Here the Venetians in the 20's reclaimed a vast marshy area, a place for migrating birds. Today in this country produces large quantities of fruit and vegetables for markets in central and northern Italy.
All around a network of canals that promotes resting, feeding and
breeding of many animals that resemble those areas as historical sites
dedicated to travel, moving from Europe to Africa and vice versa. Upstream of this rich agricultural biodiversity and environmental placed a pipe, 2 feet in diameter, of hydrocarbons that travel for a distance of 80 km from Civitavecchia to Fiumicino Airport . A tube bridge to allow planes of the international airport to fill their tanks of thousands of liters of kerosene. On November 9, there were two incidents, one in Palidoro and one Maccarese , which resulted in massive leakage of fuel. Probably more than 30,000 liters ended up in the river three spouts. The alarm got a late start caused the poisoning of miles of canals that join with the Arrochar river to its mouth. We are in the natural state of the Roman coastline; Nearby complete the three ecological corridor oasis managed by the WWF. And it was the responsibility of the environmental to seek help us in Lipu because the situation was precipitated. They served immediately volunteered for groped to recover and help some animals still alive. We arrived on Sunday: even on Saturdays were collected corpses of birds and mammals "burned" by kerosene , and we realized the gravity of what happened.
Thousands of dead fish, ducks, moorhens, cormorants, herons, otters,
turtles, shellfish, even a frog, all dead, impregnated with
hydrocarbons. A nauseating smell that we took the lead.
Volunteers Lipu, courageously and passionately followed first north and
then south to the main channel leading, after working hours, the dead
animals to the identification and seizure of the rite. The "angels" Lipu came from Ostia, Civitavecchia, Rome. There were also experts in the wildlife rescue center Lipu Rome. Eni said that he had undergone an attempted theft of kerosene by unknown assailants . For now we have to believe it, but a statement signed by me and the President of the WWF will give more strength to the prosecutor's office are investigating.
We now need the cleaning done in no time and that Eni will work to
award damages to the municipality of Fiumicino to restore the ecological
balance that existed before the accident. The mayor of Fiumicino
, after discontinuing hunting and fishing in the municipal area and had
banned the irrigation of fields with water from the drainage canals, is
deploying all its institutional capacity to defend its territory and we
will be by his side to offer the most appropriate scientific and
professional . We now await the operator of the pipeline to complete the removal of kerosene before the bad weather aggravates the situation. Immediately after triggered the claim for damages.
In this case, I hope that common sense triumphs and avoid going to the
civil court where we know that a case can take up to ten years. But Maccarese needs to start now, we can not wait that long. Meanwhile, today we are still in the field to look for injured animals. Yesterday, a mallard and a small otter survived intoxication. A sign of hope for this kind too offended by us men. - Huffington Post Italy. [Translated]
