Firefighters said Thursday they had gained control of a huge blaze that has raged in northern Portugal for more than four days and killed two people as the government found itself in the hot seat for not doing enough to prevent wildfires.

Officials said the fire, which has already destroyed at least 7,000 hectares (17,000 acres) of pine trees since it broke out Sunday afternoon, was still burning but had been stabilised. [...]

The US Government has acknowledged for the first time that man-made pollution is largely to blame for global warming.

But it has again refused to shift its position on the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty designed to mitigate global warming which the Bush administration rejected last year.

In a 268-page report submitted to the United Nations, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) endorsed what many scientists have long argued - that human activities such as oil refining, power generation and car emissions are significant causes of global warming.

The White House had previously said there was not enough scientific evidence to blame industrial emissions for global warming...

"The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities."

That position is at odds with the president's supporters in the motor, oil and electricity industries - who maintain that more research is needed to be certain of the link between global warming and the by-products of manufacturing.

The United States is the world's largest emitter of so-called greenhouse gases.

Last year, the Bush administration triggered international outrage when it walked away from the Kyoto treaty.

President Bush said the treaty's goal of reduction in emissions would be too costly to the American economy.

WASHINGTON, DC, July 31, 2003 (ENS) - The United States and Mexico signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Wednesday to create permanent bilateral working groups to cooperate on issues of biotechnology, water resources, forest resources, sustainable rural development and environmental services...

Agricultural trade between the United States and Mexico reached some $12.8 billion in 2002, up more than 100 percent since 1994 when the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect...

"By forging a closer working relationship with Mexico's principal environmental agency, we can work collaboratively on better watershed management and irrigation techniques and research to help develop drought-resistant crops," said Veneman.

WASHINGTON, DC, July 31, 2003 (ENS) - Environmentalists have filed a petition seeking to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to correct flaws in air regulations that would improve protection of air quality in national parks and wilderness areas across the country.

In response to a previous lawsuit by Environmental Defense, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ordered EPA in 1990 to review and revise its inadequate regulations, but the agency has not acted on these findings...

"In some of the most revered areas in the West - from Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon - smog levels are worsening and ecosystems are threatened by rising industrial pollution levels," said Vickie Patton, a senior attorney at Environmental Defense. "EPA was directed by a federal court of appeals to put in place sensible measures to guard against these worsening air pollution levels but has dropped the ball."

WASHINGTON, DC, July 31, 2003 (ENS) - The Bush administration today announced a public meeting to gather public input into the formation of the Rocky Mountain Energy Council, a controversial White House energy task force. The meeting will be held Tuesday, August 26, 2003, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Sheraton Denver West hotel in Lakewood, Colorado.

The Rocky Mountain Energy Council is an administrative initiative to work across the federal governments and with state governments to more effectively manage energy development on public lands in the Rocky Mountains.

After learning that the council held closed meetings in Denver on July 8 and 9, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the White House Council on Environmental Quality demanding access to records related the recently established energy group.

The organization says that the White House's newly created Rocky Mountain Energy Council undermines the administration's statutory obligation to "foster and promote the improvement of environmental quality."

WASHINGTON, DC, July 31, 2003 (ENS) - Some ten members of Congress weighed in Wednesday with their concerns about public financing for a massive natural gas project in Peru known as the Camisea Gas Project...

The Export Import Bank is considering more than $200 million in financing for the $2.6 billion project, which seeks to develop two natural gas deposits in the Peruvian Amazon and to construct two pipelines to deliver the gas to Lim and Callao, Peru...

According to an internal report by the US Export Import Bank, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, proposals to mitigate the environmental impacts of the project are "woefully inadequate" and the project will likely lead to landslides, destroy critical natural habitats, and spread diseases among indigenous peoples.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A mysterious cancer is killing Australia's Tasmanian devils, whose spine-chilling screeches, dark color and reputed bad temper prompted early settlers to give them their chilling name, wildlife officials said on Thursday. [...]

The disease, thought to be caused by a virus, will not wipe out the devil as such diseases often spare a few isolated animals who reproduce and replenish the population. [...]

A narrow but intense wind may be the mechanism responsible for the existence of a newly discovered ocean convection site east of Greenland, says a University of Toronto scientist. [...]

