Pesticide used on Corn Crops turn Male Frogs into Females
A commonly used pesticide known as atrazine can turn male frogs into females that are successfully able to reproduce, a new study finds.
While previous work has shown atrazine can cause sexual abnormalities in frogs, such as hermaphrodism (having both male and female sex organs), this study is the first to find that atrazine’s effects are long-lasting and can influence reproduction in amphibians.
The results suggest that atrazine, which is a weed killer used primarily on corn crops, could have potentially harmful effects on populations of amphibians, animals that are already experiencing a global decline , said study author Tyrone B. Hayes of the University of California, Berkeley. Atrazine is banned in Europe!.
And since atrazine interferes with the production of the sex hormone estrogen, present in people and frogs, the findings could have implications for humans as well. “If you have problems in amphibians, you can anticipate problems in other animals,” Hayes said.
Sex change ;
Hayes and his colleagues raised 40 male African clawed frogs in water containing atrazine, from when they were larvae all the way up until sexual maturity. The atrazine levels were about what the frogs would experience in environments where the pesticide is used, and below levels that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers safe for drinking water.
They compared this atrazine-exposed group with 40 other male frogs reared in atrazine-free water.
At the end of the experiment, all frogs in the atrazine-free group remained male, while 10 percent of the frogs exposed to atrazine were completely feminized — their genes said they should be male, but they had female anatomy, including ovaries. The feminized frogs were able to mate with males and produce viable eggs.
In both frogs and humans, sex is genetic. In people, females have two X (sex) chromosomes, while males have one X and one Y. For frogs, the sex chromosomes are labeled as Z or W and females have dissimilar chromosomes (ZW), while males have matching ones (ZZ).
Frogs exposed to atrazine also had reduced testosterone levels, decreased fertility, and showed less mating behavior.
Implications of feminized males ;
The results indicate atrazine could contribute to amphibian population declines, along with climate change, habitat loss and invasive species, Hayes said.
Hayes notes that if the feminized males do reproduce as females, they can only produce male offspring, which further skews the population sex ratio.
The pesticide could also cause problems for other species, including our own, Hayes said.
Atrazine mimics a biological compound and increases the production of estrogen. It has been shown to disrupt hormone levels in other animals as well as in human cells. It has also been found to induce breast cancer in rats, Hayes said.
The good news is that humans don’t live in water, and so we aren’t exposed to atrazine constantly.
But problems with wildlife should still raise concern for us, Hayes said. “Anytime you see dramatic declines like we’re seeing in amphibians and fish…we should recognize that we drink and swim and bathe in that same water,” Hayes said.
The results will be published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Live Science.com / AA Magnum Analyst Blog Site News 2017.
Australia rejects Greater Human Rights for Indigenous people
Sydney , Australia – Australians have roundly rejected greater rights for Indigenous citizens, ending plans to amend the country’s 122-year-old constitution after a divisive and racially tinged referendum campaign.
With 88% of polling places reporting, around 59% of people had voted against a proposal to acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders within the 1901 constitution for the first time.
The reforms would also have created a consultative body — a ‘Voice’ to Parliament — to weigh in on laws that affect Indigenous communities and help address profound social and economic inequality.
The often-spiteful campaign exposed the deep racial fault lines still running through the so-called Lucky Country.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who campaigned for a ‘yes’ vote, urged a divided nation to now come together in a spirit of unity and healing.
He added that the defeat would be a ‘heavy weight to carry’ and ‘very hard to bear’ for the vast majority of Aboriginal Australians who supported the referendum.
‘From tomorrow we will continue to write the next chapter in that great Australian story. And we’ll write it together. And reconciliation must be a part of that chapter, Albanese said.
Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney, the first Aboriginal woman elected to sit in the House of Representatives, said ‘Today is a day of sadness.’
Indigenous Australians expressed anger and anguish that the white majority had rejected calls for a reckoning with the country’s bloody colonial past.
This is a difficult result, this is a very hard result, said Yes23 campaign director Dean Parkin.
We did everything we could and we will come back from this, he said.
