News for October 10, 2005

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‘Whole Generation’ Lost in Quake (October 10, 2005) - Pakistan’s military spokesman has said an entire generation of young people has been wiped out in the areas worst hit by a massive earthquake. Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan, quoted by the AFP news agency, said children had been the biggest casualties. Many were killed when schools collapsed. At least 20,000 people are thought to have been killed in Pakistan, with some reports suggesting the toll may double. Many areas hit by the quake are only just being reached by aid workers. A road has been re-opened into Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir where 11,000 are thought to have died, allowing trucks to deliver food and medical supplies. more...

Unusual quake activity increasing (October 10, 2005) - The U.S. Geological Survey has reported 13 aftershocks following Friday’s 7.6-magnitude earthquake in Pakistan. What has gone largely unnoticed in recent media reports, however, is the unusual number and severity of those aftershocks. According to the National Earthquake Information Center of the U.S. Geological Survey, 13 earthquakes ranging between 5.5 and 6.3 in magnitude on the Richter Scale have hit the already devastated and overwhelmed nation of Pakistan since Friday’s temblor. Though aftershocks are a normal part of earthquake activity, the number and severity following Friday’s quake are unusual. WorldNetDaily reviewed the NEIC’s earthquake data since March of this year and learned that only two remotely similar examples could be found. Between Sept. 29 and Oct. 2, six quakes hit the New Britain region of Papua New Guinea, ranging between 5.5 and 6.5 on the Richter Scale. And on April 10, six quakes hit the Mentawai region of Indonesia, ranging between 5.5 and 6.8 in magnitude. According to the NEIC, earthquakes of 5.5 magnitude or larger are generally considered a big earthquake. more...

1,400 dead in Guatemala mudslide (October 10, 2005) - MORE than 1,400 people were buried alive in a Guatemalan village in a mudslide triggered by torrential rains from Hurricane Stan, it emerged yesterday. Large swathes of land in Central America and Mexico were flooded and dozens of mountain villages hit by mudslides after days of heavy rains. The landslide that engulfed Panabaj on Wednesday buried 1,400 villagers in mud up to 40 feet deep. Fire brigade spokesman Mario Cruz said: “There are no survivors here. It happened more than 48 hours ago. They are dead.” The horror emerged as government officials confirmed that more than 500 people, said to include many children, had died and 337 were missing after deadly rains swept across the country. The figures included a landslide in western Guatemala, along the border with Mexico, that killed 37 people. Guatemala has borne the brunt of heavy rains exacerbated by Hurricane Stan, which reached the Mexican Gulf coast before weakening to a tropical depression. Rescuers are struggling to reach hundreds of people still missing in the mudslides and floods. Many communities remain cut off and more rain is forecast over the weekend. On the banks of Lake Atitlan, dozens of Mayan Indian villagers yesterday swarmed over a vast river of congealed mud that covered trees and houses, digging with hand tools for bodies under a landslide that swallowed a neighborhood. more...

THE STARK REALITY OF AMERICA’S FINANCIAL MELTDOWN Part 1 of 2 (October 10, 2005) - Thucydides pointed out that hope is a very expensive commodity; therefore, it makes more sense to be prepared. While financial disaster looms over the heads of Americans, bird brains in Congress waste their time diddling and playing their usual partisan games with conservatives busy fighting amongst themselves over Bush’s latest Supreme Court nominee. Here’s a hint as to why he picked Miss Harriett: Bush is stacking the court with no care of the long term consequences. There is more than enough solid documentation and verifiable evidence to prove prior knowledge of 9/11, the Carl Rove/White House scandals are percolating with everyone wondering what the grand jury will come back with and that Bush lied about the threat of Saddam and WMDs. While Bush cheerleaders willfully choose to remain in a state of denial, millions of others demand the truth. Miss Harriett knows where all of Bush’s skeletons are buried and John Roberts knows the tricks of the trade. In my humble opinion, that’s why Roberts was fast tracked and a “token” female with no bench experience, but lots of loyalty to Bush was chosen over more qualified candidates.

The Democratic - Communist Party will go all out in an attempt to recapture Congress in the ‘06 elections. The Republican Party which has also adopted the communist manifesto will engage in their usual tactics to stay in power. With vote fraud controlling the agenda, we the people will have very little to say about the outcome unless there is a massive voter revolt over electronic ballot machines between now and November 2006. While popular political pundits and talk show hosts who get paid a king’s ransom to keep the real issues away from the people, reality is coming at unsuspecting Americans like a guided missile. Betrayal is a difficult pill to swallow, but I would rather know the truth than get blind sided.

There is no money in the U.S. Treasury. The debt is now $7,978,002,527,274.56 and accumulating interest every second of the day.

