Experts say Pakistan quake island unlikely to last
POSTED: 25 Sep 2013 9:32 PM
A small island created in the Arabian Sea by the huge earthquake that hit southwest Pakistan has fascinated locals but experts say it is unlikely to last long.
GWADAR: A small island of mud and rock created by the huge earthquake that hit southwest Pakistan has fascinated locals but experts -- who found methane gas rising from it -- say it is unlikely to last long.
The 7.7-magnitude quake struck on Tuesday in Baluchistan's remote Awaran district, killing more than 270 people and affecting hundreds of thousands.
Off the coastline near the port of Gwadar, some 400 kilometres (250 miles) from the epicentre, locals were astonished to see the dark grey mass of rock and mud that had emerged from the waves in the Arabian Sea.
"It is not a small thing, but a huge thing which has emerged from under the water," Gwadar resident Muhammad Rustam told AFP.
"It looked very, very strange to me and also a bit scary because suddenly a huge thing has emerged from the water."
Enterprising boat owners were doing a brisk trade ferrying curious sightseers to the island -- dubbed "Earthquake Mountain" by locals.
Mohammad Danish, a marine biologist from Pakistan's National Institute of Oceanography, said a team of experts had visited the island and found methane gas rising.
"Our team found bubbles rising from the surface of the island which caught fire when a match was lit and we forbade our team to start any flame. It is methane gas," Danish said on GEO television news.
The island is about 60 to 70 feet (18 to 21 metres) high, up to 300 feet wide and up to 120 feet long, he said. It sits about 650 feet from the coast.
The surface was a solid but muddy mix of stones, sand and water with visible cracks, said an AFP cameraman who visited the island. Dead fish and sea plants lay on the surface.
Gary Gibson, a seismologist with Australia's University of Melbourne, said the new island was likely to be a "mud volcano", created by methane gas forcing material upwards during the violent shaking of the earthquake.
"It's happened before in that area but it's certainly an unusual event, very rare," Gibson told AFP, adding that it was "very curious" to see such activity some 400 kilometres from the quake's epicentre.
The so-called island is not a fixed structure but a body of mud that will be broken down by wave activity and dispersed over time, the scientist said.
A similar event happened in the same area in 1945 when an 8.1-magnitude earthquake at Makran triggered the formation of mud volcanoes off Gwadar.
Professor Shamim Ahmed Shaikh, chairman of the department of geology at Karachi University, said the island, which has not been officially named, would disperse within a couple of months.
He said it happens along the Makran coast because of the complex relationship between tectonic plates in the area. Pakistan sits close to the junction of three plates -- the Indian, Arabian and Eurasian.
"About a year back an island of almost similar size had surfaced at a similar distance from the coast in the Makran region. This would disperse in a week to a couple of months," Shaikh told AFP.
Gibson said the temporary island was very different from the permanent uplift seen during major "subduction zone" earthquakes, where plate collisions force the Earth's crust suddenly and sometimes dramatically upwards.
For example, in the massive 9.5-magnitude earthquake in Chile in 1960 -- known as the world's largest ever -- whole fishing villages were thrust "several metres" upwards and wharves suddenly located hundreds of metres inland, Gibson said.
Such uplift events are relatively common in the Pacific's so-called "Ring of Fire", a hotbed of seismic and volcanic activity at the junction of several tectonic plates.
A thundering 8.0-magnitude quake in the Solomon Islands in 2007 thrust Ranogga Island upwards by three metres, exposing submerged reefs once popular with divers and killing the vibrant corals, while expanding the shoreline outwards by several metres in the process.
During the massive 9.2-magnitude earthquake off Sumatra which triggered a devastating tsunami across the Indian Ocean in 2004, several islands were pushed upwards while others subsided into the ocean.
The Aceh coast dropped permanently by one metre while Simeulue Island was lifted by as much as 1.5 metres, exposing the surrounding reef, which became the island's new fringe.
- AFP/ec
- wong chee tat :)
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
No room to move under debt cap after Oct 17: US Treasury
No room to move under debt cap after Oct 17: US Treasury
POSTED: 25 Sep 2013 10:35 PM
The Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew warned Wednesday that the government will have no more flexibility after October 17 to operate under the US debt cap.
WASHINGTON: Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew warned Wednesday the US government will have no more flexibility to juggle spending and meet its obligations after October 17, under a statutory debt cap.
Lew told Congress that, after months of maneuvers to meet government commitments without added borrowing, those "extraordinary measures" will be exhausted by that date.
That will leave the Treasury with only US$30 billion in cash to meet ever-mounting demands that can only be met by borrowing more money.
"This amount would be far short of net expenditures on certain days, which can be as high as US$60 billion," Lew said in a letter addressed to John Boehner, speaker of the House of Representatives.
"If we have insufficient cash on hand, it would be impossible for the United States of America to meet all of its obligations for the first time in our history."
