As in the days of Noah...
LOVE WAXING COLD:Pastor spends 2 days lost in airport
The Rev. Kenneth Davis left Kansas on Monday in his finest attire, bound for a gospel-music convention in Orlando.He used a skycap's cell phone at Orlando International Airport to call his wife, Joyce, in Wichita, saying he had arrived safely and was waiting for his bags. Then the dapper 72-year-old pastor disappeared.Not until an alert went out Wednesday did one of the skycaps who ferried Davis to the luggage carousel realize the man was still in the airport.Michael Worsdale, an employee of Prospect Airport Services, found Davis asleep on the curb outside the airport, having remembered him from his shiny black and white spats."He doesn't look homeless.Supposedly security is at the airport moving all day long," said Davis' daughter, JoAnn Davis Redic of Sacramento, Calif. "How in the world could they miss him?"Airport officials had no explanation as to how Davis could have been left alone and stranded for so long, but spokesman Rod Johnson said the airport is investigating and reviewing surveillance tapes.AirTran Airways confirmed that Davis was a passenger, saying he did not request a wheelchair in advance but asked for one when his flight arrived in Orlando and an airport skycap provided wheelchair service.When Orlando police and fire crews responded, they found Davis aware that he had been in the airport for days but disoriented."He was very thirsty, and he answered 'yes' to everything," Orlando police Lt. Brian Gilliam said.Davis was taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center, where he remained in stable condition Friday. Another daughter and son had flown into town in the time he was missing, planning to track their father down themselves if necessary.Davis Redic said doctors told the family that Davis had suffered a stroke. It was unclear when the attack came, but it most likely played a role in his languishing at OIA for two days."The doctors said that he suffered a stroke in the front left of his brain and it affected his motor skills," Davis Redic said, adding that her father was unable to explain what exactly had happened to him.Davis was coming to Orlando to take part in the Gospel Music Workshop of America, a conference he helped start. Back home, he is pastor of Immanuel Outreach Centre Church of God in Christ and plays piano.His wife and seven children grew alarmed when Davis did not call again to tell of his trip or the conference. Although the children are scattered across the country, said they stay in touch, Davis Redic said.They used that closeness to hold family conference calls, to report Davis missing and to plan their own trips to Orlando.The closest child, son Kenneth Jr. in Tennessee, was in the air and ready to start the search for Davis in Orlando, when the skycap found him.The family is still talking about how Davis managed, disoriented, at a major airport without anyone noticing, Davis Redic said."We're still trying to put pieces together," she said. "That lapse of time, we don't know what happened."Davis' son and another daughter, Melinda Johnson, are at his side in Orlando.Now, the family is dealing with the relief that Davis was found and trying to focus on getting him well enough to return home."We are just trying to focus on what the doctors say," Davis Redic said. "He may not remember everything right away, so it may take time before we know what happened."
NY recognizes Canadian same-sex marriages
In a landmark case, an American court has ruled that gay couples who tie the knot in Canada can be treated as legally married in the state of New York.Justice Joan Lefkowitz of the New York Supreme Court ruled last week that same-sex marriages performed outside the country are valid, even though gay New Yorkers cannot be legally married in their home state.This is the first time Canadian same-sex marriage laws have triumphed in U.S. court, according to Alphonso David, a lawyer for the gay rights group Lambda Legal, which intervened in the case.“Couples can go to sleep at night without worrying about the security of their status,” says David.“I feel vindicated,” his client, Robert Voorheis, told reporters after the March 12 ruling. “When I say, `I'm married,' I'm married.”Voorheis and his partner, both of Yonkers, N.Y., were married in Niagara Falls, Ont., four years ago.“This is extremely important,” says Andrew Koppelman, a Northwestern University law professor and expert on the issue.If the ruling holds up on appeal, “it will mean for all practical purposes, same-sex marriage is legal in the state of New York,” because people can easily cross the border to get married, said Koppelman.
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Scientists hail ‘frozen smoke’ as material that will change world
A MIRACLE material for the 21st century could protect your home against bomb blasts, mop up oil spillages and even help man to fly to Mars.Aerogel, one of the world’s lightest solids, can withstand a direct blast of 1kg of dynamite and protect against heat from a blowtorch at more than 1,300C.Scientists are working to discover new applications for the substance, ranging from the next generation of tennis rackets to super-insulated space suits for a manned mission to Mars.It is expected to rank alongside wonder products from previous generations such as Bakelite in the 1930s, carbon fibre in the 1980s and silicone in the 1990s. Mercouri Kanatzidis, a chemistry professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said: “It is an amazing material. It has the lowest density of any product known to man, yet at the same time it can do so much. I can see aerogel being used for everything from filtering polluted water to insulating against extreme temperatures and even for jewellery.”Aerogel is nicknamed “frozen smoke” and is made by extracting water from a silica gel, then replacing it with gas such as carbon dioxide. The result is a substance that is capable of insulating against extreme temperatures and of absorbing pollutants such as crude oil.It was invented by an American chemist for a bet in 1931, but early versions were so brittle and costly that it was largely consigned to laboratories. It was not until a decade ago that Nasa started taking an interest in the substance and putting it to a more practical use.In 1999 the space agency fitted its Stardust space probe with a mitt packed full of aerogel to catch the dust from a comet’s tail. It returned with a rich collection of samples last year.In 2002 Aspen Aerogel, a company created by Nasa, produced a stronger and more flexible version of the gel. It is now being used to develop an insulated lining in space suits for the first manned mission to Mars, scheduled for 2018.Mark Krajewski, a senior scientist at the company, believes that an 18mm layer of aerogel will be sufficient to protect astronauts from temperatures as low as -130C. “It is the greatest insulator we’ve ever seen,” he said.Aerogel is also being tested for future bombproof housing and armour for military vehicles.In the laboratory, a metal plate coated in 6mm of aerogel was left almost unscathed by a direct dynamite blast.It also has green credentials. Aerogel is described by scientists as the “ultimate sponge”,with millions of tiny pores on its surface making it ideal for absorbing pollutants in water.
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Cleansing the ACLU:Michigan and the case of Muslim footbaths
The latest battle of religion in the public square is unfolding in Dearborn, Michigan, a city with one of the highest Muslim populations in the country. At the University of Michigan's local campus, administrators have recently refitted several school bathrooms to include small footbaths in the corner-an accommodation for Muslim students who must perform ritual washing as part of their daily observance. The issue has more than a few of the usual suspects trying to explain their way out of their usual positions on the separation of church and state.The Detroit chapter of the ACLU has scrambled to find a way to recuse itself from the matter, claiming that the footbaths qualify as secular since they could be used by non-Muslims, and therefore don't cross the group's usual bright church-state line. Further, the ACLU explains, the university's decision to take on the $25,000 expense was motivated primarily "by health and safety" because some students didn't like washing their hands in the sinks after others students had washed their feet. If that hadn't been the case, the group says this religious accommodation would surely have merited greater investigation and criticism.Uh-huh.This is the same ACLU chapter that in 2005 objected to a high-school wrestling coach saying a prayer with his team before meets, calling the action "inherently coercive."And the ACLU of Michigan is already on the defensive for its non-action this time. In a letter explaining its silence regarding university footbaths, the ACLU notes that it "has often come to the defense of other religions when the state has attempted to interfere with their religious expression." The letter even includes a list of cases in which the group has defended Christian clients. Too bad none of the examples prove much of a parallel to the current recusal over state recognition of a religious practice....
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Castro May Be Dead...
There is yet another rumor floating about that Fidel Castro may be dead. It may even be true this time.Terrible. Awful. Heh.Sorry, but this guy’s dictatorship has been directly responsible for the deaths of thousands who have tried to leave his miserable little “worker’s paradise” in search of a better life, lost at sea or in the loving arms of his intelligence services. Many of his people in Cuba at this very moment live in squalor with absolutely no hope of anything changing.Unless, of course, he finally went the way of all things. The “decomposing” look would look good on him. Then, at long last, his long suffering people may have some hope. But...the left’s spin on Castro and his ilk (Che and that lot) will have us believe that they are the true heroes, the rebels, the fighters.....Puh-leeze. I just don’t see many people risking their lives and the lives of their families to escape their home in the West for a better life under some third world dictator. They were and are the worst in humans, self centered politicos who want us to think that they are doing what’s best for us. Even if it kills us.But at least, according to Michael Moore, the Cuban health care system (unlike ours) can keep them alive to face years more of political oppression and misery.WHEW!!!! I’m sure that’s a relief for them! If they cut their finger butchering the one chicken the government gives them each week at least they’ll be taken care of while they await imprisonment in their jail system, a gulag that makes the very darkest of Solzhenistyn’s dreams come true. Anyway, sooner or later the rumor about Fidel’s demise will have to be true. Let’s hope it’s sooner.
Like now.
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/castro_may_be_dead_rumor_number_sixty_two_concerning_his_untimely_demise/
Like now.
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/castro_may_be_dead_rumor_number_sixty_two_concerning_his_untimely_demise/
As in the days of Noah...
Mexican Caribbean evacuations start as Dean looms
CANCUN,Mexico-Authorities began evacuating residents of the Mexican Caribbean on Saturday and tourists in Cancun cleared supermarkets shelves as the luxury resort braced for its second ferocious hurricane in two years.Hurricane Dean, which is on the verge of becoming a rare Category 5 storm,was expected to strike the Yucatan Peninsula late on Monday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.It has already killed at least three people in the Caribbean on its way toward Jamaica and the Gulf of Mexico.Mexican navy and army officers evacuated 2,500 people from the small island of Holbox and helped fishing communities to shelters on higher ground. Hotel owners and state officials in Cancun were to decide when to move some 40,000 tourists later on Saturday."We are not taking any chances with Hurricane Dean," Felix Gonzalez, governor for Cancun's Quintana Roo state, told reporters.Gulf ports were open on Saturday. State oil company Pemex said its operations in the Gulf of Mexico were normal and it would not take any decisions to evacuate staff until later in the weekend.Royal Dutch Shell said it was removing 300 more support workers from its U.S. Gulf of Mexico facilities on Saturday because of Dean. Shell said it has evacuated about 460 people since the start of the week.Tourists and locals stocked up on food and water, emptying the shelves at some stores."I came to see what I could get, but there's not much left in the supermarket," said Jorge Sanchez, 48, an airport worker shopping at a Wal-Mart store in Cancun.Cancun is still recovering from Hurricane Wilma, a Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale that hit in October 2005 and killed at least seven people.Wilma howled over Cancun and nearby Cozumel Island for two days, sucking away entire white sand beaches, stranding tens of thousands of tourists and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damages and lost revenues.Quintana Roo issued storm alerts on local radio in Spanish, English and the local indigenous language Maya, while Mexico's national rescue service said it had 287 shelters ready across the state.A Cancun airport official told Reuters that airlines had agreed to cut the number of incoming flights and were prepared to fly out thousands of tourists before the hurricane neared.
