Australians Flee Bushfires As Homes Burn On Christmas Day

Smoke rises from a fast-moving bushfire near the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia on December 25, 2015. (Reuters photo)

MELBOURNE:  Fire crews battled into the night on Friday after raging bushfires reduced at least 53 homes to ashes in a famous Australian beauty spot on Christmas Day, sending hundreds of residents fleeing for their lives. Water bombing aircraft made a minimal impact on the fires, officials said, as flames set entire trees and hillsides alight in communities along the Great Ocean Road, a major tourist attraction southwest of Melbourne.

To the sound of blaring sirens, hundreds of residents cut short their Christmas celebrations and fled to hastily organised evacuation centres as the normally packed route was closed.

Although no one had been confirmed dead as of Friday evening, one of Victoria state's top fire officials said that at least 53 homes had been lost to the flames, while the fire remained out of control and the confirmed number of properties destroyed was expected to rise.

"There are a lot of areas we have not been able to get into," Steve Warrington, deputy head of the Country Fire Authority, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as he detailed the losses. "This is a big fire now. It is in dense forest. It will cause us problems for quite some time now."

More than 150 firefighters with eight aircraft and 60 fire trucks spent the holiday fighting the fires. The Great Ocean Road is one of Australia's leading tourist draws, famous for its scenic landscapes and for the bizarre rock formations visible offshore in the Southern Ocean.

Victoria's emergency services said at least 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres) had so far been burned. It is the latest of a series of bushfires to hit the state this year. Another fire on the outskirts of Melbourne earlier in the day was brought under control. Although a change in the weather was predicted, emergency services said the threat was likely to remain for some time.

In 2009, Victoria witnessed Australia's worst ever bushfire disaster, which has since been dubbed 'Black Saturday'. Weather conditions reminiscent of that period have been reported in the last few weeks, with fires not only in Victoria but in several other states.

Fire officials said Friday's disaster was likely to be one of the worst to hit Victoria since 2009.

17,000 Polluting Industries Shut Down In China

BEIJING:  China today said it has shut down 17,000 polluting industries following a pollution discharge inspection of 1.41 million companies from January to September this year.

Another 28,600 firms were ordered to suspend their operations, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said today.

Among the violators, 46,800 enterprises were found to have discharged pollutants and 63,700 were involved in illegal construction projects, the ministry said.

The ministry received has 73 public tip-offs about pollution lodged through the 12369 telephone hotline in September.

The industries most complained about were chemicals, metal smelting and processing and non-metallic mineral processing.

In November, the ministry dispatched inspection teams to 504 enterprises across the country, including Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Guangdong and Xinjiang.

During the inspection, violations were found in urban treatment of dust, central heating and oil vapor recovery in petrol stations, the ministry said.

Good. Bad. Outspoken Donald Trump King Of Simple Speech

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to guests at a campaign rally on December 21, 2015 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. (AFP Photo)

WASHINGTON:  Good. Bad. Stupid. When it comes to his choice of words, Donald Trump keeps it simple.

So simple, in fact, that even a nine-year-old can get what the outspoken Republican White House hopeful is saying.

That's according to a test developed for the US Navy that assesses the complexity of an English text by looking at sentence length and counting syllables.

When this Flesch-Kincaid method is applied to the opening and closing statements made during the last Republican debate, the GOP frontrunner takes the cake for poorest vocabulary among the nine contenders who faced off in Las Vegas on December 15.

It reveals that a mere seven percent of the words used by Trump in a minute and a half had more than three syllables, meaning that even children as young as nine or 10 would have been able to understand him.

Trump caused astonishment this week by appearing to coin an obscene neologism -- "schlonged," derived from a Yiddish term for penis -- to disparage his Democrat rival Hillary Clinton.

But the billionaire businessman typically favors basic, brief words such as "good," "bad" and "great" for getting his point across on the campaign trail.

"If I'm elected president, we will win again. We will win a lot. And we're going to have a great, great country, greater than ever before," Trump promised at the end of the debate.

The tycoon sums up his foreign policy in equally simple terms, for instance describing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as a "bad guy, very bad guy."

