MFS - The Other News

                       Morning  Posting.

• Syria Live Blog - May 25. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Libya Live Blog - May 23. Here (Al-Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan  today 4.9  ! More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 118.On 24.05.2011 at 13:30 GMT+2
  
  Seventy thousand people living beyond the 20-kilometre no-go zone around Fukushima should be evacuated because of radioactivity deposited by the crippled nuclear plant, a watchdog said. Updating its assessment of the March 11 disaster, France's Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) highlighted an area northwest of the plant that lies beyond the 20-km (12 mile) zone whose inhabitants have already been evacuated. Radioactivity levels in this area range from several hundred becquerels per square metre to thousands or even several million bequerels per square metre, the IRSN report, issued late Monday, said. Around 70,000 people, including 9,500 children aged up to 14, live in the area, "the most contaminated territory outside the evacuation zone," the agency said. "These are people who are still to be evacuated, in addition to those who were evacuated during the emergency phase in March," Didier Champion, its environmnent director, told AFP.
  
  Staying in this area means the inhabitants would be exposed to radiation of more than 10 millisieverts (mSv)in the year following the disaster, according to the IRSN. This level is used in French safety guidelines for protecting civilian populations after a nuclear accident. In France, 10 mSv is three times the normal background radiation from natural sources. "Ten mSV is not a dangerous dose in and of itself, it's more a precautionary dose," said Champion, noting however that this figure that does not include any additional doses from contaminated food or water. The 10 mSV derives from a calculation of exposure to at least 600,000 becquerels per square metre, emitted by caesium 137 and 134, which are long-lasting radioactive elements. Of the 70,000 people in the zone identified in the IRSN report, more than 26,000 could be exposed to doses of more than 16mSv in the first year after the disaster. On May 15, Japan began to evacuate 4,000 residents of the village of Iidate-mura and 1,100 people in the town of Kawamata-cho, 30 kms from the plant. The two locations had consistently received high amounts of radioactive dust due to wind patterns. The IRSN report is based on data for radioactivity reported by the Japanese authorities and from US overflights of the zone. Source : Here .

• Japan : For the most accurate info on the nuclear disaster go to : Paul Langley's Nuclear History Blog.Here.

• There's a new "Player" in the Air,meet the Grimsvotn Volcano.By John Seach.(VolcanoLive)

64.42 N, 17.33 W - summit elevation 1725 m  - caldera

Read the full story here.Live webcam here and here.Google map location here.More info here.

• RSOE Emergency and Disaster Information Service Grimsvotn Volcano Info Situation Update No. 7  -On 25.05.2011 at 02:56 GMT+2
  
  Airlines grounded about 500 flights after ash from an Icelandic volcano swept over the UK and towards northern Europe in a fresh travel nightmare for thousands of passengers. Barely a year after a similar eruption in Iceland forced the biggest closure of European airspace since World War II, ash-laden clouds caused flights in and out of Scotland, northern England and Northern Ireland to be cancelled. British Airways led the way in cancelling flights as the plume from the Grimsvotn volcano spread eastwards, followed by Dutch airline KLM, Ireland's Aer Lingus and budget airlines easyJet and Ryanair. "Approximately 500 flights were cancelled from the approximately 29,000 that would have been expected today across Europe,'' Brussels-based air traffic controllers Eurocontrol said. The ash cloud caused minor air traffic disruption in Norway and closed a small part of Denmark's airspace yesterday, and Eurocontrol warned there was a "strong possibility'' that it would spread to southwest Sweden today. "This would have some impact on flights. However, given the new procedures in place and the predicted movement of the ash cloud over the coming days, the actual impact on flights is expected to be relatively low,'' it said. Weather charts produced by the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre run by Britain's Met Office predicted that a low cloud of ash would sweep across northern Europe overnight, taking in northern Germany, Poland and Scandinavia. Authorities say the ash can damage planes and stop engines, but Ryanair flew a plane through Scottish airspace and said it detected no ash on the aircraft. It accused British and Irish authorities of over-reacting but reluctantly cancelled its flights to and from Scotland - almost 70 in total.
  
