The angry earth

Indonesian volcano continues to spit fire and claim lives

Mount Merapi in Indonesia blasted ash and gas into the sky on Thursday, killing dozens more people in the latest in a series of eruptions over the past nine days that claimed 138 lives and forced more than 75,000 to flee their homes.

Heavy rain also lashed the area, cooling flows of lava that were encroaching into some abandoned villages on the slopes of the volcano near Yogyakarta, the cultural heart of Java island.

Scientists are closely monitoring an Icelandic volcano as melted glacial ice pouring from its crater may trigger an eruption.

An Icelandic Meteorological Office geophysicist said ice water from the crater of the subglacial Grimsvotn volcano caused the river Gigja to reach its maximum level. That activity, coupled with about three small earthquakes a week, could lead to an eruption.

Grimsvotn last erupted in 2004, when flood waters were at similar levels. Scientists said Grimsvotn only erupted for several days in 2004 and is unlikely to lead to the air travel chaos caused by ash spewing from the Eyjafjallajokul volcano in April.

More than 4,000 houses were reported damaged in an earthquake in Serbia that killed two people and injured dozens.

The 5.3-magnitude earthquake hit the area around the central town of Kraljevo early Wednesday, sending people fleeing from their homes in panic. The tremor was felt throughout the country.

The winter season has claimed its first avalanche victims, close to the Swiss border in France. The bodies of a mountain climber and his two sons were found on the mountain Roche Michel.

Go figure

17 minutes left before the Yemen plane bomb was due to explode when it was defused

$600bn amount of government bonds the US?Federal Reserve will buy in an attempt to stimulate the economy

10 years; the age of the Romanian girl who gave birth in the southern Spanish city of Lebrija last week

On this day in 1874

Cartoonist's eye trumpets a new symbol for US politics' big beast

The American cartoonist Thomas Nast was a man of rare political vision.

In 1870 he used the symbol of a donkey kicking a dead lion to symbolise President Lincoln's secretary of war who was in the midst of a feud with an anti-war faction. The image caught on and the cartoonist continued to use it to lampoon the Democratic Party as a whole. Nast's image had echoes of an earlier Democrat president, Andrew Jackson, who turned an opponent's slur of "jackass" into a campaign logo.

Four years later, Nast was working for Harper's Weekly when President Ulysses Grant was considering whether to stand for a third term. The New York Times opposed this and denounced Grant.

In a cartoon commenting on the controversy, Nast drew on Aesop's fables, with the newspaper being respresented by a unicorn, the Democrats by a fox and the Republicans by a lumbering elephant.

Nast continued using the elephant as a symbol for the GOP. Within a few years cartoonists from other publications had adopted it too and by the 1880 presidential election the beast became synonymous with the party. The elephant cartoon appeared in Harper's 136 years ago on this day .

The week in laughs

As a tribute to Paul the Octopus, the next round of the Champions League will be played over eight legs

(Observer)

Paul the Octopus wasn't dead after all, he was just worried the sea-life centre lacked ambition, but has now signed a lucrative five-year contract

(Sickipedia)

Obama sent out an e-mail encouraging his supporters to take at least three friends with them to vote. That's not how people vote - that's how women go to the bathroom

(Jimmy Fallon)

The Republican Party made huge gains in Congress. Sarah Palin is said to be so excited she can't even make up the words to express how thrilled she is

(Argus Hamilton)

Q: What's the difference between Neil Prendeville and John Denver?

A: John Denver was leaving on a jet plane

(boards.ie)

News hound - What it says in the international press

Ottawa Sun - It's not all white for the Canadian legion

The Royal Canadian Legion is seeing red at Peace groups who have adopted a white poppy as a symbol of peace. The legion says it not only denigrates Remembrance Day, but infringes on the legion's trademark red
poppy campaign.

Buenos Aires Herald - Argentina president evokes late husband

At the closing ceremony of the Evita National Games, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said she wished to dedicate her words to "he who is escorting me from the above," referring to her late husband, the former president Néstor Kirchner.

The Botzwana Gazette - Student scrap breaks out in science exam

Fights broke out between at least seven students at Maoka Community Junior Secondary School in Gaborone during the Form Three Science Paper II examinations.

The fight erupted after one of the students had a misund-er­standing with his colleague.

Mumbai Mirror - Harry Potter to blame for illegal trade in owls

The environment minister has linked boy wizard Harry Potter to the illegal trade in owls that threatens the birds in India. Jairam Ramesh said the "strange fascination" among the affluent classes with giving owls to children was inspired by Potter.

Checking out - The people we said goodbye to last week

Viktor Chernomyrdin, 72, Russian prime minister 1992-98, cancer

Ted Sorensen, 82, speech writer for JFK and White House counsel, stroke.

Denise Borino-Quinn, 46, US TV actress (Ginny Sacramoni, The Sopranos), liver cancer

Andy Irons, 32, world champion surfer, drug overdose

Jerry Bock, 81, composer of Fiddler on the Roof, heart failure. Bock died ten days after Fiddler's lyricist Joseph Stein died

Eugénie Blanchard, 114, French nun who was the oldest verified living person in the world

Jill Clayburgh, 66, American actress (An Unmarried Woman, Ally McBeal), leukemia