News for September 12, 2005

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Sun’s String of Fury Continues as 7th Major Flare Erupts (September 12, 2005) - An ongoing series of seven major solar flares, including two on Saturday, could disrupt communications on Earth and generate colorful sky shows for people at high northern latitudes for the next several days. Even more serious effects are possible early in the week. The spate of activity from the Sun is being generated by a large sunspot named 798. Sunspots are cooler and darker regions of pent-up magnetic activity. When they unleash their energy, it’s a bit like the top coming off a shaken champagne bottle. The sunspot is just rotating into view, so its energy has been directed sideways and not directly at Earth. In coming days, if more major flares erupt as forecasters expect, they’ll head right at us and radio blackouts, cell phone dropouts and other communications disruptions are more likely, scientists said. Solar flares send radiation to Earth in about 8 minutes. Hours later, clouds of charged particles can engulf the planet. If the magnetic field of a storm is oriented opposite to our planet’s protective magnetic field, gaps are created and radiation leaks to the planet’s surface, potentially threatening astronauts aboard the International Space Station, sometimes shorting out satellites, and even causing terrestrial power grids to trip. Solar activity is at “very high levels,” according to NOAA’s Space Environment Center (SEC). There have been seven major flares in recent days, including a tremendous X-17 eruption Wednesday. An event Friday evening was an X-6. On Saturday, an X-1 and an X-2 erupted. Even an X-1 can cause severe disruptions. The largest flare in modern times was recorded in November 2003 and was estimated to be an X-40. It, too, was on the limb of the Sun and so its full impact was not felt on Earth. That flare was part of an unprecedented series of 10 major flares within two weeks; at least one Earth-orbiting satellite was disabled and one instrument aboard a Mars-orbiting craft was knocked offline. This week’s series is the most impressive since then. more...

Weather Modification a Long-Established, Though Secretive, Reality (September 12, 2005) - New legislation not designed to foster pleasant or productive weather, but planned as tool of weaponized weather control, already well tested and in use since 1976. Amateur and hostile weather-makers alike likely to lose their technology to the military. It’s late fall of 2004. Fred McKenna* surveys his beloved radionics equipment with sorrow. “I am expecting a visit from the boys in black,” he sighs to me. Because he has been engaged in storm mitigation and deflection, he’s sure that military and other authorities know of his location and activities. Fred has already begun to dispose of the reagents, the active principle used for the “broadcast” of specific corrective energies to persons or the environment. By transferring their activity to the land itself, he hopes this might at least protect a passive aspect of his operation. But he fears that the machines themselves may no longer be in his possession by the end of the following year. more...

Further fuel protests threatened (September 12, 2005) - Organisers of the 2000 fuel protest, which caused severe disruption when refineries were blocked, say they will act again if fuel tax is not cut. Fuel Lobby made the announcement as the price of unleaded petrol rose to more than £1 a litre in parts of the UK as a result of Hurricane Katrina. The group says all UK refineries will be blocked from 0600 BST on 14 September unless price cuts are made. The Treasury said cutting tax would not solve the problem of high oil prices. ‘Inadvertent rises’ A week-long campaign of picketing refineries and depots by thousands of hauliers and farmers in 2000 caused major shortages and was thought to have cost British business £1bn. more...

Interview With Thomas Horn, Controversial Author of The Ahriman Gate (September 12, 2005) - How does one go from exorcist to ufologist? I found Tom Horn to be an interesting man; an enigma who assuredly knows more than he's saying. Though right now he's saying a lot! more...

Israeli Troops Leave Gaza, Palestinians Move In (September 12, 2005) - “This is a day of happiness and joy that the Palestinian people have not witnessed for a century,” President Mahmoud Abbas told reporters in Gaza City. Attacking symbols of the hated Israeli presence, youths smashed and set ablaze several of the synagogues left behind in the 21 evacuated enclaves, the first settlements Israel has abandoned on land the Palestinians want for a state. Some Palestinians, chanting “Allahu Akhbar” (God is greatest), brandished pictures of fighters killed in an uprising. Some kissed the ground. Others scampered down to pristine Mediterranean beaches they could not reach for years. “Today is the happiest day in my life,” said Jawal Abu Lafi, 50, after praying amid the rubble of one former settlement. Tanks and armored vehicles trundled out of Gaza into Israel after the army issued its final withdrawal order to complete Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan for “disengaging” from conflict with the Palestinians. “We are leaving with our heads high,” said army chief of staff Dan Halutz at a flag-lowering ceremony on Sunday. Flares fired by Israeli troops and fireworks launched by celebrating Palestinians illuminated the desert strip that has been scene of some of the bloodiest fighting since peace talks failed in 2000. “We will begin a new life, a life that is empty of fear and occupation,” said one woman as celebratory gunfire mingled with joyful ululation. While welcoming the pullout, the Palestinian Authority fears Sharon is trading Gaza, home to 1.4 million Palestinians, for permanent hold on larger areas of the occupied West Bank where 245,000 Jewish settlers live isolated from 2.4 million Arabs. Gaza and the West Bank were captured in the 1967 war. more...

