Facing up to flu


Amid the scientific controversy over lab-created strains of the H5N1 avian influenza virus that can skip between mammals, it is easy to lose sight of an important public-health question: what will help the wider world to prepare for a flu pandemic? The question is crucial, because when it comes to setting priorities, the fuss over how to regulate the controversial research must not be allowed to distract from a much bigger concern. The world is ill-prepared for a severe flu pandemic of any type. In particular, it cannot yet produce enough vaccine to protect more than just a small proportion of people.

The problem was demonstrated by the 2009 pandemic of H1N1 flu. Vaccines only became available months after the outbreak began, and after the first wave had peaked in many countries. Health systems were stretched despite the relative mildness of the pandemic. The mutant-flu research does nothing to prevent a repeat of this situation.

Research to create mammalian-transmissible strains is vital basic science that could deepen our understanding of flu viruses, and of what allows a virus to jump from other species and spread easily in humans. These insights may one day produce better ways to tackle a pandemic, including ones we cannot picture today. But scientists need to be more modest and realistic with their claims about the short-term public-health benefits of such research, and provide better explanations that include the caveats.

For example, many commentators say that the biggest public-health benefit promised by the research is in the field of disease surveillance. The experiments reveal one combination of mutations that allowed the H5N1 virus to jump between species and then spread; in theory, animal-health experts can now watch out for these mutations in affected animals such as pigs and birds.

In practice, the immediate benefits are minimal. Surveillance of influenza in animals is slow and patchy at best, and follow-up sequencing of samples more so. And the mutations that we know about are likely to be outnumbered by those about which we are still ignorant.

Consider H5N1 in pigs. There is almost no systematic flu surveillance in the animals (see Nature 459, 894–895; 2009). Infections are infrequent, symptoms are mild and the pig industry is concerned that talk of swine flu could unfairly taint the image of pork. As a result, the world's one billion or so pigs have yielded partial DNA sequences of just 24 H5N1 isolates, meaning that were a pandemic H5N1 virus to emerge from pigs, just as H1N1 did in 2009, there would be little or no possibility of detecting it in advance.

That does not mean that the idea of using the mutant-flu research to improve surveillance is without merit; far from it. Further work could yield a more comprehensive bank of mutations, and greater investment could create specialized centres to screen more samples in affected countries, in real time. Improving flu-virus surveillance should be a public-health priority, but international groups and governments have, in the past, been reluctant to fund it adequately. If the world is serious about preparing for a pandemic, this must change. Done properly, surveillance could one day give early warning of an approaching pandemic. What then?


more at link
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 2131a.html


Under the radar, bird flu arrives back in Egypt


With all eyes on Egypt’s new parliament in January, 13 cases of the H5N1, or bird flu, were reported in Egypt, highlighting that the deadly virus was making a return to the North African country.

According to the health ministry in Egypt, Mansoura – a Delta city north of Cairo – suspected at least 13 case of people being infected with bird flu and were held at the Mansoura Chest Hospital for precaution.

Two of those cases were confirmed as being bird flu as tests on the remaining patients is ongoing.

All those suspected to be infected have been quarantined and removed from the general hospital population as a safeguard, medical officials told Bikyamasr.com.

The resulting infections has caused both the health ministry and the agricultural ministry to begin preparations for a nationwide campaign to fight against the virus and inform Egyptians on how to prevent the disease from spreading.

“These measures are just a small part of a more general plan to curb the spread of the virus in our country,” Saber Abdel Aziz, a senior official from the state-run General Organization for Veterinary Services, told IRIN.

“We will also offer incentives to poultry growers to look for signs of illness in their animals, report sick ones, and practice bio-security.”

It is unclear what exactly that campaign will look like, but with reports continuing to circle Egypt about possible outbreaks, and two deaths, a two-year-old girl in Cairo and a 31-year-old man in Fayoum, efforts are being made to battle against the virus in Egypt.

http://bikyamasr.com/56421/under-the-ra ... -in-egypt/


Health bosses: We overreacted to airport flu scare

Health authorities have admitted to overreacting to a health scare at Auckland Airport but say it's better to be safe than sorry.

They swung into action after it was suspected dozens of Japanese students who had just landed had contracted the flu.