Fear and misinformation
More than 230 years since the first British penal ships anchored in Sydney, Albanese had championed the reforms as a step towards racial reconciliation.
But instead, it has sparked a deeply rancorous and racially tinged debate that exposed a gulf between First Nations people and the white majority.
The opposition campaign had deftly channeled fears about the role and effectiveness of the ‘Voice’ assembly, encouraging people to vote ‘no’ if they are uncertain.
The debate was accompanied by reams of online misinformation suggesting the ‘Voice’ would lead to land seizures, that it would create a South African-style system of Apartheid, or that it was part of a United Nations plot.
Conservative opposition leader Peter Dutton, who staunchly opposed the referendum, expressed his relief on Saturday that the binding vote had failed. It is clear obviously that the referendum has not been successful, and I think that is good for our country.
At all times in this debate I have leveled my criticism at what I consider to have been a bad idea, to divide Australians based on their heritage or the time at which they came to our country.
Indigenous leader Thomas Mayo expressed fury at the conduct of the ‘no’ campaign, saying they should be held accountable for their divisive and dishonest rhetoric.
They have lied to the Australian people. This dishonesty should not be forgotten in our democracy by the Australian people. There should be repercussions for that sort of behavior in our democracy. They should not get away with this.
Polls have consistently shown that voters — most of whom are white — rank Indigenous issues far down their list of political priorities.
In the days before the vote, media attention has focused as much on events in the Middle East as the political debate at home.
Racism accusation
Dee Duchesne, 60, a volunteer for the no campaign, said she was fighting to keep an extra layer of bureaucracy out of our constitution.
She said she had been called racist while handing out leaflets near a Sydney polling station during early voting. I’m not, she said. Voting is compulsory for Australia’s 17.6 million voters.
The referendum could only pass with support from a majority of voters nationally and a majority of voters in at least four of the country’s six states. It appeared to garner neither.
China News Network / ABC Flash Point News 2023.
The Viking Sun-Stone Navigation Crystals
Sun-stones have been described in Viking tales from the 13th–14th century AD, used as a navigation tool for transatlantic crossings to the new lands of Greenland and Iceland, and possibly even North America, as confirmed by the discovery of the archaeological site of l’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland in 1960.
Without any knowledge of the magnetic compass invented by the Chinese during the Han dynasty, the Vikings developed their own methods of navigation to trade over long distances and establish settlements in the new lands.
To navigate, the Vikings used horizon boards and sundials like the wooden disc found in 1948 in Uunartoq. However, these techniques only worked when the sun was directly observable, and not obscured by cloud cover or had moved below the horizon.
To resolve this, the theory suggests that the sunstone was a crystal that would polarize light, and by which the azimuth of the sun can be determined in a partly overcast sky or during twilight conditions.
The existence of sunstones has been a subject of scholarly debate, first appearing in allegorical stories such as the Rauðúlfs þáttr by an unnamed author, who recants the sagas of King Olaf.
The Rauðúlfs þáttr relates King Olav’s trip with his retinue, including the queen and bishop, to Eystridalir (now Österdalen) a then rather remote part of Norway, bordering on Sweden.
The text describes: The weather was thick and snowy as Sigurður had predicted. Then the king summoned Sigurður and Dagur (Rauðúlfur’s sons) to him. The king made people look out and they could nowhere see a clear sky.
Then he asked Sigurður to tell where the sun was at that time. He gave a clear assertion. Then the king made them fetch the solar stone and held it up and saw where light radiated from the stone and thus directly verified Sigurður’s prediction.
In the Hrafns Saga, it says: the weather was sick and stormy. The King looked about and saw no blue sky, then the King took the Sunstone and held it up, and then he saw where the Sun beamed from the stone.
It wasn’t until the 1960’s that the concept of Vikings using polarized light for navigation gained some weight, when Thorkild Ramskou, a Danish archaeologist, noted that Scandinavian Air Systems transArtic pilots used a Polaroid-based instrument called the Twilight Compass (Kollsman sky compass) to determine the Sun’s location.
