Friday, September 16, 2005

September 15, 2005 News Roundup

[Iraq] Sliding Into Civil War

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's declaration of war "against Shias in all of Iraq" has reinforced fears that the country is sliding towards all-out civil war.

Latest Iraq Blast Targets Shiite Mosque

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A suicide car bomber hit worshippers leaving a Shiite mosque in the town of Tuz Khormato shortly after midday prayers Friday, killing at least 10 people and wounding 21 others, police said.....

On Thursday, suicide bombers killed at least 31 people in three suicide attacks targeting Iraqi police. A day earlier, at least 167 people were killed and 570 wounded in more than a dozen bombings in Baghdad. The largest single toll resulted from a suicide bombing against day laborers in the largely Shiite Kazimiyah neighborhood in north Baghdad.

Katrina oil spills may be among worst on record

....more than 6.5 million gallons of crude oil had been spilt in at least seven major incidents. The previous worst spill in US waters was the 11m gallons in Alaskan waters from the Exxon Valdez in 1989.

Global warming 'past the point of no return'

A record loss of sea ice in the Arctic this summer has convinced scientists that the northern hemisphere may have crossed a critical threshold beyond which the climate may never recover. Scientists fear that the Arctic has now entered an irreversible phase of warming which will accelerate the loss of the polar sea ice that has helped to keep the climate stable for thousands of years.

They believe global warming is melting Arctic ice so rapidly that the region is beginning to absorb more heat from the sun, causing the ice to melt still further and so reinforcing a vicious cycle of melting and heating.

The greatest fear is that the Arctic has reached a "tipping point" beyond which nothing can reverse the continual loss of sea ice and with it the massive land glaciers of Greenland, which will raise sea levels dramatically.

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