While ambulance staff were ready for the worst, the students at the centre of the scare came through the arrival gates, wondering what all the fuss was about.

Their flight, NZ90 from Tokyo, was halted on the tarmac just after 9am this morning with 73 of the Japanese homestay students onboard suspected of carrying an unknown strain of influenza.

One passenger on the flight, David Turner from Wellington, said there were air staff everywhere, all wearing masks, "just sort of shepherding us to different places".

Passengers like Turner were left wondering why authorities took two hours to board the plane when they were told two hours before landing there was an issue.

A woman passenger said it was "just confusion" and nobody knew what was happening.

She said paramedics were uncoordinated in the way they were checking passengers' temperatures and pulses.

"The left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing. It was a disaster," the woman said.

Turner said even the captain kept coming on the intercom telling people how sorry he was that he had no idea what the situation was and when they could get off the plane.

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/health- ... rt-4717991





Mysterious illness kills thousands in Central America

Jesus Ignacio Flores started working when he was 16, laboring long hours on construction sites and in the fields of his country's biggest sugar plantation.

Three years ago his kidneys started to fail and flooded his body with toxins. He became too weak to work, wracked by cramps, headaches and vomiting.

On Jan. 19 he died on the porch of his house. He was 51. His withered body was dressed by his weeping wife, embraced a final time, then carried in the bed of a pickup truck to a grave on the edge of Chichigalpa, a town in Nicaragua's sugar-growing heartland, where studies have found more than one in four men showing symptoms of chronic kidney disease.

A mysterious epidemic is devastating the Pacific coast of Central America, killing more than 24,000 people in El Salvador and Nicaragua since 2000 and striking thousands of others with chronic kidney disease at rates unseen virtually anywhere else. Scientists say they have received reports of the phenomenon as far north as southern Mexico and as far south as Panama.

Last year it reached the point where El Salvador's health minister, Dr. Maria Isabel Rodriguez, appealed for international help, saying the epidemic was undermining health systems.


Many of the victims were manual laborers or worked in sugar cane fields that cover much of the coastal lowlands. Patients, local doctors and activists say they believe the culprit lurks among the agricultural chemicals workers have used for years with virtually none of the protections required in more developed countries. But a growing body of evidence supports a more complicated and counterintuitive hypothesis.

The roots of the epidemic, scientists say, appear to lie in the grueling nature of the work performed by its victims, including construction workers, miners and others who labor hour after hour without enough water in blazing temperatures, pushing their bodies through repeated bouts of extreme dehydration and heat stress for years on end.

Many start as young as 10. The punishing routine appears to be a key part of some previously unknown trigger of chronic kidney disease, which is normally caused by diabetes and high-blood pressure, maladies absent in most of the patients in Central America.


R
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/02/1 ... z1mFaRB4GR




Updated February, 13 2012 09:59:46


New bird flu strain poses serious threat

The ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development and Health have warned of a possible large-scale outbreak of bird flu in the near future. Viet Nam News reporters Thu Hien and Thanh Hai talked to experts about the main causes of the disease's resurgence and prompt measures to prevent its spread.


What is the main reason for the resurgence of bird flu at this moment?

Dr. Santanu K. Bandyopadhyay, Team Leader Avian Influenza Programme, Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) in Viet Nam


In northern Viet Nam and parts of central Viet Nam, we have seen the emergence of a new strain of the bird flu virus since the beginning of 2011. This particular virus is not adequately protected by the currently available vaccines for poultry. Due to the complexity of this virus strain, the government has halted the mass vaccination of poultry since the summer of last year. So there is now a large number of vulnerable poultry populations not immune to the disease. Therefore, a disease outbreak in such a nave population will spread fast and involve huge losses to the poultry.

Based on the official reports of the outbreaks in poultry that we have now, I don't immediately perceive the risk of large scale outbreaks as any greater than this time last year or the year before that. The number of outbreaks reported in poultry in the last one month is within the average of the last three years.

However, due to the reduction in vaccination coverage and the emergence of the new virus strain in the North, there is going to be greater risk period ahead.

http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/opin ... hreat.html

Health experts, scientists to discuss bird flu studies


GENEVA (AFP) - The World Health Organisation said on Friday it will meet next week to determine whether scientists can publish research on a bird flu virus that may be easily passed among humans.

