Posted: 05 Jul 2014 03:07 PM PDT

A Spanish mayor has been charged for setting a town on fire after ignoring a fireworks ban. The illegal pyrotechnics resulted in a massive hillside blaze, which forced some residents of the town to evacuate from their homes.
Despite a ban, which had been implemented because of an extremely high risk of forest fires, Mayor Ernesto Sanjuan gave the go ahead for a fireworks display on April 26 in the town of Cullera in southeastern Spain. Sanjuan was charged along with the display’s organizer, Andreu Piqueras, who are both members of Spain’s ruling People’s Party.
The fireworks display was held at Cullera castle and was branded as “reckless” and “gravely irresponsible” by rival politicians.
“We cannot allow people’s lives to be put at risk because of the caprices of one person,” said Jordi Mayor, the head of a local socialist group, to Huffington Post Spanish.
The fireworks started several small fires on the hill around the castle which quickly spread, setting the whole hill ablaze and forcing several people in the San Antonio neighborhood to abandon their homes.

“Sanjuán has endangered the lives of many people, causing an ecological disaster from which it will take decades to recover,” said Juan Ponce, spokesperson for local green and left-wing party the Compromise Coalition.
The mayor is due in court on July 14 and could potentially face charges of negligent arson. He says that the fire came as a “surprise” because there was “hardly any vegetation” on the hill surrounding the castle.
After the fire broke out, eight fire crews from the nearby towns of Gandia, Silla, Catarroja, Alzira, Burjassot, Torrent and Sagunt were dispatched to battle the blaze. It took them an entire night to extinguish all the fires on the hill surrounding the castle.
Emergency services had previously sent a message to the festival’s organizers warning them not to set off fireworks due to the level 3 pre-emergency fire risk status that day.
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Posted: 05 Jul 2014 02:54 PM PDT

Parents should start reading to their children from infancy as means of propelling them towards literacy, says the US largest pediatric group.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued the directive as part of its new policy on Tuesday.
The measure, the group said, can enhance child development and prepare young minds for early language and reading ability.
“You’re not teaching a two-month-old how to read,” said Dr. Danette Glassy, a pediatrician near Seattle, Washington, who co-chairs the AAP’s Council on Early Childhood. “Your sitting down with them makes your baby smart and wise.”
“Even the most affluent family can be distracted from interacting with their baby,” Glassy said. “They can entertain their babies in non-human ways with all kinds of gadgets and gizmos that interfere with their development.”
Dr. Alanna Levine, a pediatrician in Orangeburg, N.Y, said the reality of today’s world is that we are competing with portable digital media. So you really want to arm parents with tools and rationale behind it about why it is important to stick to the basics of things like books.
Glassy also said encouraging reading to children from infancy will help the organization’s 62,000 pediatricians promote an alternative way for families to pass time with young children.
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Posted: 05 Jul 2014 05:38 AM PDT

A well-preserved carcass of a dinosaur, whose age is estimated at more than 120 million years, was found during excavations at the paleontological complex Shestakovsky in the Kemerovo region of Russia, Siberia.
Researchers uncovered the carcass of, supposedly, Psittacosaurus Sibiricus, the Director of the Kemerovo Regional Museum, Olga Feofanova told Interfax.
The scientists use the “monolith” technology to extract the carcass from the soil intact to subsequently delivery the bones to museums. According to Feofanova, the dinosaur remains are extracted along with soil, in the form of a cube. Afterwards, a fixating frame made of special material is built on the perimeter of the cube, in which the find will be transported to the adequate museum in the city of Kemerovo.
“When the “monolith” is delivered to the museum, we will start the work to remove the soil from the carcass. This work may take up to six months. But as a result, I think we will have a showpiece of global significance, in which both Kemerovo researchers, and representatives of major relevant institutions will be interested greatly,” said Feofanova.
The scientists found the remains of the ancient reptile at a depth of 2.5 meters after three weeks of excavations. The carcass is about two meters long.
The remains of Psittacosaurus Sibiricus had been discovered before. In particular, such a discovery was made by scientists from the city of Tomsk, who also uncovered the remains of the ancient reptile during excavations at Shestakovsky complex.
According to Olga Feovanova, the finding of the scientists from Kemerovo will make it possible to conduct a comparative analysis, to determine the age of the animals and their size.
Psittacosaurus is a representative of a group of horned dinosaurs that lived on the territory of what is now Asia about 130-100 million years ago. The fossils found in different areas of modern China, Mongolia and Russia allowed scientists to determine not less than ten species of Psittacosaurus. All species of Psittacosaurus were bipedal herbivores the size of a gazelle with a strong “beak” on the upper jaw.
The Shestakovsky complex is located in the Chebulinsky district of the Kemerovo region of Russia, near the village of Shestakovo. The Shestakovsky archaeological site counts 24 monuments (three burial mounds, two ancient towns, 19 villages and localities), dating from the Paleolithic era to the era of the Middle Ages. Some of the monuments were studied during the 1960s and 1970s by prominent Russian scientist A.I. Martynov and his disciples.
In addition to archaeological sites, there is a number of localities of paleo-fauna in the vicinity of the village of Shestakovo represented by Early Cretaceous reptiles and remains of fossilized mammals. This is the world’s only location of Psittacosaurus Sibiricus dinosaur fossils.
The Shestakovsky complex is the first and only Russian paleontological location, where full and almost intact carcasses of “terrible lizards” can be found. The first finding of dinosaurs in this area was made in 1953. Over 60 years of expeditions conducted by researchers from various scientific institutions, remains of eight dinosaurs were found – from small predators to giant 30-meter sauropods. The most valuable finding is the complete carcasses of “parrot-lizards” – the Siberian Psittacosaurus that inhabited the territory of Kuzbass 125 million years ago.
The Shestakovsky archaeological complex is a unique monument of archeology in Siberia. The complex is included on the state list of monuments of federal significance.
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Posted: 05 Jul 2014 04:17 AM PDT