Global warming has caused the Columbia Glacier to retreat 7 miles in the last 20 years, leaving calves of ice in Prince William Sound. Seth Borenstein, KRT.

Glaciers are receding. Permafrost is thawing. Roads are collapsing. Forests are dying. Villages are being forced to move, and animals are being forced to seek new habitats.

What's happening in Alaska is a preview of what people farther south can expect, said Robert Corell, a former top National Science Foundation scientist who heads research for the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment team.

"If you want to see what will be happening in the rest of the world 25 years from now, just look at what's happening in the Arctic," Corell said.

Alaska and the Arctic are warming up fast, top international scientists will tell senior officials from eight Arctic countries at a conference in Iceland next week. They will disclose early, disturbing findings from a massive study of polar climate change. [...]

What happens in the stratosphere, the atmospheric layer just above where commercial airplanes fly, may have a larger influence on our climate and weather than previously thought, according to research funded by NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Science Foundation. [...]

Baldwin and his co-authors suggest, although the stratosphere is mostly clear and weather free, it appears changes to the stratospheric circulation can affect weather patterns for a month or more. Wind patterns in the lower stratosphere tend to change much more slowly than those near the surface. [...]

A better understanding of the stratosphere's effect on the troposphere could also be useful in gaining additional insight into the climatic effects of stratospheric ozone depletion, solar changes and variations in aerosol amounts associated with major volcanic eruptions. [...]

Firefighters are struggling to slow the advance of forest fires that have led to thousands of people fleeing their homes in the western Canadian province of British Columbia. More than 8,000 people have fled three major fires in the region - one southeast of the city of Kamloops, about 150 miles (240 km) north east of Vancouver, and two in the north. [...]

Forest fires have forced nearly 10,000 people to leave their homes in British Columbia, where the premier has extended a state of emergency to the entire province.

About 5,000 more people in the community of Armstrong in the Okanagan Valley have been ordered to evacuate at short notice, making it the largest community threatened by the fires. [...]

[...] FIRES that ripped through Canberra on January 18 could have been contained within the first 24 hours if they had been fought correctly, an inquiry found today.

He said fires of this kind had never before caused such damage to the region and no house had been lost to bushfire in suburban Canberra since 1952. [...]

Police have cut speed limits in Paris because of ozone pollution. [...]

Meteo France, the national weather service, has forecast no respite in the coming days from a heatwave that has struck France for most of the last month. [...]

The global-warming catastrophe is upon us. The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1990. Every glacier in Glacier National Park may be gone within 30 years.

The government of Tuvalu is making plans to permanently evacuate the island, which will be wiped off the map by rising sea levels.

Even the staid World Meteorological Organization has released a warning that extreme weather events are intensifying. There is a strong consensus among the scientific community, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that human activities are significantly affecting our climate.

The Bush administration's response to this crisis? Replace global-warming data in Environmental Protection Agency reports with propaganda from the American Petroleum Institute. Announce a 10-year plan to study the "uncertainty" related to climate change.

President Bush is fiddling while Rome melts.

The heatwave that baked the country over the weekend could last for most of this month and even into September, with temperatures of up to 100F (37C) this week, the Met Office said yesterday.

Britain was as hot as many holiday destinations in France, Spain and Portugal. Bournemouth's highest temperature, 84F (29C), matched that in Jamaica. [...]

A devastating drought gripping large parts of China has left 8.6 million people short of drinking water and laid waste to millions of hectares (acres) of arable land, state media said Sunday.

Across the country record high temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius and above have been recorded, including in Shanghai.

China's industrial and commercial centre is sweltering in its longest period of sustained hot weather for more than 50 years, the Xinhua news agency said. [...]

If it isn't proof of global warming at last, it certainly looks like it. As much of Europe burns like a furnace and rivers run dry across the continent, Britain is bracing itself for its own record temperature.

Sometime tomorrow, in southern England or the Midlands, the mercury in the thermometer may pass 37.1C, which became the national record when registered in Cheltenham on 3 August 1990. That centigrade peak translates as 98.8 Fahrenheit, so the remarkable figure for Britain of 99 or even 100F- is on the cards.