The two-day discussion will relate to research on a mutation of the H5N1 virus that international scientists halted on January 20 citing fears of the devastation it could wreak were it to escape the laboratory.

According to WHO, avian influenza H5N1 is primarily transmitted between birds, and very rarely to humans.

Two separate teams of researchers, one in the Netherlands and the other in the United States, found ways late last year to engineer the H5N1 virus so that it is transmitted among mammals, something that has been rare.

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNew ... 65497.html



Flu season swamps CHEO




Emergency room wait times hit eight hours


The Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario is in the middle of the busiest viral season in its 38-year history.

CHEO's emergency department is seeing 15 per cent more patients than last year and one-third more than in 2010, mainly due to high rates of respiratory and gastrointestinal infections.

CHEO spokeswoman Ann Fuller said the higher volumes are being driven by patients with relatively minor illnesses. As a result, ER wait times have stretched to eight hours.


Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/sea ... z1mA4cPbk4


Number of reported flu cases in the state almost doubled


A total of 56 flu cases have been reported in South Dakota, an increase of nearly 66 percent from last week, according to a report from the South Dakota Department of Health.

There were 22 cases were reported in the last week, double the rate of the previous week, according to the report.

Higher numbers mean there's a higher rate of transmission and that the flu virus is more predominant.

http://www.aberdeennews.com/news/aan-4a ... 8432.story


Flu activity picks up in Iowa, Illinois

The flu season that got a slow start in Iowa and Illinois has picked up steam in the past few weeks.

Public health officials reported Friday that both states are experiencing "regional" flu activity, an increase after more than two months of small, or sporadic, incidences.

The flu is a respiratory illness caused by viruses and is among the top causes of death in America. It spreads easily from person to person and can cause serious complications for the very young, the very old and those with compromised immune systems.

------------------

"If you have flu symptoms, help out your family, friends and co-workers by staying home to avoid spreading the virus," said Dr. Ann Garvey, the deputy epidemiologist at the Iowa Department of Public Health.



Read more: http://www.qctimes.com/news/local/flu-a ... z1mA5Zqshf



No way of stopping leak of deadly new flu, says terror chief



Professor Keim said that it was necessary to slow down the release of scientific information because it was clear that the world is not yet prepared for a strain of highly lethal H5N1 influenza that can be transmitted by coughs and sneezes.

“We recognised that, in the long term certainly, the information is going to get out, and maybe even in the mid term. But if we can restrict it in the short term and motivate governments to start getting busy in terms of building up the flu-defence infrastructure, then we’ve succeeded at a certain level,” he said.

“If we can slow down the release of the specific information that would enable somebody to reconstruct this virus and do something nefarious, even for a while, then that was a good thing.”

By withholding key details of the mutations needed to make an airborne strain of H5N1, this would give time for governments to prepare for and prevent a possible pandemic, he added.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 60997.html
( In other words give us buckets full of money so we can do research,get you a cure so we can creat a virus to kill off those useless food eaters) ugggg...





Mexico’s 2012 Swine-Flu Death Toll Climbs to 81



MEXICO CITY – The AH1N1 flu strain has left a total of 81 deaths in Mexico so far this year, while 3,522 people have been infected with the virus, federal health officials said.

From Jan. 1 until Feb. 9, 2012, there have been 3,882 cases confirmed and 89 deaths from the different types of flu virus, the Health Secretariat said in a statement.

Three seasonal viruses are currently being transmitted in Mexico – AH1N1, AH3N2 and influenza B – but the AH1N1, or swine flu, is the predominant one this year, with 91 percent of the infections and the same percentage of deaths.

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?Article ... ryId=14091

more in Mexico

In Zacatecas there AH1N1

It should be noted that patients are a 34 and 2 boys 12 and 14, were detected that were treated in same General Hospital Institute of Social Security and Services for State Employees in the SSZ of Fresnillo, and the H.Gral. de Zacatecas. Zacatecas.

