In Mirandola, near Modena in Northern Italy, pictures show scenes of buildings turned into rubble, the result of a second earthquake in a region struck just nine days ago by a previous destructive trembler.

Many of the northern tier of states in the U.S. have experienced above average temperatures so far this winter. The warm weather has meant lovers of winter sports like cross country skiing and snowmobiling have had to look elsewhere for outdoor activities. It also has meant that many homeowners have saved money on the cost of heating fuel this year.

The situation in Europe, however, is quite the opposite. There, this winter’s warmer than usual temperatures have come to an abrupt end, and bitterly cold weather has turned deadly, with several dozen people killed in parts of flash-frozen Eastern Europe.

According to Euronews, several of the deaths have come in Poland where mild temperatures quickly plunged to deadly levels of chill. Polish police have reported that “at least ten people froze to death as weather worsened,” Euronews reported.

The U.S. State Department and the government of Romania have announced that the “the Ballistic Missile Defense Agreement on deployment of the U.S. ballistic missile defense system in Romania has entered into force, effective December 23, 2011.”

The missile defense agreement with Romania is part of a larger US and NATO plan to place missile defenses in a number of Eastern European nations.

In an op-ed published on December 6, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen described the rationale behind the missile defense plan.

“The missile threat we face is grave and growing,” Rasmussen declared. “Over 30 states are working on advanced missile technology. Some of them already have ballistic missiles that can be fitted with conventional warheads or with weapons of mass destruction. Some of our major cities are already in range. That is why at the Lisbon summit, NATO agreed to develop a missile defense capability to protect its population, territory and forces. That remains our position today. We owe it to our people to defend them.”

A German official has criticized the UK over its reluctance to accept a tax on financial transactions in order to prop up the Euro.

The criticism over British reluctance to agree to the tax came from Volker Kauder, the “parliamentary leader of the Christian Democratic Union,” the London Telegraph reported. According to the paper, the criticism came in remarks delivered to the party congress in Leipzig.

“I can understand that the British don’t want that [the financial transaction tax] when they generate almost 30 per cent of their gross domestic product from financial-market business in the City,” Kauder reportedly said. “But Britain also carries responsibility for making Europe a success. Only being after their own benefit and refusing to contribute is not the message we’re letting the British get away with.”

Thirty minutes after takeoff from Newark, NJ on the way to Warsaw, Poland, the crew of Polish Airlines Flight 16 reported partial failure of the hydraulic system. The defect was not deemed serious enough to warrant return to Newark, so the flight continued.

Flaps and slots are mechanical devices on wings that reduce stall speed and promote good low-speed handling on takeoff and landing. On modern aircraft, just as the landing gear, they are activated hydraulically. Both flaps and slots worked upon preparations for arrival at Warsaw, but the landing gear did not extend.

The Boeing 767 has quadruple redundancy in lowering the landing gear. In addition — there is a mechanical emergency back-up system.

In an interview about the economic crisis televised on Russian TV, billionaire Russian “oligarch” Alexander Lebedev attacked wealthy real estate tycoon Sergei Polonsky, punching him and knocking him off the stage.

According to the London Telegraph, Polonsky quipped during the program that he would like to “punch someone’s lights out.” Lebedev, a former KGB agent, felt that the remark was aimed at him.

He responded by actually punching someone’s lights out.

The Telegraph recounts: “Mr. Lebedev, who owns The Independent and The London Evening Standard, said he felt the threat was directed at him and that he was left with no choice but to strike first, delivering two swift right hooks to fellow Russian tycoon Sergei Polonsky knocking him backwards off his chair and off the studio podium.”

The German industrial giant Siemens AG will no longer build equipment for or manage nuclear power plants, according to reports from Germany.

According to the BBC, Siemens chief Peter Loescher told Spiegel magazine that the company’s decision is intended to align with “the clear positioning of German society and politics for a pullout from nuclear energy.”

Loescher continued, saying: “The chapter for us is closed.”

The decision is a stunning reversal for a company with a long history in the nuclear power industry.

The BBC noted that the company “was responsible for building all 17 of Germany’s existing nuclear power plants.”

Most of Europe’s economies are struggling right now, some worse than others. But the so-called PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) are tottering on the brink. So what happened?