"We reckon there's a 20 per cent chance it will happen, but in any case it's going to get very very close," said Andy Yeatman of the Met Office.

A record would be hugely significant - a three-figure Fahrenheit temperature for the UK would be breaking psychological as well as new meteorological ground as it would give many people for the first time the perception that global warning is a real, not a theoretical phenomenon - and that it is happening to them. [...]

The Portuguese Government has declared a national calamity - opening the way to those who have lost property to claim for compensation.

The Portuguese firefighters' association has called on the government to go a step further and declare a national emergency. [...]

Flooding caused by heavy rain destroyed several small bridges and swept away six homes as several families were rescued by helicopter in rural central Quebec Monday evening.

At least seven bridges were destroyed by the rushing waters of the Nicolet River, Quebec provincial police spokeswoman Chantal MacKels said early Tuesday. "The actual river is so high that it's going over the barriers and into the street," she said. Five summer cottages and one year-round residence were swept away in Chesterville and Tingwick. A police SWAT team used a helicopter to rescue six stranded families in Chesterville floodwaters isolated them in their homes.

A total of about 60 people were evacuated.

Bardstown, Ky. - Fire engulfed a seven-storey bourbon warehouse Monday, sending alcohol-fuelled flames more than 30 metres in the air.

The wood-frame Jim Beam warehouse collapsed about two hours after the fire was reported at 3 p.m. and continued burning. The company said the warehouse held about 19,000 barrels of bourbon, or less than 2 per cent of its bourbon inventory. [...]

Raindrops fell on Alabama. And fell, and fell, and fell.

Mobile and Birmingham had record three-month rainfall totals in the May-July period, more than doubling their normal rain, the National Weather Service reported Monday.

Georgia and Mississippi shared in the unusual wetness, with communities in those states recording May-July periods that were among their dampest. [...]

The North Pole is melting for the first time in 55 million years. Researchers have found that the icecap at the top of the world has turned into a mile-wide patch of open ocean. [...]

One of Europe's leading scientists yesterday raised the possibility that the extreme heatwave now settled over at least 30 countries in the northern hemisphere could signal that man-made climate change is accelerating.

"The present heatwave across the northern hemisphere is worrying. There is the small probability that man-made climate change is proceeding much faster and stronger than expected," said Professor John Schellnhuber, former chief scientific adviser to the German government and now head of the UK's leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall centre.

Prof Schellnhuber said "the parching heat experienced now" could be consistent "with a worst-case scenario [of global warming] that nobody wants to come true". He warned that several months' research would be needed to analyse data from around the world before scientists could say why the heatwaves are so intense this year.[...]

Thermometers in parts of Croatia, France, Germany, Spain and Portugal hit the symbolic 40-degree Celsius mark (104 degrees Fahrenheit) on Tuesday, with no sign of relief until at least the start of next week and temperatures feared to soar to 42 Celsius in parts of Portugal. [...]

ROME - Unusually high temperatures and a summer-long dearth of rain have wrought serious damage to crops and weather-related deaths throughout Europe, a continent of increasingly scorched earth. [...]

Here in Italy, where anything beyond a squirt of rain is a memory so distant as to seem like a fantasy, farmers contemplated harvests of grapes, olives, peaches and apricots that might turn out to be 50 percent below usual. [...]

"I haven't seen heat like this in 70 years: my entire life," said Stefano Colvolino, a 70-year-old traffic policeman in Rome. [...]

Five more people have died in Portugal and Spain as blistering temperatures set records across Europe.

The French summer has been declared the hottest since World War II, Slovenian temperatures are at their highest for a century and in Germany a record night-time high was registered on Monday.

Fires were still burning in Spain on Tuesday, as villagers in some places beat desperately at the flames with branches to halt their advance.

But Portugal remains among the worst affected by forest fires. [...]

In other parts of Europe:

• Five deaths in Germany were blamed on the heat, which topped 40C in some places
• Mines left behind after the Bosnian war stopped firefighters battling a three-day-old blaze near Mostar
• 54 of France's 98 departments have requested state aid for drought-hit farmers
• Power cuts were imposed in Italy amid soaring demand
• Polish firefighers battled 35 forest blazes and said there was serious fire risk in about a quarter of the country's woodlands
• Amsterdam highs edged towards 30C, prompting zoo officials to spray ostriches with cold water and feed iced fruit to chimpanzees [...]

