TORONTO SMOG ALERT

5,700 NOW DEAD IN INDONESIA QUAKE. SMOG IN TORONTO, 2-Religous leaders appeal to state and political heads. 3-2 other quakes in Indonesia.

Smog is making it hard for people to breath in Toronto. We have had 4 hot muggy days and the air is bad. This weather makes it hard for people with Alergies and heart diseases.

TORONTO SMOG ALERT

For some reason I have Ella Fitzgerald in my head singing the Cole Porter classic "we're having a heatwave, a tropical heatwave... In my previous blog from last weekend, I was talking about the cold and rain during the May longweekend last week. Well, welcome to Toronto! where in a week we have had temperatures jump to 33 degrees celsius with a humidex of 42 degrees. Which means when you are outside it feels as if it is 42 degrees! It is just after 10am here in Toronto and already it is 28 degrees celsius.

God bless Global warming or whatever is causing this! We have a smog alert and it is just hot, humid and nasty outside. As a true north girl, I really hate this heat and humidity...I can't wait til fall and winter. I don't mind this type of heat if I am in a place like Florida or the Caribbean where you at least have some cool breezes coming in from the ocean. Here all we have is concrete and tall buildings.

As we are situated on the very large lake Ontario you would think we would get some cool breezes but we have built up the waterfront with so many towers and condominiums there is nowhere for the breezes to blow! (the waterfront mess, i will save for a future blog) As a city we do have a lot of trees but I fear with this heat and smog they are suffering and not able to perform their task of keeping the air as fresh and cool as they used to.

To make matters worse, our wonderful TTC (public transit) workers decided to walk off the job yesterday holding the city to ransom. It caused sheer gridlock throughout the city and almost 1 million people had to find alternate ways to get to work. Walking to work in 42 degree humidex temperatures is not fun. Thank god i was lucky enough to get a lift in from JB in our air conditioned car and my co-worker Platt gave me lift home in his airconditioned car. Bet all the extra cars on the road made the air even better! The photo shows the thousands of stranded commuters walking up Bay Street from the train station.

Temperatures are supposed to go down to a more reasonable 23/24 degrees by tomorrow and through to the rest of the week and the Mayor legislated all the workers back to work last night.,posted by JMacK at 9:33 AM

World religious leaders to send appeal to state and political heads Source: Trend ,Author:

S.Agayeva The agenda of the coming world summit of the religious leaders scheduled for 3-5 June in Moscow is ready, Trend reports with reference to Akif Agayev, the head of the press-service of the Caucasus Moslem Department. According to Agayev, the agenda was developed at the final meeting of the expert group consisting of the representatives of the world religious unions in Moscow.

During the meeting, there were held opinion exchange and offered the topics for the discussion of the religious leaders at the World summit. The meeting of the experts brought together the representatives of the Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism from Azerbaijan, Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Greece, Egypt, Israel, India, Italy, China, Latvia, Russia, Rumania, the USA, Turkey, Finland, Vatican, German, Syria, France, Switzerland and Estonia. The participants of the meeting noted that the primary dialogue of the different traditional religions was the responsibility and the public anxiety about the fate of the mankind.

According to Agayev, the following topics were offered for discussion: the role of the religion in the contemporary society, protection and affirmation of spiritual and moral values in the contemporary society and the responsibility of the religion for this, ways of eliminating terrorism and extremism, education and necessity to morally bring up youth, support for family values and human life, the role of the religion in the ecological responsibility, dialogue and partnership and etc. As a result of the summit, there will be accepted an appeal which will be forwarded to the heads of states, political communities and all members of the religious
communities. During the summit, sheykhi ruslam Alahshukur Pashazade, the chairman of the Caucasian Moslem Department, will hold several bilateral meetings with religious leaders.

The initiator of the summit is the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and the patriarchy of Moscow and All Russia Rusi Aleksey II.

Two Other Earthquakes in Indonesia

Kompas today reports that there two more other earthquake in Wamena, regent capital of Jayawijaya, Papua province on thursday (30/06/2006) 12.28 AM local time, and another in Padang provincial capital of West Sumatra. While the former almost similar to that of Yogyakarta quake with 6 richter scale, the latter was around 4-5 richter scale.No casualties being reported on the latest two earthquake.

In the meanwhile, help relief efforts are pouring in from various countries. The US promises to donate $5 million, Japan sends its relief team to the ground and others promise some commitments as well reports Detik The number of death toll that reach 5,000 more and injured casualties double that figures make many voluenteers come in flock to the region to offer help.A western NGO personnel who was interviewed a few hours ago by CNN said that during his 20-year help relief operation experience around the world, never ever he saw such devastating scene as that of Yogyarkarta earthquake.He also said that the most immediate help needed for now are shelter, food, water, blanket/clothes, and medicines.