Chunk breaks off of Arctic ice shelf
A chunk of ice spreading across seven square miles has broken off a Canadian ice shelf in the Arctic, scientists said Tuesday.
Derek Mueller, a researcher at Trent University, was careful not to blame global warming, but said the event was consistent with the theory that the current Arctic climate isn’t rebuilding ice sheets.
“We’re in a different climate now,” he said. “It’s not conducive to regrowing them. It’s a one-way process.”
Mueller said the sheet broke away last week from the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf off the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada’s far north.
The sheet is the biggest piece shed by one of Canada’s six ice shelves since the Ayles shelf broke loose in 2005 from the coast of Ellesmere, about 500 miles from the North Pole.
QUITO, Ecuador
Lease on Ecuador base not renewed
The U.S. military must stop using its only outpost in South America for anti-drug flights when Washington’s 10-year lease on the base in Ecuador expires in 2009, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
Leftist President Rafael Correa has repeatedly said that Ecuador would not renew the agreement to use the Manta air base, but Tuesday’s Foreign Ministry statement said the South American nation has now formally notified the U.S. Embassy of the decision.
Some 300 U.S. soldiers are stationed at the Pacific base and flights from Manta are responsible for about 60 percent of U.S. drug interdiction in the eastern Pacific.
CAMBERRA, Australia
Oxygen cylinder caused hole in jet
An air safety investigator says part of an oxygen cylinder exploded through the floor of the passenger cabin of a Qantas jumbo jet over the South China Sea last week.
The focus on what created a hole the size of a car in the plane’s fuselage at 29,000 feet Friday had narrowed on the missing oxygen tank. The jet carrying 365 people was diverted to the Philippines.
Julian Walsh, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s director of aviation safety, said today the oxygen bottle appeared to have exploded beneath the cabin.
SAO PAULO, Brazil
Priest’s body found off Brazil’s coast
DNA tests confirmed that a body found off the coast of Brazil is that of a priest who disappeared while flying over the Atlantic buoyed by hundreds of brightly colored party balloons, authorities said Tuesday.
The Rev. Adelir Antonio de Carli set off from the Brazilian port city of Paranagua on April 20 strapped to 1,000 helium-filled balloons in an attempt to raise money to build a rest stop and worship center for truckers.
But the 41-year-old Roman Catholic priest soon lost contact with his ground team, and the cluster of yellow, orange, pink and white balloons was found in the water a day later.
Tugboat workers discovered a body off Rio de Janeiro in early July that authorities believed belonged to the cleric.
Medical examiner worker Rosane Alves said Tuesday that tests comparing DNA samples from de Carli’s brother to the body confirmed their suspicions.