What Portugal, Spain, Ireland and other failing European states have in common — other than the Euro and membership in the EU, of course — are huge governments that spend well beyond their means.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the Irish government adopted a series of pro-growth policies — slashing corporate tax rates, for example — that allowed the productive economy to rapidly expand. Ireland went through a period of fantastic growth that led to its description as a “Celtic Tiger.” In the early 1990s, however, the government embarked on a massive spending spree, fueled by the private-sector wealth creation, that eventually saw public expenditures increase by more than 600 percent.

In a gruesome twist, victim Olga Moskalyova narrated her own death as the bears ate her alive during three phone calls to her horrified mother. The attack took place in the rugged territory of remote Kamchatka, not far from the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

British cabinet ministers have reached a climate change deal that will radically alter the economy of the country, reported the London Guardian.

According to the paper, the deal is “far-reaching” and “legally binding” and “will require sweeping changes to domestic life, transport and business….”

Under the deal, the UK government will work to reduce carbon emissions by 80% of 1990 levels — a goal they hope to reach by 2050. According to the Guardian, under the plan “carbon emissions should be cut by 60% by 2030.”

Left-leaning supporters applauded the measure and claimed that it would bring important “green” business development to the UK.

Big oil has played a big part in Norway's economy, but production has dropped precipitously in the last ten years. As a result, a race has been on to find new oil. Government forecasts suggested that nearly 6 billion barrels of oil and gas would be found in the Barents Sea. But, despite heavy exploration the search for oil in the Barents has been disappointing.

That all changed this Spring when Transocean's Polar Pioneer rig finally hit oil in the Barents about 120 miles north of Norway and in 1,000 feet of water.

The find, called Skrugard, is thought to have hundreds of millions of recoverable oil. The Website Rigzone.com reported: "The estimated volume of the discovery is between 150-250 million recoverable barrels of oil equivalent (boe), while Statoil sees opportunities for further upside in the license of up to 250 million barrels — for a potential total of 500 million boe."

Advocates of wind turbines for power generation claim that it is an effective and clean technology that can substantially replace fossil-fuel-fired power stations. A new study of wind power generation in the UK, however, calls such assumptions into question.

The new report [PDF Download], “Analysis of UK Wind Power Generation, November 2008 to December 2010” produced by Stuart Young Consulting, Ltd., and supported by the John Muir Trust for Wild Land & Wild Places, concludes that wind power has actually failed to serve as a reliable source of power. 

The study examined “five statements … made by both the wind industry and Government representatives and agencies” regarding the efficacy of wind power against their actual performance, as metered by the UK National Grid over a two-year period. The assertions studied were:

Following the devastating earthquake and tsunami that set off the nuclear crisis at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, German chancellor Angela Merkel ordered seven of Germany’s oldest nuclear power stations shut down for a three-month safety check. Merkel emphasized, however, that the shut down should not lead to Germany importing electricity generated at foreign nuclear power stations. But that is exactly what has happened.

Citing coverage in the German newspaper Bild, German news magazine Der Spiegel reports that, lacking capacity to supply demand for electricity, Germany has been forced to import electricity from France and the Czech Republic.

“Since March 17, there has been an increase in imports,” said Hildegard Müller, head of the German Association of Energy and Water Industries. “Flows from France and the Czech Republic have doubled,” she noted.

A young girl who was viciously assaulted outside her school in Wollaston in the UK on April 1 was saved when a group of teachers and students intervened.

According to the Independent newspaper, 14-year-old Chloe West was on her way to school when a car pulled up next to her and a young thug leapt out and stabbed her nine times.

Onlookers saved the girl from near certain death by leaping on her attacker.

The father of one of the students who saved Chloe recalled the incident.

“I've been told that a pupil from Year 11, who would be about 16 years old, rugby-tackled him to the floor, and then some of the teachers went and sat on the man and restrained him until police arrived.” 

It was the deal of a lifetime.

In Russia, Andrei Silyakov, a former official in the country’s Federal State Reserve Agency, sold four MiG air superiority fighters (sans weapons) for the low, low bargain price of just 153 roubles after appraising them as “scrap.”

According to the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS, “the fraud was exposed in 2009 as a result of an inspection, which FSB security officers and the prosecutor’s office in the Nizhny Novgorod Region had made in 2009.”