As in the days of Noah....
CHEMICAL WEAPONS WATCH:Mustard Vapor Detected at Umatilla Chemical Depot
Workers at the Umatilla Chemical Depot in Oregon detected minute levels of mustard vapor yesterday while inspecting a storage structure holding bulk containers, the U.S. Army announced (see GSN, July 27).Passive filter systems installed in the depot’s storage igloos prevent mustard gas from escaping into the environment.Depot workers placed a powered filter system on the igloo, and planned to find, inspect and decontaminate the leaking container (U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency release, Aug. 15).
http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2007_8_16.html#DF7ED817
As in the days of Noah..
http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2007_8_16.html#DF7ED817
As in the days of Noah..
The Pope and Islam
The Pope’s visit to Turkey highlights the Muslim world's violent reaction to the Pontiff's comments about Islam several weeks ago. What did those comments, and the Muslim world’s response to them, really mean?The controversy over the Pope’s visit to Turkey, as we well know, has been ignited by the Muslim world’s violent reaction to the Pope’s statements several weeks ago. There were calls to kill the Pope, there was the burning of Christian Churches, there was the tragic murder of the nun in Somalia etc.Let’s begin with this question: if members of a religion are offended at the implication of their religion being violent, what is the logic of reacting with violence?And where are the “real” Muslims decrying the violent reactions that supposedly taint their "religion of peace"...???
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New York Islamist Day Parade
On September 9, 2007, a pre-9/11 celebration of sorts will be taking place in New York City, as Islamists from across the Tri-State area will congregate there for the 22nd Annual Muslim Day Parade. If past parades are any indication, law enforcement will need to be on high alert, as the participants have been amongst the most radical in the nation. Will the city allow thisdenigration of a very somber day to take place, or will it remember its many victims of terrorism and shut it down?The parade is being run by the Muslim Foundation of America (MFA), an organization located in the Astoria section of Queens that was founded in 1983, around the time of the first annual parade. In actuality, both the MFA and the parade appear to be the same entity with different names, as the MFA’s website, since it was first created in October of 2003, has been devoted almost entirely to discussing the parade. Thousands are expected to attend this year’s event. In the past, the number of parade-goers has varied. While some participants may be coming out to experience a day of fun with their fellow religionists, others have an alternative agenda.The Grand Marshal for the 2006 parade was Siraj Wahhaj, a Brooklyn imam who is known for his fiery speeches, including those that have been considered threatening to the United States. In February of 1995, Wahhaj was named – along with such people as Osama bin Laden and bin Laden’s mentor, Abdullah Azzam – as a potential co-conspirator to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.Another Grand Marshal of a past parade was Muzzamil Siddiqi, the former President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a mosque umbrella organization that was recently named a co-conspirator to the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. Siddiqi, like Wahhaj, has also verbally threatened the United States, stating in October of 2000, “America has to learn. If you remain on the side of injustice, the wrath of G-d will come.” There are pictures of Siddiqi speaking at the parade, on the MFA site....
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PS:If you can please go to the link above and continue reading.....It's unbelievable!!!
As in the days of Noah...
China sounds retreat against encroaching deserts:Decades of flawed agricultural policies have led to rapid desertification.
Zhengxin,China-Behind the walled farmhouses, where fields of cotton and fennel bask in bright sunshine, the desert begins. Pale ochre sand dunes loom over rows of carefully tended crops that represent a lifetime of labor for the 21 families who live here.As the desert closes in, this community has been told to leave, so that their fields can be replanted with native grass. Local authorities say this will revive the parched land and halt the sand dunes, and have promised new land and housing to villagers. The forced move is an admission that China's grandiose plans to turn its arid land into farms have run dry. In recent years, China has met some success in slowing the sands by imposing curbs on grazing in Inner Mongolia and other measures.But with China's average annual land loss of about950 square miles to desertification, according to researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in addition to vast swaths of land turned over to industry and housing, the amount of farmland available to feed a large population is being pinched.In all, more than 10,500 residents of Minqin County in northwest Gansu Province, along the ancient Silk Road, are due to be relocated over the next three years.It's a tactical retreat after decades of cropping that exhausted scarce water resources. What matters now, say experts, is preventing this and other marginal land from turning into vast dust bowls where nothing grows."Minqin is an example of what's happening all over China. If we lose villages here, we can expect to lose villages in other places," says Sun Qingwei, a researcher on desertification at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Lanzhou, the provincial capital.For decades, China has been trying to hold back the deserts that cover one-third of the country and produce seasonal sandstorms that scour Beijing and other northern cities. Experts say deforestation and overfarming are to blame for desertification, though global warming may become a greater factor in the future, as the Tibetan glaciers that feed China's waterways are melting.China has more than 20 percent of the world's population and only 7 percent of its arable land. China announced Monday that rising food prices pushed the inflation rate in July to 5.6 percent, a 10-year high. Adding to the pressure on farmland is rampant environmental degradation that has poisoned waterways and soil.
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Hurricane Dean moves toward Jamaica
SANTO DOMINGO,Dominican Republic - Alarmed tourists jammed Caribbean airports for flights out of Hurricane Dean's path Saturday as the monster storm began sweeping past the Dominican Republic and Haiti and threatened to engulf Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. In Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, a boy was pulled into the ocean and drowned while watching waves kicked up by the Category 4 storm strike an oceanfront boulevard, the emergency operations center reported. The rough waves also destroyed five houses and damaged 15 along the Dominican coast, emergency officials said.In Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, which stand directly in Dean's path, fear gripped many islanders and tourists alike.Bracing for the storm to hit on Sunday, Jamaica issued a hurricane warning and began evacuating people to more than 1,000 shelters nationwide. People jammed supermarkets and hardware stores in the capital of Kingston to stock up on canned food, bottled water, flashlights, batteries, lamps and plywood, while shop owners hammered wood over windows at malls in the city.Resident Elaine Russell said she was getting ready for the storm remembering Hurricane Ivan's destruction in 2004. "I can't take it," she said."The storm is bad enough but it's what happens afterward-there's no light, no water."Before dawn, tourists began lining up outside the Montego Bay airport in western Jamaica to book flights out. The storm, which had maximum sustained winds of 145 mph late Saturday, was expected to bring as much as 20 inches of rain to the island.Shante Morgan of Moorpark, Calif., said a lack of information about the severity of the storm was fueling the fear."People are freaking out because they're not getting answers at their hotel," said Morgan, 38, who got a Saturday flight after waiting several hours. "They're really playing down the potential influence of the hurricane."Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller called for a halt to campaigning for the Aug. 27 general elections, saying: "Let us band together and unite in the threat of this hurricane."Further west in the low-lying Cayman Islands, the government issued a hurricane warning late Saturday and ordered a mandatory evacuation by noon Sunday of Little Cayman, the smallest of the territory's three islands. The islands were expected to take a direct hit on Monday.Earlier in the day, lines of tourists waiting for flights snaked out of the international airport terminal and onto the lawn outside. Many tourists flopped under a tree to get out of the sun, surrounded by their luggage. Cayman Airways added 15 flights to Florida from the wealthy British territory, and they were quickly sold out.The scene was relatively calmer in the Dominican Republic. Residents ran errands at stores with fully stocked shelves, despite government advisories about heavy rains and possible flooding."Nothing's going to happen here-a lot of water but nothing else," said Pedro Alvajar, 61, as he sat in a doorway selling lottery tickets.The outer bands of the storm were expected to bring as much as 10 inches of rain to the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which share the island of Hispaniola.In Haiti, the government issued radio alerts for people in the mountains and coastal areas. In 2004, Tropical Storm Jeanne brushed the impoverished and heavily deforested country, triggering massive floods that killed 1,900 people and left 900 others missing.Dean, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, gained strength over warm Caribbean waters after claiming six lives and devastating banana and sugar crops when it hit tiny islands in the eastern Caribbean on Friday as a Category 2 storm.As of 11 p.m. Saturday, Dean was centered about 170 miles south-southwest of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and 360 miles east-southeast of Kingston. It was moving west at 17 mph.The storm was expected to clip Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and enter the Gulf of Mexico by Tuesday, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.Authorities on Mexico's Caribbean coast began evacuating tourists and residents from low-lying Holbox island north of Cancun on Saturday. A total of 2,200 people, including some 250 Mexican and foreign tourists, were ordered to leave, state officials said.Forecasters said it was too soon to say whether the hurricane would strike the US.Worried the storm could disrupt operations at Mission Control in Houston, however, NASA shortened the last spacewalk for astronauts aboard the shuttle Endeavour and ordered the spacecraft to return to Earth a day early on Tuesday.President Bush, meanwhile, signed a pre-landfall emergency disaster declaration for Texas, allowing the federal government to immediately send people, equipment and supplies to the state if Dean makes landfall there.In Cuba, which could get rain from the outer bands of the storm, the government issued a tropical storm warning and said it was evacuating 50,000 people from three provinces.Dean passed near the islands of St. Lucia and Martinique early Friday as a Category 2 storm with winds near 100 mph.In St. Lucia, fierce winds tore corrugated metal roofs from dozens of homes and the pediatric ward of a hospital, whose patients had been evacuated hours earlier.Police spokeswoman Tamara Charles said a 62-year-old man drowned when he tried to retrieve a cow from a rain-swollen river.
In Dominica, a woman and her 7-year-old son were killed when a rain-soaked hillside gave way and crushed the home where they were sleeping, said Cecil Shillingford, the national disaster response coordinator. Dominica's government reported at least 150 homes were damaged.
Authorities said two people died on the French island of Martinique, including a woman who apparently fell and drowned.
In Dominica, a woman and her 7-year-old son were killed when a rain-soaked hillside gave way and crushed the home where they were sleeping, said Cecil Shillingford, the national disaster response coordinator. Dominica's government reported at least 150 homes were damaged.
Authorities said two people died on the French island of Martinique, including a woman who apparently fell and drowned.
As in the days of Noah...
Peru quake survivors grow desperate
PISCO, Peru - The government sent the army Saturday to stop looting fueled by rising desperation in earthquake-shattered Peru, where tens of thousands were without fresh water and shivering families huddled in makeshift shelters at the center of the devastation. In a soccer stadium in the port city of Pisco, more than 500 people rushed a lone truck that ran out little packets of crackers, candy and toilet paper, screaming that they had not eaten and accusing rescue workers of keeping supplies for themselves.As many as 80% of the people in quake-hit urban areas may not have access to clean water and many rural communities still have not been reached to assess the damage, said Dominic Nutt, part of an emergency assessment team in Peru for the aid agency Save the Children."The situation is probably worse than first imagined,"Nutt said.