This led Ramskou to propose that the Viking may have used a local mineral employed as a polariser, such as cordierite crystals, tourmaline or calcite from Icelandic spar.
Experiments by Guy Ropars confirmed that Iceland spar could be used in both cloudy and twilight conditions to detect concentric rings of polarization and thus the location of the sun.
This was further supported with the discovery of Iceland spar on an Elizabethan ship that sank near Alderney in 1592, however, archaeologists are still yet to find a sunstone among Viking shipwrecks or settlements.
Heritage Daily.com / ABC Flash Point News 2023
Kenya drought kills most Wildlife in protected National Parks
NAIROBI, Kenya: Hundreds of elephants and endangered Grevy’s zebras have died in Kenyan wildlife preserves during the ongoing drought in 2022. A recently released report noted that East Africa is enduring its worst drought in decades.
The Kenya Wildlife Service and other agencies have verified the deaths of 205 elephants, 512 wildebeests, 381 common zebras, 51 buffalo’s, 49 Greys zebras and 12 giraffes in the past nine months due to a lack of water, the data report states.
Areas in Kenya have endured four seasons without adequate rainfall, harming the local population, as well as wild animals and livestock.
The areas with the least available drinking water are found in Kenya’s most-visited national parks, reserves and conservancies, including the Amboseli, Tsavo and Laikipia-Samburu areas, according to the report.
Experts are seeking to undertake an aerial census of wildlife in Amboseli to determine the drought’s impact on wild animals in the reserve.
Other recommendations include providing water and salt licks in the water-starved regions.
Elephants drink 63.40 gallons of water per day, according to officials at the Elephant Neighbors Center. In order to assist the threatened Grevy’s zebras, experts urge delivering hay to threatened herds.
China-News Network / ABC Flash-Point News 2023.
Spirits and Danger on a Sacred Mount Shasta in California
Mount Shasta, located near the Oregon border in northern California, holds the distinction of being one of the world’s preeminent sacred mountains. It is recognized as an eligible Native American cultural and cosmological property on the National Register of Historic Places.
Artifacts found in the surrounding area conservatively suggest at least 11,000 years of human habitation, designating this region as one of the longest-occupied areas of North America.
On a clear day, Mount Shasta can be seen from over 100 miles away (160 km). The mountain, part of the thousand-mile-long Cascade Range stretching from northern California to British Columbia, is one of the largest strato-volcanoes in the world.
Mount Shasta is rising to an altitude of 14,179 feet (4321 meters); it is also part of a chain of volcanoes that encompasses the Pacific Basin’s notorious Ring of Fire, along which the majority of the planet’s earthquakes and eruptions occur.
Geologists consider Mount Shasta to be a very dangerous, high threat volcano; someday it will wake up and erupt again, possibly during this century.
A volcanic eruption from Mount Shasta could match or exceed the scale of the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.
The effects of an eruption on the surrounding towns close to the base of the mountain are predicted to be catastrophic, and because volcanoes stay active for years after an eruption, the region may have to be closed off to the public for a very long time.
Mount Shasta’s fuse is already burning, and experts all agree, it’s not a matter of if Mount Shasta will erupt again—but when.
Northwestern California Native American tribes traditionally view Mount Shasta as being structurally and energetically connected to a wide range of important volcanic landscapes and mountains, which extend northwards and southwards of their tribal territories.
A primordial spiritual connection is believed to link all these energetically powerful sites together, including Mount Shasta, Lassen Peak, Lava Beds, Medicine Lake Highlands, Crater Lake , as well as many other lesser landmarks found throughout the region.
Pulses of human occupation surrounding Mount Shasta have been traced back to around the end of the last Ice Age , some 11,000 years ago, marking this area of northern California as one of the oldest continually occupied regions in North America.
More recent discoveries suggest there may have been substantial human occupation along the northern California-Nevada border going as far back as 14,000 years ago.
Mount Shasta’s vast antiquity and mythic relevance places its significance on par.
