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April breaks heat records 12th month in a row for global heat

2018-06-25T00:20:34Z

JordanBrehm:

Last month was the hottest April in modern history, marking the 12th consecutive month that global heat records have been shattered, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday. "The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for April 2016 was the highest for the month of April in the NOAA global temperature dataset record, which dates back to 1880," the agency said in a statement. "This marks the 12th consecutive month the monthly global temperature record has been broken, the longest such streak in the 137-year record." A cow stands in a dried up pond in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, which is reeling from years of below-par monsoon rains [https://www.gov.uk/search?q=%A9Money%20Sharma �Money Sharma] (AFP/File) The report, issued each month by NOAA, also pointed to a concerning spike in temperature last month, compared to the 20th century average. The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for April was 1.98 Fahrenheit (1.10 Celsius) above the 20th century average of 56.7 F (13.7 C). This marked "the highest temperature departure for April since global records began in 1880." Overall, 13 of 15 of these record spikes, or monthly temperature departures, have occurred since February 2015, signaling that global warming is accelerating. Unusually warm temperatures were seen across much of the world, but particularly in Russia and Alaska, where temperatures were [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html du lịch Bắc Kinh 5 ngày 4 đêm].4 F (3.0 C) or more above average, said NOAA. An "exceptional heat wave" swept across the Indochina peninsula, and Cambodia, Laos, Maldives, and Thailand also set new national maximum temperature records for April, the report said. Northern and central South America and parts of southern Europe, western and central Africa, eastern Australia, southern Alaska, and the Caribbean also saw temperatures climb. Cooler than average weather was seen last month in northeastern Canada and southern South America. - Records upon records - Experts say global warming is at least partially to blame for a number of environmental disasters around the world, from the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef to the wildfires raging across Canada. Last year marked the hottest on record, beating 2014 which previously held the title. With 12 months in a row now setting records for heat, 2016 -- though not quite half over yet -- is on track to be another scorching year. The World Bank said earlier this week that the global community is not prepared for a swift increase in climate [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html du lịch Bắc Kinh] change related natural disasters -- such as floods and droughts -- which will by 2050 put 1.3 billion people at risk. - El Nino fading - The El Nino weather phenomenon, which tends to warm up equatorial waters in the Pacific, is on the decline but may have contributed to the record set over the last four months together. "A record warm January, February, March, and April resulted in the highest global land and ocean average temperature for January-April at 2.05 F (1.14 C) above the 20th century average," said the NOAA report. The last four months were hotter than the same period in 2015, and hotter than [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html vtr.org.vn] 1998, the last time a similar strength El Nino was observed, by 0.8 degrees Fahrenheit (0.45 C). "Sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean continued to decrease during April 2016, reflecting a weakened El Nino," added the NOAA report, predicting the cooling trend, known as La Nina, could begin in the second half of 2016. World temperature variation compared with the 20th century average, April 2016 �Alain Bommenel, Sabrina Blanchard (AFP) This undated photo released on April 20, 2016 by XL Catlin Seaview Survey shows a diver checking the bleached coral at Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef Advertisement

French Foreign Legion soldiers were the toughest in the world

2018-06-24T18:52:25Z

JordanBrehm:

BOOK OF THE WEEK AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD by Jean-Vincent Blanchard (Bloomsbury �20) As a boy, I�d always more than half-wondered if the French Foreign Legion was an invention of Hollywood. Cary Grant and Gary Cooper capered about in the desert wearing those distinctive hats with the white hankies dangling down the backs of their necks. Laurel and Hardy ran away [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html vtr.org.vn] to join the Foreign Legion, as did Jim Dale in Carry On . . . Follow That Camel, which was filmed in exotic Camber Sands. Marty Feldman directed, co-wrote and starred in The Last Remake Of Beau Geste, with Peter Ustinov as the sadistic sergeant. A new book by Jean-Vincent Blanchard examines the legendary, vicious (and racist) French Foreign Legion, whose soldiers marched in 50C heat till their boots filled with blood Edith Piaf had a famous song about a night of hectic passion with a tattooed recruit, which she compared to (and I translate) �a thunderstorm through the sky�. And it is her image of the moody and uncompromising Legionnaire, attracted by the promise of �blood, bullets, bayonets and women in an Arab land�, that gets closest to the historical and psychological truth, as laid before us in this gripping, disturbing and controversial account of the Legion�s first century. For the all-volunteer corps of the French Army, founded in 1831, was neither comical, nor an excuse for high-spirited larks. It was brutal and often monstrous. Created to participate in France�s colonial expansion to Algeria, Morocco, Madagascar, Indochina and Mexico, �we scare people, we inspire fear and perhaps admiration, which is a little too thin a reward sometimes; but love, never�. RELATED ARTICLES Previous 1 Next Sex, soldiers and a very special relationship: Pals were... He was a doctor to royalty and collector supreme who created... Share this article Share Even the unique right to hire men regardless of their nationality was a cynical move. Since Napoleon and his casualties were still a living memory, the French government wanted an army �that could face danger and human losses without drawing the political backlash [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html tour bắc kinh từ hà nội] that French-born victims would elicit�. Out of this came the Legion�s legendary appeal to ne�er-do-wells, broken-hearted lovers, criminals, political refugees and �scions of aristocratic families leaving behind gambling debts�. Anyone physically fit was accepted, especially if they had teeth strong enough to bite the biscuit rations. No questions were asked at the headquarters in Sidi Bel Abbes, Algeria. The band of outcasts were fearless and had 'no families, no ideals' and 'no loves� �You can choose a new name if you like,� recruits were told. �We don�t ask for documents.� As mercenaries, the men fought for the Legion itself, united against everyone else. �Legio Patria Nostra,� ran the motto - the Legion is our country. �We don�t give a damn what we fight for. It�s our job. We�ve nothing else in life. No families, no ideals, no loves.� By 1900, there were 11,500 men in this band of scary outcasts. Blanchard calculates that between 1831 and 1962, when Algeria was grudgingly granted independence and the French left North Africa, approximately 600,000 people had joined up. It is chilling to discover that Jean-Marie Le Pen spent a formative three years in the Legion, and that recently a retired commander was arrested for making anti-Islam protests at Calais �The substantial majority of them were Germans or Northern Europeans,� we are informed. The rest were Belgians, Spaniards and Britons. There was one Turk, one New Zealander and lots of Americans during the Great Depression of the Thirties. Exhausting route-marches in Saharan temperatures of 50c with heavy backpacks, where �acid sweat burned your skin� and �you march with your shoes full of blood�, would not be my cup of tea. But, according to Blanchard, the typical Legionnaire was a man who found �redemption and an existential purpose through camaraderie and abnegation�. �Excessive revelry� was condoned by the generals, who believed �one did not build empires with virgins� A Legionnaire who was shot in the stomach and lying on the ground with his intestines escaping was heard to murmur to his captain: �Are you happy with me?� This is the kind of stoicism that was expected. �Excessive revelry� was condoned by the generals, who believed �one did not build empires with virgins�. Sex with prostitutes was encouraged, despite the risk of venereal disease, as were heavy drinking and brawling. How hilarious it must have been to terrorise the natives - the Legionnaires �can hardly keep beating, so hard they laugh�, ran a report. The French government maintained that this imperial experiment was to bring �reason, progress, science, culture and freedom� to backward jungle regions and wildernesses' The French government maintained that this imperial experiment was to bring �reason, progress, science, culture and freedom� to backward jungle regions and wildernesses. The Legionnaires were expected to fight �in the professed name of civilisation and� - here comes the catch - �in the name of racial superiority�. While we can applaud their achievements as engineers - digging and building roads, constructing forts and laying telephone lines - the fact remains that, for these mercenaries, �the gift of French civilisation� in practice meant the opportunity for the savage conquest of African tribes and, in Indochina, the Vietnamese patriotic resistance. Legionnaires went about �civilising the barbarians of this world with cannonballs�. Villages were pillaged and burned, the women raped, the men decapitated. �We were allowed to kill and plunder everything,� recalled a soldier. �We went to the villages and surprised the people in bed.� One Legionnaire received no censure when he made a tobacco pouch from cured human skin. Nevertheless, killing civilians must have taken its toll - indeed, Legionnaires were among the most screwed-up soldiers in history. In a group of 350 men, 11 deaths were put down to suicide, but there may have been many more, disguised in the record as death from disease. The belief was: �It is better to be dead than go through hell.� The Legionnaires were expected to fight �in the professed name of [http://Www.Reddit.com/r/howto/search?q=civilisation civilisation] and� - here comes the catch - �in the name of racial superiority� There was alcoholism and much illness - typhoid, tropical fever, dysentery, malaria. In Legionnaires� hospitals, a coffin, slathered with quicklime, was placed in readiness under a patient�s bed. It was said of a soldier about to die that he was off to �eat bananas by the roots� - i.e. be buried in soft soil. The deliberate hardship was not unlike that of a religious order, with its renunciation of worldly comforts - though entertainment involved lots of drag shows. Legionnaires made �splendid female impersonators�. Homosexual activity was commonplace, as you�d expect with �5,000 young solid males, boiling with vigour and vitality� at a loose end in the fort. When Kaiser Wilhelm tried to discourage Germans from joining up by publishing articles warning against sexual abuse in the desert, men with Heidelberg duelling scars raced to enlist. As 43 per cent of the corps was German, perhaps it is no surprise the Foreign Legion didn�t rescue France when the [http://wideinfo.org/?s=country country] was occupied by Nazis during World War II. The French government maintained that this imperial experiment was to bring �reason, progress, science, culture and freedom� to backward jungle regions and wildernesses Blanchard�s story concludes with the centenary of the corps in 1931, the parades and so forth. I am keen to read a further volume about post-colonial activities, particularly because, since 1962 when Sidi Bel Abbes was abandoned for a new HQ in Marseille, 50,000 men have felt the need to run away and join the Legion. It is chilling to discover that Jean-Marie Le Pen spent a formative three years in the Legion, and that recently a retired commander was arrested for making anti-Islam protests at Calais. Advertisement

Popular 13-foot python

2018-06-22T19:36:24Z

JordanBrehm:

LOUISVILLE, Ky. [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html tour bắc kinh từ hà nội] (AP) - A popular python snake named Monty that came to the [http://Www.trainingzone.co.uk/search/Louisville%20Zoo Louisville Zoo] in Kentucky in 1981 has been euthanized. The 13-foot, 38-year-old Burmese python died Tuesday at [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html tour bắc kinh từ hà nội] the zoo. Zookeepers say they decided to have the python euthanized because it had not been [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html vtr.org.vn] eating well, was losing weight and was diagnosed with lymphoma. Bill McMahan, supervisor of the [http://de.bab.la/woerterbuch/englisch-deutsch/HerpAquarium HerpAquarium] where Monty lives, says the python was a great ambassador for his species and had made appearances on local TV stations with its handlers. Pythons are constrictors, so they have no fangs and are typically fed poultry, rodents and rabbits. They are native to southern China, Burma, Indochina, Thailand and the Malay Archipelago. Advertisement

User:JordanBrehm

2018-06-22T19:36:20Z

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