  British Airways conducted its own "verification'' flight yesterday sending out an Airbus A320 from Manchester Airport to assess the risk over northern England and southern Scotland. The growing chaos threatens planning for events including the G8 summit and the football Champions League final between Barcelona and Manchester United, which takes place at London's Wembley Stadium this weekend. Barcelona said its squad would fly to London on Tuesday, two days earlier than planned, due to the "uncertainty'' caused by the volcano. European Union transport commissioner Siim Kallas played down fears that the situation could get as bad as in 2010, when thousands of travellers from around the world were left stranded. "We do not at this stage anticipate widespread airspace closure and prolonged disruption like we saw last year,'' Kallas told a news conference. Iceland's Meteorological Office said activity at the volcano had slowed, and an Icelandic crisis management official said the plume of ash has fallen from its peak altitude of 20 kilometres to two kilometres. The most high-profile victim of the chaos was US President Barack Obama, who was forced to leave Ireland for London a day ahead of schedule on Monday night to avoid being stranded there.
  
  When Iceland's Eyjafjoell volcano erupted last year, the ash plume arrived first in Britain before spreading across the rest of Europe. Many airlines were deeply unhappy at the time at being forced to halt their flights. Ryanair revealed Monday that last year's airspace shutdown cost it nearly 30 million euros ($40 million) and railed against the current closures. It said its one-hour verification flight in Scotland's airspace on Tuesday showed no visible volcanic ash cloud. "The absence of any volcanic ash in the atmosphere supports Ryanair's stated view that there is no safety threat to aircraft in this mythical 'red zone' which is another misguided invention by the UK Met Office and the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority),'' the Irish airline said. Fellow budget carrier bmi cancelled yesterday's flights from Edinburgh and Glasgow but anticipated "a normal flying programme'' today. British transport minister Philip Hammond said the ash plume was a natural phenomenon "but the UK is now much better prepared to deal with an ash eruption than last year.'' The CAA no longer issues blanket bans on flights; instead, it identifies areas of high-, medium- and low-density ash and asks airlines wishing to operate in high- or medium-density ash to request permission to fly.Source :Here .

• Berlin airports reopen as ash moves on.(TodaysZaman).A cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland that had forced airport closures in northern Germany blew further north and east on Wednesday afternoon, allowing air traffic to resume as experts said the eruption appeared be winding down.European air traffic controllers said they expected about 700 flights to be canceled on Wednesday, but Eurocontrol added that activity from Iceland's Grimsvotn volcano has declined sharply and that traffic in European airspace could return to normal Thursday."There were very few eruptions by the volcano over the last six to 12 hours so the volcano is in a reasonably calm state at the moment," said Brian Flynn, head of network operations for Eurocontrol. "Assuming that continues, we would expect that the European aviation would be able to return to almost a normal situation within the next 24 hours."Volcano experts in Iceland said the eruption appeared to be tapering off. Observers at the crater were reporting only steam, said Pall Einarsson, from the University of Iceland."The worst is over," said Icelandic Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir in a statement, after touring the region around Grimsvotn on Tuesday.Read the full story here.

• I beg you pardon?Andrea Mitchell: Obama Not Bowing To Queen Because “It’s Not Proper For Americans”.(StoryBalloon).We would suggest the President and Mrs. Obama are not going to bow because that is considered not proper for Americans and that always causes a stir. – Andrea Mitchell.It wouldn’t be the first time Obama bowed to someone.Earlier in the show Mitchell actually asks Martin Bashir if the Obama’s are staying in a castle that’s a step up from the one the Reagan’s stayed in.Hmmmm......Sometimes,just sometimes you really wonder.Read and see the full story here.

• Obama compares the IRA to Hamas.(WeeklyStandard)Now the president is in Ireland praising the Good Friday Peace Agreement that ended decades of strife in Northern Ireland. He praised the ability of former adverseries to "reimagine their relationships," in a not-too-subtle hint to the Israelis and Palestinians that if Ireland’s feuding Catholics and Protestants can make peace, so can they.Peace in the Holy Land should be a key objective for every president. But it’s also a useful reminder that it may take more than imagination or territorial compromise. It also requires facing some hard truths and, in this respect, Northern Ireland is instructive.The Irish Republican Army is not Hamas. While it fought a brutal terrorist campaign against the British government, military and the British people, as well as Northern Ireland’s Protestants, IRA never sought the destruction of Britain nor the mass murder of Protestants. It was a deadly terrorist organization, but it was not genocidal in either action or ideology. Its terrorist attacks were designed not to maximize casualties but to maximize fear and, in many cases, it gave authorities prior warnings that an attack would occur.Hmmmm......Michael Collins must be rolling over in his grave.Read the full story here.