Historically and categorically, with other sacred sites found among the world’s oldest known civilizations, including the temples and pyramids of Egypt, Stonehenge, the Mayan pyramids , and Machu Picchu.
Ancient Origins / ABC Flash Point News 2023
World Animal Day 2023
Every year World Animal Day is observed globally on October 4 with an aim to celebrate animal rights and welfare around the world. This day unites the animal welfare movement, mobilizing into a global force to make the world better for all animals.
It offers everyone a chance to make a difference and bring awareness to any type of animal that shares our planet. On World Animal Day, animal lovers unite to educate others and advocate for action against animal cruelty, neglect and any unfair treatment of animals.
According to the official website, this year’s theme is “Great or Small, Love Them All”. With this theme, the goal is to bring to light the importance of all beings, great and small, and allow the opportunity for even the most overlooked animals to be appreciated for what and who they are.
“Whether it’s our beloved companions at home or the wild animals we admire from afar, animals of all shapes and sizes play a critical role in our lives. They bring us joy, comfort, and companionship, and they remind us of the inter-connectedness of all living things.
This year, we want to highlight the ways in which we can show our love and appreciation for animals, both big and small. World Animal Day has been marked since 1925.
According to World Animal Protection, it was started by Heinrich Zimmermann, a cynologist, who organized the first celebration at the Sports Palace in Berlin, which was reportedly attended by over 5,000 people.
He dedicated countless hours to advancing World Animal Day, and in 1931, his proposal to officially celebrate October 4 as World Animal Day was approved and enacted as a resolution.
To further expand the reach of this event, in 2003, the UK-based animal welfare charity, Naturewatch Foundation, introduced the World Animal Day website. This initiative aimed to connect with and involve even more people in the cause.
World Animal Day brings together dedicated animal lovers from across the globe, and they participate in various unique ways to promote animal protection and conservation.
Over the years, the involvement of people in World Animal Day has significantly increased, leading to a wide range of inspiring events taking place in many countries.
It’s a day of celebration for all those who care about animals worldwide. It reminds us that each individual can make a positive impact, and when we join forces, we can commit to safeguarding and preserving animals for generations to come.
A soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better than humans. Animals are nothing but living beings, worthy of our compassion, respect, friendship and support. Animals are such agreeable friends- they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.
Animals are my friends and I don’t eat my friends. The ability to distinguish between right and wrong is the only thing that separates us from animals and this thing is inside every human being. The bird world is an indicator of the environment, if they are in trouble then we should understand that our bad days are not far away.
The main difference between a human and a dog is that if you feed a hungry dog and enrich it, it will not bite you. The eyes of an animal have a great power to speak the language. Life is as dear to a silent creature as it is to a human. Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.
Crickey Conservation Society 2023.
More than 100 dolphins found dead in Amazon Rainforest
More than a hundred dolphins have been found dead in the Brazilian Amazon amid an historic drought and record-high water temperatures that in places have exceeded 102 degrees Fahrenheit.
The dead dolphins were all found in Lake Tefé over the past seven days, according to the Mamirauá Institute, a research facility funded by the Brazilian Ministry of Science.
The institute said such a high number of deaths was unusual and suggested record-high lake temperatures and an historic drought in the Amazon may have been the cause.
The news is likely to add to the concerns of climate scientists over the effects human activity and extreme droughts are having on the region.
It’s still early to determine the cause of this extreme event but according to our experts, it is certainly connected to the drought period and high temperatures in Lake Tefé, in which some points are exceeding 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit).
The Amazon River, the world’s largest waterway, is currently in the dry season, and several specimens of river fauna are also suffering from record-high temperatures.
Researchers and activists are trying to rescue surviving dolphins by transferring them from lagoons and ponds in the outskirts to the main body of the river where the water is cooler, reported CNN Brasil, but the operation is not easy due to the remoteness of the area.
Transferring river dolphins to other rivers is not that safe because it’s important to verify if toxins or viruses are present [before releasing the animals into the wild], André Coelho, a researcher at the Mamiraua Institute, told CNN Brasil.
The drought in the Amazon is impacting the economy as well.
