ALBERTO DRENCHES CUBA HITS FLORIDA

1-Alberto goes threw Florida. 2-Alberto drenches Cuba. 3-Floods leave 19 dead in China. 4-Floods kill 8 in India.5-Media condems Israel yet Arab mine or rocket kills Arabs.

LUKE 21:11, 25-26
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(mass confusion) the sea and the waves roaring;
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

Alberto hits Fla. with rain, gusty winds By PHIL DAVIS, Associated Press Writer 25 minutes

ago CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. - The first tropical storm of the hurricane season was less than advertised Tuesday, bringing rain, gusty winds and some thigh-high street flooding to Florida's Gulf Coast without blowing up into the hurricane forecasters feared. There were no immediate reports of any serious injuries or deaths. But emergency planners said the preparations were not in vain: Alberto allowed them to hold a not-so-dry run of their disaster plans.

And the rains snuffed out some of the wildfires that have bedeviled parched central Florida over the past few months.This is not much worse, if any worse, than a summer squall. I just hope the next time we get another one, they won't say nothing's going to happen because nothing happened this time,said Jerry Cawthon, a resident of Keaton Beach.

The storm's center came ashore around noon near Adams Beach, about 50 miles southeast of Tallahassee. Its winds were 40 mph, down from 65 mph in the morning and well below the 74 mph hurricane threshold that forecasters thought it might cross.The prospect of a hurricane hitting the state less than two weeks into the season threw a scare into Florida, and more than 20,000 were ordered evacuated as Alberto closed in.

If Alberto had struck as a hurricane, it would be have been an alarming start to the season, which began June 1. No hurricane has hit the United States this early in the hurricane season in 40 years.Tampa and other areas had gotten 4 to 6 inches of rain by daybreak Tuesday, and forecasters said total rainfall could reach 10 inches in central Florida and southeastern Georgia over the next few days.

In Crystal River, water was thigh high in the heart of the town. David Garrick, owner of a restaurant and eight apartments along the bay, nervously paced the parking lot next to the apartments as water inched toward their doorsteps.We're tempting fate right now, but there's not much you can do. You can't sandbag because it comes in under the floor,he said.Forecasters said the northeastern coast of Florida and the coasts of Georgia and the Carolinas would be vulnerable to tornadoes for up to several days until Alberto cleared the area.And evacuation orders remained in effect for low-lying areas in four counties.But National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield said that overall, Alberto "shouldn't be life-threatening by any means, as long as people are careful, and especially surfers.

The only road in and out of Cedar Key for the island's 940 residents, was briefly closed because of flooding. But Cedar Key City Commissioner Pat O'Neal said, We dodged a bullet.A total of about 21,000 homes and businesses lost power during the storm. All but 4,300 customers had electricity restored by early evening.It was unclear how many of those ordered to evacuate their homes actually left.Levy County sheriff's Capt. Chuck Bastak said residents of Cedar Key in the gulf were gun shy about evacuating after a no-name storm of 1993 beat up the island and authorities were slow to let them return to their homes.They're kind of hard-core, Bastak said of some longtime island residents. It would take an act of Congress, God and weather to get them out of there.

Alberto did come with some benefits: Federal, state and local officials said the storm gave them real-world practice on the lessons learned from the slow response to some of last year's hurricanes. Hurricane specialists said they ran into a few computer glitches but nothing that couldn't be fixed by the next storm. You can train all you want, but nothing beats the real deal,said state Emergency Management spokesman Mike Stone. The evacuations went as planned, Gov. Jeb Bush said. I can assure you that if a stronger storm comes our way, that we have a great team. Alberto's rainfall should also help the state battle wildfires that have
blazed in different areas over the past two months, Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson said. Eighteen brush fires were extinguished by Tuesday's rain, but about 150 were still active, Bronson said.

At 5 p.m. EDT, Alberto had moved inland nearly to Valdosta, Ga., moving northeast at about 10 mph. A tropical storm warning was discontinued for Florida's Big Bend, where the Florida Peninsula juts into the Gulf of Mexico. A tropical storm warning remained in effect for Florida's northern Atlantic Coast, into Georgia and South Carolina. A flood watch was issued for South Carolina, where more than 5 inches of rain was possible. Scientists have predicted an active 2006 storm season, with a16 named storms, six of them major hurricanes. Last year's hurricane season was the most destructive on record and the busiest in 154 years of storm tracking, with a record 28 named storms and a record 15 hurricanes.

Associated Press Writers Mitch Stacy in Cedar Key, Brendan Farrington in Steinhatchee, Fla., David Royse in Tallahassee, Fla., and Michelle Spitzer and Jennifer Kay in Miami contributed to this report.

Tropical Storm Alberto drenches Cuba By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press Writer

Mon Jun 12, 3:24 PM ET HAVANA - Tropical Storm Alberto drenched western Cuba Monday after a weekend of heavy rains prompted evacuations, caused some dilapidated buildings to collapse and flooded low-lying areas in Havana. A few old buildings around Havana crumbled in the heavy rains, the official Prensa Latina news agency reported — a common occurrence during storms. There were no reports of other major damage or injuries.The intensity of the rains has diminished, although in some localized areas of Pinar del Rio they could remain heavy, as well as in the Havana area and on the Isle of Youth,Cuba's National Meteorology Institute said in a statement.Some areas of Pinar del Rio province near Havana lost electricity for up to 12 hours, the official daily newspaper Granma reported.