Palestinians have fired over a dozen rockets from the besieged Gaza Strip into Israel in retaliation for the Tel Aviv regime’s deadly airstrikes on the blockaded enclave.
Two rockets were reportedly intercepted by the Israeli Iron Dome missile system. The rest, however, passed through the US-sponsored system, with one of them hitting the central part of Israel’s southern city of Sderot, causing material damage and power cuts on Thursday.
The development came hours after Israeli warplanes carried out airstrikes on 15 areas of the northern part of Gaza, leaving at least 10 Palestinians injured.
Meanwhile, Palestinian sources say Tel Aviv has deployed troops to the besieged Gaza Strip border for a possible attack.
The Israeli regime has been conducting air raids on the coastal sliver, primarily as part of the military operations purportedly in search of three Israeli settlers, who Tel Aviv claimed had gone missing on June 12 and who were later found dead.
Reports said on June 30 that the bodies of the Israeli teenagers were found in a field near the village of Hilhul, north of the city of al-Khalil (Hebron) in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli regime claims the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, is responsible for the deaths. Hamas rejects the allegation.
In another incident on July 1, a Palestinian teenager kidnapped in Jerusalem was also found dead. Hamas held Israel accountable for the murder of the 18-year-old teenager, Yusuf Abu Zagher.
Gaza has been blockaded since June 2007, a situation that has caused a decline in the standards of living, unprecedented levels of unemployment, and unrelenting poverty.
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Posted: 05 Jul 2014 02:53 AM PDT

ISIS fighters have seized an oilfield on the Syria-Iraq border, snatching it from the control of rival militants. The Pentagon has said while it considers the Iraqi Army capable of defending Baghdad, outside aid may be required to repel the jihadists.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the key oil field in the Deir al-Zor province had fallen under the control of fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) on Thursday.
“ISIS took control of the Al-Omar oil field,” located north of the strategic town of Mayadin, also under its control since dawn Thursday, said the Observatory.
The group cited an amateur video that was posted on YouTube purporting to show the capture of the oilfield. The footage shows a bearded man who is identified by the cameraman as Commander Hommam boasting that the field was taken without a single shot being fired.
“We took it [the oil field] over without any fighting. They fled like rats,” the commander said, referring to fighters from the Syrian opposition group al-Nusra who had previously been controlling the oilfield.
Al-Nusra Front had captured the oilfield from Syrian government forces in November and kept up with the production of oil at 10,000 barrels a day, according to the Observatory. The field itself has a maximum capacity of 75,000 barrels a day.
ISIS has gained significant ground in both Syria and Iraq and has declared the creation of an Islamic state, or caliphate, straddling both countries. The group has also issued a call to Muslims throughout the world to flock to their banner, vowing revenge for crimes committed against Muslims.
“Muslims everywhere, whoever is capable of performing hijrah [emigration] to the Islamic State, then let him do so, because hijrah to the land of Islam is obligatory,” said leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Monday, two days after the group rebranded itself as IS (Islamic State).
Iraq’s security forces have so far proved to be of little use in stemming the onslaught of the extremist group. ISIS continues to seize control of towns in Iraq, getting steadily closer to the capital of Baghdad. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has appealed to Washington for help, but the American government has shied away of making any statements about the deployment of troops in the region.
On Thursday, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Army General Martin Dempsey said they believed the Iraqi army was capable of defending Baghdad. However they expressed doubts over whether they could push ISIS out of the country without external support. The two military heads said they were now considering what military role should be adopted by the US in this conflict.
The possibility of airstrikes and the deployment of 750 American military advisors is currently on the table, said Dempsey. The US government has urged Maliki to take steps to combat the sectarianism that has taken root in Iraq. The country’s Sunni and Kurd minorities claim they are discriminated against by the Shiite elite in Baghdad.
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