In normal times, the arctic bird of prey known as the Snowy Owl stays up north, feasting upon the flesh of lemmings. But these are not normal times, so the owls have come south with the terrible arctic weather. "They are just absolutely everywhere and there's a lot more coming," says an expert who knows about the owls.

Just two weeks after ex-Yukos Oil boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky was sentenced to another six years in Russian prison, BP pulled a share swap, exchanging $7.8 billion of stock in the company holding Yukos' assets for a 9.5 percent stake. Convenient!

Two days ago, an "ice island" four times larger than Manhattan broke away from a Greenland glacier and is heading for the Nares Strait, and could reach the Atlantic Ocean within two years.