President Alan Garcia sent 1,000 troops to stop the looting."We're going to establish order, regardless of what it costs,"he said.Meanwhile,Defense Minister Allan Wagner told The AP in Pisco that the death toll from Wednesday's magnitude-8 quake had risen to 540, up from the previous figure of 510 provided by firefighters.Destruction from the quake,which also injured at least 1,500 people,was centered in the cities of Ica and Pisco in Peru's southern desert,about 125 miles southeast of the capital,Lima.Aftershocks continued in the area Saturday as a 5.8-magnitude temblor struck off the coast between Ica.Garcia said at least 80,000 people were affected in some way, mostly through the destruction or damage of homes.At one end of a soccer field in Pisco, families who had lost everything huddled in a half dozen makeshift shelters made of cardboard and blankets held up by wooden poles."We don't have water. The tents have not arrived," said Maria Tataja, 38, who shared an open-fronted shelter with nine other people. She shivered in the ocean breeze.Some people complained of price-gouging and said the cost of basic foods had doubled or tripled at the local market. Others arrived in Pisco's central square asking for canned milk and other goods but often left empty-handed.Soldiers stood guard at supply depots and tried to ensure that aid trucks made it to their destinations.Miguel Soto, a police officer standing guard in the Pisco stadium, said food donated by one Lima district had been raided on the traffic-clogged highway to Pisco. Many other food trucks simply weren't getting through, he said.Responding to criticism that aid was not arriving quickly enough, Jorge del Castillo, Garcia's Cabinet chief, told El Comerico newspaper said that all planes available were now being used to ferry supplies to the victims.Immediately after the quake, many of the aircraft were used to carry the injured to Lima, he said.Motorcycle taxi driver Marco Coila said he had moved his family out of Pisco to a village where they had hoped to find more food."There is nothing to eat.There is a lot of looting going on,"he said.Rescuers continued to pull bodies from the rubble of the San Clemente church in downtown Pisco, where hundreds had gathered for Mass when the quake struck Wednesday.Local media reported Saturday that a 10-month-old boy had been pulled alive from the ruins of the church hours after the earthquake-one of the more heartwarming stories to emerge in the aftermath of the disaster."It was a miracle that he had survived so many hours breathing only dust and death," Romulo Palomino told the state news agency Andina.Palomino said he had been searching frantically through the adobe and wood rubble of the church for his parents when he discovered the infant in a pile of broken timbers.The baby's parents have not been located and Palomino and his wife are taking care of him for now, Andina reported.Hopes of finding more survivors diminished on Saturday.Paul Wooster, coordinator of the Rapid UK Rescue team from Gloucester, England, said rescuers were using sound detectors and infrared cameras to search mountains of rubble.The latest survivor discovered, a man, was pulled from the rubble at midday Friday."We always work on a four-day window and I'm talking realistically. So we are still looking for survivors but there's not much more time," Wooster said.The U.S. dispatched medical teams, two mobile clinics and two helicopters, along with $150,000 to buy emergency supplies. S. Ward Casscells, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, arrived in Pisco on Saturday to assess the needs of the people and how the U.S. can help.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070819/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/peru_quake
As in the days of Noah...
President Alan Garcia sent 1,000 troops to stop the looting."We're going to establish order, regardless of what it costs,"he said.Meanwhile,Defense Minister Allan Wagner told The AP in Pisco that the death toll from Wednesday's magnitude-8 quake had risen to 540, up from the previous figure of 510 provided by firefighters.Destruction from the quake,which also injured at least 1,500 people,was centered in the cities of Ica and Pisco in Peru's southern desert,about 125 miles southeast of the capital,Lima.Aftershocks continued in the area Saturday as a 5.8-magnitude temblor struck off the coast between Ica.Garcia said at least 80,000 people were affected in some way, mostly through the destruction or damage of homes.At one end of a soccer field in Pisco, families who had lost everything huddled in a half dozen makeshift shelters made of cardboard and blankets held up by wooden poles."We don't have water. The tents have not arrived," said Maria Tataja, 38, who shared an open-fronted shelter with nine other people. She shivered in the ocean breeze.Some people complained of price-gouging and said the cost of basic foods had doubled or tripled at the local market. Others arrived in Pisco's central square asking for canned milk and other goods but often left empty-handed.Soldiers stood guard at supply depots and tried to ensure that aid trucks made it to their destinations.Miguel Soto, a police officer standing guard in the Pisco stadium, said food donated by one Lima district had been raided on the traffic-clogged highway to Pisco. Many other food trucks simply weren't getting through, he said.Responding to criticism that aid was not arriving quickly enough, Jorge del Castillo, Garcia's Cabinet chief, told El Comerico newspaper said that all planes available were now being used to ferry supplies to the victims.Immediately after the quake, many of the aircraft were used to carry the injured to Lima, he said.Motorcycle taxi driver Marco Coila said he had moved his family out of Pisco to a village where they had hoped to find more food."There is nothing to eat.There is a lot of looting going on,"he said.Rescuers continued to pull bodies from the rubble of the San Clemente church in downtown Pisco, where hundreds had gathered for Mass when the quake struck Wednesday.Local media reported Saturday that a 10-month-old boy had been pulled alive from the ruins of the church hours after the earthquake-one of the more heartwarming stories to emerge in the aftermath of the disaster."It was a miracle that he had survived so many hours breathing only dust and death," Romulo Palomino told the state news agency Andina.Palomino said he had been searching frantically through the adobe and wood rubble of the church for his parents when he discovered the infant in a pile of broken timbers.The baby's parents have not been located and Palomino and his wife are taking care of him for now, Andina reported.Hopes of finding more survivors diminished on Saturday.Paul Wooster, coordinator of the Rapid UK Rescue team from Gloucester, England, said rescuers were using sound detectors and infrared cameras to search mountains of rubble.The latest survivor discovered, a man, was pulled from the rubble at midday Friday."We always work on a four-day window and I'm talking realistically. So we are still looking for survivors but there's not much more time," Wooster said.The U.S. dispatched medical teams, two mobile clinics and two helicopters, along with $150,000 to buy emergency supplies. S. Ward Casscells, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, arrived in Pisco on Saturday to assess the needs of the people and how the U.S. can help.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070819/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/peru_quake
As in the days of Noah...
Monster Jellyfish Invade Gulf of Mexico
Australian jellyfish that invaded the Gulf of Mexico seven years ago have made a "vigorous reappearance" this summer and threaten to devour native fish, scientists announced Friday.And in the Gulf, with plenty to eat, they grow to monster size."In their native waters, they tend to be fist-sized," said Monty Graham of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab."Here in the Gulf, they can be a big as dinner plates.”The creatures can weigh up to 25 pounds.The Australian spotted jellyfish, Phyllorhiza punctata, are not dangerous to humans. But scientists say the invasion could pose a threat to the fishing and shrimping industries. The jellies foul trawling nets and eat eggs and larvae of other fish.The invasive jellyfish have been found in the Gulf since 2000 but in small numbers. This year, there are more of them, and their range has extended up to the Mid-Atlantic states.“Reports from the Panhandle of Florida and North Carolina indicate they’re pretty concentrated elsewhere,” Graham said. “We just started getting reports of Phyllorhiza appearing on the east coast of Florida and as far up as North Carolina this year."
Jellyfish can be carried around the globe when they attach to ships. Other studies have found that species of moon jellyfish are invading seas all over the planet. Another study finds jellyfish are opportunists, moving in and taking over regions of the sea that humans overfish.Officials encourage jellyfish sightings be reported to the Sea Lab's web site.
Jellyfish can be carried around the globe when they attach to ships. Other studies have found that species of moon jellyfish are invading seas all over the planet. Another study finds jellyfish are opportunists, moving in and taking over regions of the sea that humans overfish.Officials encourage jellyfish sightings be reported to the Sea Lab's web site.
As in the days of Noah...
Hundreds of Saudi camels die from mystery ailment
RIYADH-Hundreds of camels have died in Saudi Arabia this week from a mystery ailment.The Agriculture Ministry has said 232 camels died in the space of four days in the Dawasir Valley, 400 km (250 miles) south of Riyadh. King Abdullah has promised compensation for owners, who say the real number of deaths is far higher. Agriculture ministry officials have denied an infectious disease caused the deaths and blamed them on animal feed supplied by food storage authorities."The disease has to be limited to one place to prevent it spreading and then they have to find a serum," said camel breeder Hamad al-Harthy, who talked of hundreds of deaths."They need to bring in help from abroad to find a solution," said trader Turki Abdelaziz.Camels are big business in the desert kingdom and are traded by Bedouin tribes for thousands of dollars each. The animals are used for racing and their meat is also prized.Authorities have been on the lookout for signs of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu over the last year. The virus was found in birds in two instances, in March and last year.The Agriculture Ministry has lifted bans on poultry imports.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070818/sc_nm/saudi_camels_death_dc
As in the days of Noah...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070818/sc_nm/saudi_camels_death_dc
As in the days of Noah...
Typhoon Sepat hits China after mass evacuation
BEIJING-Typhoon Sepat hammered into southeastern China early Sunday after officials had relocated nearly a million people to safer areas, state media reported.Sepat landed in Fujian province at 2:00 am (1800 GMT Saturday) packing winds of 119 kilometres (74 miles) per hour, Xinhua news agency said.The storm had pounded Taiwan on Saturday with torrential rain, powerful winds and mudslides.The typhoon brought heavy downpours to Fujian's Hui'an county, damaging some buildings, lifting roofs off houses and uprooting both trees and billboards, Xinhua said, citing a local flood control official.More damage was expected in the county, the official said, as weathermen reported heavy rain in a number of cities in Fujian.More than 900,000 people in southern and eastern Chinese provinces had earlier been relocated, including some 540,000 people in Fujian, Xinhua said, citing government officials.In Zhejiang Province, nearly 300,000 people had been evacuated to safety and 27,704 vessels called back to harbor. In Guangdong, around 70,000 people, including fishermen and residents in low-lying areas, had been evacuated.Chinese meteorologists have issued the highest-level warnings for Sepat, which was moving northwest at a speed of 15 to 20 kilometres (12.5 miles) per hour and was expected to hit Jiangxi province Sunday afternoon.Expressways in Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian, were closed, while 109 domestic and international flights at the city's airport were cancelled on Saturday.Xiamen and Jinjiang cities also cancelled outbound flights, Xinhua said.The Ministry of Civil Affairs has sent 3,000 tents to evacuated people in Fujian.In Taiwan, four people suffered minor injuries in Taipei after the typhoon blew people off their motorcycles, the National Fire Agency said, adding one man was wounded by falling rocks.The storm disrupted power supply to more than 241,000 households, interrupted transport links and is estimated to have caused damage of at least 12.7 million dollars in Taiwan, officials said.Wide swathes of China have been plagued by near-constant torrential downpours since the summer rainy season began.Rains brought by tropical storm Pabuk in south China's Guangdong province earlier in August affected more than one million people and destroyed thousands of houses, Xinhua has said.According to the latest government figures, extreme weather killed 712 people and left 163 missing across China in July alone.
