The Black Sea coastal region of Turkey has been facing the ravages of dire weather with Giresun bearing the brunt of this calamitous situation with most parts been heavily inundated. Coincidently, Giresun has been assigned as a catastrophe zone and has been on the receiving end for funding from the Prime Minister’s emergency fund.

The heavy rains that lashed out persisted all through Monday, intensifying during the dusk hours, inflicted mass devastation in cities located in the east Black Sea and some towns being taken unawares post dusk with colossal flooding in many districts. Regions like Giresun, Trabzon, Rize and Ordu have witnessed the most terrible destruction, with traffic interrupted in several places and many residences and business establishments significantly submerged in water. Though there are no cases of fatalities being cited as yet, more than 100 homes are submerged in water. The sporadic rains and landslides are make matters worse for the rescue operations.

Mustafa Demir, the Public Works Minister made a declaration yesterday that corroborated the facts that farming property and the city’s infrastructure has suffered extensive damage. An amount of 6,00,000 TL from the Prime Minister’s emergency fund has been obtained and would be going towards crisis management and emergency shelter for the inhabitants.

The UN Refugee Goodwill Ambassador, Angelina Jolie paid a visit to a camp close to Baghdad to meet up with several immigrant families expatriated due to violence in Iraq in an effort to draw awareness to the sad state of affairs of the displaced individuals within Iraq.

During her one day trip, she had a convivial visit with nine member family talking in detail about proper accommodation, medical facilities and schooling for kids. After gauging matters in the camp, Jolie affirmed that despite the bleak situation in the camp there were some cases of individuals who were able to go back home to other secure places.

Jolie had bought along her 7-yr old adopted son, Maddox along with her on the visit to the war-torn country, expressing her wish to be back another time. She further stated that when she came back the next time she desired to find the people in improved situation, hoping that the UNHCR and the government would assist them in procuring a part of land. She mentioned to a family that they were helped not because they were underprivileged but because they were the future of Iraq.

The Police raised fire at two Uighur men killing them as a last means to reinstate normalcy in the situation. The incident is amongst its first when on Monday, police opened fire to stop three Uighur men who has assaulted them, when an attempt was been made by the police to scatter them away when they were attacking a fourth Uighur man with sharp objects.

There have been thousands of troops deployed on the streets of Xinjiang during the last few days to enforce rigid control in Urumqi and adjoining areas after a spate of ethnic hostility occurred the previous week that claimed 180 lives while injuring 1,680 others.

According to standard police procedure, a shot was first fired in the air to which none paid heed, post which the police fires at them. The injured man was brought to the hospital for treatment. The incident unravelled in front of many petrified onlookers, none of whom were ready to speak out it later.

A big blood stained patch was seen spattered on the street a few hours later that was shut to public. Meanwhile a notice has been issued by the Bureau for Legal Affairs of Beijing abstaining lawyers from taking up cases that were related to the latest ethnic unrest in Xinjiang in the best interest of the country.

The rain gods seem to have opened their flood gates, as Mumbai has been facing heavy downpour along with brawly winds since the previous evening that had caused traffic jams at many places.

Mithi River crosses the danger mark at 2.7 metres, which had caused the Mumbai deluge on 26/11. The Andheri and Milan subway have been closed to traffic with the roads close to the airport been facing traffic snarls. Flood alert seems most probable with the next high tide scheduled at 4:15p.m. Low lying areas have been inundated. Significant apprehensions have surfaced with the possible situation of heavy rains coinciding with high tide that might cause further aggravation.

The heart line of Mumbai, the Railways has two of the three lines running late by half an hour, though still operational as the harbour line has been cancelled indefinitely. There has been constant incessant rainfall in the suburbs and island city. Traffic logging on the north bound routes while south bound routes are relatively clear. Suburbs of Kurla, Kalina and Vile Parle close to the Mithi river continue to remain water logged. In Currey road, the traffic snarl is quite high.

Big concern about flooding as several parts of Bombay Juhu, khar, Bandra, dadar, Parel, Sion, Hindmata, Sewri, Wadala, Parel are significantly inundated. Mumbai has had an exponential growth rate coupled with its typical topology and surfeit construction with the only route out is the river.