Elaborate speeches deceptive?

"Donald Trump tries to reassure his audience by appealing to our elementary political instinct," said Peter Lawler, a political science professor at Berry College and author of a book on American political rhetoric.

"He uses simple, repetitive words," he told AFP.

"Some part of the population associates simplicity in rhetoric to honesty," added Matthew Baum, a communications professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

"They think that elaborate speeches are too deceptive."

The 69-year-old tycoon often employs the term "stupid" to describe his rivals and the current government.

"We are being run by stupid people. I used to say incompetent. But stupid is really, you know, is the next stage," he said earlier this month.

The real estate magnate's campaign trail bombast -- including extraordinary comments that stunned many observers -- appears to have done him no harm in the polls as he solidifies the frontrunner status he has maintained since late July.

A new national CNN/ORC poll of Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters has Trump leading with 39 percent support, more than twice that of his nearest competitor Senator Ted Cruz on 18 percent.

So how do Trump's Republican rivals measure up when it comes to their lexicon?

The estimated age necessary for understanding the statements of other candidates at the last primary debate fluctuated between 11 years for senator Rand Paul and 15 years for fellow lawmaker Ted Cruz or retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

The share of words with more than three syllables in the statements of the other participants was 14 percent on average, double that for Trump.

Cruz used 24 percent of "complex" words, while former Florida governor Jeb Bush used 15 percent.

"The other candidates study a lot before the debates, and their answers seem scripted," Lawler said.

"Trump says whatever he has in mind. But in my opinion he does that on purpose, he knows what he is doing."

The leader of the Republican pack used such simplistic rhetoric during the debate to touch on the ISIS group's use of the Internet.

"We should be able to penetrate the Internet and find out exactly where ISIS is and everything about ISIS," he said, using an alternate acronym for the extremists.

"And we can do that if we use our good people."

Lawler said it didn't seem to matter to some potential voters that Trump lacks insight in some fields.

"There are some subjects where he has no knowledge at all, but people don't seem to care," he said.

Mars Gullies Sculpted By Dry Ice, Not Liquid Water

Since 2000, the cameras in orbit around Mars have transmitted numerous images of small valleys cut into slopes, similar in shape to gullies formed by flowing water on Earth.

LONDON:  Gullies on Mars may be formed by dry ice processes rather than flowing liquid water, as previously thought, a new study has found.

The study conducted by French scientists shows that, during late winter and spring, underneath the seasonal CO2 ice layer heated by the Sun, intense gas fluxes can destabilise the regolith material and induce gas-lubricated debris flows which look like water-sculpted gullies on Earth.

Since 2000, the cameras in orbit around Mars have transmitted numerous images of small valleys cut into slopes, similar in shape to gullies formed by flowing water on Earth.

The gullies seem less than a few million years old - and sometimes less than a few years old. This suggested that significant volumes of liquid water may form on Mars today.

This scenario has recently been questioned by frequent monitoring of the Martian surface by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

This showed that gully formation is ongoing on present-day Mars, at seasons when the surface environment of Mars is much too cold for liquid water to flow.

However, the observed gully activity seems to occur when CO2 ice (condensed from the atmosphere during winter) is defrosting on the Martian surface.

Cedric Pilorget from CNRS/Universite Paris-Sud and Francois Forget from the Laboratoire de meteorologie dynamique have developed a numerical model to simulate the environment on a slope.

From the underlying regolith to the atmosphere above, the model takes into account the energy exchanges due to radiations, thermal conduction or induced by CO2 phase changes.

A key characteristic of the locations where CO2 ice condenses is that there is always a permafrost layer composed of water ice - cemented grains a few centimetres below the surface.

When CO2 condenses on the surface in winter, the air present in the porous near-subsurface is trapped between the impermeable permafrost layer below and CO2 ice layer above.

At the end of winter or in spring, the solar light penetrates into the translucent CO2 ice layer and heats it from below.

The CO2 ice does not melt, but "sublimes" (it passes directly to the vapour state). This gas diffuses down through the near surface porous soil.