Granma said heavy rains caused damage in some agricultural regions, but Cuba's most important crop — tobacco — was unaffected because the harvest has been completed, with the leaves used to make the island's famed cigars safe and dry inside curing houses.More than 12 inches of rain fell in some rural areas over the weekend, Prensa Latina said.Under the country's civil defense plan, nearly 25,000 people on the island's west end were urged to leave their homes as a precaution to stay with friends and relatives on higher ground.They included high school students at rural boarding schools who are often sent home during tropical cyclones to stay with their families until the storms pass.State television warned people to stay away from swollen rivers and overflowing reservoirs.

Flash floods leave 19 dead, 31 missing in southwest China 1 hour, 47 minutes ago

BEIJING (AFP) - Flash floods caused by heavy rains have left at least 19 people dead and 31 others missing in southwest China. Sudden downpours hit the province Monday and continued for four hours causing several flash floods in the mountainous region of Guizhou province, Xinhua news agency reported Tuesday.Local government sources were quoted by the agency as saying that at least 19 local residents were confirmed dead and 31 people were missing.A number of houses were also reported to have been washed away.

Officials from the local disaster-relief, transportation and power supply departments have rushed to the area to direct the flood-relief work, Xinhua said.The deaths come after at least 93 people were reported to have died over the last two weeks in torrential rains that have battered southern China.Some 12 million have been affected by rains, floods and landslides, China Daily newspaper reported on Saturday, quoting the Ministry of Civil Affairs.Some 560,000 people have been evacuated and economic losses in the region have been estimated at 7.66 billion yuan (957.5 million dollars), it added.

Floods kill eight people, displace 75,000 in northeastern India by Zarir Hussain Tue Jun 13,

6:32 AM ET GUWAHATI, India (AFP) - Flash floods and mudslides triggered by heavy monsoon rains have killed eight people and displaced some 75,000 in India's northeastern states of Assam and Tripura. A Tripura government spokesman said five people, three of them
children, were killed late Monday when a landslide buried their mud-and-thatch huts in Churaibari village, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of the state capital Agartala.

Six people were injured in the incident and one or two bodies might still be trapped under the debris,Gopika Das, a magistrate in North Tripura, told AFP by telephone.The villagers were sleeping when the incident took place, he added.

Flood control officials said some 4,000 people were displaced when floodwaters submerged the northern Tripura town of Dharmanagar.All major rivers in Tripura, bordering Bangladesh, are flowing above the danger level, the officials said.In Assam, three women were killed Monday night in a landslide in Chandranathpur village in the southern Cachar district, about 310 kilometers from the states main city of Guwahati.

Three women died and eight more were seriously injured in the incident when mounds of earth from a hillock trapped sleeping villagers, a civil official in Cachar said by telephone. The latest deaths bring to 148 the number of people killed nationwide in weather related incidents since the monsoon hit India on May 18.An Assam Flood Control department official said nearly 71,000 people had been affected by floods that began in the state May 31 with an estimated 2,000 villages hit.

The affected people have been shifted to safer places with relief materials distributed among the flood-hit victims,a government statement said.The main river, the Brahmaputra, had broken its banks along Majuli, the worlds largest river island, 350 kilometers from Guwahati.At least 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) of land have been submerged in Majuli due to flooding, a government official in Majuli said.Road and rail communications have been hit in some parts of Assam with floodwaters overflowing highways and breaching rail tracks.According to the Central Water Commission, the Brahmaputra is flowing above the danger level in at least eight
places.

The 2,906-kilometer (1,816-mile) river -- one of Asia's longest -- traverses China's Tibet region, India and Bangladesh before emptying into the Bay of Bengal.Every year the monsoon causes the river to flood, submerging paddy fields, washing away villages, drowning livestock and killing people in Assam, a remote state of 26 million people.In 2004, at least 200 people died and more than 12 million were displaced in the floods.

Where is the outcry?

The hypocritical fashion in which the world, and in particular the international media, relate to the Israeli-Arab conflict was again demonstrated most vividly over the past several days.On Friday an explosion killed at least seven Palestinian Arab civilians on a Gaza Strip beach. A tragic event for which it is still uncertain who is responsible, despite the wild, unsubstantiated claims by the "Palestinians" and their leaders of an Israeli-perpetrated massacre.

Though the bloody beach scene could just have easily been caused by an errant terrorist-fired Katyusha rocket, it was nevertheless exploited as justification for a barrage of artillery fire on Israeli civilian centers between Saturday and Monday night.While the international media broadly and without hesitation condemned Israel over the former, it has failed to turn the same accusator finger at the Palestinian Authority over the latter.It does not matter that no Israelis died as a result of rocket and mortar fire.

The intent was to murder as many Jews as possible.By contrast, if the IDF was in fact responsible for the Gaza beach explosion, Israel's intent was most certainly not the killing of unarmed Arab men, women and children.That the world media fails to take all of this into account betrays its venomous bias against the Jewish state. www.zionist.com