• El Presidente Obama to Visit Puerto Rico in June,can't let the Puertorican voters down do we?SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — President Barack Obama has accepted an invitation to visit Puerto Rico next month, a trip that would make him the first sitting president to come to the U.S. territory in decades, the island’s governor said Tuesday.The president, who campaigned in Puerto Rico for the Democratic primary, will visit the island June 14, Gov. Luis Fortuno said, without disclosing details of his itinerary.“With his visit, the president makes good on the promise he made during the presidential primaries in 2008 that he would return to Puerto Rico as president,” Fortuno said in a statement.The governor’s office described the Obama trip as the “the first official presidential visit” since December 1961, when President John F. Kennedy stopped on the island to a formal welcome on his way to Venezuela. But that was not the last time a U.S. president set foot in the territory: President Gerald Ford hosted an economic summit in Puerto Rico in June 1976.Pedro Pierluisi, the island’s nonvoting representative in Congress, said he expects Obama will discuss a recent White House report on the options for changing Puerto Rico’s formal relationship to the U.S. mainland.Hmmmm.....We thank the taxpayers and the Foodstamp users for the trips we are about to receive?Read the full story here.

• The "Obama Curse "?Obama's Trips Overshadowed by Natural Disasters.(ABC).President Obama is in Europe this week to discuss economic and security issues, but his long-planned voyage has been overshadowed by the devastation in Joplin, Mo., where the single deadliest tornado in history has killed 117 people. This is not the first time one of Obama's international trips has been eclipsed by a disaster. Several of his previous voyages have been cursed by Mother Nature and other unforeseen circumstances. Last year, he shelved his trip to Indonesia and Australia because of the BP oil spill disaster. He had previously postponed that trip because of the health care vote. The president also couldn't fly to the funeral of Polish President Lech Kaczynski in April 2010 because of volcanic ash emitting from Iceland. He had to cut his November Indonesia trip short for the same reason. This week, an Icelandic ash cloud -- albeit from a different volcano -- forced the president and his staff to leave Ireland a day earlier than planned. While forces of nature are out of a president's control, the way an administration shapes the commander in chief's travels can have a significant impact on public perception.It's not just Mother Nature and other manmade disasters that have cast clouds on Obama's trips. International crisis also seems to follow the president whenever he leaves the United States. Hmmmm....Wherever he go's disaster follows?A walking,talking doomsday machine?Read the full story here.

• Is another European empire collapsing before our eyes?By WayneMadsen.The history of Europe is one of successive collapsed empires. Some, such as the Roman, Holy Roman, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian empires, simply overextended themselves and collapsed due to nationalist uprisings coupled with domestic political and economic inertia. Others, like the German Nazi, Soviet, Italian fascist, Napoleonic French, Spanish, and Portuguese empires collapsed as a result of their military aggression and incessant subterfuge from external forces.The European Union appears to be suffering from the same symptoms as those experienced by the first category of failed European empires: over-extension, a stagnant and bloated bureaucracy, and economic collapse. As Europe strives to become a more unified and federal union, there has been a backlash from across its member states, with a North-South divide and economic turmoil now threatening to bring down the whole house of cards.The rise of nationalist political parties in some of the EU’s heretofore staunchest pro-EU member nations and the collapse of some EU national economies due to predatory banking policies and America’s flooding of the global financial system with cheap dollars – a central bankers’ contrivance known as “quantitative easing” -- has created fault lines in Europe that not only threaten to bring down the euro and drive the European Central Bank into extinction but prompt some members to leave the EU altogether.Although there have always been degrees of Euro-skepticism throughout Europe since the coming into force of the Treaty of Maastricht in 1993, which transformed the European Economic Community into the European Union and created the euro, anti-EU feelings now run the full gamut from right to left. Anti-EU fervor has not only increased in the traditionally Euro-skeptic nations of Denmark, the United Kingdom, and France but has gained a strong foothold in the earliest supporters of European integration, including Ireland, the Netherlands, Finland, Greece, and most importantly, Germany…The United States has relied on the EU as a natural complement to the arcane NATO military alliance. The EU-US-NATO alliance, which helped craft virtual EU protectorates masquerading as independent states in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo in the remnants of Yugoslavia, will be keen to maintain the status quo in Europe. However, with the peoples of Europe hitting the streets in protest and the fumes from Molotov cocktails and tear gas heavy in the air of Athens, London, and soon, other capitals, the United States, a declining “paper tiger” empire, will have little influence to stymie the breakup of the EU. Like it or not, the United States will soon see the collapse of an abortive European super-state based in Brussels and the subsequent return of sovereignty to the nations of Europe…Read the full story here.

