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China
29th October 2018 China Central Television presented a speech from President Xi – who has claimed the position in perpetuity – when he met troops and generals on a tour of Guangzhou province. He told officers of the Southern Theatre Command: “It’s necessary to strengthen the mission … and concentrate preparations for fighting a war. “We need to take all complex situations into consideration and make emergency plans accordingly.” He also reportedly said the regional command was having to bear a “heavy military responsibility” as it was responsible for operations in the disputed South China Sea. (Source: TheScottishSun)
Oct 25, 2018 The future destructive potential of unauthorized access to IoT devices appears potentially limitless. "China’s unique approach to the development of IoT and its enabling infrastructure poses significant challenges for U.S. economic and national security interests," says a 212-page report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Chinese IoT plans include advanced remote industrial controls; medical IoTs; smart homes equipped with remote controls for appliances and security systems; and smart cars linking vehicle sensors to drivers, roads, cloud services, and other electronic devices. The IoT is expanding rapidly and will be further enhanced with emerging advanced information technologies, such 5G cellular technology. Use of 5G networks will increase the ability of networked devices to interact through faster data transfer speeds. China is working on major programs to find vulnerabilities in IoT technology ostensibly for cyber security. The research is cover for plans to conduct for cyber espionage, sabotage, and military cyber reconnaissance using the Internet of Things. One example of an IoT cyber attack took place in 2016 when the malware known as the Mirai botnet infiltrated thousands of linked devices by scanning the Internet for video cameras - most made in China - and DVRs that were not protected and easily accessed by using default passwords such as "password." Mirai "commandeered some one hundred thousand of these devices, and used them to carry out a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against DynDNS that shut down many popular websites". A second botnet called IoTroop targeted several brands of Chinese-made Internet Protocol cameras in late 2017. A Chinese case discovered in 2016 by security researchers revealed that firmware update software made by the Shanghai ADUPS Technology Co. Ltd. was secretly siphoning off private data and sending it to China. "ADUPS’s firmware update software is currently in use on more than 700 million low-end mobile phones and IoT devices around the globe, including devices in the United States". Chinese IoT researchers also are preparing to use cyber attacks against the "Internet of Underwater Things" that has applications for submarine warfare. One major effort by Beijing to control the technology behind the Internet of Things has been lobbying international organizations to adopt Chinese hardware and software standards. The report concluded that the Chinese drive to control the Internet of Things threatens U.S. national security and economic interests. (Source: TheWashingtonFreeBeacon)
24 Oct 2018 In the region of 24 million the centres first appeared in 2014. Since early 2017 the construction and management of a sprawling system of "vocational education and training centres" have come under international scrutiny, with rights activists describing them as political re-education camps holding as many as one million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslim minorities. Government propaganda insisted the centres were aimed at countering the spread of separatism, terrorism and religious extremism through "free" education and job training. But the centres are run more like jails than schools. Thousands of guards equipped with tear gas, Tasers, stun guns and spiked clubs keep tight control over "students" in facilities ringed with razor wire and infrared cameras. To build new, better Chinese citizens, a document argued, the centres must first 'break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins'. At least 181 such facilities are in Xinjiang. The centre featured on state broadcaster CCTV last week showed that the participation is voluntary, the contented "students" are wearing matching uniforms, studying Mandarin and learning trades like knitting, weaving and baking. The buildup began in earnest in early 2017, with local governments in predominantly Uighur southern Xinjiang ordered to speed up the construction of 'concentrated educational transformation centres for focus groups' - a euphemism for the religious, the poor, the uneducated, passport holders, and virtually all men of military age. Officials warned, instructing cadres to be on the lookout for 25 illegal religious activities and 75 signs of extremism, including such seemingly innocuous activities as quitting smoking or buying a tent. "Detain those who should be detained to the greatest