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AMAZING pictures taken more than 2km below the surface show the torpedoed hospital ship Centaur resting on the sea floor. The incredibly sharp images show the Centaur sitting on the sandy ocean bottom just over 2km down, the vessel listing at an angle of about 25 degrees. Its red cross denoting its hospital ship status is clearly visible, as is the green band painted around the ship. The photos were taken shortly before 3am today after shipwreck hunters sent down a remote controlled submarine to take the first ever footage of the wreck of an Australian hospital ship that was...

Nakheel: Palm Jumeirah is 'not sinking' by Andrew White on Wednesday, 09 December 2009 Dubai-based developer Nakheel on Wednesday strenuously denied reports in the international media that its landmark Palm Jumeirah island was sinking into the Arabian Gulf. European ground survey firm Fugro NPA Ltd had said that the island is sinking by an average of 5 millimetres a year, and may flood in the future if ocean levels rise. However Shaun Lenehan, Head of Environment at Nakheel, said that the reports were “wholly inaccurate”. “The integrity of all buildings, utilities and infrastructure on Palm Jumeirah are testament to the...

With U.S. unemployment at a 26-year high of 9.8 percent, the focus in Congress is increasingly on ways to help create and preserve jobs. Given that many economists expect the national jobless rate to continue going up well into 2010, this makes sense. Given that Democratic lawmakers worry that they may lose control of the House next year unless unemployment declines, there are also strong political motives to do something. But this must, repeat, must not include a new economic “stimulus” bill on top of the wasteful, poorly focused, pork-filled $787 billion measure approved in February. The New York Times...

PARIS (AFP) – Two-thirds of the world's major deltas, home to nearly half a billion people, are caught in the scissors of sinking land and rising seas, according to a study published Sunday. The new findings, based on satellite images, show that 85 percent of the 33 largest delta regions experienced severe flooding over the past decade, affecting 260,000 square kilometres (100,000 square miles). Delta land vulnerable to serious flooding could expand by 50 percent this century if ocean levels increase as expected under moderate climate change scenarios, the study projects. Worst hit will be Asia, but heavily populated and...

July 24, 2009 Why Obamacare Is Sinking You can’t fake health-care nirvana in legislation. By Charles Krauthammer What happened to Obamacare? Rhetoric met reality. As both candidate and president, the master rhetorician could conjure a world in which he bestows upon you health-care nirvana: more coverage, less cost. But you can’t fake it in legislation. Once you commit your fantasies to words and numbers, the Congressional Budget Office comes along and declares that the emperor has no clothes. President Obama premised the need for reform on the claim that medical costs are destroying the economy. True. But now we learn...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. economy sank at a 5.7 percent pace in the first quarter as the brute force of the recession carried over into this year. However, many analysts believe activity isn't shrinking nearly as much now as the downturn flashes signs of letting up. The Commerce Department's updated reading on gross domestic product, released Friday, showed the economy's contraction from January to March was slightly less deep than the 6.1 percent annualized decline first estimated last month. But the new reading was a tad worse than the 5.5 percent annualized drop economists were forecasting.

Live video feed from Key West of the sinking of former USNS Vandenberg to form an artificial reef

China calls on Russia to explain cargo ship sinking 59 mins ago China called on Russia on Thursday to explain how a Chinese cargo ship sank in Russian waters after reports it was fired on by the Russian military. Seven Chinese sailors were missing after the "New Star" sank on Saturday in stormy seas off Vladivostok and after a Russian warship shot at least 500 rounds into it, the official China Daily newspaper said, quoting a Chinese-language paper which in turned quoted a Russian newspaper. The "New Star" was held at the Russian port of Nakhodka earlier this month, suspected...

Fishing Boat Sinks Off Alaska; 5 Killed, 2 Missing Thursday , October 23, 2008 ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Four crew members of a fishing boat were plucked alive from a life raft in frigid, stormy seas Wednesday, hours after their vessel was reported in distress, a Coast Guard spokesman says. Five crew members died, and two remained missing. A search continued for the remaining two crew members of the Katmai, a 93-foot fish processor based on Alaska's Kodiak island, Coast Guard Petty Officer Levi Read said. Read said two more deceased crew members were located Wednesday night by a fishing vessel...

Shanghai highrises could worsen threat of rising seas By Rujun Shen Sun Oct 5, 9:26 PM ET Shanghai, China's most populous city and an aspiring global financial center, is also among the world's most vulnerable urban areas to a rise in sea levels as global warming melts polar ice. Its location on a low-lying alluvial plain near the mouth of Asia's longest river, the Yangtze, had already left it prone, but researchers warn that forests of skyscrapers sprouting across the ambitious metropolis could compound the threat by causing its marshy ground to sink. "Shanghai came from the ocean, and has...