As in the days of Noah...
Ahmadinejad:Israel is bearer of satan
TEHRAN,Iran-Hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that Israel was the standard bearer of Satan and the Jewish state would soon fall apart,the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.The agency quoted Ahmadinejad as he spoke at a religious conference and did not elaborate on what he meant by Satan. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, however, Iran has regularly referred to the US as"the Great satan.""The Zionist regime is the standard bearer of invasion, occupation and satan," he said, predicting Israel's eventual demise."When the philosophy behind the establishment of a regime is in question, it is not unlikely that it will find itself on a course of decline and dissolution."Israel condemned Ahmadinejad's statements as harmful to international peace and stability."The Iranian president's comments are typical of his vociferous animosity towards Israel,"said David Baker, an Israeli government spokesman."He threatens not only Israel but poses a clear and present danger to the international community as well."Ahmadinejad has made anti-Israel comments in the past. n October 2005, he caused outrage in the West when he said in a speech that Israel's"Zionist regime should be wiped off the map."His supporters have argued that Ahmadinejad's words were mistranslated and should have been better translated as "vanish from the pages of time"-implying Israel would vanish on its own rather be destroyed.
PS:Mr Looney Toones keeps playing the same ole' broken record...The guy is a clear and present danger to the international community,no doubt about it...
As in the days of Noah...
MARK of the BEAST WATCH:VeriChip Parent Buys Out Animal Chipping Subsidiary
The corporate structure and relationship among Applied Digital, Digital Angel, and VeriChip has historically been confusing, but a merger between Applied Digital and Digital Angel announced last week may change that.Until now, Applied Digital of Delray Beach, Florida, had majority ownership positions in VeriChip, also based in Delray Beach, and Digital Angel of St. Paul, Minnesota. Applied Digital was effectively a holding company, with revenues generated by the subsidiaries. VeriChip is the provider of its namesake human-implantable RFID chip; Digital Angel provides similar chipping technology but targeted at the livestock and pet markets. All three companies were publicly traded: Applied Digital (ADSX) and VeriChip (CHIP) on the Nasdaq, and Digital Angel (DOC) on the American Stock Exchange.Last week Applied Digital and Digital Angel announced that they would effectively merge, with Applied Digital buying up the outstanding 45 percent of Digital Angel stock that it does not already own. The all-stock deal is valued at about $31 million. Digital Angel will no longer be traded on the American Stock Exchange, and the combined entity will be traded on the Nasdaq. A new CEO will be sought, and in the interim Digital Angel board member Barry M. Edelstein will serve as CEO and president.The merger will result in a streamlined, more efficient company by eliminating overlapping overhead and processes. The company projects that over $2 million will be saved per year. "In a single transaction, we will create a financially stronger, more robust and better capitalized company, and substantially reduce overhead costs," commented Applied Digital CEO Michael Krawitz. The merger will also see facilitated technology transfer and renewed focus on core opportunities.Part of the rationale for the merger appears to be eliminating the confusion that investors faced when considering investment in Digital Angel. "We also eliminate Applied Digital's majority ownership overhang position in Digital Angel, which has created uncertainty among investors and customers," Krawitz was quoted. According to Edelstein, "This transaction simplifies the capital structure ... and should make Digital Angel more attractive for investors."
To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah...
PA Education: Soccer Tournament Named After Senior Terrorist
A recently concluded soccer tournament in the Palestinian Authority-controlled city of Tulkarem, near Netanya, was named after a senior terrorist mastermind.The winning team was named for dead jihadists, as well.The tournament was held on the grounds of a PA school.According to Palestinian Media Watch, the tournament's outcome was reported in the PA-owned daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida on August 15 under the headline:"The Team Named After the Martyrs of the Southern Quarter Wins the Tournament Cup Named After the Martyr Ziyad Da'as"The article said, "This tournament... commemorates one of the brave people of the Palestinian resistance, whom the Israeli occupation forces assassinated in cold blood...."Da'as, a Fatah commander in Tulkarem, planned a shooting attack on a girl's Bat Mitzvah reception in Hadera on January 17, 2002. The terrorist, who also carried grenades, killed the security guard on duty at the hall where the reception was held, burst in on the 180 guests and opened fire with an automatic rifle. He succeeded in killing six people and injuring 25 before being pushed outside by determined guests. The Bat Mitzvah girl's step-grandfather, Edward Bakshayev, 48, was murdered in the attack.Among other terrorist activities, Da'as was also involved in the kidnapping and murder of two restaurateurs, Etgar Zeitouni and Moti Dayan, in January of 2001. The pair were seized as they sat down for lunch in Tulkarem with an Israeli Arab associate.Da'as was killed by IDF special forces in August 2002, when what he thought was a safe house was discovered by Israeli intelligence."At the end of the tournament," the Al-Hayat article concluded, "the [spectators] indicated that the tournament was on a level to suitably commemorate the brave shahid (martyr), the mercy of Allah be upon him, Ziyad Da'as, and that an annual tournament should take place on the anniversary of his death."This was not the first time a PA sporting event was named after a well-known terrorist, as PMW has repeatedly noted. A 2003 PA soccer tournament was named for the suicide bomber responsible for the 2003 Passover massacre, in which 31 Israelis were killed at a communal holiday meal. In January of this year, the Tulkarem municipality announced that its youth center would be holding a soccer tournament This was not the first time a PA sporting event was named after a well-known terrorist."named after the shahid and leader, Saddam Hussein." (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, January 10, 2007, as translated by PMW).Earlier this week, the PA's educational values were once again called into question when animals were abused on a children's TV show, ostensibly in order to teach viewers what not to do. The show's central character, a man in a bee comstume, picked up and swung a cat by its tail and threw rocks at a caged lion, accompanied by the laughter of children. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), an America-based organization, condemned the Hamas tv station for the abuse.Excerpts of the show, translated by Palestinian Media Watch, can be viewed at
http://trailer.web-view.net/Links/0XBBF7AFDA5813E30AA43C94DCD618D3DD869FEFDF14150C742F93427B2A9228842C7174CFBC2446B248CEAB3567EB1D05B6C51DA25ED223288186735DBD637488.htm.
"It's shocking and sickening," said Martin Mersereau, of PETA. Saoud al-Shawa, a veterinarian at the Gaza Zoo, blamed Israeli and internecine Arab violence for aggression against animals among PA children.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/
PS:It's so sad when the "ONLY HEROES" that a country or group of people can have is just a bunch of hateful and bitter thugs and criminals....It never ceases to amaze me the level of abuse that palestinian children are submitted to,on a DAILY BASIS....
As in the days of Noah...
http://trailer.web-view.net/Links/0XBBF7AFDA5813E30AA43C94DCD618D3DD869FEFDF14150C742F93427B2A9228842C7174CFBC2446B248CEAB3567EB1D05B6C51DA25ED223288186735DBD637488.htm.
"It's shocking and sickening," said Martin Mersereau, of PETA. Saoud al-Shawa, a veterinarian at the Gaza Zoo, blamed Israeli and internecine Arab violence for aggression against animals among PA children.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/
PS:It's so sad when the "ONLY HEROES" that a country or group of people can have is just a bunch of hateful and bitter thugs and criminals....It never ceases to amaze me the level of abuse that palestinian children are submitted to,on a DAILY BASIS....
As in the days of Noah...
Serbia Arbitrary legal status denials continue...
Serbian religious communities are still being denied legal status, Forum 18 News Service has found. Under the controversial 2006 Religion Law, any "non-traditional" community that previously had legal status lost this unless they submitted a new registration application by 7 May 2007 lost their legal status.
To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah...
Ethiopia Church packed with about 500 believers was attacked with bomb
On August 5, 2007 bomb exploded at Ethiopian Full Gospel Church in Jijiga town. Jijiga is the capital city of Somali Regional State, which is one of the nine States in Ethiopia. The majority of dwellers in Somali Regional State are ethnic Somalis who are followers of Islamic religion.
To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah...
LAND FULL of VIOLENCE:Crime wave intensifies in New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS-A crime wave is intensifying in this city already beset by a flagging recovery from Hurricane Katrina,and Hispanic immigrants helping to rebuild are common targets, according to police and to statistics released Thursday.Despite an infusion of money and manpower into the justice system, the number of homicides is climbing, and armed robbers are preying on Hispanic day laborers flush with cash from rebuilding jobs, the Police Department says.The city, which led the nation in murders per capita in 2006, is on track to do the same this year, according to data presented Thursday for April through June.The report shows a 14 percent increase in murders and 44 percent leap in armed robberies for the first half of 2007 compared with the same period in 2006."It's obviously not good," said police Superintendent Warren Riley.Crime has gotten so out of hand that Louisiana National Guard troops continue to patrol streets and the U.S. Justice Department has taken on a bigger role in fighting street crime, one that had largely been left to the city before Katrina.The increase in armed robberies correlates to a spate of muggings of Hispanic workers, many of them undocumented, in the city's devastated eastern section, Riley said. Much of the area, flooded by Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005, remains a wasteland and is difficult to patrol.The workers are easy prey because they often don't have bank accounts and carry large amounts of cash, Riley said. A team of officers has been working on catching the robbers, he said.Katrina's damage to jails, court buildings, police facilities and a shortage of police officers have been blamed for the rise in crime. In January, a march on City Hall by as many as 5,000 people demanded action to stem a wave in killings. Police responded by putting more officers on the street and setting up checkpoints at high-crime hours.But Peter Scharf, a criminologist with the University of New Orleans, said Katrina-based arguments are harder to make now that the city has had time to repair damage and received so much support."The hurricane theories, morphing of drug groups, or that the NOPD is in a trailer, really don't make sense," Scharf said. "You look at the leadership in this city to the leadership in cities that have been reasonably successful, and it's night and day."Recently, Mayor Ray Nagin reignited complaints about his leadership when he said news of two killings, while sad, "keeps the New Orleans brand out there."Nagin's office did not return a message left after business hours Thursday.
As in the days of Noah...
Anglican Church in Jamaica to Add Bob Marley to Hymn Books
Anglican Church hymnals in Jamaica are set for a musical shake up with the addition of songs by homegrown reggae legends such as Bob Marley and Peter Tosh.Church leaders said that Marley’s “One Love,” and Peter Tosh’s “Psalm 27” will be the first reggae tunes to be added to the collection of Anglican Church hymnals that will bring in a hybrid between reggae and traditional worship music from the island.The move has come despite the fact that the two musicians were against the Church.The Rev. Ernle Gordon said the two musicians may have been anti-church, but they weren't anti-God or anti-religion. He said the songs would help modernize the hymnals, according to Canada-based publication The Record.Marley and Tosh, who both died in the 1980s, practiced Rastafarianism, a religious movement founded by descendants of slaves in response to black oppression.
