Source: The Extinction Protocol - 1/26/13

January 26, 2013 – AFRICA – At least 36 people have died and nearly 70,000 have been displaced because of flooding in Mozambique, the UN says. The number of people affected by the flooding could reach 100,000 as flood waters continue to rise in the coastal city of Xai-Xai, the UN added. The UN said it would appeal to its donors for additional funds to deal with the emergency.

Days of torrential rains across the south-east of Africa have caused sea levels to rise to dangerous levels. The Limpopo River burst its banks. Neighboring South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana have also been hit by severe flooding. The United Nations in Mozambique said in a statement that 36 people had died so far across the country – 26 of them in the worst hit province, Gaza, in the south. Some 65,000 people in Gaza alone

had been affected by

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January 27

Tengri News - 1/25/13

A South Korean court on Thursday sentenced the elder brother of President Lee Myung-Bak to two years in jail after convicting him on corruption charges, AFP reports.

The Seoul Central District Court also ordered Lee Sang-Deuk, 77, to pay fines totalling 750 million won ($701,600) -- the same sum he was found guilty of taking in kickbacks from bankers and a businessman.

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Huffington Post Posted: 01/24/2013 2:12 pm EST  |  Updated: 01/24/2013 3:41 pm EST

Last year, Mark and Cindy Hill made a pledge as they received their portion of the largest Powerball jackpot in history.

"For some reason, (God) put it in our hands, I think, to make sure that it goes to the right things," Hill said at a November press conference, standing near a $293,750,000 check.

Instead of living large, the Dearborn, Mo., couple will improve Mark's hometown of Camden Point. Tentatively, they'll help move the downtown firehouse to the site of the town's baseball field. To protect kids playing, the field will go further from the highway.

The Weather Channel Kevin Hayes Published: Jan 25, 2013, 9:00 AM EST

In an upcoming paper for the journal Aquatic Mammals, a pair of scientists detail a series of interactions between an adult bottlenose dolphin with scoliosis - "highly pronounced curvature of the spine " - and a group of sperm whales in the Azores. The scientists describe their research as the first time sperm whales have been observed interacting in a non-aggressive way with a member of a different species.

In other words: They repeatedly spotted a dolphin with a messed up back hanging out with a group of sperm whales.

The paper's authors, Alexander Wilson and Jens Krause, write that the whales treated the dolphin as a "conspecific" - a member of the same species -  "at times both permitting and initiating physical contact." They also say that the interactions went beyond "simple tolerance."