EU AIMS FOR BIGGER FOREIGN ROLL

1-new forcast for Hurricane season. 2-11 cities floodedc near China River. 3-Eu aims for bigger foreign role. 4-Indiana Tornado. 5-Sumatra Quake Again.

LUKE 21:25-26
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; 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.

GENESIS 6:13
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

New forecast sees bad hurricane season, but milder than 2005 Thu Jun 8, 8:54 AM ET

PARIS (AFP) - A long-range forecast has issued became the second prediction in just over a week to declare that this year's Atlantic storm season would be bad, but nowhere as brutal as the 2005 record crop that produced Hurricane Katrina. Tropical Storm Risk (TSR), a London-based group of scientists, said they expected 14 tropical storms for the Atlantic during the season, which runs from June 1 to November 30.Eight of these will be hurricanes and three will be intense hurricanes, it said.

Four tropical storms will make landfall on the United States, two of them hurricanes, TSR said Thursday.On June 1, University of Colorado climatologists Philip Klotzbach and William Gray forecast 17 tropical storms in the Atlantic, nine of which would become hurricanes. Five of these would be intense hurricanes.These are rated Category Three or higher on the five-point Saffir-Simpson scale. Level three storms on the scale have driving winds of at least 111 miles (178 kilometers) per hour, capable of knocking down large trees and destroying mobile homes.

TSR (tropicalstormrisk.com) groups scientists from University College London's Benfield Hazard Research Centre, which is sponsored by the reinsurance industry. TSR has been in operation for four years and has a strong record for accuracy.In a press release, TSR said the data for its 2006 forecast is based on the sea surface temperature and trade wind speed in the Caribbean and tropical North Atlantic, which are the two main drivers for whipping up hurricanes.Lead scientist Mark Saunders said 2003-2005 saw the highest three-year total number of US hurricane landfalls -- 11 -- since 1900 and the highest three-year total number of North Atlantic hurricanes (31) since reliable records began.

Based on current and projected climate signals, there is a 74-percent likelihood that 2006 will be in the top one-third of years for highest storm activity, said Saunders.Despite this forecast, the chance of 2006 seeing hurricane activity as high as in 2005, which was the most active and destructive season on record, is low, he added.The current forecast is 20 percent lower than at this time last year. In particular, we expect the Gulf of Mexico to witness far fewer intense hurricanes than in 2005.The biggest storm of last year's season was Hurricane Katrina, a category-three event which killed 1,300 people in the southern United States and left around
100,000 displaced.

In all, 2005 saw a record 15 hurricanes among an unprecedented 28 named storms that formed in the Atlantic. For the first time on record, seven of the hurricanes were considered major, meaning they hit category three or higher.It was also the costliest hurricane season, with damage estimated at more than 100 billion dollars.

Report: 11 villages flood near China river By ALEXA OLESEN, Associated Press Wrter 1 hour,

38 minutes ago BEIJING - The bank of a rain-swollen river collapsed early Thursday in southern China, flooding 11 villages filled with sleeping people and causing an unknown number of deaths and injuries, state media reported. The river bank collapse in Fujian province came amid what the government calls the worst summer flooding in some areas in three decades. At least 55 people have been killed in Fujian and two other provinces since late May from heavy rains that have caused floods and landslides and washed away part of a rail line between Beijing and Hong Kong. Twelve people are missing.

Fujian's Changting county saw more than 3 1/2 inches of rain in two hours, sending the Bashili River over its banks and sweeping through the 11 villages around 3 a.m., the government's Xinhua News Agency reported, citing provincial flood control officials.Some 3,500 families lived in the villages, parts of which were covered by 6 feet of water, the report said.Most of the people were asleep, so there's no way to calculate the number of casualties and the loss of property, Xinhua said.

However, a man who answered the phone at the Changting county Public Security Bureau said his colleagues were at the site and there were no reports of deaths so far. He would only give his surname, Li.Rescue crews, including paramilitary police and fire brigades, helped evacuate more than 16,000 people from the area and were reinforcing the river bank with sand bags, Xinhua said.Across southern China, at least 378,000 people have been evacuated from Fujian, Guangdong and Guizhou provinces due to floods, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said.

