[BBC] The melting Antarctic glacier that now contributes more to sea-level rise than any other ice stream on the planet began its big decline in the 1940s.
This is when warm ocean water likely first got under Pine Island Glacier (PIG) to loosen the secure footing it had enjoyed up until that point.
Researchers figured out the timing by dating the sediments beneath the PIG.
It puts the glacier’s current changes in their proper historical context, the scientists tell Nature magazine.
These changes can now be regarded as unprecedented in thousands of years.
Not only is the glacier going backwards, it is also thinning fast - losing more than 2m in elevation every year.
Other field studies and computer models suggest a runaway collapse might even be possible.
"This glacier used to be pinned to a ridge and once it moved away from that ridge, it started to retreat rapidly; and without other pinning points it could continue to retreat rapidly inland, contributing significantly to global sea level," Dr James Smith from the British Antarctic Survey told BBC News.
[DAWN] MONDAY’S appalling suicide kaboom on a Shia mosque in the heart of Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... highlights the bloody, expanding footprint of the Death EaterIslamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group in Afghanistan. Despite President Ashraf Ghani
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
11/24/2016 00:00 ||
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[11125 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
As Obama hopped from capital to capital, news of the emerging Trump administration followed him, dominating news conferences and private meetings with leaders.... Each time Air Force One landed in another foreign capital, cellphones buzzed and White House officials’ faces fell as the latest news came in about Trump’s team-in-waiting....
The selections deflated the hopes in the White House that Trump, faced with the awesome duty of running the nation, might tone it down after the campaign.
Of all the Trump’s choices, White House officials said it was the selection of Flynn that felt like the most devastating blow, given the immense authority the national security adviser has over matters of war and peace.
By the time Obama arrived in Peru, the creeping sense of despair among his aides was palpable.
#4
...given the immense authority the national security adviser has over matters of war and peace.
Funny, my school work on American Civics has an adviser having zero power.
#11
I think the despair is from the anxiety that the details of the Obama machine are going to be exposed much sooner than anticipated.
Posted by Airandee
#12
What? You mean they're gonna get somebody who is actually concerned with national security?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/24/2016 10:54 Comments ||
Top||
#13
Yeah, The team of Susan Rice and Ben Rhodes were such winners for us...
Their accomplishments:
- Libya debacle...to include Benghazi
- Collapse of mid-east peace talks
- Iran debacle
- ISIS caliphate established
- But, hey she did warn us about Ebola...
#14
Valerie Jarret, Susan Rice. Ben Rhodes, John Kerry, the core of the National Security Team that has done so much for the country...... I look forward to the stories as the rats jump ship and the galley slaves can finally come topside and talk....
[NEWINDIANEXPRESS] On November 2, many Pak dailies carried names and pictures of eight Indian High Commission officials, alleging they were spies. The fact that this was "reiterated without any corroboration by Pakistain Ministry of Foreign Affairs is against the Vienna Convention and also violates the norms of established diplomatic practice", asserted external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj in a written reply in the Parliament Wednesday, adding: "The allegations against Indian offi cials represent an afterthought on the part of Government of Pakistain." The part about the ’afterthought’ is obvious, given that the Pak exposure came a day after the expulsion of a visa offi cer at the Pak High Commission in New Delhi.
He was caught accepting classifi ed information from two Indian associates. Since then, both sides have withdrawn eight offi cials and their families from their missions in New Delhi and Islamabad. A bilateral agreement stipulates that neither side can have more than 110 staffers in their diplomatic missions. Swaraj’s assertion comes at a time when matters have escalated way beyond tit for tat expulsions. The daily deaths and injuries due to cross-border shelling and fi ring, jingoistic chest thumping by both sides, and the beheading of an Indian trooper on Tuesday has led to calls for more punitive action against Pakistain.
The clamour is likely to increase. But that is probably what the Mighty Pak Army and their Prime Minister Sharif are waiting for, so that they can use it to divert attention from their domestic problems, and also use it to draw international attention to Kashmire. Perhaps New Delhi could take a leaf out of Pakistain’s book. Take some dramatic action, but then, instead of boasting about it, deny any involvement. Or hint at ’non-state’ actors, Pakistain’s euphemism for ISI lapdogs like the Jaish-e- Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba ...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI... . What’s good for the goose...