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070818/28954.htm
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070818/28954.htm
As in the days of Noah...
Rescuers search for signs of life in southwestern Peru
PISCO,Peru-Rescuers dug through rubble in the towns of southwestern Peru on Friday, searching for signs of life following Wednesday's 8.0-magnitude earthquake.In Pisco, workers combed through the debris of a hotel where the owner said at least 35 of his guests were missing. The search for survivors on the site quickened earlier in the day, the owner said, when the brother of one of the guests received a text message from his missing sibling, still under the rubble.The quake killed more than 500 people and injured more than 1,000, Peruvians officials said. The death toll is likely to rise, they said.Aftershocks have rattled the ground each day since the collapse.The most recent-with a magnitude of 4.9-rattled the region at about 4:30 p.m. (5:30 p.m. ET) on Friday. It came eight hours after a 5.9-magnitude aftershock. A 6.3-magnitude aftershock struck early Thursday, hours after the main quake.No injuries or damage from the aftershock were immediately reported, according to Reuters.Meanwhile, funeral processions-some serenaded by mariachi bands-passed through the streets behind the struggling workers.
At least 60 bodies were pulled from the rubble of the church and lined up in the city's plaza, the AP reported. As many as 200 people were in the church when it broke apart, the town's mayor told the AP.Earlier Thursday, Peruvian President Alan Garcia arrived by helicopter in Pisco, a city of 68,000, about 160 miles (257 kilometers) southeast of the capital,Lima.More than17,000 homes-85 percent of the town-collapsed.Residents yelled, "Help us, help us," as Garcia passed by them.At one point, the president saw several children wandering aimlessly.
"Oh, my God, who do these little children belong to?" he asked."The dead are scattered by the dozens on the streets.We don't have lights, water,communications.Most houses have fallen.
Churches, stores, hotels-everything is destroyed,"Pisco Mayor Juan Mendoza told Lima radio station CPN,according to the AP.Garcia declared a state of emergency and promised the government would "ensure that regional and local governments, civil defense institutions and ministries can spend what they need to, rapidly and immediately."Ica residents said they had received no aid or even visits from government or aid officials.The U.S. military said Friday it was dispatching a 30-member medical team from a base in Honduras to the quake-stricken area of Peru.More aid is available at the request of the Peruvian government, U.S. officials said.Peruvian authorities initially struggled to get relief supplies into the area because highways were damaged by the earthquake.However, a spokesman for the Peruvian Embassy in Washington said later that road links had been reopened into the quake zone, allowing supplies to flow south from Lima and north from Arequipa.Health Minister Carlos Vallejos described Pisco as "really in crisis.""There's aren't any buildings that are in good condition.Even the very modern buildings around the central plaza are totally destroyed," he told Andina Television.
Water and electricity were out, and telephone service was "very limited," he said.Television stations pleaded with viewers not to use cell phones for routine communications to keep the airwaves open for emergency use.The Peruvian Embassy spokesman, Vladimir Kocerha, said Peru probably will put out a call for international aid, "preferably monetary." The U.S. Agency for International Development offered $100,000 to meet immediate emergency needs.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/08/17/peru.earthquake/index.html
As in the days of Noah...
At least 60 bodies were pulled from the rubble of the church and lined up in the city's plaza, the AP reported. As many as 200 people were in the church when it broke apart, the town's mayor told the AP.Earlier Thursday, Peruvian President Alan Garcia arrived by helicopter in Pisco, a city of 68,000, about 160 miles (257 kilometers) southeast of the capital,Lima.More than17,000 homes-85 percent of the town-collapsed.Residents yelled, "Help us, help us," as Garcia passed by them.At one point, the president saw several children wandering aimlessly.
"Oh, my God, who do these little children belong to?" he asked."The dead are scattered by the dozens on the streets.We don't have lights, water,communications.Most houses have fallen.
Churches, stores, hotels-everything is destroyed,"Pisco Mayor Juan Mendoza told Lima radio station CPN,according to the AP.Garcia declared a state of emergency and promised the government would "ensure that regional and local governments, civil defense institutions and ministries can spend what they need to, rapidly and immediately."Ica residents said they had received no aid or even visits from government or aid officials.The U.S. military said Friday it was dispatching a 30-member medical team from a base in Honduras to the quake-stricken area of Peru.More aid is available at the request of the Peruvian government, U.S. officials said.Peruvian authorities initially struggled to get relief supplies into the area because highways were damaged by the earthquake.However, a spokesman for the Peruvian Embassy in Washington said later that road links had been reopened into the quake zone, allowing supplies to flow south from Lima and north from Arequipa.Health Minister Carlos Vallejos described Pisco as "really in crisis.""There's aren't any buildings that are in good condition.Even the very modern buildings around the central plaza are totally destroyed," he told Andina Television.
Water and electricity were out, and telephone service was "very limited," he said.Television stations pleaded with viewers not to use cell phones for routine communications to keep the airwaves open for emergency use.The Peruvian Embassy spokesman, Vladimir Kocerha, said Peru probably will put out a call for international aid, "preferably monetary." The U.S. Agency for International Development offered $100,000 to meet immediate emergency needs.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/08/17/peru.earthquake/index.html
As in the days of Noah...
QUAKES DAILY....
-KERMADEC ISLANDS REGION
11 Aug 2007 00:26:51 UTC
Magnitude:5.0Mb
-OFF COAST OF CENTRAL AMERICA
11 Aug 2007 05:50:13 UTC
Magnitude:4.6Mb
-FIJI REGION
10 Aug 2007 23:43:44 UTC
Magnitude:4.6Mb
-KURIL ISLANDS
11 Aug 2007 05:28:22 UTC
Magnitude:4.4Mb
-SALTA, ARGENTINA
11 Aug 2007 08:46:02 UTC
Magnitude:4.4Mb
-NORTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
11 Aug 2007 13:00:33 UTC
Magnitude:4.8Mb
-NORTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
11 Aug 2007 13:00:33 UTC
Magnitude:4.8Mb
-NEPAL
11 Aug 2007 14:35:51 UTC
Magnitude:4.8Mb
-SOUTHEAST OF RYUKYU ISLANDS
11 Aug 2007 16:48:27 UTC
Magnitude:4.9Mb
-SOUTH OF FIJI ISLANDS
11 Aug 2007 18:04:50 UTC
Magnitude:5.3Mb
-GUAM REGION
11 Aug 2007 20:12:27 UTC
Magnitude:4.6Mb
-MOROCCO
11 Aug 2007 20:46:01 UTC
Magnitude:4.8Mb
-OFFSHORE ANTOFAGASTA, CHILE
9 Aug 2007 04:12:21 UTC
Magnitude:3.9Mb
-CENTRAL ALASKA
11 Aug 2007 21:58:31 UTC
Magnitude:4.2MI
-CENTRAL ITALY
12 Aug 2007 01:52:13 UTC
Magnitude:3.9Mb
As in the days of Noah.....
US to Close Eritrean Consulate Amid Diplomatic Dispute
The State Department said Friday it has ordered Eritrea to close its consulate in Oakland, California amid U.S. charges the East African country is aiding rebels in Somalia. Officials say additional punitive measures are being considered, including the possible listing of Eritrea as a state sponsor of terrorism. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department.The Bush administration has given Eritrea 90 days to close the diplomatic mission in Oakland in a tangible expression of U.S. concern over Eritrean behavior in Somalia, and interference with activities of the American embassy in Asmara.In a briefing for reporters, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer said the consulate closure, to take effect in November, is reciprocal action for Eritrean violations of the Vienna convention on diplomatic conduct.She said tensions with Eritrea that pre-date the Bush administration have been escalating, with that country refusing to grant visas to U.S. officials assigned to the Asmara embassy for temporary duty, and demanding to inspect U.S. diplomatic pouches.That comes against a background of concern about the Eritrean activity in Somalia, where a new report from United Nations monitors says Eritrea has played a key role in financing and arming insurgents fighting the Somali interim government.Frazer said the US is not expelling any Eritrean diplomats, and that Eritreans in the US can still receive consular services from the country's embassy in Washington.But she also made clear that additional measures are possible if Eritrean behavior does not change."We're certainly going to consider additional bilateral steps,"she said."We're not trying to move towards a fundamental break in our relationship.We do believe that the activity of closing their consulate is a major signal to the government of our seriousness in terms of the activities they are carrying out in Somalia."
Frazer said one option for follow-on action would be listing Eritrea as a state sponsor of terrorism, an action that would automatically trigger wide-ranging U.S. aid curbs and other sanctions against the Asmara government.She made clear the Bush administration is not eager to take such a drastic step but said information from the U.N. and elsewhere that Eritrea is helping foment terrorism in Somalia is, in her words, "fairly convincing.""We are collecting that data. And this U.N. monitoring report will certainly be part of that, but we have to do our independent verification. We do have intelligence that affirms what is in the monitoring report but we are still in the process of collecting that data. And, you know, it is an opportunity, before they are put on the state sponsor list, for them to change their behavior."Frazer said U.S. officials believe that taxes on the earnings of the estimated 200,000 Eritreans living in the US, collected by the Oakland consulate, have been used to finance weapons and training for insurgents in Somalia.She said Eritrean assistance has been going to, among others, the al-Shabab militias-remnants of the radical Islamic Courts Union which ran the most of country last year until being ousted by Ethiopian troops and the U.N.-recognized transitional administration.The chief U.S. African policy official said the United States had urged the Ethiopian military not to enter Somalia at the end of last year, and continues to work diplomatically to help field an east African peacekeeping force to replace the Ethiopians.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-08-17-voa38.cfm
PS:Eritrea is being persecuting and killing christians for the thousands,and yes they sponsor terrorism.
As in the days fo Noah...