Below average levels of water have been reported in 59 municipalities in Amazonas State, impeding both transport and fishing activities on the river.
Authorities expect even more acute droughts over the next couple of weeks, which could result in further deaths of dolphins.
CNN / Crickey Amigu di Natura Curacao 2023
Sharp rise in American Suicide murder rates
The US suicide rate increased by 2.6% in 2022 to 49,449 people, according to statistics released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as official data continues to show an upward trend after numbers fell in 2019 and 2020.
The rise in 2022 follows a 5% increase in US citizens taking their own lives in 2021, with campaigners suggesting the figures reveal a worsening mental health crisis in the United States.
Mental health has become the defining public health and societal challenge of our time, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said in a statement about the new findings.
He called the numbers a sobering reminder of how urgent it is that we further expand access to mental health care [and] addressing the root causes of mental health struggles.
US adults aged 65 and above saw a precipitous 8.1% rise in suicides in 2022, to 10,433 cases. This reflects a continuation of historical data showing that the suicide rate in the 65+ age group has risen by 62% between 2007 and 2021, according to the CDC in June.
The research also indicated that the mental health crisis in the United States is an issue affecting all age groups.
A survey conducted by the CDC in March shows that around one in three teenage high school girls said that they have contemplated ending their lives at some point. More than half – 57% – also stated that they feel persistently sad or hopeless.
Nine in ten Americans believe America is facing a mental health crisis. The new suicide data reported by the CDC illustrates why, US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said of the report, according to CBS on Friday.
Becerra added: One life lost to suicide is too many. Yet, too many people still believe asking for help is a sign of weakness.
June figures, also from the CDC, showed that nearly one in five (18.4%) US adults said that they had been diagnosed as suffering from depression at some point in their lives.
However, the survey also suggests that a person is more likely to be diagnosed with depression depending on circumstances, such as where they live.
Just under 13% of Hawaiian citizens reported a depression diagnosis, compared to 27.5% in West Virginia, the CDC said.
RT. com / ABC Flash Point News 2023.
Carbon dioxide levels risen by nearly 50% since the Industrial Revolution
Over the weekend, the climate system sounded simultaneous alarms. Near the entrance to the Arctic Ocean in northwest Russia, the temperature surged to 84 Fahrenheit (29 Celsius).
Meanwhile, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eclipsed 415 parts per million for the first time in human history.
Saturday’s carbon dioxide measurement of 415 parts per million at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory is the highest in at least 800,000 years and probably over 3 million years. Carbon dioxide levels have risen by nearly 50% since the Industrial Revolution.
The clip at which carbon dioxide has built up in the atmosphere has risen in recent years. Ralph Keeling, director of the program that monitors the gas at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, tweeted that its accumulation in the last year is on the high end.
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that, along with the rise of several other such heat-trapping gases, is the primary cause of climate warming in recent decades, scientists have concluded.
Data from the Japan Meteorological Agency show April was the second warmest on record for the entire planet.
These changes all have occurred against the backdrop of unremitting increases in carbon dioxide, which has now crossed another symbolic threshold.
By themselves, these are just data points. But taken together with so many indicators of an altered atmosphere and rising temperatures, they blend into the unmistakable portrait of human-induced climate change.
Saturday’s steamy 84-degree reading was posted in Arkhangelsk, Russia, where the average high temperature is around 54 this time of year. The city of 350,000 people sits next to the White Sea, which feeds into the Arctic Ocean’s Barents Sea.
In Koynas, a rural area to the east of Arkhangelsk, it was even hotter on Sunday, soaring to 87 degrees (31 Celsius).
Many locations in Russia, from the Kazakhstan border to the White Sea, set record-high temperatures over the weekend, some 30 to 40 degrees (around 20 Celsius) above average.
The warmth also bled west into Finland, which hit 77 degrees (25 Celsius) Saturday, the country’s warmest temperature of the season so far.
The abnormally warm conditions in this region stemmed from a bulging zone of high pressure centered over western Russia.
