Russian chopper crashes in northeast Idlib

A Russian military chopper crashed in the northeastern countryside of the Idlib Governorate on Monday after flying over Jaysh Al-Fateh’s positions near the city of Saraqib.

Based on the footage released by the jihadist rebels of Jaysh Al-Fateh, the Russian pilot was killed during the crash site at the small hilltop of Tal Sultan.

Upon discovering the Russian pilot’s body in northeast Idlib, the jihadist rebels savagely desecrated his remains by dragging his corpse on the ground.

It is still not clear whether or not the jihadist rebels shot down the Russian aircraft; however, the Gulf-backed “moderates” do possess anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM).

More details to come…..

Aerial View Of Huge Warship Formation In The Pacific 2016

Δημοσιεύτηκε στις 30 Ιουλ 2016

Helicopter view of mass warship formation including 40 ships and submarines sailing in formation during RIMPAC 2016. Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) is the world's largest maritime exercise including 26 nations, more than 40 ships and submarines, more than 200 aircraft, and 25,000 personnel. Filmed on July 28, 2016.

The fiery birth of Earth's largest ocean exposed

A volatile arrangement of tectonic plates millions of years ago gave us the Pacific.

NOAA/Science Photo Library

  A computer model simulates the seafloor in the North Pacific.

The Pacific Ocean was born from a geological spasm that started 190 million years ago, whenEarth’s crust ripped apart and fresh lava welled up from below. Now, a new analysis suggests that this seafloor birth was a lot more complex than researchers had thought.

The study is a rare step forward in understanding the origin of the Pacific, one of geology’s most enduring mysteries.

“This is one big piece of the puzzle that we’ve now put into place,” says Lydian Boschman, a geologist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. She and her colleague Douwe van Hinsbergen report the discovery on 27 July in Science Advances¹.

Because of this continuing cycle of creation and destruction, no seafloor is older than about 200 million years. To see how oceans behaved further back in time, geologists must try to reconstruct the three-dimensional geometry of long-vanished crustal plates.Oceans are born at unstable seams in Earth’s crust, where plates pull apart, allowing molten rock to fill the gap and solidify. The fresh crust pushes older crust away from the seam and towards the edge of a continent. Eventually, the ocean crust crashes into continental crust and, through the process of plate tectonics, getssucked down and recycled deep within the planet.

Mind the gap

Boschman and van Hinsbergen studied the oldest part of the Pacific plate, which lies just east of the Mariana Trench. Previous work suggested that the Pacific was born in what’s known as a geological triple junction, with fresh seafloor spreading outward from each of three intersecting ridges. But that configuration is geologically stable; in the south Atlantic Ocean, a similar triple junction has endured for more than 100 million years without forming a new plate. “There’s no reason to,” says Boschman.

Instead, she says, the Pacific must have been born at an unstable type of triple junction. The three intersecting seams would have had to have been transform faults, in which the two sides of a fault slide past one another. California’s San Andreas fault moves in this fashion.

Three transform faults coming together would have created a triangular gap in the centre. “A triple junction with ridges is not going to make a new plate,” says Boschman. ”A triple junction with transform faults does.” The configuration was probably an accident, she adds.

The work shows how basic thinking about plate tectonics can still yield surprises, says Bernhard Steinberger, a geophysicist at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany. “This is one of those rare cases where a discovery could be made simply by an elegant thought,” he says.

Boschman would like to push even further back in time, to unravel the history of the ocean that preceded the Pacific and surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea. She is currently doing fieldwork in Costa Rica, looking for evidence of ancient seafloor rocks scraped up on the side of the continent as the ocean crust was dragged under and destroyed.

Hekla Volcano Dangerous to Airplanes?

A small Hekla eruption. Photo: Páll Stefánsson.

Up to 30 passenger jets fly directly over the Hekla per day. Hekla is Iceland’s most active volcano, erupting four times since 1970.

Hekla has throug the centuries been Iceland's most dreaded volcano; thought to be the entrance to Hell.