Submarine 'caused' sinking of French trawler By Henry Samuel in Paris Last Updated: 2:55am BST 15/04/2008 French judges investigating the sinking of a French trawler off the English coast have officially declared it was most likely caused by a submarine - perhaps a British one. Five French trawler men drowned when the Bugaled Breizh from Brittany went down off Cornwall in January 2004. After four years of investigations, the theory that the boat was dragged down by a submarine was "the most serious", the two judges found, after ruling out the results of an earlier probe by France's Sea Accident...

A growing number of foreign fighters are leaving or attempting to flee Iraq as U.S. and Iraqi forces have weakened al-Qaida and forced its members from former strongholds, USA Today reported Friday, citing U.S. military officials. The trend reflects a broad disenchantment among foreign fighters, particularly since al-Qaida has lost sanctuaries in parts of Baghdad and Anbar, an intelligence official told the paper. “They’re being told in their countries of origin by facilitators that, ‘Hey, we’re basically winning the war against the apostates,’” said Army Brig. Gen. Michael Flynn, intelligence director for Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the...

PARIS (AFP) - The Mississippi Delta is sinking fast, posing a challenge for the rebuilding of coastal Louisiana after the devastation wrought in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina, a study released Sunday confirmed. Across large swathes of southern Louisiana, average annual subsidence of five-to-10 millimetres (0.2 to 0.4 inches) have contributed to sea-level rise, shoreline erosion and wetland loss, they said. The findings have implications for delta regions around the world -- home to tens of millions of people -- already threatened by rising sea levels caused by global warming, the researchers told AFP. But the study, published in Nature, also...

Explanation of MS Explorer's sinking doesn't hold water By Colin Woodard Mon Dec 3, 3:00 AM ET People familiar with the Antarctic tourism industry weren't surprised that a cruise ship sank there. What stunned them was that the ship in question was the MS Explorer, a veteran of the polar cruise ship trade, purpose-built to operate in extreme polar environments, and manned by an experienced crew. That it sank during what appears to have been the most routine of circumstances – cruising through young pack ice in mild weather – has experts scratching their heads. "I'm totally shocked and surprised,"...

People familiar with the Antarctic tourism industry weren't surprised that a cruise ship sank there. What stunned them was that the ship in question was the MS Explorer, a veteran of the polar cruise ship trade, purpose-built to operate in extreme polar environments, and manned by an experienced crew. That it sank during what appears to have been the most routine of circumstances – cruising through young pack ice in mild weather – has experts scratching their heads. "I'm totally shocked and surprised," says Leif Skog, who was captain of the Explorer for six years in the mid-1980s and early...

LONDON, England (CNN) -- More than 150 people have abandoned a sinking cruise liner that collided with an iceberg in Antarctic waters, a Chilean navy captain told CNN. The ship sent out a distress call at around 10 p.m. ET Thursday. Passenger ship Explorer reported problems near the South Shetland Islands, south of Argentina. The area is in a sector of Antarctica claimed by the United Kingdom. Capt. Carlos Munita of the Chilean navy said they received a distress call from the Explorer, saying the vessel had hit an iceberg around 10 p.m. ET Thursday. He added a Norwegian rescue...

Cruise Ship With 281 People on Board Runs Aground off Alaska

China To Relocate Over 1 Million People In Shanxi Coalmine Sinking Areas By 2008 (RTTNews) - The provincial government of China's Shanxi Province said it would relocate 1 million people to new areas from the coalmine sinking areas and shanty towns before 2008. China's richest coal province, Shanxi faces the prospect of expanded sinking areas as a result of long-term and intensified coal mining. The Governor of Shanxi, Yu Youjun, at a meeting on shanty town reconstruction indicated that the provincial government in a joint effort with state-owned coal companies would relocate over 0.6 million people out of the coalmine...

Huge rock below earth's crust may have caused catastrophe millions of years ago A huge rock called a "megalith," which lies deep below the earth's crust, may have played a part in a global catastrophe that is believed to have occurred 40 to 50 million years ago, researchers said. A megalith is supposed to have caused the sinking of the Japanese archipelago in the popular film, "Nihon Chinbotsu" ("The Sinking of Japan"). Researchers say a catastrophe on a greater scale than the sinking of Japan may have occurred 40 to 50 million years ago, noting that a megalith collapsed below...

Yet another major figure has exited Air America Radio. COO Carl Ginsburg, one of the left-leaning talk network’s early architects, has resigned. No replacement has been named. As previously reported, president Gary Krantz, who joined the company in April 2005, exited in June of this year. Meanwhile, former CEO Danny Goldberg, who remains with the network through the end of 2006 as vice chairman, is returning to his music business roots and has started a new venture.