This particular heat wave, while a manifestation of the arrangement of weather systems and fluctuations in the jet stream, fits into what has been an unusually warm year across the Arctic and most of the mid-latitudes.
In Greenland, for example, the ice sheet’s melt season began about a month early. In Alaska, several rivers saw winter ice break up on their earliest dates on record.
Across the Arctic overall, the extent of sea ice has hovered near a record low for weeks.
Eighteen of the 19 warmest years on record for the planet have occurred since 2000, and we keep observing these highly unusual and often record-breaking high temperatures.
They won’t stop soon, but cuts to greenhouse emissions would eventually slow them down. That is if the capitalist corporations decide to cut their pollution output.
MSN. com / ABC Flash Point News 2019.
Cocaine and Oil are the top export products for Colombia
President Gustavo Petro admitted on Friday that Cocaine and Oil have always been Colombia’s top main export products, since cocaine became the number one drug for the USA and Europe.
Petro’s (DEA) opponents have accused him of creating a Narco-state, while the president insists that market forces and foreign demand are responsible for the surge in cocaine production.
Cocaine, supported by the chemical industry (Shell) has been Colombia’s first export product many decades, and if not, the second, Petro wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Everything depends on the international price of both products, if the price of oil falls, cocaine is the largest export, if the international price of oil rises, it is oil [first] and cocaine the second.
Under Petro, Colombia has largely abandoned its policy of fumigating coca plantations, focusing instead on arresting senior drug gang leaders.
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Meanwhile, Petro has permitted small coca farmers to keep their crops, and struck ceasefire deals with some of the country’s largest armed humanitarian militias, many of whom finance their guerilla operations with cocaine profits.
Amid this change in drug policy, cocaine cultivation reached a record high in Colombia last year, according to a UN report.
With potential output of the drug up 24% on 2021, cocaine is set to overtake oil as Colombia’s most lucrative export before the end of the year.
In 2022, Colombian cocaine exports earned $18.2 billion, with oil earning $19.1 billion, according to Bloomberg’s statistics.
Petro’s opponents say that the president’s policies are directly responsible for lining the pockets of DEA protected drug traffickers.
The Dutch Caribbean islands mostly function as tax harbors for the cocaine profits, which are made by the Netherlands and Spain as the main global drugs distribution centers for Europe and beyond.
But Petro’s opponents keep pressing that Petro must prevent Colombia from turning into a Narco-state, fascist Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay of the opposition Democratic Center party wrote on X on Friday.
However, the fact that cocaine revenues are closing in on oil earnings demonstrates the reality that oil extraction doesn’t earn as much money as oil production if the USA and Colombia want productive economies.
Colombian Cocaine is the Worlds best. That is why it sells so well all over the USA. We demand the best and get it. We don’t care for Peruvian or Ecuadorian coke.
Unlike opioids, a specific poppy extract, cocaine has no legitimate medical use, such as for pain. Considering its a recreational drug for addicts like USA’s president’s son, Hunter Biden, its astonishing Columbia has such a huge market that it can reach.
The product requires smuggling to reach its consumers. It boggles the imagination how the Colombians accomplish logistical challenges such as bypassing various nation’s coast guards.
Therefore coke has fueled more startups than any other substance known to man… it gets you through a 36-hour day no problem. People don’t want you admit it but it’s what makes Wall Street tick.
RT. com / ABC Flash Point News 2023
The Galaxy Ghost Ship in Thailand
For years, the Galaxy Ghost Ship has been parked in an inlet on Koh Chang. It was built with the intention of being a floating hotel, but it is now closed and abandoned.
The Galaxy was a genuine ship that had a leak and had to be converted into a hotel. It was once part of a much larger resort that shuttered a few years ago for reasons that are still unknown.
Nobody really knows for certain why the resort and the Galaxy were closed down.
You used to be able to stay on board this hotel during your vacation to the island. It was also reasonably priced! A room would have cost you only 1000 THB per night, according to previous stories.
That wasn’t all, though.