In an interview on RÚV earlier this month, University of Iceland professor of geology Páll Einarsson claimed, that these planes should take slightly a different route when flying over Iceland.

Páll insists that his advice should be taken seriously, saying that these planes could fly straight into an ash plume. He explained that an eruption at Hekla did not need to melt through a thick glacier, meaning the plume would rise with full force straightaway before rising 10 km (30 thousand feet) into the air.

In 2001 geologists managed to predict an eruption in Hekla approximately one hour before it started. This Páll says is not guaranteed and the risk is too high in his view. He says most of the planes are from Turkish airlines and they would need to correct their path only slightly to eliminate any danger from a Hekla eruption.

Pope thanks Poles for clinging to faith in difficult times

Pope Francis prayed on Thursday before Poland's holiest icon - the Black Madonna of Jasna Gora - and said outdoor Mass for a congregation numbering in the tens of thousands, thanking Poles for holding on to their faith in difficult times.

Francis praised what he called "the contagious power of a genuine faith, passed down from family to family" in Poland, which is about 98 percent Catholic.

He said their faith had stayed strong in many situations throughout history. Poland is renowned for keep its Catholic flame burning during decades of Communist rule.

As the 79-year-old pope was blessing the altar at the start of the Mass, he tripped on a step but was helped up by aides and did not appear to be hurt. He continued the Mass and read his homily normally.

Francis suffers from sciatica, a medical condition in which pain sometimes shoots down the leg from the lower back.

The pope, whose main purpose in Poland is to preside at an international gathering of Catholic youth in Krakow, was driven to this city about 140 km (87 miles) away instead of taking a helicopter as planned because of the possibility of bad weather.

The shrine is home to the Black Madonna, a Byzantine icon from sometime between the sixth and ninth centuries and brought to Poland some 600 years ago. The icon is painted on wood and covered with silver and jewels.

The shrine has been a focal point in difficult periods of Polish history. Poles flocked there to pray when martial law was declared by the communist government in the early 1980s.

The late Pope John Paul II, who reigned for nearly three decades before he died in 2005, visited the shrine often during his trips to his homeland and donated the blood-stained white sash he was wearing on May 13, 1981, when he was shot in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican by Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca.

Francis was due to return to Krakow on Thursday afternoon for formally open World Youth Day, a jamboree of young people around the world that has sometimes been dubbed the "Catholic Woodstock".

(Editing by Jeremy Gaunt.)

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Pope Francis prays in front of the black Virgin Mary at Czestochowa's Sanctuary, Poland July 28, 2016.

Ρώσος Ιερέας κατέρριψε το ρεκόρ του γύρου του κόσμου με Αεροστατο!

Ρώσος Ιερέας κατέρριψε το ρεκόρ του γύρου του κόσμου

Του Αιμίλιου Πολυγένη

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Ο Φιοντόρ Κονιούχοφ κατέρριψε το ρεκόρ του γύρου του κόσμου πετώντας με αερόστατο, μόνος, 11 ημέρες, δύο μέρες λιγότερο από το τελευταίο ρεκόρ που κατείχε ο Αμερικανός Στιβ Φόσετ, ο οποίος είχε κάνει τον γύρο του κόσμου, μόνος, σε 13 ημέρες το 2002.

Να αναφερθεί πως κατά διάρκεια του ταξιδιού, ο 64χρονος εξερευνητής πετούσε σε ύψος 10.000 μέτρων και είχε να αντιμετωπίσει ακραίες θερμοκρασίες, όπως κάτω από 56 βαθμούς Κελσίου, με συνέπεια να παγώνουν οι μάσκες οξυγόνου και το νερό, σύμφωνα με το αυστραλιανό τηλεοπτικό δίκτυο ABC.

"Ηταν πολύ δύσκολη η πτήση μέσα σε ένα αερόστατο, που μόνο με την βοήθεια του Θεού θα μπορούσα ξεπεράσω τα προβλήματα" ανάφερε μεταξύ άλλων ο Φιοντόρ Κονιούχοφ.