extent possible", cadres were told. The centres bought police uniforms, riot shields and helmets, pepper spray, tear gas, net guns, stun guns, electrified batons, billy clubs, spears, handcuffs and spiked clubs known as "wolf's teeth". Students would be tested on their knowledge of Mandarin and propaganda on a weekly, monthly and "seasonal" basis, and write regular "self-criticisms". They would spend their days "shouting slogans, singing red songs and memorising the Three Character Classic", the ancient Confucian text. Criminals who had completed a prison sentence were released directly into the centres, under the principle of "putting untrustworthy people in a trustworthy place". Students who performed well would be allowed to call their families or even visit them in special rooms at the centres. Officials were ordered to regularly visit students' families at home to give them "anti-extremism" lessons. Local governments were ordered to ensure that at least one member of each household received vocational education for a minimum of one to three months. (Source: AgenceFrancePresse)
October 24, 2018 To reengineer Uighur society. Over the past year, reports have found their way out of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in western China of a campaign of religious and cultural repression of the region’s Muslims, and of their detention and confinement in a growing network of razor-wire-ringed camps that China’s government at times has dubbed “transformation through education centers” and at others “counter-extremism training centers” and, recently, amid international criticism, “vocational training centers.” The government describes such efforts as a response to terrorism. Indeed, these camps can be seen as a logical, if grotesque, extension of the government’s decades-long endeavor to eradicate the perceived “terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism” of its ethnic minority Muslim population in Xinjiang. The region, and the country, have certainly experienced spasms of unplanned mass violence as well as cases of premeditated violence born of Uighur desperation over decades of discrimination and persecution; the government’s current set of policies to avoid future strife, however, appears to rest on the assumption that most Uighurs are extremists-in-waiting. Much reporting has focused on the unprecedented scale and penetration of the surveillance technology deployed to carry out this campaign and on the ways China’s government has pressured other countries to assist in the work of forcibly repatriating Uighurs living abroad. But less attention has been paid to the mobilization of more than a million Chinese civilians (most members of the Han ethnic majority) to aid the military and police in their campaign by occupying the homes of the region’s Uighurs and other Muslim minorities, and undertaking programs of indoctrination and surveillance, while presenting themselves as older siblings of the men and women they might then decide to consign to the camps. They ranged from civilian surveillance workers who performed these visits themselves, to friends and family members of these surveillance workers. In the mornings, they would sing together at daily flag-raising ceremonies outside the village Party office, at night they would attend classes on Xi’s vision for a “New China.” The teaching of “culture” would suffuse all the time in between. They would converse in Mandarin and watch approved TV, practice Chinese calligraphy, and sing patriotic songs. And all the while the “relatives” would be watching the villagers and taking notes, assessing the Uighurs’ level of loyalty to their country, noting how well they spoke Chinese, staying alert for signs that their attachment to Islam might be “extreme.” Had a Uighur host just greeted a neighbor in Arabic with the words “Assalamu Alaykum”? that would need to go in the notebook. Was that a copy of the Quran in the home? Was anyone praying on Friday or fasting during Ramadan? Was a little sister’s dress too long or a little brother’s beard irregular? And why was no one playing cards or watching movies? The visitors were instructed to ask questions. Did their hosts have any relatives living in “sensitive regions?” Did anyone they knew live abroad? Did they have any knowledge of Arabic or Turkish? Had they attended a mosque outside of their village? If the adult little brothers and sisters’ answers felt incomplete, or if they seemed to be hiding anything, the children should be questioned next. There were simple ways to test. One could offer a host a cigarette or a sip of beer; a hand could be extended in greeting to a little sibling of the opposite gender, staying alert for signs of flinching. Or one could go out to the market for some freshly ground meat and propose that the family make dumplings. And then wait and watch to see if the Uighurs would ask what kind of meat was in the bag. Everything would be factored into the recommendations the big sisters and brothers would make about which of their hosts would be allowed to remain at home in their