• Maritime Lawfare Victory: Lloyd’s Won’t Insure Gaza Flotilla.(IsraelNatnews).Leading insurance market Lloyd’s of London has stated it will not insure boats headed toward Gaza in another flotilla designed to assist the Hamas government there.The assurance was made in a letter to Attorney Nitzana Darshan-Leitner, who heads the Shurat HaDin organization, after the organization sent out letters to numerous insurance companies threatening to sue them if they insure the next Gaza flotilla.Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center is a civil rights organization dedicated to combating terrorist organizations and the regimes that support them through lawsuits litigated in courtrooms around the world.The group has explained that “instead of sitting passively by and waiting for another international diplomatic crisis to play out into the Islamic extremists' hands,” it has embarked on a campaign to try and legally block the extremists from setting sail. The idea is succinctly expressed on the group's website:Every boat that travels from any country's seaports or marinas needs to have maritime insurance. Without insurance a ship is not permitted to set sail. Yet, the maritime insurance companies insuring the boats utilized by the Gaza Flotilla surely have no idea that the passenger boats that they are indemnifying are being used by the organizers to run the coastal blockade, violently challenge the IDF and smuggle weapons into Gaza. No legitimate insurance company nor its shareholders would reasonably agree to insure an expedition like that.As such, we have begun to send letters placing the maritime insurance companies on notice concerning the Gaza Flotilla and warning them that if they provide insurance (a necessary component in the effort to smuggle contraband to the terrorists) that they themselves will be legally liable for any future terrorist attacks perpetrated by Hamas. The letters are being sent to all the maritime insurance firms in Europe and Turkey.We are cautioning them that if they knowingly insure one of the Flotilla boats providing material resources to Hamas, they will also be indemnifying the Hamas rocket crews for all future Qassam missile attacks as the terror victims will surely sue them! We are hoping that when their legal departments review our letters and inform the corporation's officials of the potential massive liability being risked they will act to ensure that none of their ships are being utilized by the terrorists."The government and the IDF are extremely adept at adapting to new military threats and battlefield suprises," the group says. "They do not seem to be able to get a handle on the new way the delegitimization game is being played globally." For that reason, it has decided to act on its own -- and has scored a success.Hmmm.....Something tells me there will be some Iranian or Turkish firm willing to insure them. Read the full story here.

• German Integration Official Linked to Turkish Grey Wolves.(StopTurkey).Zülfiye Kaykın, a Turkish-born woman who serves as as State Secretary for Integration in the German state of North-Rhine Westphalia, has been accused of having links with the extremist Turkish nationalist organisation, the Grey Wolves.In April 2010 a requiem service for Alparslan Türkes was held at the Fatih mosque in Duisburg. At that time, Zülfiye Kaykın was the director of the DITIB social centre which was linked with the mosque. Witnesses claim to have seen Kaykın participate in the ceremony. Members of the mainstream Turkish community in the state, as well as the Alevi community, have called for the minister's resignation. Even a spokesman of the Turkish government is said to have criticised her. This may be related to intra-Turkish political rivalry. The MHP, the Turkish nationalist party, is the political arm of the Grey Wolves.The Grey Wolves are a fanatical Turkish nationalist organisation which once formed part of NATO's Gladio network. This consisted of "stay-behind" organisations which were supposed to mount guerilla-style resistance campaigns in the event that their countries were overrun by East bloc armies. Its members have been involved in numerous atrocities and incidents of violence over the years - for example, Mehmet Ali Ağca, the man who shot Pope John Paul II was a member of the Grey Wolves - and are said to have strong links to the Turkish "deep state", Islamic militias in places like Chechnya, Kosovo and Bosnia and Turkish organised crime.With a growing number of Turkish colonists in Europe, the Grey Wolves are now said to have a significant presence there, particularly in Germany.Hmmmm....Keep Turkey out of theEuropean Union. Read the full story here.