Συγκλονιστική ήταν η στιγμή όταν ο π. Φιοντόρ, έσφιξε στα χέρια του μια εικόνα της Παναγίας και την ασπάστηκε με δάκρυα στα μάτια.

http://www.romfea.gr/patriarxeia-ts/patriarxeio-mosxas/9542-rosos-iereas-katerripse-to-rekor-tou-gurou-tou-kosmou

Ex-employee stabs 19 people to death in Japan care home

Former employee of care centre in Sagamihara arrested, reportedly saying "the disabled should all disappear".

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A knife-wielding former employee has killed at least 19 people and injured 25 at a care centre for the mentally disabled in Japan, in the country's worst mass killing in decades.

The 26-year-old man, who reportedly threatened to kill hundreds of disabled people earlier this year, later turned himself in at a police station, admitting to officers: "I did it." He reportedly also said: "The disabled should all disappear."

Authorities identified the attacker as Satoshi Uematsu and said he had worked at the facility in Sagamihara, a city of more than 700,000 people west of Tokyo, until February.

Broadcaster NTV said the man told police he had been fired and held a grudge against the care centre.

The attack began in the early hours of the morning when Uematsu allegedly broke a first-floor window to get into the building. Public broadcaster NHK reported that he tied up one caregiver before starting to stab the residents.

A doctor at one of the hospitals where victims were taken said some had "deep stab" wounds to the neck.

"The patients are very shocked mentally, and they cannot speak now," the doctor told NHK.

A fleet of ambulances, police cars and fire trucks converged on the Tsukui Yamayuri-en centre, a low-rise complex nestled against forested hills, which was cordoned off and draped with yellow "Keep Out" tape.

The killing is believed to be the worst such incident in Japan since 1938, when a man went on a killing spree armed with an axe, sword and rifle, killing 30 people.

'Stained with blood'

Fire department spokesmen told AFP news agency that the dead included nine men and 10 women aged from 18 to 70, and that another 25 people were wounded, 20 of them seriously.

An official from Kanagawa prefecture, which takes in Sagamihara, identified the suspect and said he had turned up at the police station with the murder weapons.

Uematsu "broke a glass window and intruded into the facility at about 2:10am (17:10 GMT) and stabbed those staying there," Shinya Sakuma told a press conference in the prefecture's capital Yokohama.

"When Uematsu turned himself in, he was found carrying kitchen knives and other types of knives stained with blood."

Police said they received a call from the centre around 2:30am - about 20 minutes after the assault began - reporting that a man armed with knives had entered the facility. They said he turned himself in half an hour later.

Local media reported Uematsu had sent a letter to the speaker of the lower house of Japan's parliament in February threatening to kill 470 disabled people.

In the letter, which he hand-delivered to security personnel, he also presented his vision of a society in which the seriously handicapped could be euthanised with the approval of family members.

It brought him to the attention of Tokyo police, who informed Sagamihara authorities that he was a potential threat to others, NHK and other media reported.

Uematsu was hospitalised on February 19, the same day he left his job at the care centre, but was discharged 12 days later when the doctor deemed he would not attack anyone, NHK said.

'Unbelievable'

People in Uematsu's neighbourhood, about a 10-minute walk from the crime scene, expressed disbelief.

He was a "normal, nice boy" who always smiled and offered a greeting, said next-door neighbour Akihiro Hasegawa.

"This is unbelievable," the 73-year old told AFP, adding that Uematsu lived in the house with his parents until they moved out four or five years ago.

Hasegawa also said that he had seen an extensive shoulder-to-chest tattoo on Uematsu and there was a rumour in the neighbourhood he might have been fired from the facility because of it.

"This is a very tragic, shocking incident in which many innocent people became victims," top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told a press conference.

He added that officials would immediately discuss measures to prevent a similar incident from happening.

Japan has one of the lowest rates of violent crime in the developed world, and attacks involving weapons of any kind are unusual.

"It's very rare that we come across this kind of violence on this scale," journalist Michael Penn, who is based in Japan, told Al Jazeera. "It's a very, very serious and very large-scale incident here."

Some Japanese couldn't believe the crime had occurred in their country.