A fraction can recondense there, while the rest of the gas accumulates in the porous volume. This can considerably increase the near-subsurface pressure, up to several times the atmospheric pressure value.

The CO2 ice layer eventually ruptures, inducing a violent decompression. Within a few seconds and up to a few minutes, several cubic meters of gas have to flow up through the soil.

Such fluxes are able to destabilise the soil grains to form granular flows. Moreover, they can also fluidise the avalanche which may behave like a viscous fluid.

A Christmas Economy Thrives All Year Long in a Mexican Village

TLALPUJAHUA, MEXICO:  In the land of the forever Christmas, there are no elves, no reindeer and no snow. And the creepy wooden Santa that sits outside one of the stores here confronts shoppers with a gigantic beard and not an ounce of cheer.

This small village, embedded in the lush mountains of Michoacán, is no North Pole. Yet it celebrates Christmas every day of the year all the same, as a production center of handmade ornaments for the Mexican, U.S. and Canadian markets.

Despite the absence of a traditional Christmas setting, Tlalpujahua, a former mining town, does not lack for charm. The narrow cobblestone streets sweep up sharp slopes to an airy plaza, where a 300-year-old church with a pink bell tower dominates the tiled rooftops and the surrounding landscape. Stores are tiny and tidy, stacked side by side, and the village's entrance is graced with a giant Christmas tree that stays up all year.Tourists come from across Mexico and the world to shop and get a firsthand look at the craftsmanship, which renders everything from traditional Christmas balls to trumpets, candy canes and pieces of fruit. Ornaments are hand-painted by a second group of workers, whose exacting work gives the decorations the appearance of being machine-made.

Craftsmen and women sit at small tables with torches, molding pieces of glass tubing with a delicate blend of glass blowing and gentle twists. The average ornament takes just a few minutes for skilled artisans, though complicated ones can take as long as 15.

The ornaments delight the eye with their rich colors and shapes, hanging from ceilings, dangling off trees and piled in baskets, as if harvested from orchards of colored glass.

Though high season is October to December, production takes place year-round, as it has to some extent for the last 50 years, work that keeps the local economy going and employs more than 250 families. The village's one major factory, Fimave, said it shipped close to 50 million ornaments out of the country this year.

"Before we used to have to look for customers," said one of the owners of Fimave. "Now the people come on their own to buy goods." She declined to give her name because, she said, she did not want too much attention.

Her reticence is understandable in the context of life in the rest of the state of Michoacán, where drug violence, kidnappings, extortion and poverty are a more defining characteristic than Christmas cheer.

Not so long ago, officials and local people say, criminals extorted payments from the ornament producers. While no longer the case, especially since the uptick in tourism of recent years has bought more attention and police to the town, fears from that time linger for older members of the community. But those fears are seldom discussed, locals say.

The town, after all, has survived worse. Established in the 1460s, Tlalpujahua fell from indigenous hands to the Spanish conquistadores, who transformed it into a mining town. Mining remained its lifeblood until 1937, when a landslide destroyed the majority of the town, leaving it without an economy.

But in the mid-1960s, a villager named Joaquín Muñoz Orta, who had traveled to the United States and discovered the art of making ornaments, returned home and set up shop. Though his operation, which at one point employed about 1,000 people and was said to be the largest in Latin America, did not survive, the culture did.

What emerged eventually shielded the village from the violence and notoriety of the rest of Michoacán, turning it into a sort of holiday Brigadoon.

Most residents are deeply grateful for a viable industry that not only creates jobs but also attracts tourists, and whose products adorn trees in faraway places.

Gerardo Martínez Chavarría, a former doctor who owns a workshop here called Saint Dumont and who has been in the business for 40 years, said the way of life also kept families together. Like many of the artisans here, his employees do their work at home, where they can put in the hours they want and still watch their children, tend to their chickens and fix meals.

"It's amazing," Martínez yelled excitably while giving a tour of his store, showing off glass teddy bears, snowmen and fruit. "It's the secret to success."

The village seems quite unified in its embrace of an economy built on one day a year. Workshops with names like White Christmas, Christmas Milar and the House of Santa open their doors to passers-by, and the village puts on a three-month fair every year, which is billed as the definitive Christmas decoration shopping experience.

