INDONESIANS ASK JUDGEMENT ON US

1-Moderate Quake in Southwest China kills 18. 2-Typhoon lashes Northern Philippines. 3-China death toll from Bilis at 612. 4-Indonesians ask,are calamities devine judgement from GOD.

MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

Moderate quake in southwest China kills 18 Mon Jul 24, 8:59 AM ET

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - A moderate earthquake in China's southwestern Yunnan province on Saturday toppled hundreds of houses and killed at least 18 people, official Chinese media reported. The 5.1 magnitude earthquake, which struck a mountainous area close to the border with Sichuan province, injured over 100 people, state television said, with national radio reporting 51 people as seriously injured.At least 630 houses had been destroyed and some 500 houses risked collapsing, with direct economic losses from the tremor estimated at more than 300 million yuan ($38 million), according to the reports.Many people had already left the area at the time of the quake to attend a weekly local trade fair, state radio added.The epicentre of the quake was about 90 km (56 miles) from Yunnan's Zhaotong city, official Xinhua news agency said, adding that several hundred workers had joined the rescue effort.
Houses in Yanjin, a county on the Yunnan-Guizhou plateau with a population of 350,000, were mostly built on land vulnerable to earthquakes, Xinhua said, citing experts with the seismological bureau.The local government had restored roads and telecommunications damaged by the quake, but failed to resume electricity supply and train services on the Neijiang-Kunming railway.The railway connects the three southwestern provinces Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan and the industrial city of Chongqing.

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.

Typhoon lashes northern Philippines Mon Jul 24, 2:19 AM ET

MANILA, Philippines - A typhoon brought heavy rains and winds to the northern Philippines on Monday, shutting down classes, government offices and the stock exchange in Manila, officials said. Typhoon Kaemi, the seventh named storm in East Asia this season, was packing winds of 80 miles per hour and gusts of up to 100 mph. After battering the northern Philippines, it was expected to make landfall in central Taiwan early Tuesday, then weaken into a tropical storm before making a second landfall along China's Fujian province coast, forecasters said.In Taiwan, fishing boats sought shelter at ports and residents were warned to prepare for torrential rains and heavy winds.Earlier this month, Tropical Storm Bilis ravaged the Philippines, leaving about two dozen dead in landslides and flash floods, before slamming into China's southern coast. About 530 people were killed in China and 3 million were forced to flee their homes.

China's death toll from Tropical Storm Bilis jumps to 612 1 hour, 26 minutes ago

BEIJING (AFP) - The death toll in China from Tropical Storm Bilis has risen to 612 with another 208 people missing, state media said, as the country braced for more devastation from Typhoon Kaemi. In another major reassessment of the impact of devastating floods brought by Bilis, Xinhua news agency said the nation's disaster relief commission raised the death toll by 82 and the number of missing by 78.The commission gave no reason for the sudden jump in the casualty numbers from Bilis, which first struck south and central China on July 14.The revised numbers came after the government raised the death toll to 530 on Friday, up from 228 reported just a day earlier.Local officials had been quoted by state media as saying the fast-rising death toll could be because authorities were initially focused on disaster relief rather than counting bodies.

Some officials also blamed the breakdown in power supply and communication and transportation infrastructure for complicating the collection of information on death and damage.However, concerns have been raised that there may have been a cover-up.The Ministry of Civil Affairs has sent an investigative team to Hunan province, which bore the brunt of the destruction from Bilis, and also issued a notice warning against hiding the true extent of the damage.Chinese officials at the local level are known to often instinctively cover up bad news, for fear of being punished.The commission said Monday a total of 3.07 million people had been evacuated.

Even as China was mopping up from Bilis, it was bracing for Typhoon Kaemi expected to hit Fujian province, a major victim of Bilis, late Tuesday or early Wednesday, Xinhua quoted the Fujian observatory as saying.Neighboring Zhejiang province is also expecting severe weather.Some 3,000 armed police equipped with speed boats, life vests and waterproof lights have been deployed in Fujian province to conduct any eventual rescue and relief operations, Xinhua said.The observatory has warned of rainstorms and winds of up to 72 kilometers (45 miles) per hour across Fujian province, Xinhua said.All vessels were ordered to return to harbor by 8:00 pm Monday and local authorities have been advised to monitor the safety of people living in makeshift shelters at coal mines and in mountainous areas, the agency said.Local governments have also been ordered to boost patrols along reservoirs and dams in preparation for flooding.So far, Fujian province has prepared 12,000 tents, 50,000 quilts, 80,000 items of clothing and five days supply of food for 300,000 people, Xinhua said.