Other provinces further inland and to the north also have reported scattered deaths and flood damage.The rains have disrupted transportation, flooded streets and required thousands of police and military officers to evacuate residents by boat.Hundreds die in China each year in floods during the June-August rainy season. This season's first storm arrived unusually early.Deadly landslides also have occurred when water rushed down mountainsides stripped of trees by decades of farming and logging.

EU aims for bigger foreign role

The Commission wants to work more closely with Javier Solana The European Commission has unveiled plans designed to strengthen the EU's role on the world stage, despite the setback to the European constitution. It wants better co-operation between the European Commission and the Council of the European Union, which represents the 25 member states. "Europe is still punching under its weight," said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. One idea is for EU officials to attend national diplomatic training schemes. The report also calls for an "enhanced programme" of exchanges between the Commission, member states' diplomatic services, and the Council's secretariat.

Solana wooed

The proposals come as a response to October's summit at Hampton Court, where heads of state called for the EU to reinforce its external action despite the rejection of the constitution in France and the Netherlands. Europe is still punching under its weight - its influence is not proportionate to its economic and trade dimension The constitution called for the creation of an EU foreign minister - with existing foreign policy chief Javier Solana tipped to be the first holder of the post - and a diplomatic service. The new proposals would mirror the constitution by inviting Mr Solana, who reports to the member states, to become "associated" with the work of the external relations group of commissioners.

The report also suggests that the Commission and the Council secretariat should produce more joint strategy papers, and co-ordinate more closely in crisis management. And it favours the idea of top EU officials abroad taking on a dual role as head of the Commission delegation, and special representative of the Council.

Consular co-operation

Mr Barroso said foreign leaders neither knew nor cared which institution was on which side of Brussels' Rue de la Loi, which separates the Commission from the Council. The ideas will be discussed at an EU summit next week, along with proposals from Austria, the current president of the Council, for member states' consular services to work more closely together, especially in
cases of natural disasters such as last year's Asian tsunami. The EU has long worried about being an economic superpower but a "political dwarf". The leader of the European Parliament's Liberal group, Graham Watson, described the Commission proposals as "sticking-plaster solutions" that were no substitute for the constitution.

Tornado damages homes in Indiana Thu Jun 8, 7:45 PM ET

SEYMOUR, Ind. - A tornado flipped mobile homes, tossed debris into trees and tore the roof off a police station as it traced a path up to a half-mile wide in southern Indiana, officials said Thursday. Thousands of homes and businesses lost power in Wednesday night's storm, and two elderly residents were hospitalized with possible broken bones and other non-life-threatening injuries after being trapped in their home.At least seven homes were destroyed in Jackson County, said Duane Davis, the county's emergency management director. Dispatchers said numerous tree limbs and power lines were down and flash flooding was extensive.

The tornado, which had winds up to 110 mph, was responsible for tearing roofs off of some homes and the Crothersville police station, the National Weather Service said. Its path grew to a half-mile wide at one point, meteorologist Dave Tucek said.The twister hit just outside the town of Reddington, moving south for eight miles before lifting back into the sky near Interstate 65, the weather service said.The heaviest damage appeared to be around Seymour. Resident Cathy Sandlin said she and her family ran for cover when the storm hit."It was just here and gone," she said.

Quake jolts Indonesia's Sumatra Thu Jun 8, 4:36 AM ET

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A 5.1 magnitude undersea earthquake struck off the western Indonesian island of Sumatra on Thursday, but the state meteorology and geophysics agency said it would not generate a tsunami nor cause damage.The quake's Indian Ocean epicenter was in the same area where a massive earthquake triggered a tsunami that left 170,000 people killed and missing in Aceh province in December 2004.

A quake with a 6.2 magnitude shook Indonesia's main island of Java late last month, killing more than 5,700 people and rendering thousands homeless in and around Yogyakarta.Earthquakes are frequent in Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country. Its 17,000 islands sprawl along a belt of intense volcanic and seismic activity, part of what is called the "Pacific Ring of Fire."