The Disaster control mechanism is in place with the main concern of Government officials and those in Mumbai’s Disaster Management Cell would be contemplating possible evacuation of people from the low lying areas close to Mithi River. Airport visibility is a mere 800feet, with many flights getting delayed.

A big girder crashes at the site of yesterday’s Delhi metro bridge collapse, while it was been lifted by cranes. The girder crashed pulling the cranes up completely going vertical. Since morning, an estimate of four cranes had been contemplated to lift the massive girder, clearly a gross blunder of sorts.

Cranes were being used to clear the debris of yesterday’s mishap that killed six. DMRC Chief,E  Sreedharan is at the mishap site to gauge the matter. An ambulance had arrived on sight, though the DMRC officials have confirmed no fatalities so far, there have been six injured who have been moved to the trauma centre. The driver has miraculously escaped unscathed.

There was panic for 5 seconds while the cranes and girder flew across, dispersing splinters into the air. The police had been moving out people to escape the pieces. The cranes were trying to hoist a launcher when the wires of the crane snapped under the weight of the girder crashing at the site of the previous day’s accident creating a stampede of sorts in the initial few moments.

Urban minister, Jaipal Reddy  has mentioned in Parliament of a high level inquiry committee of independent experts has been constituted to inquire into the matter, the outcome of which will be up in ten days. He also reiterated that the committee would check design quality, method of construction and precautionary measures to avert any future repeats. Meanwhile, Chief Minister, Sheila Dixit has declined the resignation of Sreedharan saying that the country needs him in this time.

Gammon Construction Company is accessing the situation and most likely a penalty of up to 10-15 crores will be slapped on them. As the news spread, the stock market position of Gammon has gone for a toss. Gammon will have to negotiate the issue with government with the likely possibly of being black listed or buck up the penalty sum.

Shops present where girder had collapsed have been totally wretched. There have been significant traffic jams as the road has been blocked.

A novel means to allot accountability for carbon emission is said to resolve the standoff between countries that are budding and the developed ones. The mode places nationwide goals for curbing carbon emissions on the basis of the theory that states that the figure of high bracket income earners in a country is directly proportional to the rate of CO2 emission.

Research scholars from Princeton Environmental Institute commenced work on the module two years back with their prime goal being to uncover a steadfast means to assess the typical emission rate of high wage earners. It was concluded from nationwide statistics bureaus and World Bank that with every ten percent hike in income, the corresponding rise in emissions by that particular person went up by nearly close to ten percent.

Countries like Japan are twofold competent in this aspect in comparison to the US. Progressive countries have always received flack in complying with cutting carbon emissions without any concrete assurance from developing countries in this regard. The developed nations are of the viewpoint that developing countries should also take charge of the situation concerned, given the fact that they mass-generate them in the initial instance.

On the 1990 plane by 2020, currently developed countries like Scotland have laid down a determined deduction goal of 42 percent in carbon emissions surpassing many countries, while UK has consented to un-joint reduction of 34 percent and the European Union has allocated a cut of 20 percent evaluated to that same year itself.

The novel method plans to assign reduction on a descending range with reference to wealth as the base. With third world countries becoming slowly affluent, their contribution to carbon cuts will also rise eventually, when in due course they decide to reduce emissions, they would own the sources to be able to accomplish the said task. With the rapid growth rate of developing countries one can expect within the next two to three decades, they will produce significantly high rate of carbon emissions.

China, in fact, doesn’t have alarming high carbon emissions that gives it a lax period of a decade or so, ensuing which it will need to take stringent measures. The state of affairs presumes that global action to curb carbon emissions will commence from the year 2010 which by the year 2030 will have the same carbon emissions as the current scenario.

Countries like Russia, U.S, Canada, Australia, and Middle East need to put in considerable effort in curbing carbon emissions.

In December, as leaders from all nations congregate in Copenhagen to create an agreement that will substitute the Kyoto agreement that nullifies in 2012, how far the impact of the plan charted in the Princeton documents will be followed is to be watched out for.