Frazer said one option for follow-on action would be listing Eritrea as a state sponsor of terrorism, an action that would automatically trigger wide-ranging U.S. aid curbs and other sanctions against the Asmara government.She made clear the Bush administration is not eager to take such a drastic step but said information from the U.N. and elsewhere that Eritrea is helping foment terrorism in Somalia is, in her words, "fairly convincing.""We are collecting that data. And this U.N. monitoring report will certainly be part of that, but we have to do our independent verification. We do have intelligence that affirms what is in the monitoring report but we are still in the process of collecting that data. And, you know, it is an opportunity, before they are put on the state sponsor list, for them to change their behavior."Frazer said U.S. officials believe that taxes on the earnings of the estimated 200,000 Eritreans living in the US, collected by the Oakland consulate, have been used to finance weapons and training for insurgents in Somalia.She said Eritrean assistance has been going to, among others, the al-Shabab militias-remnants of the radical Islamic Courts Union which ran the most of country last year until being ousted by Ethiopian troops and the U.N.-recognized transitional administration.The chief U.S. African policy official said the United States had urged the Ethiopian military not to enter Somalia at the end of last year, and continues to work diplomatically to help field an east African peacekeeping force to replace the Ethiopians.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-08-17-voa38.cfm
PS:Eritrea is being persecuting and killing christians for the thousands,and yes they sponsor terrorism.
As in the days fo Noah...
Mob torches church building
Nairobi-A crowd burned a church compound on Friday in one of Africa's largest slums after a long-running land dispute flared into violence, witnesses and police said. Nobody was injured.Police officer Herbert Khaemba said that there was a dispute between the local Nubian community, which is mainly Muslim, and the Presbyterian church about who owned the land in the slum of Kibera on the outskirts of Nairobi.Local resident Abdullah Musa said that the attack was sparked when owners of the church compound, which mainly consisted of flimsy structures built with corrugated iron sheets, extended its perimeter fence over a disputed strip of land two days ago. Muslims had previously used the area to pray.Police officers watched as about 100 angry youths vandalised vehicles and pelted a fire truck with stones, smashing its windshield, after firefighters arrived on the scene.Musa said officers had fired shots in the air as they arrived to try to clear the crowd, but the angry Nubians had ignored them. Stone-throwing youths had earlier driven away a handful of guards inside the compound who had machetes, he said, but no one was injured.Later, the attackers seized the metal sheets that had been used to set up several temporary structures inside the compound.Population pressure, poverty and lack of infrastructure frequently contribute to tensions between communities in Kibera, which has about 1 million inhabitants.Nubians came to Kenya from Egypt and Sudan after serving with the British Army in the King's African Rifles regiment during World War I.The British settled them in Kibera, a maze of potholed tracks and ramshackle dwellings topped by rusting iron roofs.
PS:MUSLIM HATRED again.........!!!!!!!!
As in the days of Noah...
Billy Graham Hospitalized
Evangelist Billy Graham was hospitalized early Saturday for evaluation and treatment of an intestinal bleed.He was admitted to the Mission Health and Hospitals in Asheville, N.C., near his home and his condition had stabilized over the hours following admission and treatment, said hospital spokesman Merrel Gregory."The bleeding is not continuing," said Graham's spokesman,Larry Ross, according to The AP."It stopped as quickly as it began."Ross estimates the evangelist could be released from the hospital in a couple of days.Graham, 88, experienced similar intestinal bleeding during a 1995 crusade in Toronto,Ross said, and doctors say his condition did not appear to be life-threatening.Graham's wife, Ruth, died in June at the age of 87. She was buried at the foot of a cross-shaped walkway in the Prayer Garden at the newly opened Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, N.C., where the renowned evangelist will also be laid to rest.
As in the days of Noah...
Grave fears for 180 Chinese miners in flooded shaft
TAI'AN,China-Rescuers battled Saturday to reach more than 180 miners trapped underground by flash flooding in eastern China, but officials warned the men had little chance of survival. Torrential rains triggered flooding which breached a river levee and sent water cascading into the mine in Shandong province via an old shaft, the official Xinhua news agency reported.Wang Ziqi,director of the Shandong coal mine safety administration board,said the trapped men had only slim chances of survival and relatives said they were expecting the worst. "There are very slim chances for them to survive because it has been flooded and it is very difficult to pump out the water," a relative of a miner at the colliery, surnamed Liu, told AFP in Beijing.
Liu, whose husband was involved in the rescue effort at the Zhangzhuang mine in the city of Xintai, added: "The relatives of people trapped have been waiting all night at the front door of the site".Officials said 756 miners had been underground when the water swept in.Of those,584 were rescued, leaving 172 trapped.They said another nine people were trapped in a nearby mine after similar flooding while 86 were able to escape.The flooding on Friday afternoon followed hours of downpours, and rescue work was hampered by further rains which fell during the evening and Saturday.By Saturday morning, according to rescue headquarters cited by Xinhua, all working places underground had been inundated.Senior officials from China's State Administration of Work Safety rushed to oversee rescue efforts at the mine in Xintai, 450 kilometres (280 miles) south of Beijing.Xinhua said 2,000 troops, armed police and miners had closed most of the breach in the Wen river levee, but flood waters in the area had risen to two metres (6.5 feet).More than 50 workers were installing pumps, as all underground pumps were no longer working, Xinhua said.One miner who usually works above the ground told AFP he was heading to the scene to help."I feel very sad... Such a disaster is very rare. By chance I was at home but now I am going to help with my workers," said the miner, who asked not to be named. The authorities ordered all mines in the area to stop work, while the work safety watchdog issued an emergency notice urging all mines to take preventive measures against possible flooding caused by the heavy rains.In Tai'an, about 40 kilometres northwest of Xintai, all major roads to the scene were sealed off for "an official matter," one toll booth operator told AFP.
Roadblocks were set up on several smaller roads in the area, an AFP reporter witnessed.
China's coal mines are the most dangerous in the world and fatal accidents happen almost every day.More than 4,700 workers died last year, according to official figures, but independent labour groups put the real toll at up to 20,000 annually, saying many accidents are covered up.
On Friday, 14 miners in the eastern province of Jiangxi were rescued after being trapped in a flooded pit for more than a day, Xinhua reported earlier.It was the second lucky escape for Chinese miners this month. On August 1, 69 men were trapped in a flooded mine in central Henan province for more than three days before being pulled out alive.China has been probing thousands of cases of unlicensed mining and closing down the notoriously dangerous smaller mines in an attempt to reduce the number of deaths.The problem is that even as small mines are being closed down, new ones are being opened at a rapid pace.Small mines, defined as those with annual production below 300,000 tonnes, make up 82.9 percent of all mines under construction, officials have said.China had set itself a target of slashing the number of smaller coal mines from the existing 24,000 to 10,000 by 2010.But officials have acknowledged this goal is very unlikely to be met as new small mines are established, driven by strong demand and large profit margins, according to previous reports.Coal currently accounts for some 70 percent of the nation's primary energy consumption, more than 40 percentage points higher than the world average.China is now keenly exploring clean and renewable energy resources such as wind power, bio-fuels and gas to reduce reliance on coal, although experts say wholesale conversion is unlikely for financial reasons and because of lack of technology.
Liu, whose husband was involved in the rescue effort at the Zhangzhuang mine in the city of Xintai, added: "The relatives of people trapped have been waiting all night at the front door of the site".Officials said 756 miners had been underground when the water swept in.Of those,584 were rescued, leaving 172 trapped.They said another nine people were trapped in a nearby mine after similar flooding while 86 were able to escape.The flooding on Friday afternoon followed hours of downpours, and rescue work was hampered by further rains which fell during the evening and Saturday.By Saturday morning, according to rescue headquarters cited by Xinhua, all working places underground had been inundated.Senior officials from China's State Administration of Work Safety rushed to oversee rescue efforts at the mine in Xintai, 450 kilometres (280 miles) south of Beijing.Xinhua said 2,000 troops, armed police and miners had closed most of the breach in the Wen river levee, but flood waters in the area had risen to two metres (6.5 feet).More than 50 workers were installing pumps, as all underground pumps were no longer working, Xinhua said.One miner who usually works above the ground told AFP he was heading to the scene to help."I feel very sad... Such a disaster is very rare. By chance I was at home but now I am going to help with my workers," said the miner, who asked not to be named. The authorities ordered all mines in the area to stop work, while the work safety watchdog issued an emergency notice urging all mines to take preventive measures against possible flooding caused by the heavy rains.In Tai'an, about 40 kilometres northwest of Xintai, all major roads to the scene were sealed off for "an official matter," one toll booth operator told AFP.
Roadblocks were set up on several smaller roads in the area, an AFP reporter witnessed.
China's coal mines are the most dangerous in the world and fatal accidents happen almost every day.More than 4,700 workers died last year, according to official figures, but independent labour groups put the real toll at up to 20,000 annually, saying many accidents are covered up.
On Friday, 14 miners in the eastern province of Jiangxi were rescued after being trapped in a flooded pit for more than a day, Xinhua reported earlier.It was the second lucky escape for Chinese miners this month. On August 1, 69 men were trapped in a flooded mine in central Henan province for more than three days before being pulled out alive.China has been probing thousands of cases of unlicensed mining and closing down the notoriously dangerous smaller mines in an attempt to reduce the number of deaths.The problem is that even as small mines are being closed down, new ones are being opened at a rapid pace.Small mines, defined as those with annual production below 300,000 tonnes, make up 82.9 percent of all mines under construction, officials have said.China had set itself a target of slashing the number of smaller coal mines from the existing 24,000 to 10,000 by 2010.But officials have acknowledged this goal is very unlikely to be met as new small mines are established, driven by strong demand and large profit margins, according to previous reports.Coal currently accounts for some 70 percent of the nation's primary energy consumption, more than 40 percentage points higher than the world average.China is now keenly exploring clean and renewable energy resources such as wind power, bio-fuels and gas to reduce reliance on coal, although experts say wholesale conversion is unlikely for financial reasons and because of lack of technology.
As in the days of Noah...
“Islam in Europe”
It’s Pat Condell, known to the blogosphere for his pointed YouTube criticisms of Islam — one of which left Berkeley’s Peace and Justice Commission in need of smelling salts — and less known for his pointed YouTube criticisms of Christianity. Here’s his YT page; “United States of Jesus” looks like a humdinger.The occasion for this rant is the almost unbelievable ban imposed by the mayor of Brussels on an anti-shari’a demonstration scheduled for 9/11 of this year. Not banned: a Truther demonstration scheduled for 9/9. Condell’s had about enough. Haven’t we all.
Here’s his video response to Berkeley from a few months back, in case you missed it at the time.
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/08/18/video-islam-in-europe/
PS:I haven't seen the video mentioned here United States of Jesus yet,but I've seen this video response and he says a lot of thruth about the situation with Islam in Europe.
As in the days of Noah....
Here’s his video response to Berkeley from a few months back, in case you missed it at the time.
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/08/18/video-islam-in-europe/
PS:I haven't seen the video mentioned here United States of Jesus yet,but I've seen this video response and he says a lot of thruth about the situation with Islam in Europe.
As in the days of Noah....