The Sun's shifting magnetic field is set to focus a decade-long storm of galactic dust grains towards the inner Solar System, including Earth.

The effect this will have on our planet - if any - is unknown. But some researchers have speculated that sustained periods of cosmic dust bombardment might be related to ice ages and even mass extinctions.

During the last decade, the magnetic field of the Sun acted like a shield, deflecting the electrically charged galactic dust away from the Solar System. However, the Sun's regular cycle of activity peaked in 2001.

As expected, its magnetic field then flipped over, so that south became north and vice-versa. In this configuration, rather than deflecting the galactic dust, the magnetic field should actually channel the dust inwards.

Had enough of this year's lousy weather? No, you haven't. William Gray, professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, is predicting "higher-than-average hurricane activity this year with 14 named storms, eight of which are expected to be hurricanes, three of them intense." So batten down the hatches. And while you're at it, give your homeowner's policy a once-over.

Why? Because if you're hit by one of these windstorms, you could pay much more out of pocket than a standard deductible. In the late 1990s, insurers in 17 coastal states added further deductibles, specifically for hurricanes, to many policies. [...]

A Reader Comments:

I have a couple comments today that I would like to share. First and foremost concerning the weather and the blessing the pope gave to gm food. As I read from some of the C's material the current earth changes and such are the product of differing sources. One being 3rd/4th density consortium activities. More fear factor for the sheep???. Perhaps or a way to get us all addicted to this gm food. More matrix (see above fear factor)? Our weather patterns in my area have made for some great local produce the strawberries were wonderful and the corn is turning out sweet and tender even though in some areas close by its been a bit of a wet summer. There are some things on this earth worth waking up for as bad as it all is...The glass is half full, but sits on the edge of the table.

Secondly; I do get the sense that Dubya does not like Israel. His latest statement concerning sanctions against them in order to get them to tear down their wall is his strongest to date. He has been in the past at best sheepish, always recanting his remarks or not following thru. If he is true to forum and a reaction machine he will follow thru on these latest remarks which may put the final nail in his political term. Although,to date. I will still hold to my thought that he is a 2 term president. My dream told me 8 years of him (scared me to death).

D.Y

WEST GLACIER, Mont. - The forest fire that closed much of Glacier National Park was 50 percent contained Wednesday as crews kept up their counterattacks on the blaze. [...]

Washington's largest fire, about four miles from the Canadian border, had charred 77,000 acres since starting June 29 and was 60 percent contained, officials said. [...]

Large fires also were active Wednesday in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho and Wyoming, the National Interagency Fire Center said. So far this year, wildfires have blackened nearly 1.9 million acres, compared to 4.6 million at this same time last year, the center reported.

Europe's deadly heatwave, blamed for deaths, drying rivers and scorching wildfires, could last until September, weathermen said today.

Experts from Italy's state-funded CNR research centre said the heatwave was among the five worst in the last 150 years and would likely last until next month.

Intense monsoon activity in Africa south of the Sahara has contributed Europe's merciless summer.

Lightning killed three people in the Yemeni capital Wednesday during a storm that flooded homes, police said.

Police said the three men were killed when lightning struck their home in northern Sanaa. Houses in central San'a were inundated by rain water rushing down from the hills. People in the area fire shots into the air as distress calls.

The rains also damaged roads and brought down electricity and telephone lines in the capital.

At least 10 people have been killed in July due to torrential rains, and six others died in June in this impoverished nation at the southern end of the Arabian peninsula.

The heatwave gripping Britain claimed its first victims after two boys drowned while cooling off during near-record temperatures, police said on Wednesday.

Two 17-year-old boys died in separate accidents on Tuesday as temperatures reached about 35 degrees Celsius.

President Bush has issued his prescription for what ails the deteriorating national park system, but environmentalists and conservationists are becoming increasingly wary about his actions.[...]

Improving the national parks, generally in a state of disrepair owing to a $4.9 billion maintenance backlog, was a major cog in Bush's 2000 campaign. He is hoping that any progress on this front will help his re-election effort.