The Galaxy was part of the Koh Chang Grand Lagoona Resort, a much larger luxury resort in the Bay of Ao Bang Bao with multiple artificial lakes, a beautiful beach, and a variety of other types of lodgings to choose from, including timber lodges, bungalows, chalets, and floating houses.
A pool house in the shape of a boat was even available.
So, if you’re stuck for something to do one afternoon, take the opportunity to visit the original Koh Chang ghost ship.
On a motorcycle, ride to Bang Bao Beach on Koh Chang’s far western tip and continue along the small road that runs behind the beach.
Someone will emerge out of nowhere and ask for a 100 THB entrance charge. For this, you get a drink and access to the entire complex, as well as the opportunity to relax on the beach.
While most sun-seekers are happy sipping cocktails on a beach while relaxing on holiday, you’re more likely find me trekking through the overgrowth in my flip flops looking for an abandoned site, courtesy of an internet tip-off, determination and a bit of explorer’s luck.
Now, if I could just get myself a ticket to the island of Koh Chang in Thailand to conquer my latest urbex calling– a giant ghost cruise liner, slowly decaying in the midst of an abandoned paradise resort.
At the very end of an island that takes no more than an hour to cross, cemented to the land of a beautiful deserted beach is The Galaxy, a seven-deck, seventy bedroom ship that belongs to a larger resort which closed down several years ago in circumstances unknown.
Formerly known as the Koh Chang Grand Lagoona Resort, located on Bang Bao Bay (Ao Bang Bao), the rest of the supposed five star resort includes various smaller floating accommodations, including fishing boats and chalets, some in various stages of disrepair and others mysteriously well-maintained.
Once recognized as the most modern floating hotel in Thailand, it supposedly was a Thai billionaire’s vision of what a luxury island resort should look like.
According to this travel blog posted in 2011, to stay on the Galaxy, rooms cost 699 baht per night which would equate to just under $20.
ABC Flash Point News 2023.
Monster Hurricane caused flash floods in the USA and Canada
Hurricane and tropical storm watches are now in effect for much of coastal New England as Hurricane Lee threatens to deliver a blow to parts of the region as well as Atlantic Canada later this week and into the weekend.
Hurricane conditions, heavy rainfall, and coastal flooding are possible in portions of eastern Maine on Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said. A hurricane watch has been issued for that area.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills on Wednesday urged residents to exercise caution and to take common-sense steps to ensure they have all they need to stay safe as the storm Lee draws closer.
The hurricane center also warned there is potential for life-threatening storm surge flooding in parts of southeastern Massachusetts, including Cape Cod and Nantucket late Friday and Saturday. A storm surge watch has been issued there.’
A hurricane watch has been issued from Stonington, Maine, up to the US-Canada border, as well as for parts of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. A tropical storm watch has also been issued for a large part of coastal New England.
The massive storm, which remained a Category 2 hurricane Wednesday evening, was centered about 345 miles south-southwest of Bermuda, according to an 11 p.m. ET advisory from the hurricane center. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 105 mph.
A tropical storm warning remains in effect for Bermuda ahead of Lee’s brush with the island Thursday. Bermuda is expected to feel tropical storm conditions by early Thursday.
On the forecast track, the center of Lee will pass west of Bermuda Thursday and Thursday night and then approach the coast of New England and Atlantic Canada Friday and Saturday.
Due to Lee’s large size, hazards will extend well away from the center, and there will be little to no significance on exactly where the center reaches the coast, the hurricane center has said.
The soil across much of New England is already soaked. Rainfall in parts of Massachusetts and New Hampshire is more than 300% above normal values over the past two weeks, according to weather service data.
Destructive flooding already occurred in parts of Massachusetts earlier this week.
More rainfall this week ahead of Lee will prime the environment for flash flooding, so even moderate amounts of rain from Lee could be dangerous.
The combination of tropical storm-force wind gusts and saturated soil will also bring down trees more easily, especially since trees across New England are still in full leaf. This raises the risk of a higher number of power outages across the region.
Meanwhile, dangerous surf is affecting the southeastern US coast from Florida through the Carolinas. The risk of rip currents now spans the East Coast from Florida to coastal Massachusetts.