German woman abducted in Kabul, talks for SKoreans over
Afghan authorities were grappling with a third hostage crisis involving foreigners Saturday after a German woman was abducted by armed men in the capital Kabul, officials and witnesses said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the woman's abduction, which one local police source said was the work of a criminal gang-not the Taliban militants holding 19 South Korean aid workers and a German engineer
elsewhere.Members of the hardline militia have also kidnapped four Afghan engineers working on a bridge project in the south of the central Asian country.In Kabul,Afghan officials confirmed the abduction of the German woman,but gave little details about the circumstances of the kidnapping."Today at 1:30 in the afternoon (0900 GMT), a German woman was abducted by unknown armed men in an alley," interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP.Police had cordoned off the area and were searching for the gunmen and their captive, Bashary and police said.A police official who asked not to be named said the woman was having lunch with a male companion at a pizza parlour on a quiet road in western Kabul when four men with pistols entered and forced her into their vehicle at gunpoint.The German foreign ministry in Berlin indicated there had been an abduction."We should work on the theory that there has been a kidnapping," said Julia Gross, a ministry spokesperson.Christian aid organisation Ora International said the woman kidnapped had worked in its Kabul office for the past year.
Ulf Baumann, Ora's spokesman, said the 31-year-old woman, whom he did not name, had been abducted while in a restaurant with her husband, who escaped.Ora International, based at Aumuehle, near Hamburg,describes itself on its website as "a non-denominational Christian relief and development organisation that serves people in need around the world."Earlier, a 12-year-old boy told AFP he had witnessed the abduction and that it had taken place as the couple crossed a road.Another police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said police had pinpointed several areas where the kidnappers could be hiding."This is not the work of Taliban, this is a criminal case and abduction for ransom,"he said."We most probably will carry out a police raid of suspected compounds in a bid to release the hostage."The official said a taxi driver caught in crossfire between a police officer and the kidnappers as they sped from the scene had been killed.A taxi with a bullet hole in its rear window and blood stains on the driver's seat was parked in the area.The Taliban usually claim immediate responsibility for abductions, but have so far made no comment on the German woman's disappearance.The Taliban and their Al-Qaeda backers have said kidnapping foreigners is a new strategy in their aim of forcing the withdrawal of international troops from the country.Earlier Saturday, a spokesman for the hardline militia said the Taliban were deciding the fate of the Koreans, abducted in volatile southern Ghazni province nearly a month ago, as negotiations aimed at securing their release had failed.The Taliban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, said further negotiations seemed unlikely.
The extremists are also holding a German man, Rudolph Blechschmidt, 62, who was kidnapped with a colleague on July 18 in Wardak province.The other German man suffered circulatory failure a few days after his capture and was shot dead by his captors.And Kandahar police chief Sayed Aqa Saqib said the four Afghan engineers were taken hostage on Friday when militants opened fire on a construction site in Shah Wali Kot district, killing one labourer in the process.
The Afghan government has said it will not bow to the Taliban demands as doing so would help create a kidnapping industry.The US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai was heavily criticised, notably by Washington, after it freed five Taliban in March in exchange for an Italian journalist.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070818184332.fl3o5gdy&show_article=1&catnum=0
As in the days of Noah...
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the woman's abduction, which one local police source said was the work of a criminal gang-not the Taliban militants holding 19 South Korean aid workers and a German engineer
elsewhere.Members of the hardline militia have also kidnapped four Afghan engineers working on a bridge project in the south of the central Asian country.In Kabul,Afghan officials confirmed the abduction of the German woman,but gave little details about the circumstances of the kidnapping."Today at 1:30 in the afternoon (0900 GMT), a German woman was abducted by unknown armed men in an alley," interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP.Police had cordoned off the area and were searching for the gunmen and their captive, Bashary and police said.A police official who asked not to be named said the woman was having lunch with a male companion at a pizza parlour on a quiet road in western Kabul when four men with pistols entered and forced her into their vehicle at gunpoint.The German foreign ministry in Berlin indicated there had been an abduction."We should work on the theory that there has been a kidnapping," said Julia Gross, a ministry spokesperson.Christian aid organisation Ora International said the woman kidnapped had worked in its Kabul office for the past year.
Ulf Baumann, Ora's spokesman, said the 31-year-old woman, whom he did not name, had been abducted while in a restaurant with her husband, who escaped.Ora International, based at Aumuehle, near Hamburg,describes itself on its website as "a non-denominational Christian relief and development organisation that serves people in need around the world."Earlier, a 12-year-old boy told AFP he had witnessed the abduction and that it had taken place as the couple crossed a road.Another police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said police had pinpointed several areas where the kidnappers could be hiding."This is not the work of Taliban, this is a criminal case and abduction for ransom,"he said."We most probably will carry out a police raid of suspected compounds in a bid to release the hostage."The official said a taxi driver caught in crossfire between a police officer and the kidnappers as they sped from the scene had been killed.A taxi with a bullet hole in its rear window and blood stains on the driver's seat was parked in the area.The Taliban usually claim immediate responsibility for abductions, but have so far made no comment on the German woman's disappearance.The Taliban and their Al-Qaeda backers have said kidnapping foreigners is a new strategy in their aim of forcing the withdrawal of international troops from the country.Earlier Saturday, a spokesman for the hardline militia said the Taliban were deciding the fate of the Koreans, abducted in volatile southern Ghazni province nearly a month ago, as negotiations aimed at securing their release had failed.The Taliban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, said further negotiations seemed unlikely.
The extremists are also holding a German man, Rudolph Blechschmidt, 62, who was kidnapped with a colleague on July 18 in Wardak province.The other German man suffered circulatory failure a few days after his capture and was shot dead by his captors.And Kandahar police chief Sayed Aqa Saqib said the four Afghan engineers were taken hostage on Friday when militants opened fire on a construction site in Shah Wali Kot district, killing one labourer in the process.
The Afghan government has said it will not bow to the Taliban demands as doing so would help create a kidnapping industry.The US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai was heavily criticised, notably by Washington, after it freed five Taliban in March in exchange for an Italian journalist.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070818184332.fl3o5gdy&show_article=1&catnum=0
As in the days of Noah...
Evangelist Hinn lands under a cloud:Benny Hinn readies for crusade and defends lavish healing ministry
Pastor Benny Hinn, in Toronto this weekend for two days of miracle cures and old-time gospel, makes no apologies for all the money his far-flung ministries take in each year."The gospels are free, but the means of delivering the gospels is really
expensive,"Hinn,who got his start in Toronto 30 years ago,told the Star.Tonight and tomorrow,Hinn brings his Texas-based Miracle Crusade to the Air Canada Centre,attracting up to 20,000 to each of his three shows.The shows are free but, as at all his crusades,donations will be sought and many buckets will be passed as the audience sings rousing hymns along with a mass choir amid a light show worthy of a rock concert. While Hinn acknowledges people come mainly to see and take part in the healing miracles, that is left to the feverish end-they will first hear him preach,pray and sing in his trademark white suit.But Hinn arrives under a cloud after the CBC's The Fifth Estate this week challenged his claims of miracle cures and described a lavish lifestyle of fancy cars, a 7,000-square-foot ocean-side mansion and luxury travel to five-star hotels on a private jet.In the show,reporter Bob McKeown estimates Benny Hinn Ministries takes in as much as $250 million a year in donations and proceeds from sales of such items as autographed bibles.Hinn,who keeps his finances private,doubts the show will hurt turnout at the ACC."They will never stop people from coming to meetings such as ours."Followers donate money,he says,to ensure his work, including curing the sick,continues."They believe that God heals and they want to see something like this go on.They also understand it takes money to rent stadiums."Hinn's sessions have gained a reputation for sudden miracle cures for cancer,blindness,diabetes and even AIDS over the past 30 years since his humble beginnings in a church hall at Bloor and Yonge.People dramatically fall to the floor proclaiming their health after a touch from Hinn's hand.Hinn, however,professes to having nothing to do with making anybody healthy."The Lord has not called me to heal people,"he says."He heals the people."After the prayers,songs and preaching from the charismatic minister,Hinn tells the crowd he is getting a message from God that people in the audience are being cured,and he asks them to come to the stage.The Fifth Estate used hidden cameras to show staff screening audience members coming forward,ensuring none with obvious physical ailment get near Hinn."It's always somebody that has some kind of illness that can't be readily seen"that makes it to the stage,Justin Peters a Baptist minister in Mississippi who studied Hinn,tells the CBC.Hinn says the cures take place in the audience,not on stage,so no one still in a wheelchair is allowed on stage.God,he says,has obviously not cured these people."I won't let them up,because they haven't been healed,"he says.The CBC tracked down some of the people claimed to have been cured, only to find that they were either still sick, never had the condition they were supposedly cured of, or had died.Speaking to the Star,Hinn says he is forced to rely on the word of those coming to his crusades to tell him they are cured."It's not my job to claim that they are healed.I have never done that,"he says."I'm not a doctor."Hinn defends his use of luxury hotels and a private Gulfstream jet detailed by the CBC,saying they offer greater efficiency and security."People in my position will have threats,"he told the Star."If you ask for a secure (hotel) floor,you're going to pay more money."Hinn also criticized the CBC for using hidden cameras and old footage he says depicts his wife just before she had a nervous
breakdown.
http://www.thestar.com/living/Religion/article/247207
PS:I just want to apologize with you all my readers that may think I sound mean sometimes,especially with so called"christians".
I just finished reading the whole article and I decided to post it,because it's a sad sample of how "Hollywood-Super Star- Christianity"is getting so low and so far from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I always had a problem with a "minister of the Gospel'living in a mansion.
The Bible says the opposite,that the servant of God should be "sober",that it should have "contentment with rainment and food.And also says in Timothy that if somebody has riches,he should share them with those that have none.Finally the Word of God admonishes us against the perils of love of money(1Timothy 6:7-10)
There is NO NEED for him to have a private jet,He could use regular airlines like anybody else.There is NO NEED also for him to ask for money thru emails,to purchase his new LEAR JET...(sigh)
There is NO NEED for a 7000sq ft house,unless he has a NEED for it.He's got 4 children,2 of which are at College...
The last thing that really appalled me is what he said about "SAFETY".
The Bible says that those that live godly shall suffer PERSECUTION.And what if we are killed because of the Gospel???
I think about my best friend preaching in El Salvador,my friend Mario that was attacked and kidnapped -along with other three friends that were back to the city from some ministry time -by thugs in Honduras,who beat them and threatened to kill them with AK-47's last week....I think about my friend and his family in Nepal,that are going thru lots of perils,sometimes without even water for their baby,just to preach the Gospel...I think about the christians in North Korea,Iran,Middle East,all Asia,in Chiapas,Colombia,in Europe...and the list goes on...
I think of how a high price we all had to pay to take the gospel to a foreign land.I think about the time when I had to face the possibility of my own death and even make arrangements for that....
What Benny Hinn said about his own personal SAFETY is CHEAP and is sad...