The engineered, unconstitutional invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq are costing a whopping $7 billion dollars a month. Bush wants to further drive us into poverty with a ten year commitment of $570 billion dollars. Never in my life have I seen such insanity - not even under Clinton. more...

This Week in Islam (October 10, 2005) - While Indonesian courts busied themselves with trying to decide the length of a prison sentence for three Sunday school teachers last month, Islamists were apparently planning the next Bali bombing. And why shouldn’t they? Indonesian courts seem to have a soft spot for Muslim bombers that doesn’t extend to those outside their “religion of peace.”

Case in point: the three women who were convicted of teaching Sunday school to consensual youth were each given a 3-year prison sentence. By contrast, radical cleric Abu Bakr Ba’asyir, convicted of conspiracy in the 2002 bombing that left more than two-hundred dead, was given six months less time behind bars.

Of course, the three church volunteers shouldn’t complain. They got a slap on the wrist compared to a 27-year-old Australian beauty school student, who received a 20-year sentence in an Indonesian court for supposedly smuggling nine pounds of marijuana into the country.

All of these sentences were handed down in 2005, three years after a horrific and coordinated attack that ended the lives of hundreds of people, mostly tourists at the resort area in Bali.

To summarize: Three years for teaching Sunday school, twenty years for transporting nine pounds of pot… and two and a half years for successfully conspiring to kill hundreds of innocents. Now there’s a religion that’s got its priorities straight!

After the first bombing, Indonesia began a campaign to woo back tourist dollars. About two dozen of those who took the bait are now dead, including at least one Australian. Terrorism is not a singular event, particularly in Islamic countries that don’t take it seriously. Until Indonesia manages to make it into the 21^st century, it shouldn't be anyone’s tourist destination.

Mossad rocked by resignations (October 8, 2005) - Israel’s spy agency, Mossad, has been rocked to the core by an internal crisis provoking an avalanche of resignations since Meir Dagan was appointed its chief in 2002, a newspaper reported yesterday. “Earthquake at heart of Mossad,” ran a headline on the front page of the Yediot Aharonot, detailing a “wave” of unprecedented departures from staff accusing their boss of driving the elite agency into a “dead end”. Defections stem from a serious breach of trust between agents and reserve general Dayan. Among six recent people to leave are the second and third in command, plus the head of special operations, the daily said. The latest report comes just over a year after Israel’s private Channel 2 television claimed in November that more than 200 agents, including seven department heads, had resigned over the policies of its controversial boss. Dagan, a close associate of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, has come under fire for launching risky operations abroad, said the documentary based on interviews with former officials in the agency. more...

Robertson: Disasters point to 2nd Coming (October 8, 2005) - This weekend’s catastrophic earthquake in South Asia in the wake of recent U.S. hurricanes and December’s tsunami is catching the eye of televangelist Pat Robertson, who says we “might be” in the End Times described in the Bible. “These things are starting to hit with amazing regularity,” Robertson said on CNN’s “Late Edition.” Robertson, a former GOP presidential candidate and host of the “700 Club” daily Christian TV show, noted, “If you read back in the Bible, the letter of the apostle Paul to the church of Thessalonia, he said that in the latter days before the end of the age that the Earth would be caught up in what he called the birth pangs of a new order. And for anybody who knows what it’s like to have a wife going into labor, you know how these labor pains begin to hit. I don’t have any special word that says this is that, but it could be suspiciously like that.” “What was called the blessed hope of the Bible is that one day Jesus Christ would come back again, start a whole new era, that this world order that we know would change into something that would be wonderful that we'd call the millennium,” he continued. “And before that good time comes there will be some difficult days and there will be likened to what a woman goes through in labor just before she brings forth a child.” more...

Hamas chief talks to World Net Daily (October 10, 2005) - WorldNetDaily conducted an exclusive interview with Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar, the most senior Hamas member in all of Israel and the Palestinian territories; second in power only to overall Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, who resides in Syria. The conversation has been translated from Arabic by Ali Waked.

WND: Dr. Al-Zahar, you’re the leader of Hamas, which has attacked and killed a large number of Israeli civilians. Are you a terrorist?

Al-Zahar: If I am a terrorist then there is a need to change the history of America and all of Europe. In this case we must call all the freedom fighters of America, like George Washington, a terrorist. Same for Charles de Gaulle, who fought against the occupation of France. Was he also a terrorist? From [U.S. President George W.] Bush’s point of view I am a terrorist, but America which kills children is not a terrorist state? Israel, which has already killed more than 4,800 Palestinians, with more than a third of that number being children, this is also not terrorism from Bush’s point of view. Unfortunately, history is being written in dirty ink through a dirty vision.