CNN / ABC Flash Point Weather Engineering News 2023.
Libya floods wipe out 25% of Tripoli, 10.000 feared missing
At least 10,000 people were feared missing in Libya on Tuesday in floods caused by a huge storm that burst dams, swept away buildings and wiped out as much as a quarter of the eastern city of Derna, Reuters reports.
More than 1,000 bodies have already been recovered in Derna alone and officials expected the death toll would be much higher, after Storm Daniel barrelled across the Mediterranean into a country divided and crumbling after over a decade of conflict.
A Reuters journalist on the way to Derna, a coastal city of around 125,000 inhabitants, saw vehicles overturned on the edges of roads, trees knocked down and abandoned, flooded houses.
Videos showed a wide torrent running through the city centre after dams burst, wrecking buildings that stood on either side.
Bodies are lying everywhere – in the sea, in the valleys, under the buildings, Hichem Abu Chkiouat, Minister of Civil Aviation in the administration that controls the east, told Reuters by phone shortly after visiting Derna.
The number of bodies recovered in Derna is more 1,000.
Abu Chkiouat later told Al Jazeera that he expected the total number of dead across the country to reach more than 2,500, as the number of missing people was rising.
Other eastern cities, including Libya’s second biggest city Benghazi, were also hit by the storm, and Tamer Ramadan, head of a delegation of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said the death toll would be huge.
We can confirm from our independent sources of information that the number of missing people is hitting 10,000 so far, he told reporters via video link.
United Nations Aid chief, Martin Griffiths, said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that emergency teams were now being mobilized to help on the ground.
As Turkiye and other countries rushed aid to Libya, including search and rescue vehicles, rescue boats, generators and food, distraught Derna citizens rushed home in search of loved ones.
At Tripoli Airport in north-west Libya, a woman started to wail loudly as she received a call saying most of her family were dead or missing.
Her brother-in-law, Walid Abdulati, said we are not speaking about one or two people dead, but up to 10 members of each family dead.
Karim Al-Obaidi, a passenger on a plane from Tripoli to the east, said: I have never felt as frightened as I do now … I lost contact with all my family, friends and neighbors.
An Interior Ministry spokesperson told Al Jazeera that naval teams were searching for the many families that were swept into the sea in the city of Derna.
Footage broadcast by Libyan TV station, Al-Masar, showed people searching for bodies, and men in a rubber boat retrieving one from the sea.
We have nothing to save people … no machines…we are asking for urgent help, said Khalifah Touil, an ambulance worker, said.
Derna, on Libya’s eastern Mediterranean coast, is bisected by a seasonal river that flows from highlands to the south, and normally protected from flooding by dams.
A video posted on social media showed remnants of a collapsed dam 11.5 km (7 miles) upstream of the city where two river valleys converged, now surrounded by huge pools of mud-coloured water.
There used to be a dam, a voice can be heard saying in the video. Reuters confirmed the location based on the images.
In a research paper published last year, hydrologist, Abdelwanees A. R. Ashoor, of Libya’s Omar Al-Mukhtar University said repeated flooding of the seasonal riverbed, or wadi, was a threat to Derna.
He cited five floods since 1942, and called for immediate steps to ensure regular maintenance of the dams. If a huge flood happens, the result will be catastrophic for the people of the wadi and the city.
Pope Francis was among world leaders who said they were deeply saddened by the deaths and destruction in Libya.
Libya is politically split between east and west and public services have fallen apart since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising that prompted years of factional conflict.
The internationally recognised government in Tripoli does not control eastern areas, but has dispatched aid to Derna, with at least one relief flight leaving from the western city of Misrata on Tuesday, a Reuters journalist on the plane said.
Norway’s Refugee Council said tens of thousands of people were displaced with no prospect of going back home.
Our team in Libya is reporting a disastrous situation for some of the most impoverished communities along the north coast. Entire villages have been overwhelmed by the floods and the death toll continues to rise.
Middle East Monitor / ABC Flash Point Zionist WW III News 2023.
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