Estrada Day reminded people that some preventive actions is to keep clean everyday objects, avoid sharing food and drink, keep ventilated the home and workplace, try to wash clothes and fabrics frequently and avoid shaking hands or kissing who has symptoms of the disease.

http://translate.google.com/translate?s ... temid%3D29





AVIAN INFLUENZA (14): H5N1, WHO MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT


To publish and what to publish? Those will be the questions on the table when the World Health Organisation (WHO) convenes a special meeting next week about controversial bird flu studies. The meeting will be small, with only 22 invitees from outside the WHO, senior communications staff of the Geneva-based global health agency said.

Potentially among them will be representatives of the Vietnamese and Indonesian laboratories that provided the original viruses on which the research was done.

---------
and the bottom line is



At least several of the directors of laboratories in the network of WHO collaborating labs for influenza have been invited and are expected to attend.

A list of the participants and their declarations of interest will be posted on the WHO website the day the meeting begins. Hartl said the list can only be posted after the meeting participants formally go through and accept one another's declarations of interests.

One of the conditions the researchers and journals made before tentatively agreeing to redact the studies was that the full details of how the work was done would be shared with other scientists and public health officials on a need-to-know basis.

http://www.promedmail.org/?p=2400:1000: ... 702832:::::

Only in Canadier eh



Old Age Security untouched until 2020, Flaherty says

Canadians won't see changes to Old Age Security until at least 2020, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Friday.

That means Canadians 57 and older should be able to expect to get the same benefits as seniors collecting them now.

The government has said any changes wouldn't affect anyone now collecting OAS, but hadn't given a specific date for when it expected the program to see cuts.

"This is not for tomorrow morning," Flaherty said in Oshawa, Ont., at an event with Conservative MP Colin Carrie.

"This is for 2020, 2025, so that people who are middle-aged and younger today, like Colin and not me, can be assured that they will have the social programs, properly funded, fiscally responsible. They will be here for them in the future."

Flaherty said the plan will be outlined over more than one budget.

That timeline would put the government well past the next federal election, which is in 2015, and possibly the election after that.

Liberal finance critic Scott Brison said the government is manufacturing a crisis to attack Canada's most vulnerable citizens, low-income seniors.

"It’s nuts. It makes no sense from a public policy perspective. If there were a crisis, there are other ways that you would act that would not be as regressive," Brison said.

Brison said 40 per cent of Canadians getting OAS make less than $20,000 a year and more than half make less than $25,000 per year.

Changes could also affect the poorest seniors who get the Guaranteed Income Supplement, because they have to qualify for OAS to get the GIS, he said.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2 ... -2020.html

It's bailout or chaos, PM Papademos tells Greece


Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos has told lawmakers to back a deeply unpopular international financial rescue in a vote Sunday or condemn the country to "uncontrolled economic chaos and social explosion."

He made the statement in a televised address to the nation ahead of the vote on 3.3 billion euros ($4.35 billion) in wage, pension and job cuts - the price of a 130-billion-euro bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

Papademos said parliament had a historic responsibility to back the bill, or face catastrophic consequences if Greece misses a March 20 deadline to service its debt.

"A disorderly default would set the country on a disastrous adventure," he said. "It would create conditions of uncontrolled economic chaos and social explosion."

"The country would be drawn into a vortex of recession, instability, unemployment and protracted misery and this would sooner or later lead the country out of the euro."

On a day of dire warnings and stormy debate, leaders of the ruling coalition told uneasy lawmakers Saturday to support the bill or be dropped from party lists for an election that could come by April.

Athens faces a March 20 deadline to meet debt repayments of 14.5 billion euros. If the rescue package is put in place, its private sector creditors will have to accept a 70 percent reduction in the value of their holdings.

The effort to ease Greece's huge debt burden has brought thousands into the streets in protest, and there are signs of a small rebellion among lawmakers made nervous by the extent of the cuts and by how voters might punish them in the next election.

At least 20 deputies from the two main parties in the Papademos coalition threatened Saturday to vote 'No' - but the bulk of the coalition's 236 MPs are still all but certain to approve the package.