WND: OK, then what is terrorism?

Al-Zahar: Terror is the use of mass-destruction weapons against innocent and weak people to impose on them your policies and political facts and solutions.

I want to ask about what happened [when America pounded the caves in 2001 during operations in Afghanistan] at Tora Bora? And what happened and is still happening in Fallujah? Are the Americans shooting chocolates and biscuits on the local and innocent population? No, they are shooting missiles.

What about the Americans in charge of their prison in Abu Ghraib, sending dogs on the prisoners. Is this OK? And a president who lies to his people and says the war in Iraq is led in order to abolish the mass-destruction weapons while it was discovered there were no such weapons in Iraq. Is it OK? Is it OK that the Americans who say they want to establish democracy in Iraq nominate a Kurdish agent as president of this country? What about promoting Ahmed Chalabi and [interim Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem] Shaalon, who stole millions in Iraqi currency? Is this democracy or is it no more power of the majority? Is this the cultural and democratic message of Bush to the world?

WND: If you knew President Bush were reading this interview, what would you have to say to him?

Al-Zahar: I am telling him that I think he is doing an enormous historical crime by fighting against Islam and giving Islam adjectives like fascism and terrorism. He is hurting American interests. No honorable person can deny the contribution of Islam to humanity and its development.

Therefore, I say that President Bush puts in danger American interests when he chooses to fight against Islam and describes Islam in a negative way that makes him face 1.3 billion Muslims in the world. It is stupid that a person decides to push the West and Islam into a confrontation. Doing so puts in danger his own interests. more...

Moscow Arms Assad with a Top-Flight Surface Missile (October 10, 2005) - Too fast and flexible for known electronic defenses to stop. Two generals were in Moscow on the same day, September 26: the head of Israel’s National Security Council Maj.-Gen (Res.) Giora Eiland and the Syrian chief of staff General Ali Habib. Both also called on the Russian chief of staff, Gen. Yuri Baluyevski. The Syrian general came out of his meeting with a brilliant contract for the sale of the advanced Iskander SS-26 surface missile. The Israeli general ran into a blank wall when he tried to persuade the Russian to withhold the missile from the Assad regime. Last January, when the deal was first broached, the Bush administration stepped in and obtained a promise from president Vladimir Putin to call off the sale, as did Israel’s Ariel Sharon during the Russian president’s visit in May. Putin has broken those pledges. DEBKA-Net-Weekly 224 revealed in its detailed report on September 30 - For a speedy delivery in the first quarter of 2006, the Syrians paid cash. The value of the transaction is unknown but it certainly runs into hundreds of million dollars, given that Syria has purchased 26 of the most advanced missile of its kind in use anywhere in the world. more...

Devastated region could be hit by more earthquakes (October 10, 2005) - EXPERTS last night warned that more powerful new earthquakes may be on the way as Pakistan appealed to the rest of the world for help in dealing with the aftermath of the devastating shock that claimed tens of thousands of lives. The British Geological Survey in Edinburgh said the slippage that triggered the quake may have increased the pressure on other fault lines in the region, raising the danger of related earthquakes. Aftershocks continued yesterday as survivors used their bare hands to dig through the rubble to get at those still trapped alive. The effects of Saturday’s quake were felt in India and Afghanistan, but it was the Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and the North West Frontier regions that bore the brunt. By last night, about 20,000 bodies had been recovered, although Pakistani officials warned that the death toll was likely to hit 30,000. Overwhelmed by the scale of what had happened, Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, described the earthquake as “the worst disaster in Pakistan’s history” and called on other countries to help by providing heavy lift helicopters, tents, blankets and medicines to bolster his own country’s resources. more...

Cervical cancer vaccine success (October 10, 2005) - A vaccine to protect women from one of the biggest cancer killers could be available within five years. Early clinical trials of a vaccine for cervical cancer have shown that it is 100% effective. It also protects against genital warts. The breakthrough could help to save thousands of lives each year. Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women under 35 in the UK. It claims 1,300 lives each year. The vaccine works by triggering the body’s immune system to attack the human papiloma virus (HPV), which has been linked to almost all cases of cervical cancer.

Further trials

Merck Sharp & Dohme, the company behind the vaccine, said further studies are needed but that it could be available in a few years. The vaccine would be given to teenage girls. It would only work in females who have not yet become sexually active. This is because HPV is transmitted through sexual intercourse. The vaccine fights four of the most common strains of HPV, including a strain that causes genital warts. Early trials on almost 2,400 women between the ages of 16 and 23 in the United States have shown that it reduced the incidence of HPV by 100% after one year. more...