The Bible says that those who find their life shall lose it and those who lose their lives shall find it....(Matthew 10:38-39)
The Gospel is a humble walk of daily obedience to the Word of God and relationship and fellowship with Jesus.What is wrong with being sober...????
He GAVE IT ALL for us,and then in return we are concerned about getting the safest "hotel" in town...???Come on....!!!!
There are many that are giving a bad name to the True Gospel of the Lord JesusChrist...
The Gospel IS NOT EXPENSIVE...I understand where he is coming from,but I think he is making it expensive....
May the Lord help us not to stumble in our own walk because of money or greed or glory of men....
Let us follow Jesus example in the Bible.Let's live our lives with daily joy and gratitude,content with what we have...We brought nothing to this world and will take nothing out of it when we go...He will take care of us and provide and even give us unexpected, unmerited gifts and will save our loved ones...I'm a testimony of that.
Jesus is Coming Soon...
As in the days of Noah...
expensive,"Hinn,who got his start in Toronto 30 years ago,told the Star.Tonight and tomorrow,Hinn brings his Texas-based Miracle Crusade to the Air Canada Centre,attracting up to 20,000 to each of his three shows.The shows are free but, as at all his crusades,donations will be sought and many buckets will be passed as the audience sings rousing hymns along with a mass choir amid a light show worthy of a rock concert. While Hinn acknowledges people come mainly to see and take part in the healing miracles, that is left to the feverish end-they will first hear him preach,pray and sing in his trademark white suit.But Hinn arrives under a cloud after the CBC's The Fifth Estate this week challenged his claims of miracle cures and described a lavish lifestyle of fancy cars, a 7,000-square-foot ocean-side mansion and luxury travel to five-star hotels on a private jet.In the show,reporter Bob McKeown estimates Benny Hinn Ministries takes in as much as $250 million a year in donations and proceeds from sales of such items as autographed bibles.Hinn,who keeps his finances private,doubts the show will hurt turnout at the ACC."They will never stop people from coming to meetings such as ours."Followers donate money,he says,to ensure his work, including curing the sick,continues."They believe that God heals and they want to see something like this go on.They also understand it takes money to rent stadiums."Hinn's sessions have gained a reputation for sudden miracle cures for cancer,blindness,diabetes and even AIDS over the past 30 years since his humble beginnings in a church hall at Bloor and Yonge.People dramatically fall to the floor proclaiming their health after a touch from Hinn's hand.Hinn, however,professes to having nothing to do with making anybody healthy."The Lord has not called me to heal people,"he says."He heals the people."After the prayers,songs and preaching from the charismatic minister,Hinn tells the crowd he is getting a message from God that people in the audience are being cured,and he asks them to come to the stage.The Fifth Estate used hidden cameras to show staff screening audience members coming forward,ensuring none with obvious physical ailment get near Hinn."It's always somebody that has some kind of illness that can't be readily seen"that makes it to the stage,Justin Peters a Baptist minister in Mississippi who studied Hinn,tells the CBC.Hinn says the cures take place in the audience,not on stage,so no one still in a wheelchair is allowed on stage.God,he says,has obviously not cured these people."I won't let them up,because they haven't been healed,"he says.The CBC tracked down some of the people claimed to have been cured, only to find that they were either still sick, never had the condition they were supposedly cured of, or had died.Speaking to the Star,Hinn says he is forced to rely on the word of those coming to his crusades to tell him they are cured."It's not my job to claim that they are healed.I have never done that,"he says."I'm not a doctor."Hinn defends his use of luxury hotels and a private Gulfstream jet detailed by the CBC,saying they offer greater efficiency and security."People in my position will have threats,"he told the Star."If you ask for a secure (hotel) floor,you're going to pay more money."Hinn also criticized the CBC for using hidden cameras and old footage he says depicts his wife just before she had a nervous
breakdown.
http://www.thestar.com/living/Religion/article/247207
PS:I just want to apologize with you all my readers that may think I sound mean sometimes,especially with so called"christians".
I just finished reading the whole article and I decided to post it,because it's a sad sample of how "Hollywood-Super Star- Christianity"is getting so low and so far from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I always had a problem with a "minister of the Gospel'living in a mansion.
The Bible says the opposite,that the servant of God should be "sober",that it should have "contentment with rainment and food.And also says in Timothy that if somebody has riches,he should share them with those that have none.Finally the Word of God admonishes us against the perils of love of money(1Timothy 6:7-10)
There is NO NEED for him to have a private jet,He could use regular airlines like anybody else.There is NO NEED also for him to ask for money thru emails,to purchase his new LEAR JET...(sigh)
There is NO NEED for a 7000sq ft house,unless he has a NEED for it.He's got 4 children,2 of which are at College...
The last thing that really appalled me is what he said about "SAFETY".
The Bible says that those that live godly shall suffer PERSECUTION.And what if we are killed because of the Gospel???
I think about my best friend preaching in El Salvador,my friend Mario that was attacked and kidnapped -along with other three friends that were back to the city from some ministry time -by thugs in Honduras,who beat them and threatened to kill them with AK-47's last week....I think about my friend and his family in Nepal,that are going thru lots of perils,sometimes without even water for their baby,just to preach the Gospel...I think about the christians in North Korea,Iran,Middle East,all Asia,in Chiapas,Colombia,in Europe...and the list goes on...
I think of how a high price we all had to pay to take the gospel to a foreign land.I think about the time when I had to face the possibility of my own death and even make arrangements for that....
What Benny Hinn said about his own personal SAFETY is CHEAP and is sad...
The Bible says that those who find their life shall lose it and those who lose their lives shall find it....(Matthew 10:38-39)
The Gospel is a humble walk of daily obedience to the Word of God and relationship and fellowship with Jesus.What is wrong with being sober...????
He GAVE IT ALL for us,and then in return we are concerned about getting the safest "hotel" in town...???Come on....!!!!
There are many that are giving a bad name to the True Gospel of the Lord JesusChrist...
The Gospel IS NOT EXPENSIVE...I understand where he is coming from,but I think he is making it expensive....
May the Lord help us not to stumble in our own walk because of money or greed or glory of men....
Let us follow Jesus example in the Bible.Let's live our lives with daily joy and gratitude,content with what we have...We brought nothing to this world and will take nothing out of it when we go...He will take care of us and provide and even give us unexpected, unmerited gifts and will save our loved ones...I'm a testimony of that.
Jesus is Coming Soon...
As in the days of Noah...
Cannibal tribe apologises for eating Methodists
A tribe in Papua New Guinea has apologised for killing and eating four 19th century missionaries under the command of a doughty British clergyman.The four Fijian missionaries were on a proselytising mission on the island of New Britain when they were massacred by Tolai tribesmen in 1878.They were murdered on the orders of a local warrior chief,Taleli, and were then cooked and eaten.The Fijians-a minister and three teachers-were under the leadership of the Reverend George Brown, an adventurous Wesleyan missionary who was born in Durham but spent most of his life spreading the word of God in the South Seas.Thousands of villagers attended a reconciliation ceremony near Rabaul, the capital of East New Britain province, once notorious for the ferocity of its cannibals.Their leaders apologised for their forefather's taste for human flesh to Fiji's high commissioner to Papua New Guinea."We at this juncture are deeply touched and wish you the greatest joy of forgiveness as we finally end this record
disagreement,"said Ratu Isoa Tikoca, the high commissioner.Cannibalism was common in many parts of the South Pacific-Fiji was formerly known as the Cannibal Isles-and dozens of missionaries were killed by hostile islanders.Born at Barnard Castle, Durham, Rev Brown emigrated to New Zealand as a young man and served as a missionary in Samoa before moving with his wife and children to New Guinea.He was familiar with the cannibalistic traditions of the region and once described a visit to a village in which he counted 35 smoke-blackened human jaw bones dangling from the rafters of a hut."A human hand, smoke-dried, was hanging in the same house. And outside I counted 76 notches in a coconut tree, each notch of which, the natives told us, represented a human body which had been cooked and eaten there," he told the Royal Geographical Society.Even so, he was shocked when told that four of his staff had been cannibalised."They were killed simply because they were foreigners, and the natives who killed them did so for no other reason than their desire to eat them, and to get the little property they had with them," he wrote.He reluctantly agreed to launch a punitive expedition, ordering his men to burn down villages implicated in the murders and destroy wooden canoes.At least 10 tribe members blamed for the attack were killed in an area known as Blanche Bay. Rev Brown claimed the raids made the region safe for Europeans.In a letter to the general secretary of the London Missionary Society he wrote:"The natives respect us more than they did, and as they all acknowledge the justice of our cause they bear us no ill will."But the reprisals attracted fierce criticism from the press, particularly in Australia.The Australian newspaper said:"If missionary enterprise in such an island as this leads to wars of vengeance, which may readily develop into wars of extermination, the question may be raised whether it may not be better to withdraw the mission from savages who show so little appreciation of its benefits."However,an official investigation by British colonial authorities a year later exonerated Rev Brown.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/16/wpapua116.xml
As in the days of Noah...
disagreement,"said Ratu Isoa Tikoca, the high commissioner.Cannibalism was common in many parts of the South Pacific-Fiji was formerly known as the Cannibal Isles-and dozens of missionaries were killed by hostile islanders.Born at Barnard Castle, Durham, Rev Brown emigrated to New Zealand as a young man and served as a missionary in Samoa before moving with his wife and children to New Guinea.He was familiar with the cannibalistic traditions of the region and once described a visit to a village in which he counted 35 smoke-blackened human jaw bones dangling from the rafters of a hut."A human hand, smoke-dried, was hanging in the same house. And outside I counted 76 notches in a coconut tree, each notch of which, the natives told us, represented a human body which had been cooked and eaten there," he told the Royal Geographical Society.Even so, he was shocked when told that four of his staff had been cannibalised."They were killed simply because they were foreigners, and the natives who killed them did so for no other reason than their desire to eat them, and to get the little property they had with them," he wrote.He reluctantly agreed to launch a punitive expedition, ordering his men to burn down villages implicated in the murders and destroy wooden canoes.At least 10 tribe members blamed for the attack were killed in an area known as Blanche Bay. Rev Brown claimed the raids made the region safe for Europeans.In a letter to the general secretary of the London Missionary Society he wrote:"The natives respect us more than they did, and as they all acknowledge the justice of our cause they bear us no ill will."But the reprisals attracted fierce criticism from the press, particularly in Australia.The Australian newspaper said:"If missionary enterprise in such an island as this leads to wars of vengeance, which may readily develop into wars of extermination, the question may be raised whether it may not be better to withdraw the mission from savages who show so little appreciation of its benefits."However,an official investigation by British colonial authorities a year later exonerated Rev Brown.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/16/wpapua116.xml
As in the days of Noah...
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