Floods and Fires Worldwide

I have compiled this information from the Lunatic Outpost thread:

Moscow Choked by Smoke as Forest, Peat-Bog Fires Spread, Delaying Flights

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-08/moscow-choked-by-smoke-as-forest-peat-bog-fires-spread-delaying-flights.html

Hundreds of wildfires burn in Canada’s British Columbia

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10895107

Lightning-sparked fires in WA prompt smoke warning

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012513642_apwawashwildfires2ndldwritethru.html

Forest Service warns of Tongass National Forest fire risk (Alaska)

http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=12935773

Record Hot Summer Ignites Forest Fires in Iran

http://www.greenprophet.com/2010/08/iran-forest-fire-summer/

Fresh showers worsen flood conditions (Pakistan)

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Fresh-showers-worsen-flood-conditions/Article1-583955.aspx

500 missing after floods in Indian Kashmir

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i7_dGpMHlOOvey4p70kg_XYQIfLAD9HF7QIG0

Ten dead, thousands evacuated in central Europe floods (Poland, Germany, Czech Republic)

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gKNPodd6YyMED2TbzQCIq0ZDL0Vw

At least 65 die in China flooding

http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100808/NEWS/308089936/1006/NEWS

Floods could cost farmers up to $3B (Canada)

http://www.calgaryherald.com/Floods+could+cost+farmers/3371918/story.html

Moscow authorities on Sunday opened more than 120 “anti-smog” centers to give residents an escape from record-breaking heat and choking smoke from wildfires blazing around the capital. Dozens of flights were grounded at local airports.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100808/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_fires

Trash clogging Three Gorges Dam

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1300606/Chinas-Three-Gorges-dam-threat-vast-floating-islands-rubbish.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

At least 127 dead, more than 1,000 missing after landslides in northwest China

http://wireupdate.com/wires/8483/at-least-127-dead-more-than-1000-missing-after-landslides-in-northwest-china/

Morgues and crematoria ‘overcrowded’ as toxic smog chokes Moscow

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0809/toxic-smog-choking-moscow-shows-sign-abating/

Via Lunatic Outpost:

http://lunaticoutpost.com/Topic-Floods-n-Fires-worldwide?page=1

‘Russian who spied on Israel shot dead in Moscow’

Shabtai Kalmanovitch, an Israeli immigrant from the former Soviet Union who served time in prison for spying for the KGB, was shot and killed while driving in downtown Moscow, news agencies reported on Monday.

According to the Interfax news agency, Kalmanovitch was shot while driving in his Mercedes in the Russian capital.

The report said Kalmanovitch was shot by assailants armed with semi-automatic weapons who drove by in a passing vehicle.

Kalmanovitch’s driver, Fyotor Tomnov, and another associate who was with them were also wounded in the attack, according to reports. The driver is currently hospitalized in serious condition. The shooting is believed to be connected to a business dispute, according to reports. Kalmanovitch is a businessman and a former agent for the Russian secret services who has been implicated in criminal activities in the past. As a youth, he immigrated to Israel in 1972. One of his assignments as an agent was to ascertain information about Nativ, a Zionist immigration and liaison agency which was active in the former Soviet Union. Moscow had always viewed Nativ as a front for espionage activity that fomented unrest and dissent against the Soviet regime. Kalmanovitch tried unsuccessfully to land a position with the prime minister’s bureau during Golda Meir’s tenure in office. Afterwards, though, he was hired to work for former MK Samuel Flatto-Sharon. Kalmanovitch also gained access to former finance minister Yigal Hurvitz during the latter’s tenure as a member of Knesset. Flatto-Sharon and Kalmanovitch were linked with Wolfgang Vogel, an East German lawyer and a well-known associate of officials in the Stasi. Vogel was considered an expert in negotiations which brokered swaps for prisoners of wars. Vogel was involved in the negotiated release of an Israeli, Miron Marcus, who was taken prisoner by rebels in Mozambique after his plane was forced to land in the African country. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1125329.html

Harper concerned by “aggressive” Russia

LOL

SASKATOON, Saskatchewan (Reuters) – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, speaking after it emerged that a Russian bomber had flown toward Canada before U.S. President Barack Obama visited last week, said on Friday he was deeply worried about Moscow’s “increasingly aggressive” actions.

