Libya pounded from Air and Sea

 

The UK, US and France have attacked Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi's forces in the first action to enforce a UN-mandated no-fly zone.

Pentagon officials say the US and the UK have fired more than 110 missiles, while French planes struck pro-Gaddafi forces attacking rebel-held Benghazi.

Col Gaddafi has vowed retaliation and said he would open arms depots to the people to defend Libya.

Cruise missiles hit air-defence sites in the capital, Tripoli, and Misrata.

Libyan state TV said 48 people had been killed and 150 wounded in the attacks. There was no independent confirmation of the deaths.

A French plane fired the first shots against Libyan government targets at 1645 GMT on Saturday, destroying a number of military vehicles, according to a military spokesman.

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Iran sets up centre for satellite images

Iran opened its first centre to receive satellite images, a new stage in its space programme that coincides with celebrations marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution. According to Defence Minister, Ahmad Vahidi, equipments used in the centre have been manufactured by Iranian engineers.

Iran does not have an operational satellite of its own but announced in December, 2011, that it would launch two satellites -- Fajr (Dawn) and Rasad-1 (Observation-1) by the end of the Iranian year in March 2011.

The Kavoshgar-4 rocket can carry a payload up to 120 kilometres.

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MAN-MADE OASIS WILL TRANSFORM THE DESERT IN JORDAN

An amibitious project to pipe salt water from the Red Sea into the arid coastal city of Aqaba, Jordan, could turn the region into an oasis. A 50-acre demonstration facility, which will combine two technologies -- seawater greenhouses and concentrated solar power -- to grow crops, produce carbon neutral energy and desalinate seawater, has received approval from the government of Jordan and could be operational by 2012, with full-scale commercial use going online in 2015.
read here:http://news.discovery.com/tech/man-made-oasis-will-transform-the-desert.html

Buried Secrets in the Heart of Tel Aviv

Archaeologists from Tel Aviv University have unearthed some very interesting historical artifacts at an ancient fortress in the city. The fortress, Tel Qudadi, located at the mouth of the Yarkon River, was first excavated over 70 years ago, but the finds were never discovered. New evidence from the site indicates a linkage between ancient Israel and the Greek island of Lesbos.

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'250 billion' plastic fragments in Mediterranean

Some 250 billion microscopic pieces of plastic are floating in the Mediterranean, creating a biological hazard that reverberates up the food chain, according to research supported by green campaigners.

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Five new data layers to National GIS in Bahrain

Five new spatial data layers have been added to the National Geospatial Data Clearinghouse, according to Dr. Khalid Al—Haidan, Director of GIS and member of the National GIS Steering Committee, Bahrain. These layers are special data layers of digital elevations in the Kingdom, health information layer, demographic statistics layers, communications layer and Kingdom geoids layer.

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Could we clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

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Bolivia slams widely praised climate plan

 Global climate talks made progress late toward a deal to slow global warming despite bitter objections by Bolivia to a widely praised proposal to break a deadlock between rich and poor.

More than 100 environment ministers were expected to work through the night to try to end a row between developing countries and Russia, Canada and Japan, which do not want to extend the Kyoto Protocol that curbs emissions in rich countries until 2012.Many developing nations as well as the European Union, Australia and the United States praised a draft drawn up by host country Mexico in the beach resort of Cancun on the final day of two-week talks. The proposed document refers to "a second commitment period" for Kyoto.

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A High-Yield Biomass Alternative to Petroleum for Industrial Chemicals

 A team of University of Massachusetts Amherst chemical engineers report in November 25 issue of Science that they have developed a way to produce high-volume chemical feedstocks including benzene, toluene, xylenes and olefins from pyrolytic bio-oils, the cheapest liquid fuels available today derived from biomass. The new process could reduce or eliminate industry's reliance on fossil fuels to make industrial chemicals worth an estimated $400 billion annually.

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Mexico eyes climate funds for locally run forests

Local landowners collectively running a small lumber yard in the pine forests of central Mexico say they are making profits from logging and cutting carbon emissions at the same time.

Eleven communities share one sawmill in the town of Agua Bendita, processing planks for furniture and construction and earning enough to convince them that saving the forest is better than clear-cutting for agriculture.

Global warming, pollution and the future of forests will dominate the agenda when Mexico hosts nearly 200 nations in Cancun from November 29 to December 10 to try to put U.N. climate talks back on track after inconclusive discussions last year.

The cutting and burning of deforestation makes up about 10 percent of human greenhouse gas emissions, which scientists say are causing rising sea levels and extreme weather.

SMALL PLOTS AND INCOMES

Rich nations are pledging money to a U.N.-backed forest protection scheme to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation -- REDD -- that could lead to a global trade in carbon credits worth $30 billion a year.

Selectively logged and managed forests capture more carbon on average than national parks, said a study released this week by Rights and Resources Initiative and the Mexican Civil Council for Sustainable Forestry, two groups that support forest collectives.

New trees cultivated after controlled cutting capture more carbon than purely old-growth forests, the study said.

Mexico has several issues that complicate the efforts.

Unlike the rest of the world, where governments largely own forested land, nearly three-quarters of Mexico's wilderness is divided into plots of group-owned property, a legacy of land reforms after the Mexican revolution in the early 1900s.

For now, most Mexicans living off the forest struggle to make ends meet. Because of the slow pace of international talks, it will be a long time until REDD-related aid flows to cooperatives like Agua Bendita, or "holy water."

"Deforestation is an economic decision. The property owner wants to change the land use precisely because the forest does not give him enough income," said Juan Torres, the head of Mexico's national forest commission.

The government has a program in 5.7 million acres (2.3 million hectares) across the country to pay a small stipend in exchange for forest protection.

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LIQUID BATTERY COULD HARNESS AND STORE SOLAR ENERGY

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