Lew urged the House to increase the borrowing ceiling, which has been locked at US$16.7 trillion since May.
"Extending borrowing authority does not increase government spending; it simply allows the Treasury to pay for expenditures Congress has already approved," he wrote.
"As such, I respectfully urge Congress to act immediately to meet its responsibility by extending the nation's borrowing authority."
The letter came as Republicans in Congress House battle with the White House over the government's budget for fiscal 2014, which begins on October 1.
Republican refusal to back any new spending bill that provides funding for President Barack Obama's signature health care reforms could lead to a government shutdown.
In a similar battle in July-August 2011, the issue of raising the debt ceiling was wrapped into the budget fight, and many worry the same could happen again in a fresh bout of brinkmanship that could rock markets.
So far the two issues have remained separate, but in anticipation of another possible debt ceiling crisis, the House has already passed legislation setting priorities for spending in case the Treasury has to miss some payments.
In his letter on Wednesday, Lew called that legislation "ill-advised", saying the government "should never have to choose" between paying salaries, retirement or health care benefits, or other obligations.
"There is no way of knowing the damage any prioritisation plan would have on our economy and financial markets," he warned.
Lew reminded lawmakers that the 2011 impasse over the debt ceiling and the budget "caused significant harm to the economy".
That fight was resolved just hours before the country could have defaulted on its debt, but nevertheless led to a historic downgrade of the US credit rating, the first time ever it lost its AAA status with Standard & Poor's.
"If Congress were to repeat that brinkmanship in 2013, it could inflict even greater harm on the economy," Lew said in his letter.
"And if the government should ultimately become unable to pay all of its bills, the results could be catastrophic."
"Extending borrowing authority does not increase government spending; it simply allows the Treasury to pay for expenditures Congress has already approved," he wrote.
"As such, I respectfully urge Congress to act immediately to meet its responsibility by extending the nation's borrowing authority."
- AFP/ec
- wong chee tat :)
POSTED: 25 Sep 2013 10:35 PM
The Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew warned Wednesday that the government will have no more flexibility after October 17 to operate under the US debt cap.
WASHINGTON: Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew warned Wednesday the US government will have no more flexibility to juggle spending and meet its obligations after October 17, under a statutory debt cap.
Lew told Congress that, after months of maneuvers to meet government commitments without added borrowing, those "extraordinary measures" will be exhausted by that date.
That will leave the Treasury with only US$30 billion in cash to meet ever-mounting demands that can only be met by borrowing more money.
"This amount would be far short of net expenditures on certain days, which can be as high as US$60 billion," Lew said in a letter addressed to John Boehner, speaker of the House of Representatives.
"If we have insufficient cash on hand, it would be impossible for the United States of America to meet all of its obligations for the first time in our history."
Lew urged the House to increase the borrowing ceiling, which has been locked at US$16.7 trillion since May.
"Extending borrowing authority does not increase government spending; it simply allows the Treasury to pay for expenditures Congress has already approved," he wrote.
"As such, I respectfully urge Congress to act immediately to meet its responsibility by extending the nation's borrowing authority."
The letter came as Republicans in Congress House battle with the White House over the government's budget for fiscal 2014, which begins on October 1.
Republican refusal to back any new spending bill that provides funding for President Barack Obama's signature health care reforms could lead to a government shutdown.
In a similar battle in July-August 2011, the issue of raising the debt ceiling was wrapped into the budget fight, and many worry the same could happen again in a fresh bout of brinkmanship that could rock markets.
So far the two issues have remained separate, but in anticipation of another possible debt ceiling crisis, the House has already passed legislation setting priorities for spending in case the Treasury has to miss some payments.
In his letter on Wednesday, Lew called that legislation "ill-advised", saying the government "should never have to choose" between paying salaries, retirement or health care benefits, or other obligations.
"There is no way of knowing the damage any prioritisation plan would have on our economy and financial markets," he warned.
Lew reminded lawmakers that the 2011 impasse over the debt ceiling and the budget "caused significant harm to the economy".
That fight was resolved just hours before the country could have defaulted on its debt, but nevertheless led to a historic downgrade of the US credit rating, the first time ever it lost its AAA status with Standard & Poor's.
"If Congress were to repeat that brinkmanship in 2013, it could inflict even greater harm on the economy," Lew said in his letter.
"And if the government should ultimately become unable to pay all of its bills, the results could be catastrophic."
"Extending borrowing authority does not increase government spending; it simply allows the Treasury to pay for expenditures Congress has already approved," he wrote.
"As such, I respectfully urge Congress to act immediately to meet its responsibility by extending the nation's borrowing authority."
- AFP/ec
- wong chee tat :)
NTUC Fairprice dividend 2013
NTUC Fairprice declared special dividend of 2.5% and special rebate of 0.5%.
- wong chee tat :)
- wong chee tat :)
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