News for September 19, 2005

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Mexican volcano blasts ash, gas 3 miles into sky (September 19, 2005) - Western Mexico’s Volcano of Fire blasted ash and gas 3 miles into the sky on Friday with an explosion that was heard in villages 10 miles from the crater, according to local officials. The Jalisco state civil defense agency said ash from the 10:46 a.m. (1146 EDT) eruption fell on towns to the northwest and it said emergency workers there were distributing hospital-type masks to protect against fine ash. There were no reported injuries. The 12,533-foot volcano on the border of Jalisco and Colima states -- 420 miles west of Mexico City -- is among Mexico’s most active and most dangerous volcanos. It has erupted repeatedly in recent years. On July 27, a pre-dawn explosion shot incandescent rock, ash and steam up to 8,800 feet into the air. Another blast on July 5 sent ash and gases nearly 3 miles up.

Massive degradation of tectonic plate – catastrophe possible - Earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter Scale in India's Assam, Manipur and Meghalaya states and Bangladesh (September 19, 2005) - An earthquake shook parts of northeast India and Bangladesh today, causing panic in places, but officials in both countries said there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties. The quake measuring 6.1 on the Richter Scale was felt in India’s Assam, Manipur and Meghalaya states. The tectonic plate in the region has become increasingly unstable due to solar flare. Scientists and Geologists have predicted massive devastation in the coming years till 2012. more...

Divine retribution? by David Dolan (September 17, 2005) - My last WND commentary was written in the immediate wake of the July 7 London terrorist bombings. I noted that the two main promoters of the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan are the United States and the United Kingdom, and opined that the atrocious Islamic terror attacks in the British capital might have occurred at least partly as a result of Divine displeasure with a core demand of that plan – Israeli authorities must quickly uproot Jewish residents from the Gaza Strip and from Israel’s biblical heartland, Judea and Samaria... ...Those readers prone to dismiss out of hand the proposition that Israel’s Sovereign Lord might have been signaling unhappiness over the U.S. role in the forced Jewish uprootings should consider a few chilling facts: Both events began with security personnel knocking on residential homes in a portion of the coastal south in order to warn residents to immediately evacuate their homes, although for clearly different reasons. In both cases, thousands of residents were reluctant to leave, fearing they would never return to their beloved homes. Indeed, several thousand homes were leveled in Gaza and northern Samaria, while hundreds of thousands were destroyed or badly damaged along America’s Gulf coast. In both instances, people suddenly became effective refugees in their own lands; many forced to move to temporary shelter. Security personnel faced personal danger from angry, sometimes violent, residents. Looting then followed by some of those remaining behind. Both affected regions played a significant role in foreign exports, especially of agricultural products, resulting in substantial economic loss to the countries involved. Approximately the same overall percentage of citizens in both cases lost their homes and/or businesses. Coincidence? more...

The Day California Cracks (September 19, 2005) - Budget crises have left the state ill prepared for a big quake. It’s power lunch time in Los Angeles. Media moguls are picking through their Cobb salads at Spago in Beverly Hills. Then the floor begins to move, first in undulating waves, then in increasingly violent jolts. The airy restaurant rumbles. Diners scream as the walls of the popular indoor garden room begin to shake, sending debris everywhere. Outside, along nearby Rodeo Drive, car alarms start to wail as upscale storefronts explode in a shower of glass and mannequins. A lonely poodle yaps in search of its master, who lies beneath an ornate streetlight. Five miles to the east, downtown L.A.’s high-rises are swaying. As the 54-story Wells Fargo (WFC) Tower buckles, a torrent of glass showers office workers along South Grand Avenue. More debris cascades down from the 72-story U.S. Bank (USB) Tower nearby, just as the elevated 10 Freeway buckles, sending delivery trucks over its sides and sports cars into each other. In the distance, fireballs ignite where natural-gas pipelines have surrendered to the violent shaking. It sounds like a Hollywood disaster movie, all right. But sooner or later, when the Big One hits, it will be all too real. As certain as California's sunny days, palm trees, and celebrity politicians, a massive earthquake is coming. With more than 300 faults beneath Southern California, and the giant San Andreas fault running through the state, California is a seismic time bomb. A magnitude 7 quake has a 62% chance of hitting San Francisco in the next 30 years, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS); the risk for L.A. is only slightly less. Such a powerful quake would cause far more damage than the temblors that shook San Francisco in 1989 or L.A.’s Northridge neighborhood in 1994. A magnitude 7 quake that struck during a workday on a recently discovered fault under L.A. would kill 7,000 to 18,000 people, says the USGS. In San Francisco, 5,800 people would die if a temblor the size of the 1906 quake again savaged the city. more...

Israel open to EU policing role on Gaza border (September 19, 2005) - Israel has agreed in principle to a European Union role in policing Gaza’s volatile border crossing with Egypt, Israeli officials said on Monday, a turnabout after years of opposition to an EU security mission. The deal would go beyond EU monitoring already discussed. Israel has long been reluctant to allow outside involvement in its conflict with the Palestinians, perceiving Europe, and indeed the world except its U.S. ally, as pro-Palestinian. Securing the border took on more urgency when controls collapsed after Israel’s pullout last week after 38 years of occupation. Tens of thousands of Palestinians swarmed into Egypt -- most to visit relatives or shop, but some to smuggle arms. An EU presence would help resolve a dispute over Israel’s demand to retain some control over crossings via the Rafah terminal, rejected by Palestinians as tantamount to continued occupation. Rafah has been shut because of the stand-off. Senior Israeli officials said a deal in principle had been reached with the EU for its personnel to work with Palestinian security forces and Egyptian police who sealed the frontier on Sunday to end days of chaos. more...