Six members of his cabinet have resigned. More demonstrations are expected in front of the parliament on Sunday, after clashes between police and black-masked protesters Friday.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/bailout-chaos- ... 03038.html


Papademos Gets Cabinet Approval for 2nd Bailout


Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos obtained approval from his Cabinet for deeper budget cuts needed to secure a second package of international aid, clearing the latest hurdle in his race to prevent financial collapse.

Cabinet approved the 287-page document unanimously, said a government official, who declined to be named. The approval means the 300-seat Parliament will vote, probably tomorrow, on budget measures amounting to 7 percent of gross domestic product over the next three years and a debt swap to slice 100 billion euros off more than 200 billion euros of privately-held debt.

“The social cost this program implies will be limited compared to the economic and social catastrophe that would follow if we don’t adopt it,” Papademos told his ministers earlier, according to an e-mailed transcript of his comments. “The completion of the program and financial support will cement our country’s future in the euro area.”

The approval capped a week of tension in Athens as European Union and International Monetary Fund officials argued with Greek government officials over the conditions required to secure the 130 billion-euro ($172 billion) rescue package. Papademos reached agreement with the three party leaders supporting his interim government hours before a crucial meeting of euro area finance ministers in Brussels on Feb. 9, only to be told the measures needed more work.

Weeks Remaining

With only weeks remaining for the country to hold the largest debt restructuring ahead of a 14.5 billion-euro bond payment on March 20, Papademos saw five ministers resign in two hours and protesters clashing with police in Athens during an anti-austerity strike.

“It should be evident that whoever disagrees and doesn’t vote for the new program cannot remain in this government,” he told his ministers. Political uncertainty, he said, was the main reason for finance ministers failing to approve the program.

Failure to secure the rescue package threatens 11 million Greeks with a default that would halt the payment of wages and pensions and shut down schools, hospitals and businesses, Papademos said. Tomorrow’s vote amounts to a ballot on euro membership, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said early yesterday in Brussels.

“If we see the salvation and future of the country in the euro area, in Europe, we have to do whatever we have to do to get the program approved,” he said.

Missing Goals

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told lawmakers in Berlin that Greece was missing deficit goals and had to do more to meet its bailout commitments.


more at link

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-1 ... ilout.html



Greece passes new austerity deal amid rioting

Violence reported in at least seven cities


Greek lawmakers on Monday approved harsh new austerity measures demanded by bailout creditors to save the debt-crippled nation from bankruptcy, after riots in Athens and other cities left stores looted and burned and more than 120 people hurt.

The historic vote paves the way for Greece's European partners and the International Monetary Fund to release €130 billion ($172 billion) in new rescue loans, without which Greece would default on its mountain of debt next month and likely leave the eurozone — a scenario that would further roil global markets.

-----------------
Scores of bat-wielding youths smashed property at will for several hours, leaving broken traffic lights hanging from poles, and chairs and tables from looted coffee shops dumped on the street. Ambulances weaved through narrow backstreets to ferry the injured to hospital, dodging burning trash bins and the running battles between rioters and police.

"I've had it! I can't take it any more. There's no point in living in this country any more," said a distraught shop owner walking through his smashed and looted optician store.

Athens Mayor Giorgos Kaminis said rioters tried to storm the City Hall building, but were repelled. "Once again, the city is being used as a lever to try to destabilize the country," he said.

In parliament, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said the new austerity measures were vital to the country's very economic survival.

"The question is not whether some salaries and pensions will be curtailed, but whether we will be able to pay even these reduced wages and pensions," he told lawmakers before the vote. "When you have to choose between bad and worse, you will pick what is bad to avoid what is worse."

The new cutbacks, which follow two years of harsh income losses and tax hikes amid a deep recession and record high unemployment have been demanded by Greece's bailout creditors in return for a new batch of vital rescue loans.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012 ... -vote.html


Athens ablaze as Greece votes in favour of £110bn bailout: Rioters attack police and set ten buildings on fire in protest at cuts


Greek MPs last night voted in favour of a controversial austerity bill as rioters again took to the streets and set buildings alight.

The punishing cuts to wages and pensions are fiercely stoking tensions in the near-bankrupt country.

Yet if the bill was not passed, Greece would have been denied a £110billion EU bailout package and finally run out of money.