It also helps that the town was named one of Mexico's so-called Pueblos Mágicos in 2005, part of a marketing campaign to rebrand certain small towns around the country as destinations for those looking to experience Mexico's colonial charm.

Since then, the production and popularity of the ornaments have steadily increased. Though not the most exacting with numbers, local tourism officials (there are two) say that production has increased nearly 30 percent this year from 2014.

And the number of artisans who dedicate themselves to the craft has increased. From 200 families or small artisan groups making the ornaments last year, there are now more than 250. New workers arrive from elsewhere and find work at a shop, and many then go into business for themselves within a few years. New shops are popping up all the time to meet the demand.

What Tlalpujahua lacks, however, is more than one large-scale manufacturing facility to capitalize on the number of workers.

The closest thing is Fimave, which employs about 50 people and says that it churns out as many as 50 million ornaments a year, about 90 percent of which go to the United States.

Why Tlalpujahua does not have more factories connecting with clients in other countries is a study in Mexico's informal economy and the deterrence of bureaucracy. For the most part, rather than deal with the taxes, salaries and oversight required of a company, most artisans would rather stay small.

"I could go bigger, but clients are hard to find and the hassle isn't really all that worth it," said Luis Alberto Vidal, who works with his brothers and their families in his own little craft shop. "For now, it's mostly local customers and tourists."

Spain PM Rajoy Starts Talks To Form Government After Vote Backlash

MADRID:  Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy met with the leader of the main opposition party today to launch complicated talks on forming a coalition or minority government after his party won the most votes in national elections but fell short of a parliamentary majority.

Rajoy hosted Socialist Party leader Pedro Sanchez at Spain's presidential palace after Sunday's election gave Rajoy's Popular Party 123 seats in the 350-member lower house of parliament, down from the 186 won in 2011.

The Socialists got 90 seats, followed by the far-left Podemos and allies with 69 and the business-friendly Ciudadanos with 40.

Spain has never had a "grand coalition" of the Socialist and Popular parties and analysts predict weeks or months of uncertainty before the country has a functioning government led by the Popular Party or the Socialist Party - or fresh elections in the spring if neither party succeeds.

Sanchez said after Sunday's election that it's up to the Popular Party to try to form a government because it got the most votes.

But a Socialist Party spokesman has said the Socialists would not abstain in a parliamentary confidence vote.

Abstention by the Socialists would allow a Rajoy-led minority government because Ciudadanos has already said it would abstain.

In a first parliamentary vote, the candidate must get more than 50 percent of the full 350 votes in order to form a government.

If he falls short, he must get more votes for him than against him in a second ballot 48 hours later. That's a lower bar allowing parties to abstain, letting a rival into power in return for concessions.

If there is still deadlock after two months, King Felipe VI calls a new election.

Indonesia Sends Warships To Help Look For 70 After Boat Sank

MAKASSAR, INDONESIA:  Indonesian navy will dispatch warships to join the search for 70 people still missing after a passenger boat sank Saturday in central Indonesia, officials said today.

The Marina Baru carrying 118 passengers and crewmen sank in the Gulf of Bone while on its way from Kolaka in Southeast Sulawesi province to Siwa town in South Sulawesi province.

Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said the navy will dispatch warships to the area where nine ships and 15 fishing boats are already searching for the victims.

A helicopter and a CN-235 aircraft are searching from the air while soldiers and police were combing the coastline, Soelistyo said.

The head of the local disaster mitigation agency, Alamsyah, said rescuers have discovered 41 survivors and seven dead.

The last recovered survivor was the boat's captain, who was found Monday snagged on a fishing platform, while the last four dead were discovered on Tuesday, added Alamsyah, who uses a single name.

The fiberglass ferry reportedly sank after being overwhelmed by waves more than 3 meters (10 feet) high during stormy weather.

Boats are a popular and relatively cheap form of transportation in the world's largest archipelago nation which spans more than 17,000 islands with a population of 256 million. Sea accidents are common, with boats often overcrowded and safety regulations poorly enforced.