Child STD cases prompt sex abuse investigations (September 19, 2005) - Up to 70 cases of possible abuse are being investigated by police in Western Australia’s north after reports of sexually transmitted diseases (STD) among children. Six of the cases involve children aged under five. Under a new system, health authorities are obliged to report cases of STDs among children to police and social workers. Detective Senior Sergeant Martin Voyez says as a result, there have been three convictions of child abuse in the north-west of the state. “We have a lot more ammunition, shall we say, in order to interview the offender properly and get the matter before the court,” he said. Member for the Kimberley Carol Martin says the system is helping to stamp out a significant problem in her electorate. “It’s just sending a clear message that it’s just not going to happen any more,” she said. Chlamydia and gonorrhoea are the most common conditions being detected.

Gathering Rita prompts Florida evacuations (September 19, 2005) - Thousands of tourists jammed the highways Sunday after they were told to evacuate the lower Florida Keys because Tropical Storm Rita developed over the Bahamas and moved toward the vulnerable, low-lying island chain. In Tallahassee, Gov. Jeb Bush declared a state of emergency for Florida, which gives the state authority to oversee evacuations and activate the National Guard, among other powers. “It does look like that there is the potential for it to become a hurricane, near or just before it reaches the Florida Keys,” said Daniel Brown, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center. The watch means that hurricane conditions with sustained wind of at least 74 mph are possible by late Monday, according to the Miami-based hurricane center. Forecast: Subject to change. Long-term forecasts show the system heading generally toward the west in the Gulf of Mexico toward Texas or Mexico later in the week, but such forecasts are subject to large errors. That means that areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina could potentially be in the storm’s path. “Once it reaches the Gulf, really everybody should pay attention at that point,” Brown said. more...

New book promotes sex with children (September 19, 2005) - A new book published by Haworth Press features multiple Ph.D. “experts” claiming that sex with children “can benefit” boys and even serve a “mentoring function.” “Same-Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity and in the Classical Tradition of the West” features “scholarly” treatises by a raft of mostly-PhD academics, all praising earlier civilizations – particularly Greece and Rome – for the role homosexuality played in those ancient cultures. In the chapter titled “Pederasty: An Integration of Cross-Cultural, Cross-Species, and Empirical Data,” Bruce Rind Ph.D. lauds the rampant child molestation that reportedly occurred in those societies, at one point citing evolution as supporting a pro-pedophilia worldview. Writes Rind: Pederasty, or sexual relations between men and adolescent boys, is condemned in our society as an unqualified evil that maims and destroys. In ancient Greece, samurai Japan, and numerous other cultures, pederasty was seen as the noblest of human relations, conducive if not essential to nurturing the adolescent’s successful intellectual and physical maturation. Current psychological and psychiatric theorizing have pronounced and promoted the former view, while ignoring the vast array of cross-cultural data related to the latter view. Mental health opinion has also ignored a wealth of cross-species data with important parallels. Instead, this opinion is based on feminist models of rape and incest, which are backed up by clinical research on child sexual abuse. more...

Afghans voters turn out in force, scorn Taliban threats (September 19, 2005) - A Reuter’s report out of Kabul says that Taliban fighters failed, Sunday, to sabotage Afghanistan’s first legislative elections in decades with voters braving threats and turning out in force for the ballot. According to the Daily Times, the UN-Afghan election commission said voting had been remarkably peaceful and the government hailed it as a big victory over the insurgents. “It went very well, beyond our expectations. After all their boasting, it’s a big failure for the Taliban,” said Interior Ministry spokesman, Lutfullah Mashal. “I’m so happy, I couldn’t sleep last night and was watching the clock to come out to vote,” said Qari Salahuddin, 21, at a polling station in Jalalabad. Of the 249-seats in the national assembly, sixty-eight are reserved for women. It was no wonder then that election officials said there appeared to have been a “high turnout of women in some conservative Muslim areas where their participation had been in doubt.” “I am so happy, so happy,” said Khatereh Mushafiq, 18, as she went to vote at a girl’s school in Kandahar. “We are also now taking part in the government and in society.” “I see an extremely healthy election taking place around Afghanistan,” chief electoral officer Peter Erben said, adding that any impression of a low turnout could be misleading as there were more polling stations than last year. more...

Answer to Prayer...North Korea Agrees to Stop Building Nuclear Weapons (September 19, 2005) - After seven days of talks outlining North Korea’s disarmament, a joint statement was issued stating that North Korea is “committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs.” According to the AP report, they also agreed, in the statement, to return early to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. Though pleased with the agreement, the White House remained cautious as spokesman Scott McClellan said, “North Korea now needs to live up to the agreement. That means dismantling their nuclear programs and allowing for verification to demonstrate that it has ended its nuclear activities.” more...