villages, with their children, and which ones should be sent away to have their defects repaired by the state. The first campaign started in 2014, dispatching some 200,000 Party members, including minority Party members. In 2016, a second wave of 110,000 civil servants were sent into Uighur villages. In 2017, the third wave of visits assigned more than one million civilians to Muslim “relatives” in villages for a series of week-long homestays - often focusing on the extended family of those who had been detained in the drastically-expanded “transformation through education” program. The “New Xinjiang” group evinced pride in serving as “relatives,” and bringing Han “civilization” to Uighur society. Some talked about the nationalistic action film Wolf Warrior II and said it made them proud to be Chinese. In many of the ongoing human engineering projects in the Uighur homeland, it appears that the state is attempting to separate Uighur children from their parents and from Uighur language education by radically increasing the number of Chinese-speaking teachers, and using the system of penal centers to reduce the influence of Uighur cultural values and norms in the lives of children. The “relatives” had not observed Uighur life before their arrival, they did not realize how fear, anger, and sadness had gripped the villagers who they were hoping to teach Han secular values. The tyranny that is being realized in Northwest China pits groups of Chinese citizens against each other in a totalitarian process that seeks to dominate every aspect of life. The reeducation camps function as a Chinese-specific form of concentration camps where beatings and psychological torture are common. Uighurs and other minorities tended to view being sent to the camps as a form of punishment. Systems like this one work in part because those who participate in them are not permitted to think about what they are doing. Because they are not permitted to think about it, they are not able to fully imagine what life is like from the position of those whose lives they are destroying. (Source: ChinaFile): https://tinyurl.com/y88vkjzj
24 October 2018 China's hidden camps. What's happened to the vanished Uighurs of Xinjiang? China is accused of locking up hundreds of thousands of Muslims without trial in its western region of Xinjiang. The government denies the claims, saying people willingly attend special “vocational schools” which combat “terrorism and religious extremism”. (Source: BBC): https://tinyurl.com/y9nl7sel
22 October 2018 The 55km bridge and tunnel linking Hong Kong to mainland China via Macau is set to open. To allow ships to continue passing through the estuary, the bridge plunges underwater for 6.7km midway, via two artificial islands. Construction on the project began in 2009 but has been marred by delays and safety concerns. It has repeatedly overshot its budget, ultimately costing more than $20bn. The project stretches across different legal and political systems. Travelling between Hong Kong and the mainland requires passing border controls. Two immigration centres have been built to process bridge users. Buses and commercial vehicles will carry passengers and freight over the bridge. /photos/ (Source: BBC)
Jordan
Oct. 21, 2018 Jordan's King Abdullah II said he has decided not to renew parts of his country's landmark peace treaty with Israel. He intends to pull out of two annexes from the 1994 peace agreement that allowed Israel to lease two small areas, Baqura and Ghamr, from the Jordanians for 25 years. The leases expire next year. The lands were leased to Jewish farmers early last century, but then became part of Jordan after the kingdom gained independence in 1946. Baqura, in the northern Jordan Valley, was captured by Israel in 1950. Ghamr, near Aqaba in southern Jordan, was seized in the 1967 Mideast War. Under their peace agreement, Jordan agreed to grant Israeli farmers and military officers free access to the enclave. (Source: ABCNews)
Taiwan Strait
October 22, 2018 The United States sent two warships through the Taiwan Strait on Monday in the second such operation this year, as the U.S. military increases the frequency of transits through the strategic waterway despite opposition from China. The voyage risks further heightening tensions with China but will likely be viewed in self-ruled Taiwan as a sign of support by President Trump’s government. Washington has no formal ties with Taiwan, but is bound by law to help it defend itself and is the island’s main source of arms. The Pentagon says Washington has sold Taiwan more than $15 billion in weaponry since 2010. Military experts say the balance of power between Taiwan and China has shifted decisively in China’s favor in recent years, and China could easily overwhelm the island unless U.S. forces came quickly to Taiwan’s aid. (Source: Reuters)
Honduras
23 October 2018 A second migrant caravan heads for the US: 1,000 Hondurans have crossed into Guatemala following the first group of 7,000 into Mexico. There are fears that Mexican cartels, which control much of the illegal migration through the country, will try to help them across - for exorbitant fees. (Source: DailyMail)
