Obama Urges Americans To Follow Local Governments Amid Tsunami Threat

President Barack Obama urged Americans Saturday to follow the instructions of state and local governments in light of severe weather threats surrounding the 8.8 magnitude quake that hit Chile earlier in the day.

"The most important thing you can do is to carefully heed the instructions of your state and local officials," Obama said.

The President noted that areas off the coast have been alerted to prepare for possible evacuations and advised states on the West Coast to practice similar caution.

According to Obama, the death toll in Chile following the quake is in the hundreds.

“Early indications are that hundreds of lives have been lost and the damage is severe.”

Obama’s remarks came shortly after Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gave a statement affirming U.S. support for Chile.

“We are closely monitoring the situation, including the potential for a tsunami,” Gibbs said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Chile and we stand ready to help in this hour of need."

NASA's Ice Bridge Team Heads To Antarctica, Where It's Warm

By Julianne LaJeunesse - University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News Service

NASA will fly its 157 foot DC-8 laboratory aircraft south for some of the winter, where officials hope to use radar and airborne and imaging lasers to collect and record changes to sea ice, ice sheets, and glaciers. NASA says that all of these are experiencing the effects of warming in some areas, and snow and ice accumulation in others.

"Our motivation in these aircraft observations, is based on our concern about the contributions of the ice sheets to sea level rise," said Seeyle Martin, the chief scientist of Operation Ice Bridge, which is a six-year effort by NASA to fly to each of the earth's polar regions each year.

Martin added that NASA surveyed Greenland in the 1990's and found that ice mass loss is increasing by 7 percent each year. However, said Martin, "we do not have a comparable number for Antarctica."

The Operation Ice Bridge team will be based in Punta Arenas, Chile through mid-November, where they will make up to 17 flights, passing in and out of West Antarctica, the Antarctic Peninsula, and the Southern Ocean.

Tom Wagner, a cryosphere program scientist at NASA's Washington, D.C. headquarters, said in a NASA press release that the team will use equipment which he called "the only way to find out where change is occurring in remote continent-sized ice sheets like Antarctica."

That equipment includes NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation satellite laser, which will be used before using the Airborne Topographic Mapper. When the equipment is used collaboratively, scientists will be able to calibrate the data that satellite alone cannot map. The NASA team will also use radar depth sounding to measure ice sheet thickness, a laser vegetation imaging sensor, a snow radar, and a gravimeter, which will measure the changes in gravity the team expects to encounter at the edges of the Pines Island Bay.

Robin Bell, a geophysicist at Columbia University, said that the Ice Bridge endeavor is unique and will answer many questions about why ice sheets are changing.

"Ice Bridge is going to allow us to look at the base of the ice sheets, where the warm ocean water is reaching the bottom of the ice sheet, and where those... glaciers may actually be lubricated by water," she said.

Chilean President Touts Chile’s Successful Economic Policies

By Celia Canon - Talk Radio News Service

During an address on Latin America and the economic crisis at the Brookings Institute yesterday, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet discussed her country's comparatively strong economy, explaining that the 1980’s economic crisis in Latin America taught the region to take measures to insulate itself from global financial crises.

“This time in Latin America, fundamental [institutions] were better and policy responses were swift,” Bachelet said. "Central banks move quickly to offset the lack of liquidity in dollars using either sovereign funds or international reserves accumulated during the commodity boom earlier this decade.”

Chile's current financial stability is largely due to the fact that it has moved away from American policies in recent years, eschewing the Washington Consensus, a set of American recommendations to Latin American states on how to rebuild their economies in 1989. The recommendations focused on maintaining a free market economy with little to no government involvement.

“This approach of no regulation is an approach that we have come to call in Chile the 'Paradigm of Passivity,' " Bachelet said. "The crisis has taught us what we should have known all along: that the state is not and cannot be passive when it comes to economic activity or financial regulation."

The Chilean president added: “When I talk about not being passive, I’m not talking necessarily about [an] interventionist state. I’m not calling for a government involved in all sectors of the economy or prone to over-regulating markets.”

Bachelet also compared Western states and Chile with regard to the policies implemented to reduce the impact of the global financial crisis.

“Unlike the U.S. and much of Europe, in 2009, tax payers have not have to pay the burden of bailing out” national companies, said Bachelet.

Additionally, the Chilean government has produced its own stimulus package, which aims to maintain the population’s purchasing power, rather than bail out industries.

“This [stimulus] package was designed to inject resources directly into the pockets of the most deprived families to promote employment by increasing public investment, and by granting subsidies to youth employment and to encourage private investment with temporary tax rebates,” Bachelet said.

Bachelet, a moderate socialist, is currently in Washington, D.C. to meet with President Barack Obama in hopes of increasing bilateral ties and improving trade partnerships. During her speech, she was quick to empathize with the Americans, echoing Obama's frequent calls for an economic restructuring to lead to “lasting prosperity."

States should not “go back to the same situation that we were in before, because that would mean we haven't learned the lessons of the crisis,” Bachelet said.

Swine Flu Emerging In South America

By Aaron Richardson-Talk Radio News Service

With the flu season just beginning in the southern hemisphere, the H1N1 virus, better known as the swine flu, is showing no signs of going away. Dr. Jon Andrus of the Pan American Health Organization said earlier today that the spread of the virus is increasing and that its future impact remains uncertain.

“What may be happening in Chile is what happens with the usual evolution of a pandemic.” said Andrus.

According to Andrus, the World Health Organization is expecting an outcome similar to the pandemics of 1957 and 1968, in which 1 million to 4 million people may have died. While saying that the outbreak is moderate, the World Health Organization will soon increase the virus to phase six status, making it is a world-wide pandemic.

On June 1, the WHO met with health experts from over 30 countries to discuss how to help the public understand the meaning of the phases. “This virus is so unpredictable” said Andrus, who said he could not predict when the virus will peak. The Pan American Health Organization will be monitoring the new cases being reported in the upcoming months.