• US: Hezbollah has more missiles than most states.(Ynet).Outgoing Defense Secretary Gates warns against possibility group has chemical, biological arms .Hezbollah is armed with more missiles and rockets than most states, according to outgoing US Defense Secretary Robert Gates.In a speech to the American Enterprise Institute, Gates warned against the Shiite group's arming methods and the possibility that it owns chemical and biological weapons, CNN reported Wednesday. The US official made similar statements last year, but did not back them up with proof. "Hezbollah cruise missiles could threaten US ships with anti-ship missiles with a range of 65 miles," he added.Two months ago, an Israeli security official provided the Washington Post with a map detailing no less than 550 bunkers, 300 surveillance sites and 100 other facilities the Jewish state believes belong to Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon.Most of the sites marked on the map, which appeared in the American newspaper on Wednesday, are located south of the Litani River. Ten arms caches are marked on another map featuring an aerial view of the Al Khiyam village in south Lebanon. The weapons storage facilities are located in close proximity to medical centers and schools. The daily quoted a senior Israeli commander as saying, “Our interest is to show the world that the Hezbollah organization has turned these villages into fighting zones.”Read the full story here.

• Haim Saban hints: No more donations to Obama.(Ynet).Billionaire funder of 2008 Democratic campaign disappointed by Obama's conduct towards Israel.Media mogul Haim Saban, who has donated millions to the Democratic Party – especially during its 2008 campaign, led by President Barack Obama – has hinted that he will not continue to donate in 2012.In an interview with CNBC Tuesday, Saban expressed his dissatisfaction with the public disagreements voiced by Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "The US and Israel need to address the points of difference between them in private and not in front of the cameras," he said, heaping criticism on both leaders. But his critique was mostly aimed at Obama. "I am perplexed as to why the president has been to Cairo, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey but has not stopped in Israel and spoken to the Israeli people," the billionaire said. "I believe the president can clarify to the Israeli people what his positions are on Israel and calm them down, because they are not calm right now." When asked whether he would donate to the Democratic Party in the same generous manner he had in the past, when he funded the construction of the party's new headquarters, Saban was evasive. "(Obama) doesn’t need any of my donations. If I am solicited I will donate and I can tell you that my staunch support in enlisting people to contribute to the (Democrats) hasn't weakened," he said. Read the full story here.

• Iran's Largest Lake Turning to Salt.(NYTimes).OROUMIEH LAKE, Iran (AP) — From a hillside, Kamal Saadat looked forlornly at hundreds of potential customers, knowing he could not take them for trips in his boat to enjoy a spring weekend on picturesque Oroumieh Lake, the third largest saltwater lake on earth. "Look, the boat is stuck... It cannot move anymore," said Saadat, gesturing to where it lay encased by solidifying salt and lamenting that he could not understand why the lake was fading away. The long popular lake, home to migrating flamingos, pelicans and gulls, has shrunken by 60 percent and could disappear entirely in just a few years, experts say — drained by drought, misguided irrigation policies, development and the damming of rivers that feed it. Until two years ago, Saadat supplemented his income from almond- and grape-growing by taking tourists on boat tours. But as the lake receded and its salinity rose, he found he had to stop the boat every 10 minutes to unfoul the propeller — and finally, he had to give up this second job that he'd used to support a five-member family. "The visitors were not enjoying such a boring trip," he said, noting they had to cross hundreds of meters of salty lakebed just to reach the boat from the wharf. Other boatmen, too, have parked their vessels by their houses, where they stand as sad reminders of the deep-water days. And the lake's ebbing affects an ever-widening circle. In April, authorities stopped activities at the nearby jetty in Golmankhaneh harbor, due to lack of water in the lake, now only two meters deep at its deepest. Jetties in Sharafkhaneh and Eslami harbors faced the same fate. Salman Zaker, a parliament member for Oroumieh warned last month that, "with the current trend, the risk of a salt tsunami is increasing." Warning that the lake would dry out within three to five years — an assessment agreed to by the local environment department director, Hasan Abbasnejad — Zaker said eight to 10 billion tons of salt would jeopardize life for millions of people. Masoud Pezeshkian, another lawmaker and representative for city of Tabriz in the eastern part of the lake said, "The lake has been drying but neither government nor local officials took any step, so far." How did this disaster develop, and what can be done now? Official reports blame the drying mainly on a decade-long drought, and peripherally on consumption of water of the feeding rivers for farming. They put 5 percent of the blame on construction of dams and 3 percent on other factors. Others disagree about the relative blame. The first alarm over the lake's shrinking came in late 1990s amid a nagging drought. Nonetheless, the government continued construction of 35 dams on the rivers which feed the lake; 10 more dams are on the drawing boards for the next few years. Hmmmm......Let's blame Europe for stealing our rain?Read the full story here.