Posted by: Fred ||
11/24/2016 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[DAWN] THE Line of Control is exploding, and once again the potential for greater conflict is growing. With low-level, cross-LoC violence seemingly ignored outside security circles in both countries and overshadowed by other events globally, there was always the risk of an escalation at a time when neither India nor Pakistain appear to be interested in anything other than hurling accusations at one another. Now that escalation appears to have arrived with several civilian and military casualties on the Pak side -- including three soldiers and nine bus passengers killed by Indian firing and shelling on Wednesday -- and the Indian military claiming one of its soldiers has been beheaded. While the present violence is similar to several other episodes in recent years -- and each episode saw better sense eventually prevail -- when it comes to Pakistain-India relations, and especially the LoC, nothing should be taken for granted. Moreover, the Uri attack in September and the so-called surgical strikes by India in response may have altered the previous dynamic and created dangerous new expectations on the Indian side.
What is clear is that the 2003 ceasefire ought to be returned to at the earliest. It proved to be durable not only because it was sensible and both sides were committed to its implementation, but because it was rooted in an understanding that LoC violence hurts local populations and always carries the risk of a wider conflagration. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeared to not understand or appreciate the delicate balance in place along the LoC when, soon after assuming office, he not only ordered disproportionate Indian military responses across the LoC but also allowed government officials to boast about it. Now, with India-held Kashmire roiled by protests and under a suffocating curfew for months, New Delhi is making a thinly veiled attempt to shift domestic and international -- to the extent it exists -- attention away from India’s problems and towards the old ruse of escalating Pakistain-India tensions.
Here the temptation may be to believe that the imminent transition at the top of the army leadership and the election of a hawkish presidential candidate in the US has given Modi-led India further incentive to test Pakistain’s resolve. It is a temptation because, whether true or not, it deflects from what Pakistain does need to do: hold its nerve along the LoC; work towards a quick de-escalation of the latest violence; and continue with the diplomatic mission of highlighting the Kashmire dispute and the latest repressive measures by India in IHK. If, instead, the language of brinkmanship, retaliation and counter-retaliation is allowed to prevail, Pakistain too will be hurt. Internal security priorities are paramount while the external situation is brittle -- the state of Pakistain must not allow itself to be goaded or distracted by Indian provocations.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/24/2016 00:00 ||
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[11124 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
Back during the election campaign, a Fiscal Times columnist warned that even as Hillary Clinton played the woman card, more men were being dealt out of American society:
A key indicator of American male decline is the gender ratio at U.S. colleges.
...If men are underrepresented in college, they’re overrepresented in prison, the column continued: "At the end of 2014, almost 93% of inmates in state and federal correctional facilities were male. There were over 1.4 million male prisoners compared with 113,000 female inmates." State and local prisons are also overwhelmingly filled by men.
It’s not much better at work, with a Bloomberg columnist reporting a "war on men in the workplace." Outside of high-end tech jobs, men have worse employment prospects and are more likely to be laid off. In fact, after the financial crisis, there was talk of a "man-cession" because men were hit so much harder than women.
...If we had a college gap that favored men as much as the existing one favors women, it would be treated as a national crisis. If our girls (instead of our boys) attended schools where teachers were overwhelmingly of the opposite sex, there'd be loud demands for government action. And if there were articles with titles such as The End of Women running in major national magazines, their tone would be alarmist, not smug.
Maybe it’s time for a Presidential Task Force on Men and Boys. Before things get worse.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
.jpg)
[DAWN] THE Line of Control is exploding, and once again the potential for greater conflict is growing. With low-level, cross-LoC violence seemingly ignored outside security circles in both countries and overshadowed by other events globally, there was always the risk of an escalation at a time when neither India nor Pakistain appear to be interested in anything other than hurling accusations at one another. Now that escalation appears to have arrived with several civilian and military casualties on the Pak side -- including three soldiers and nine bus passengers killed by Indian firing and shelling on Wednesday -- and the Indian military claiming one of its soldiers has been beheaded. While the present violence is similar to several other episodes in recent years -- and each episode saw better sense eventually prevail -- when it comes to Pakistain-India relations, and especially the LoC, nothing should be taken for granted. Moreover, the Uri attack in September and the so-called surgical strikes by India in response may have altered the previous dynamic and created dangerous new expectations on the Indian side.