--------------------

The austerity measures include more than £200million in pension cuts and a 22 per cent reduction in the minimum wage. The plan also aims to cut Greece's bloated state sector workforce by about 150,000 by 2015 and introduce new laws to make it easier for workers to be sacked.

The Greek government has to pay back more than £12billion of its debt to holders of its bonds on March 20 – the deadline for the bill to be passed.

The legislation has caused turmoil within the ruling coalition and deepened a social crisis among Greeks already hit by a round of cuts and tax hikes to ease the country's huge debt burden. Many Greeks see the introduction of cuts as a national humiliation.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1mFdJKHZj

January freeze reduces California Navel, mandarin crops


Two nights of frigid temperatures in mid January across portions of California’s Fresno and Madera counties nipped the 2011-2012 Navel and mandarin citrus crops by an estimated 10 percent to 25 percent.



Related gallery

California citrus freeze-related photos



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.
The Jan. 16-18 freeze event hit northern Fresno County and Madera County the hardest with as much as a 40 percent to 100 percent crop loss in the coldest locations in those counties.

“We estimate 10 percent of the Navel crop and 15 to 20 percent of the mandarin crop have been affected by the freezing temperatures,” said Bob Blakely, director of grower services with California Citrus Mutual, Exeter, Calif

http://westernfarmpress.com/orchard-cro ... arin-crops

Europeans protest controversial Internet pact


Tens of thousands of people marched in protests in more than a dozen European cities Saturday against a controversial anti-online piracy pact that critics say could curtail Internet freedom.

Some 41,000 people rallied in Germany, including 16,000 in Munich and 10,000 in Berlin, against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which was negotiated between the 27-nation European Union and 10 other countries.

Many brandishing "Stop ACTA" banners and wearing Guy Fawkes masks -- a symbol of hacker-led rallies -- the mostly young protestors also braved subzero temperatures to mass in cities such as Budapest, Bucharest, Bratislava, Prague, Paris, Sofia, Tallinn, Vilnius and Vienna.

ACTA is awaiting ratification from several governments, but intense opposition led by Internet users has forced some EU states including Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to freeze their ratification process.

"We see the suspension of ratification as a victory, but we cannot over-estimate it," said the vice-president of the Czech Republic's pirate party, Mikulas Ferjencik.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/europeans-prot ... 36289.html

Power cuts in Serbia as Europe's deep freeze threatens national grid

Serbia has started implementing power cuts in a desperate bid to stave off the collapse of its national grid as the country suffers the effects of days of freezing temperatures.


EPS, the state-run power company, said it would cut power to industry first, warning that unless demand falls by about 10 per cent in the next few days the entire system could collapse under the strain .


It has urged the public via a national television address to save electricity, .


Temperatures as low as -30C have sent demand soaring but also interrupted coal production, restricting supplies to Serbia's coal-fired power stations. With the bad weather affecting neighbouring countries Serbia has also been unable to import extra energy to boost supplies.


Zoran Manasijevic, EPS's assistant director, said that some 2,000 companies will have their power cut over the next few days, but stressed supplies for domestic consumers and vital buildings such as hospitals will remain unaffected.


The power cuts comes as most of Europe still battles the unrelenting grip of a cold front that has brought chaos and death to the continent for almost two weeks.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... erbia.html



Snow blocks in tens of thousands as cold death toll rises

Snow drifts reaching up to rooftops kept tens of thousands of villagers prisoners in their own homes Saturday as the death toll from Europe's big freeze rose past 550.

More heavy snow fell on the Balkans and in Italy, while the Danube river, already closed to shipping for hundreds of kilometres (miles) because of thick ice, froze over in Bulgaria for the first time in 27 years.

Montenegro's capital of Podgorica was brought to a standstill by snow 50 centimetres (20 inches) deep, a 50-year record, closing the city's airport and halting rail services to Serbia because of an avalanche.

Eight more people were reported to have died in Romania, taking the toll for the country to 65, three in Serbia, one in the Czech Republic and one in Austria.

Polish fire brigade spokesman Pawel Fratcak said Saturday that defective heating had triggered a spate of deadly blazes in houses and apartments, with eight people killed on Friday night and three the night before.