The long-range Bear bomber did not enter Canada’s Arctic airspace but Canadian CF-18 fighters had to order the plane to turn back. The incident took place less than 24 hours before Obama visited Ottawa on February 19.

“This is a real concern to us. I have expressed at various times the deep concern our government has with the increasingly aggressive Russian actions around the globe and into our airspace,” Harper told a news conference in the western province of Saskatchewan.

“We will defend out airspace … we will respond every time the Russians make any kind of intrusion on the sovereignty of Canada,” he said.

http://ca.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idCATRE51Q49Y20090227

Passenger “hijacks” Russian internal flight

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A passenger aboard a Russian internal flight said the plane had been hijacked and must divert to Vienna, Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted a law enforcement source as saying on Friday.

No official confirmation of the report was immediately available.

“At 5.20 p.m. (1320 GMT) one of the passengers on a flight from Adler to Moscow cried ‘Allah Akbar’ and announced that the flight had been hijacked and demanded to change the course from Vnukovo (airport outside Moscow) to Vienna,” Interfax quoted the source as saying.

Adler is a town on Russia’s Black Sea coast in the mainly Muslim north Caucasus.

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE49N50X20081024

Rice: Moscow playing ‘dangerous game’ with bomber patrols off Alaska

*Uh-oh…doesn’t sound good at all*

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Monday ruled out accelerating Georgia’s admission to NATO in response to the Russian invasion. But she warned Moscow that it is playing “a very dangerous game” by resuming Cold War-era strategic bomber patrols close to the Alaskan coast.

“Russia is a state that is unfortunately using the one tool that it has always used whenever it wishes to deliver a message, and that’s its military power,” Rice told reporters en route to an emergency meeting of NATO foreign ministers set for Tuesday. “That’s not the way to deal in the 21st century.”

With Europe divided between former Soviet bloc nations, which seek tough measures, and major powers such as Germany, which is hesitant to jeopardize significant business and energy ties with Russia, it was unclear whether NATO would produce a robust response to Russia’s invasion of Georgia.

Russian forces Monday continued to move around Georgia with impunity, and senior U.S. defense officials said they were troubled by intelligence showing the Russians had deployed SS-21 ballistic missiles into South Ossetia with a range to strike Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.

Rice said Russia has raised questions about its place in the international community through the invasion and other actions, including the resumption last year for the first time since the 1991 collapse of the former Soviet Union of air patrols near the Alaskan coast by Tu-95 strategic bombers, code-named Bears by NATO.

“We’ve had Russian strategic aviation challenging in ways they haven’t, even along our borders with the United States, which I might note is a very dangerous game and perhaps one that I suggest the Russians want to reconsider. This is not one that is cost-free,” Rice said.

She did not elaborate on a U.S. reaction to the flights, which have been widely seen as an attempt by Russia, flush with windfall oil profits, to reassert itself as a global power despite serious problems with its military.

Since the flights resumed in August 2007, U.S. and Canadian fighters have intercepted the Russian bombers and escorted them away from the U.S. coast.

U.S. officials have previously attached little real significance to the flights by the turboprop-powered Cold War relics, and defense officials said Monday that recent flights did not provoke concerns within the Pentagon.

Russian bombers also have made forays into neutral airspace near Norway and over U.S. aircraft carriers in the Pacific.

Rice said, however, that the Alaska patrols and the invasion of Georgia contradicted Russia’s stated desire for political and economic integration into the international community.

She charged that Russia’s offensive deep into Georgia was aimed at “undermining” the pro-U.S. government of President Mikhail Saakashvili and crippling the impoverished nation by damaging and destroying vital economic infrastructure.

“That is an objective that will be denied because Georgian democracy stands and it will stand with the help of its allies around the world,” Rice said. “Georgian infrastructure will be rebuilt. Georgia’s economy will be reinforced.”

Rice said that NATO foreign ministers would consider measures to reinforce U.S. and European support for Georgia’s territorial integrity. For its part, the United States is also sending teams to assess the re-equipping of Georgia’s U.S.-trained military, which was battered by superior Russian forces, and to evaluate reconstruction needs, she said.

But she said the United States would not push to accelerate approval by the 26 foreign ministers of plans for the admission to NATO of Georgia and the former Soviet republic of Ukraine.

http://www.kansascity.com/451/story/754351.html