By Steve Newman - March 12, 1999 - Click any icon 

	High Temperature Extreme		Low Temperature Extreme
	Thai Rain Chants		Rare Rhino Sightings
	Cyclone Season		Mozambique Floods
	Earthquakes		Greenland Ice Thinning
	Bio-pirates		Parliamentary Discipline

High Temperature Extreme
Vioolsdrift, South Africa: 112 degrees Fahrenheit

Low Temperature Extreme
Vostok (Russia), Antarctica: -71 degrees Fahrenheit

Thai Rain Chants
Thailand’s agriculture ministry has asked Buddhist monks nationwide to chant for rain in a desperate attempt to end the country’s severe drought.

At a date to be scheduled soon, the simultaneous chanting will begin from temples around the land, led by senior monks gathered at the famed Temple of the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok, the Nation Daily reported. The supreme council, Buddhism’s governing body, has also agreed to provide 19 special Buddha images believed to be capable of bringing rain. A rash of forest fires, caused by the dry weather, has left a brown haze over the country’s northern regions, prompting flight cancellations and causing respiratory ailments among local residents.

Rare Rhino Sightings
Several rare Sumatran rhinoceros, a species once believed to be extinct, have been sighted near India’s border with Burma.

The sightings suggest that the hairy Sumatran rhinoceros are surviving on the subcontinent, according to Anwarudding Choudhury, chief executive of the Rhino Foundation. The Sumatran rhinos once roamed the wet savanna grasslands from the foothills of the eastern Himalayas in Bhutan and northeastern India to Indonesia. But the species reportedly became extinct in the early 1920s when poachers killed the animal for its prized horns — believed to have certain aphrodisiac properties.

Cyclone Season
Tropical cyclone Davina struck the western Indian Ocean states of Mauritius and Reunion with winds of up to 110 mph before dissipating near the southern tip of Madagascar.

At least 60 people were hospitalized and 250 others left homeless after the storm pummeled Mauritius.

Mozambique Floods
Severe flooding in Mozambique has claimed 12 lives and left more than 200,000 others homeless in the north of the country.

The inundations have been caused by more than three months of heavy rains, with the northern towns of Vilankulu and Inhassoro being the worst hit. The government has requested international agencies to help with disaster relief as well as road and bridge repair.

Earthquakes
A magnitude 4.6 quake in southwestern Japan caused concrete walls to collapse and triggered rock slides that blocked roads around the city of Kumamoto.

Earth movements were also felt in northern Japan, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula, Taiwan, the southern Philippines, Tibet, southeastern Iran, southern Greece and south-central Alaska.

Greenland Ice Thinning
Ice sheets covering Greenland’s low-lying areas are melting at an alarming rate of three feet a year, according to a report in the journal Science.

NASA measurements have shown that the thinning is most pronounced in the southern and eastern part of the continent, particularly near coastal areas. Researchers conclude that the thinning is due not so much to less snowfall in the region but to glaciers melting and sliding toward the coast at a faster rate.

Bio-pirates
Brazil’s Ministry of Environment announced plans to battle the lucrative business of stealing medically valuable plants from the vast and remote Amazon rain forest.

The program combines the scientific study of flora with efforts to stop the so-called “bio-pirates.” Officials hope the scientific approach will help catch those who illegally exploit the region by stealing plants that can be converted to medical uses. Some smugglers are said to be able to to hide microorganisms from the Amazon inside items as small as a ball-point pen.

Parliamentary Discipline
Two cats that strayed into the Indian parliament building on the opening day of the country's contentious budget session were sterilized for their rudeness, according to press reports from New Delhi.

The feral cats had sat yawning impassionately near the seat of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, then evaded initial attempts by staff to catch them. Many Indians consider cats to be unlucky, and the feline intrusions prompted one opposition member to question the future of Vajpayee's fragile coalition.

Additional Sources: Japan Meteorological Agency, U.S. Climate Analysis Center, U.S. Earthquake Information Center and the World Meteorological Organization.