Palestinians Torch Synagogues in Former Gaza Settlements (September 12, 2005) - Palestinians also set fire to synagogues in the evacuated settlements of Netzarim and Kfar Darom. In one of the synagogues, gunmen climbed on the roof and waved flags of militant groups, including Hamas, shouting “God is great.” Hours earlier, the Palestinian Interior Ministry spokesman said the Palestinian Authority would destroy the synagogues left behind in Gaza by evacuating IDF troops. All remaining buildings in the evacuated Jewish settlements would be destroyed except for the hothouses, the spokesman, Tawfiq Abu Khoussa, told The Associated Press. Earlier in the day, the Israeli government voted not to demolish the synagogues. The Palestinians expressed dismay at the Israeli decision, saying it puts them in an impossible position because they may be criticized for destroying houses of worship but at the same time they need the space for their development plans for post-Israel Gaza. “It’s better for us and for you to destory the synagogues,” Jibril Rajoub, the PA chairman’s security adviser, told Israel Radio on Sunday. “I think the synagogues are symbols of the occupation.” more...

Gaza synagogues face likely desecration (September 12, 2005) - With the Israeli government yesterday voting against the demolition of Gaza’s synagogues ahead of Israel’s final pullout from the area later today, the Palestinian Authority is “not confident” it can protect the holy structures from desecration and “doesn’t want to deal with the problem,” chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told WorldNetDaily. Sources say the synagogues may be turned into Palestinian medical clinics and libraries in an effort to avert desecrations. “We of course have the highest respect for Judaism and the Jewish religion, but we cannot guarantee the synagogues won’t be desecrated,” said Erekat, speaking by cell phone from Gaza City. “We are very upset at Israel about this decision to throw their problems on us. They are trying to make us look like barbarians and now we’re stuck in a situation about whether to protect. We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.” more...

Strong earthquake rocks tsunami-ravaged Aceh (September 12, 2005) - A strong earthquake rocked Indonesia’s tsunami-battered Aceh province on Saturday, causing residents to flee their homes in panic. The magnitude-5.8 earthquake was centered under the Indian Ocean, about 20 miles northwest of the province capital Banda Aceh, said Sutiono, an official at the Jakarta office of Meteorological and Geophysical Agency. The tremor occurred some 20 miles beneath the Earth’s surface, added Sutiono, who goes by a single name. Officials at the local geophysical office in Banda Aceh said the quake lasted about one minute. Residents of the city ran out of their homes in panic after the tremor jolted them awake, Sutiono said. Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire.” A magnitude 9 earthquake and subsequent tsunami on Dec. 26 killed more than 131,000 people in Indonesia and left a half-million homeless, mostly in Aceh.

A Qassam missile was fired from Gaza Strip two hours after Israeli troops handed the territory over to the Palestinian Authority (September 12, 2005) - As Israeli troops redeployed in new lines outside Gaza during the night, howling Palestinian mobs made bonfires of the Gaza synagogues and public buildings left behind. Abu Mazen’s security men stood by. They also watched Hamas and Jihad Islami gunmen overrun the flattened former Israeli locations and hoist their flags over the rubble. The IDF earlier bulldozed the homes of 8,500 Israelis and military bases in the Gaza Strip but Israeli ministers balked at ordering Israeli troops to destroy synagogues in deference to the rabbis’ prohibition. Under Jewish law, places of worship retain their sanctity even after ritual articles are removed and were clearly marked as holy places in English and Arabic. Gaza commander Aviv Cochavi was the last Israeli soldier to depart the Gaza Strip. He drove through the Kissufim crossing and shut the gateway down for the last time.

Palestinian PM says can end chaos in Gaza by Jan (September 12, 2005) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pledged “to control the chaos in Gaza” by the end of the year in an interview published on Monday that coincided with the completion of an Israeli pullout from the territory. But Abbas told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, one of whose reporters was abducted but quickly released by gunmen in Gaza on Saturday, that he would not try to disarm the powerful militant group Hamas to assert Palestinian Authority control. “There is no point at the moment, it would be a useless step that would be destined to start a civil war,” Abbas said, despite a call in a U.S.-backed peace “road map” for the Palestinian Authority to confiscate “illegal weapons”. For its part, Israel has ignored the road map’s call for a halt to Jewish settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank. “Give me until the end of the year and I will be able to control the chaos in Gaza,” Abbas said. “Now that the Israeli pullout is completed, we will be able to better deal with the problem.” He noted that Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state, would take part for the first time in a Palestinian legislative election, slated for January 25, and “if this happens, they will very soon not need weapons”. Abbas praised Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for having taken a “very important and courageous step” in removing 8,500 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip. But he warned Sharon against trying to trade Gaza, home to 1.4 million Palestinians, for a permanent hold on larger areas of the occupied West Bank where 245,000 Jewish settlers live isolated from 2.4 million Arabs. more...

Iran jubilant about Katrina (September 12, 2005) - Iran, which has experimented with missile detonations that can create nuclear electromagnetic pulse attacks capable of crippling U.S. electrical grids and computer technology, is taking notice of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards conclude the deadly storm has exposed America’s strategic vulnerabilities, according to reports today on the Ansa-e Hezbollah website. “The mismanagement and the mishandling of the acute psychological problems brought about by Hurricane Katrina clearly showed that others can, at any given time, create a devastated war zone in any part of the U.S.,” said Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri, the official spokesman of the Revolutionary Guard. The Revolutionary Guards’ spokesman said the U.S.’ inability to end the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan showed the “weakness of America’s defense and state departments, as well as its intelligence and security apparatus.” “If the U.S. attacks Iran, each of America’s states will face a crisis the size of Katrina,” he said, referring to the massive hurricane which hit the southern coast of the United States. “The smallest mistake by America in this regard will result in every single state in that country turning into a disaster zone.” The Iranian war planners believe the U.S. can be defeated in a confrontation with Iran. more...