Mexico
October 21, 2018 Defying the efforts of four governments to break them up, thousands of mostly Honduran migrants rose at dawn today from the shores of a river between Guatemala and Mexico and continued their trek northward. Mexico’s government has said throughout the past week that it would register the migrants and process requests for asylum. Those attempting to skip the process would face deportation, but the size of the caravan will test Mexico, which has sought help from the U.N. to manage the issue. (Source: Reuters)
United States Egyesült Államok
October 29, 2018 Is this worse than 1968? Turmoil, violence of late '60s America. No, 2018 is not 1968, at least not yet. (Source: WND): https://tinyurl.com/y9k597av
29 October 2018 Can really regain this market strength if tech doesn't lead? The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 245.39 points to 24,442.92, erasing a 352-point gain, as Boeing dropped 6.6 percent. The S&P 500's decline this month has shaved off $2.141 trillion in market cap, according to data from Howard Silverblatt of S&P Dow Jones Indices. Silverblatt's data also show Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia, Facebook and Apple are among the biggest contributors to the decline this month. Facebook and Apple will both report financial results later this week. U.S. stocks got a boost earlier today after IBM agreed to buy Red Hat, an open-source software distributor, for around $34 billion. Red Hat shares surged 45.4 percent on the deal, while IBM's stock fell more than 4 percent. The combination of Red Hat and its Linux cloud platform with IBM could represent a formidable cloud behemoth for the coming years. (Source: CNBC)
Monday, October 29, 2018 Last week, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) teamed up with five other groups funded by Soros to pressure tech companies to "reduce hateful activities on their platforms." While this sounds like a noble goal, mainstream conservative and Christian groups that have fallen afoul of the SPLC warned that these liberal organizations have an "Orwellian" definition of hate that most Americans would disagree with. Worse, social media companies already seem biased against conservatives, and this SPLC campaign would only embolden that bias. On Wednesday, the SPLC led a coalition of groups in releasing "Change the Terms," aiming to convince Big Tech to "reduce hateful activities on their platforms." The coalition warned that "white supremacist and other organizations that incite hate are using online platforms to organize, fund, recruit supporters for, and normalize racism, sexism, religious bigotry, as well as anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigrant animus, among other activities." Most people think of hate speech as somebody encouraging physical violence. Groups like the SPLC extend it to anybody who doesn't accept their view on LGBT issues, same-sex marriage, abortion, immigration, or Islam. The coalition includes the Center for American Progress (CAP), a left-wing group whose former president served as chief of staff for both Clinton. CAP admits receiving more than $1 million from Soros' Open Society Foundations, but the Media Research Center put the number at $10 million - back in 2015! CAP and the SPLC also teamed up with Free Press (which received $350,000 from Open Society Foundations in 2009), Color of Change (whose co-founders are Van Jones and a former MoveOn.org director, and which received $550,000 from the Open Society Foundation), the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (a group that opposed Bork in 1984 and received more than $900,000 from Soros groups), and the National Hispanic Media Coalition (which took $450,000 from Open Society Foundations in 2016). Not to be left out, the SPLC also received a $75,000 grant from Open Society Foundations in 2016. In August, Facebook censored conservative articles, marking them as "spam." It also censored the popular conservative video nonprofit PragerU, and when the employee responsible became known, Facebook did not fire him. PragerU has already sued Google and YouTube over "intentional censorship" of their videos. National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) for many years has urged social media platforms to adopt a Free Speech Charter based on First Amendment principles. "Change the Terms" shows that NRB's efforts to highlight social media censorship are working. "Internet Freedom Watch and other efforts to draw attention to online viewpoint censorship is clearly making a difference if such a coalition is seeking to pressure Big Tech to even greater degrees of censorship." (Source: PJMedia): https://tinyurl.com/y9xrk3t3