• Bad Horoscope?Because it was "written in the stars"?(TheBrusselsJournal).Toilet paper sold in the Carrefour supermarkets was withdrawn from shops in Belgium. The toilet paper is decorated with zodiac signs. Two of those signs, Virgo and Capricorn, resemble the Arabic words for Allah and Muhammad.Read and see the full story here.

• International and local Rights group wants Saudi female driver freed.(TodaysZaman).International and local rights groups lashed out Tuesday at the arrest of a Saudi woman for defying the kingdom's female driving ban, while other Saudi women posted video clips online showing themselves behind the wheel.Having so far escaped the unrest sweeping the region, Saudi rulers have cracked down harder than usual on 32-year-old Manal al-Sherif after seeing her case become a rallying call for youths anxious for change. Al-Sherif was arrested Sunday after a video clip was posted online of her much-publicized drive last week - part of an effort to bring attention to the Facebook and Twitter campaigns she helped organize to encourage women across Saudi Arabia to participate in a collective protest against the driving ban. The Facebook page, called "Teach me how to drive so I can protect myself," was removed after more than 12,000 people indicated their support for its call for women drivers to take to the streets on June 17. The campaign's Twitter account also was deactivated. Human Rights Watch warned the arrest will hurt the country's image. "Arresting a woman who drove her family around in a car and then showed it online opens Saudi Arabia to condemnation - and, in fact, to mockery - around the world," said spokesman Christoph Wilcke. "The longer she stays in prison, the more the kingdom will have to answer for." A local rights group, the Association of Saudi Women's Rights, visited al-Sherif in the detention center in the eastern city of Dammam where she was ordered held for five days, and urged the Saudi government to "take a decisive stance and give women the right to drive their cars." "This is a natural right," the group said.Al-Sherif's arrest has prompted hundreds of activists to set up Facebook groups and campaigns calling for her release and an end to the driving ban. One group, called, "We are all Manal al-Sherif," had some 14,000 participants. About 800 Saudi people have signed a petition urging Saudi King Abdullah to release al-Sherif and to make a clear statement on women's right to drive. "We are fed up," Waleed Aboul Khair, a lawyer and rights activists said. "Be frank," he said, addressing the country's rulers. "For the first time in the history of the kingdom, we have hundreds of people calling for the king to be frank.""The society has moved. The society is not silent anymore," Aboul Khair said. There is no written Saudi law banning women from driving, only fatwas, or religious edicts, by senior clerics that are enforced by police. King Abdullah has promised reforms in the past and has taken some tentative steps to ease restrictions on women. But the Saudi monarchy relies on Wahhabi clerics to give religious legitimacy to its rule and is deeply reluctant to defy their entrenched power. The ruling establishment moved to blame outside forces. The Saudi daily Al-Watan, which is owned by a member of the ruling family, claimed that al-Sherif broke down in "an episode of crying" during interrogation and blamed the campaign on "women from outside the kingdom."Hmmmm......Female car dealers?Read the full story here.

• Seventeen lost Egyptian pyramids found by infra-red satellite images.(BBC).Seventeen lost pyramids are among the buildings identified in a new satellite survey of Egypt.More than 1,000 tombs and 3,000 ancient settlements were also revealed by looking at infra-red images which show up underground buildings.Initial excavations have already confirmed some of the findings, including two suspected pyramids.The work has been pioneered at the University of Alabama in Birmingham by US Egyptologist Dr Sarah Parcak.She says she was amazed at how much she and her team has found. "We were very intensely doing this research for over a year. I could see the data as it was emerging, but for me the "Aha!" moment was when I could step back and look at everything that we'd found and I couldn't believe we could locate so many sites all over Egypt. "To excavate a pyramid is the dream of every archaeologist," she said. The team analysed images from satellites orbiting 700km above the earth, equipped with cameras so powerful they can pin-point objects less than 1m in diameter on the earth's surface.Infra-red imaging was used to highlight different materials under the surface. Ancient Egyptians built their houses and structures out of mud brick, which is much denser than the soil that surrounds it, so the shapes of houses, temples and tombs can be seen."It just shows us how easy it is to underestimate both the size and scale of past human settlements," says Dr Parcak. And she believes there are more antiquities to be discovered:"These are just the sites [close to] the surface. There are many thousands of additional sites that the Nile has covered over with silt. This is just the beginning of this kind of work." Read the full story here.