"It's crazy," posted a Twitter user. "When I first heard 19 people died, I thought it was somewhere overseas."

New Information About Health of Our Oceans

NASA's Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission is a first-of-its-kind project that aims to answer key questions about the consequences of climate change on the health of our oceans and their relationship with airborne particles and clouds. PACE will use a wide spectrum of wavelengths from an “ocean color” instrument to provide scientists with this information.

“PACE represents a major effort to truly combine ocean research with atmospheric research,” Project Scientist Jeremy Werdell said. “We are going to go beyond just seeing that Earth’s climate is changing to better understanding why the change is occurring.”

Off the coast of Argentina, two strong ocean currents recently stirred up a colorful brew of floating nutrients and microscopic plant life just in time for the summer solstice, December 21, 2010. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image of a massive phytoplankton bloom off of the Atlantic coast of Patagonia.

Credits: NASA's Earth Observatory/Norman Kuring, Ocean Color Web

PACE was approved to move forward out of its preliminary stage of planning on June 16 at the Key Decision Point A (KDP-A) event. A significant milestone for this next stage is that the official mission budget becomes available for use on July 1, Project Manager Andre Dress said.

The primary instrument for this mission is named the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), which will collect hyperspectral measurements from the ultraviolet to the shortwave infrared—a range that is broader than its predecessor satellite instruments, SeaWiFS, MODIS, and VIIRS — to examine and monitor how phytoplankton communities in the ocean are changing in space and time. The OCI will provide precise measurements of the ocean surface to allow researchers to see the concentrations of different phytoplankton communities all over the globe. The spectral range and resolution of the OCI design will substantially advance the ability to distinguish between different species of phytoplankton compared to predecessor satellite instruments.

Rising global temperatures are affecting our oceans in ways we have not yet fully explored. NASA’s PACE mission will use an ocean color imager to track phytoplankton communities over time, as well as monitor the health of our oceans and their relationship with the atmosphere. The data collected from the PACE mission will allow us to fully examine the consequences of climate change on our planet.

Phytoplankton play an essential role in ocean ecosystems. They are the base of the marine food chain and, like land plants, produce much of the oxygen we breathe and play a role in reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. With growing concern about the impact of rising global temperatures on our oceans, PACE data will be used to unveil new information about changing patterns in phytoplankton composition and the emergence of potentially harmful algal blooms. Satellites that currently exist are adept at detecting algal blooms, but cannot unequivocally determine their composition – for example, if they are harmful to fish or can contaminate drinking water. The spectral range of OCI will help scientists figure out more about where blooms occur and how they are changing.

The possible addition of a polarimeter, an instrument that could provide multi-angle polarized radiometric measurements to advance studies of aerosol particles and clouds, is currently under consideration by the PACE team. A polarimeter would allow improved measurement of atmospheric particle compositions that will ultimately improve observations of ocean color. Normally, roughly ninety percent of what an ocean color satellite instrument measures when over the oceans is the atmosphere, which has to be subtracted out to reveal the ocean signal. 

Ongoing field campaigns and the collection of data at sea provide critical information that helps scientists and engineers plan and design this new mission. For example, the North Atlantic Aerosols and Marine Ecosystems Study (NAAMES) campaign, which had its most recent deployment during May 2016, collected a wealth of information from both a ship and an airplane to validate satellite measurements and give a three-dimensional perspective that includes what’s happening beneath the surface. “NAAMES is helping us answer fundamental questions we have about processes in the ocean,” said PACE Communications Coordinator and scientist Stephanie Uz. “The measurements they and other field campaigns collect at sea contribute to PACE being a giant leap forward in ocean and atmosphere research.”

All preliminary planning for PACE is currently being done at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The unique information that this mission will provide, in combination with climate models, will allow for scientists to monitor the health of our oceans and their response to climate change like never before.

“We are putting all this carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and causing oceans to be more acidic at the same time that the oceans are warming and coming under stress from a range of human activities,” Uz said. “All of this is affecting the ocean in ways we don’t fully understand…PACE will help us comprehend what we have now and how it is changing.”