2018. X. 24. Teljesítmény nélkül nincs siker. Hogy lehet definiálni egy olyan fogalmat, mint a siker? A legegyszerűbb, ha a teljesítmény és a siker közötti különbségen keresztül közelítem meg a kérdést. Mert bár neveltetésünk és szocializációnk miatt ösztönösen azt hisszük, hogy a tehetség, az akarat, a szorgalom és kőkemény munka végül automatikusan meghozza az áhított sikert, a valóságban sajnos nem így van, a teljesítmény és a siker között gyakran hatalmas szakadék tátong. A teljesítmény rólam szól, arról, amit leteszek az asztalra. A siker viszont a közösségről, arról, hogy a többi ember mennyire tartja hasznosnak, értékesnek azt, amit csinálok. Számos olyan terület van, ahol – mint az írók, művészek, zenészek, egyszóval a kreatív munkákkal foglalkozó emberek esetében – a teljesítmény nagyon nehezen mérhető; nekem ez a dal tetszik, neked a másik, én ezt a festményt tartom remekműnek, te egy másikat, engem ennek az írónak a novellái érintenek meg, téged egy másiké. A siker ezzel ellentétben nagyon is mérhető, tudjuk, hányan töltöttek le egy dalt, mennyiért kelt el egy festmény egy aukción, hány példány fogyott el egy könyvből. Azzal, hogy elválasztottuk egymástól a két fogalmat, lehetővé vált, hogy szisztematikusan, objektív szempontból tanulmányozhassuk, miben különbözik a teljesítmény a sikertől. Mik azok a mechanizmusok, amelyek szerepet játszanak abban, hogy egy könyv, zeneszám, képzőművészeti alkotás, színdarab, film sikeres vagy sikertelen lesz-e? Komolyzenei versenyeknél például az adataink azt mutatják, hogy általában az nyer, akit utoljára hallgat meg a zsűri. De így van ez az állásinterjúknál is. Ez nemcsak azért van, mert azokra, akikkel utoljára beszéltünk, jobban emlékszünk, hanem azért is, mert addigra már letisztult a fejünkben, hogy pontosan mire van szükségünk: jó kérdéseket teszünk föl, ergo jobb válaszokat is kapunk. Igaz a mondás, hogy „a siker sikert szül”. A népszerűség exponenciálisan növekszik, Minél többen töltenek le egy zeneszámot, vesznek meg egy könyvet, stb. annál keresettebb lesz. Mivel általában sem időnk, sem energiánk, sem kellő tudásunk arra, hogy eldöntsük, mi az, ami igazán jó, a környezetünk érték-ítéletére támaszkodunk. ez áll annak a hátterében is, hogy a siker újabb, még nagyobb sikert teremt. Nem véletlen, hogy a könyvszakmában például azt tartják, manapság ahhoz, hogy valaki megvásároljon egy kötetet, legalább öt különböző helyzetben kell találkoznia vele. Ha látja a reklámját, megemlíti neki egy barátja, elolvas egy róla szóló kritikát, és meglátja egy kollégája asztalán, jóval nagyobb az esélye annak, hogy bemenjen egy könyvesboltba és levegye a polcról. Célcsoport tagjai a minőség vagy a tartalom helyett a népszerűség alapján fognak szelektálni. Ismert személyiségek, márkák eluralják a kommunikációs csatornákat, felületeket. Jó példa erre a zeneipar: míg húsz évvel ezelőtt az öt legismertebb zenész és együttes nagyjából az amerikai piac tíz százalékán osztozott, ma ugyanez az arány ötven százalék. És ez nem egy egyedi, elszigetelt jelenség, ezt látjuk a könyvpiacon, a kortárs képzőművészeti alkotások piacán, a divatban, az online kiskereskedelemben, a pénzügyi szolgáltatások terén – szinte az élet minden területén. A siker egy úgynevezett hatványfüggvényt követ, ami egyszerűen fogalmazva azt jelenti, hogy míg néhány kiváltságosnak nagyon sok jut belőle, a túlnyomó többségnek csak nagyon kevés. Mert a legtöbb ember nem a minőség, hanem a népszerűség alapján választ - interjú a Képlet című könyv szerzőjével. (Forrás: nlcafe): https://tinyurl.com/yctonyw2
October 25, 2018 Media and entertainment figures fantasizing about the assassination of President Trump has become disturbingly common. The New York Times' Book Review published fantasy scenarios about President Trump’s future with the Russia investigation, about President Trump’s assassination at the hands of the Secret Service and a Russian operative - one day before the nation was gripped by news of apparent mail bombs sent to prominent Democratic figures. (Source: Breitbart)
October 25, 2018 The U.S. Geological Survey is updating its volcano threat assessments for the first time since 2005. The danger list is topped by Hawaii’s Kilauea, which has been erupting this year. The others in the top five are Mount St. Helens and Mount Rainier in Washington, Alaska’s Redoubt Volcano and California’s Mount Shasta. Where the threat score is higher are Alaska’s Redoubt, Mount Okmok, Akutan Island and Mount Spurr. Threat scores also rose for Oregon’s Newberry Volcano and Wyoming’s Yellowstone. (Source: GlobalNews)
October 24, 2018 One of the key organizers behind the caravan: Pueblo Sin Fronteras, or “People Without Borders.” The group appears to be a remnant of the now-defunct La Familia Latina Unida (“The United Latin Family”), a Chicago, Illinois-based illegal immigration advocacy group formed in 2001. Pueblo Sin Fronteras’s efforts continue with the aid of a third organization: the Centro Sin Fronteras (“Center Without Borders”), an illegal immigration organizing group headquartered in the Lincoln United Methodist Church in Chicago. Financially, El Centro Sin Fronteras is small, with just under $34,000 in revenue and about $35,000 in expenditures in 2016. Much of its funding from 2000-2005 came from the Public Welfare Foundation, a major left-wing foundation that also funds far-left groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center and Alliance for Global Justice. In 2010, the National Immigration Forum reported giving $60,000 to the Center. The Forum, in turn, receives funding from a number of major left-wing grantmaking foundations, including the MacArthur, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations. (Source: CapitalResearch): https://tinyurl.com/yczpqqvh