New Romanian Prime Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu and his defence and interior ministers, who were sworn in only on Thursday, flew by helicopter to the eastern Buzau region, one of the worst hit, on Saturday.

He called on the authorities to work hard to beat the challenges facing them, as food threatened to run out in some villages in spite of air drops.

At Carligul Mic firemen and volunteers helped people dig tunnels and trenches in the snow reaching to the house roofs in some places.

"I've never seen as much snow in my whole life," resident Aneta Dumitrache, 78, told an AFP photographer.

http://news.yahoo.com/snow-europe-cuts- ... 32037.html




Sick crew members evacuated from ships stranded in ice

the bottom line is...

More than 130 people have died due to the cold weather, and most of the winter grain has been destroyed in Ukraine's southern and eastern regions.

http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/s ... topstories

The Pope will die within a year: Vatican 'assassination fears' revealed

The Pope will die within the next 12 months, a senior Vatican figure has reportedly claimed amid fears of an assassination plot.


The sensational prediction was allegedly made by Cardinal Paolo Romeo, the archbishop of Palermo in Sicily, on a recent visit to China.


Cardinal Romeo reportedly made the startling prediction of the Pope's death during a trip to China in November 2011.


He seemed so sure of the fact that the people he spoke with, including Italian businessmen and Chinese representatives of the Catholic Church, were convinced that he was talking about an assassination attempt.


They were so alarmed by his remarks that they reported them back to the Vatican.


The extraordinary comments were written up in a top-secret report, dated Dec 30, 2011, and delivered to the Pope by a senior cardinal, Dario Castrillon Hoyos, a Colombian, in January.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ealed.html

Bad weather: Coldiretti, a massacre of more than 10 000 animals

February 11, 2012 - 17:38

(ASCA) - Rome, 11 February - More than ten thousand sparrows, finches and other birds along with deer and deer have been victims of bad weather, which made tragedy even on farms where the budget is continually updated between the dead cows, sheep , horses, rabbits and chickens, because of the hundreds of stables collapsed. And 'what Coldiretti estimated that warns about the slaughter of animals caused by the new wave of bad weather with snowfall and frost is threatening at least one million farm animals in danger of running out of food for the difficulties' of ensure the supply of feed on the roads.

http://www.asca.it/news-Maltempo__Coldi ... 6-FOT.html


Frozen to death as fuel bills soar: Hypothermia cases among the elderly double in five years

The number of pensioners dying from hypothermia has nearly doubled in five years, a period when a succession of cold winters has been coupled with drastic rises in energy bills.

The official figures emerged after several days of Arctic conditions which drove temperatures across the whole country as low as minus 10C (14F).

They showed that 1,876 patients were treated in hospital for hypothermia in 2010/11, up from 950 in 2006/07.

The number of sufferers who died within 30 days of admission shot up from 135 to 260.
Three-quarters of victims were pensioners, with cases soaring among the over-60s more than any other age group.

The increasing toll of hypothermia over the past five years coincides with a surge in energy costs, especially gas prices which have gone up by 40 per cent.


Soaring energy bills are pushing more and more pensioners into fuel poverty, forcing them to choose between heating and eating. One industry analyst, uSwitch, estimates that eight in ten households are already rationing their energy use and have called for a cut in VAT on power bills.

The row over energy prices is poised to be reignited later this month when the 'big six' energy companies reveal their latest profit figures.

Campaign groups said yesterday it was 'scandalous' that pensioners in modern Britain could be suffering from hypothermia.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1mFcYCmZl

Massive sunspot that has DOUBLED in size in recent days could send solar storms careering toward Earth

A massive double-barrelled sunspot that has doubled in size in the past few days could now send a series of solar flares towards Earth.

Though the severity of the disruption is yet unknown, some scientists are predicting the spot could send off medium-scale solar flares.

These could cause radio blackouts and disruptions in the Earth’s polar regions.


SpaceWeather’s Tony Phillips wrote: ‘Any such eruptions this weekend would be Earth-directed as the sunspot turns to face our planet.’

On Friday, the sun emitted a coronal mass ejection, known as CME, in the shape of a heart.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported: ‘A preliminary model run predicts this CME will arrive, appropriately enough, on Valentine’s Day.’


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