[...] Early last month, Interior Secretary Gale Norton gave the president a progress report. It showed that $2.9 billion has either been spent or committed to park maintenance, that 900 projects were completed and another 900 have been scheduled. The president's initiative, Norton said, was on track.

The report establishes "the good work the Interior Department is doing to safeguard these treasures and provide a better experience for visitors," she said.

However, conservationists offer a different view. They complain that although $2.9 billion has been spent on the maintenance backlog, all but $363 million were funds shifted from other vital parks programs, like conservation, that are now under-funded as a result.

Elliott Negin, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, compared the shifting of funds to a shell game. "He's not putting his money where his mouth is," Negin said.

A man was killed in central Vietnam by a rampaging wild elephant after venturing outside at night to investigate strange noises near his house, state media said Thursday. [...]

Three days earlier, three elephants went on the rampage in the province's Que Son district, seriously injuring a forest ranger.

Each year in Vietnam people are killed by wild elephants desperately seeking food and water as their traditional habitats are encroached upon by logging and unchecked development. [...]

David Quillin, a surfer from Maryland's Eastern Shore, knows what cold seawater feels like: It makes exposed flesh feel like it's burning, sets hands and feet to tingling, numbs the body and, after repeated dunkings, produces a painful "ice cream" headache.

The 38-year-old architect expects all of this when he surfs the frigid waters off Ocean City in January. He didn't expect it in the middle of summer. But it's just what Quillin encountered when he paddled his board into the surf two weeks ago.

"I've never experienced it in my whole life," he recounted, "where the water right along shore could be that radically cold."

Quillin isn't alone in his observation. [...]

LISBON (Reuters) - Europe sweltered on Thursday in a heatwave that has killed at least 35 people, fanned wildfires, devastated crops and forced some Dutch schools to adopt a "tropical roster." [...]

Meteorologists blame the heat on high pressure reaching from west of the Iberian Peninsula into central Europe, along with a depression from North Africa into the peninsula. The combination is pumping hot air from North Africa and interior Spain north. [...]

Students on the Netherlands' northern islands are working on a "tropical roster," attending school from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. [...]

There was no sign of a let-up to the European heatwave as temperatures remained close to record levels across much of the continent, leaving an exhausted population gagging for some cool. [...]

Authorities in Switzerland reported that Alpine glaciers as high up as 4,000 metres (13,000 feet) were melting in the unaccustomed heat, creating dangerous conditions for climbers and hikers and leading to the closure of some walking routes.

In France state-owned rail operator SNCF shut down part of the line between the eastern towns of Nancy and Belfort after tracks buckled. The metal reached a temperature of 51 degrees Celsius (124 Fahrenheit) on Tuesday, officials said. [...]

The heatwave was caused by an anticyclone which has anchored itself firmly over the west European land mass, holding off rain-bearing depressions over the Atlantic and funnelling hot air north from Africa. [...]

THE heatwave sweeping Europe could last till September, meteorologists said yesterday, with the risk of further deaths, dried out rivers, and forest fires.

In Scotland, police warned that remote Highland regions could see a repetition of the wildfires that ravaged rural areas in April, as the hot, dry conditions were predicted to continue tomorrow.

However, while England is on the brink of breaking the 100F mark on Saturday, thunderstorms north of the border are predicted to destroy hopes of the 1908 Scottish record of 32.8C being exceeded.

Scientists at the CNR research centre in Italy said that the heatwave, helped along by intense monsoon activity in Africa, is among the five worst in the past 150 years.

It had claimed 38 lives by last night through fires and soaring temperatures. The latest casualty was a 41-year-old Croatian policeman who died of heart failure triggered by the heat while guarding the American embassy in Zagreb [...]

KAMLOOPS, B.C. - Lightning has started 200 more fires across British Columbia, an official said this morning.

"Since midnight it was a little over 1,700 strikes," said Steve Bachop, fire information officer with the B.C. Forest Service.

We're going to have some lightning fires that are popping up today."

Lightning accompanied thunderstorms that brought a little bit of rain to the parched province, welcome especially in the Kamloops area, where crews are fighting three major fires that at the peak displaced 10,000 people. [...]

Photograph by Warren Faidley/Weatherstock