October 24, 2018 Tinian has been devastated by Typhoon Yutu which intensified from a tropical storm to a super typhoon with sustained winds of 178 mph in only 30 hours. Typhoons form in the western Pacific Ocean and are the same type of storm as a hurricane. A "super typhoon" is equivalent to a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. Deadly Super Typhoon Yutu strongest storm to ever hit US territory, second strongest to hit US overall. Yutu, the fifth-strongest landfalling storm ever recorded globally, continues to trek west over the western Pacific Ocean. Ominously, 7 of the 10 strongest landfalls have occurred since 2006. It could plow into Taiwan or the Philippines next week. (Source: USAToday)
NATO
2018. X. 24. Az Egyesült Államok teljes mértékben eleget tesz a szárazföldi állomásoztatású közepes és rövid hatótávolságú nukleáris eszközök (INF) felszámolásáról szóló egyezményben foglaltaknak, de az nem lehet hatékony, ha Oroszország folyamatosan megsérti azt – jelentette ki szerdán a NATO főtitkára, Stoltenberg Brüsszelben. Arra hívta fel a figyelmet, hogy Moszkva évtizedeken át tartó tagadást követően a közelmúltban elismerte egy 9M729 nevű, új rakétarendszer létezését. Bebizonyosodott az is, hogy egyetlen rakétát sem semmisített meg, tehát Oroszország újfent nem adott hiteles tájékoztatást rakétarendszere és haderő-telepítése kapcsán – tette hozzá. A katonai szövetség az elmúlt évek legnagyobb hadgyakorlatát kezdi meg Norvégiában. (Forrás: Híradó / MTI)
23 October 2018 Some 50,000 troops will kick off NATO's biggest military exercises since the Cold War in Norway, a massive show of force that has already rankled neighbouring Russia. Trident Juncture 18, which runs until November 7, is aimed at training the Alliance to mobilise quickly to defend an ally under attack. The exercises will take place at a respectful distance from Norway's 198-kilometre border with Russia in the Arctic. Tensions between Moscow and Washington have flared in recent days after Trump announced he was abandoning a Cold War-era nuclear treaty, a move which Russia warned could cripple global security. The exercises are involving NATO's 29 members plus Sweden and Finland. The 50,000 troops will be backed by 10,000 vehicles, 250 aircraft and 60 ships, including a US aircraft carrier. (Source: France24)
Globalization
24 October 2018 If Facebook stops being a virtual watercooler for friendly conversation, but a lair for trolls and misinformation – advertisers might find the service too dangerous to showcase washing tablets and shoes. Kirkpatrick says advertisers could start to shun the platform if the scandals don’t stop – after a year of seemingly endless controversy over misinformation, privacy and ‘fake news’. The top website among kids aged between 13 and 17 is YouTube, which was used by 85% of the teens. In second place was Instagram (72%) followed by Snapchat (79%). Just 51% of teens are on Facebook. Smartphone use is now ‘nearly universal’ among teens with 95% owning or having access to a mobile. Facebook may be backing on other services that it owns – such as Instagram – in case its ‘main’ service fails. (Source: Metro)
Mars
30th October 2018 Giant plume of ‘smoke’ appears on Mars since September 13 over Arsia Mons, a volcano near the Martian equator. But Arsia Mons has been extinct for around 50million years and no volcanic activity is producing the cloud. Fire is impossible because there is very little oxygen in the thin atmosphere, which is mostly carbon dioxide. The cloud contains water ice and has been created by wind flowing along the side of the 12-mile-high, 150-mile-wide volcano. The feature is what scientists call an orographic or lee cloud, which forms downwind of an obstacle. (Source: TheSun)
Sun
(October 2018) Consequences of the 4 August 1972 ultra-fast coronal mass ejecta, likely a Carrington-class storm. Today the extreme space weather events of early August 1972 are discussed as benchmarks for Sun-Earth transit times of solar ejecta (14.6 hr) and for solar energetic particle fluxes (10 MeV ion flux > 70000 cm-2 s-1 sr-1). Although the magnetic storm index, Dst, dipped to only -125 nT, the magnetopause was observed within 5.2 RE and the plasmapause within 2 RE. Widespread electric- and communication- grid disturbances plagued North America late on 4 August. There was an additional effect, long buried in the Vietnam War archives that adds credence to the severity of the storm impact: a nearly instantaneous, unintended detonation of dozens of sea mines south of Hai Phong, North Vietnam on 4 August 1972. (Source: AdvancingEarthandSpaceScience): https://tinyurl.com/yadvysy7
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