At 1200 GMT Monday, Kaemi was centered about 200 kilometres east of Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan, the Hong Kong Observatory said. Forecasters said it would move northwest or west-northwest at about 20 kilometres per hour towards Taiwan.
Kaemi will be the fifth typhoon in the area this year, Xinhua said. Meanwhile, recent rainstorms in central China's Anhui province killed three people and affected more than 220,000 others with flooding and hail, Xinhua cited local officials saying Monday.

Indonesians ask if calamities are a divine rebuke By Tom McCawley, Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor Mon Jul 24, 4:00 AM ET

JAKARTA, INDONESIA - Shockwaves from the string of natural disasters over the past 19 months, including numerous earthquakes, two tsunamis, and an imminent volcanic eruption, have reached even Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the state palace. Irked by nationwide whisperings that the calamities were a divine statement against his rule, Mr. Yudhoyono told state meteorologists Thursday to explain the science behind the disasters on radio and television.Superstition and mysticism is a factor in Indonesia,says Dino Patti Djalal, a presidential spokesman. But it's the last thing we need when facing natural disasters.The giant Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004 that struck 11 countries seemed to leave in its wake a series of natural disasters. Since then, Indonesia has faced deadly floods, landslides, and parching droughts. One week ago Monday an earthquake struck off the coast of Java island, leaving at least 668 dead. Sunday, a 6.1 magnitude quake off Sulawesi island sent coastal residents fleeing inland – but no tsunami materialized.

In the scramble to explain the apparent wrath of nature, science is jostling against religion and even supernatural beliefs. National newspapers have carried full front-page color diagrams of the crashing tectonic plates beneath the 17,000-island Indonesian archipelago. On the editorial pages, writers have called for national introspection,quoting religious leaders calling for repentance.

The president's political opponents, such as the well-known soothsayer Permadi, have eagerly spread the notion of a divine warning. Speaking on Metro-TV Wednesday, he warned that the president was angering nature. He [the president] has 'hot hands' which are causing these calamities,said Permadi, a legislator in the national parliament. In the late 1990s, Permadi, of Yudhoyono's rival political party the PDI-P, also foretold that aliens in UFOs would arrive to save Earth.According to the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI), a national polling agency, the president has reason to be worried. The LSI released a survey in July based on a sample of 440 people in earthquake-afflicted Yogyakarta concluding that the public had begun to interpret the natural disasters mystically, irrationally, or spiritually.

The survey concluded that 78.1 percent of those polled believed the disasters were a warning from nature to Indonesia. The LSI's executive director, Denny Ali, said to reporters that the president's political opponents were indeed pushing the idea that he had helped trigger the disasters.In Indonesia, people believe in the supernatural,says Muhammad Qodary, an LSI researcher. And the more people believe [the disasters] don't come from scientific explanations, the more they'll look to the supernatural.Mr. Qodary says that those polled tended to explain the natural disasters based on either religious or pantheistic beliefs.Gendut Irianto, a Muslim and car salesman in Jakarta, is turning to his faith for explanations. I think the earthquake was definitely a warning from God to all Indonesians so we should chant and pray for forgiveness.He adding that although Java supposedly has mystical protection from Nyi Roro Kidul, [the spirit-queen of the South Seas], nothing could protect us from the holy wrath for our sins.Henri Siregar, a Catholic business executive in his 30s, says, The earthquake is a warning to the central government.Decrying Indonesia's widespread corruption, Mr. Siregar says: I think a lot of people are screwed up. Of course we'll get a slap on the wrist [from God].
Not all are convinced. The earthquake was just a natural phenomena, not a sign that nature or God was angry,says Tonie Tanu, a music producer in Jakarta. Among the skeptics is the president himself, who aides say described predictions of omens of his downfalls as rubbish.

President: It's a sign ... of tectonics

Palace officials said that Yudhoyono, himself a devout Muslim, confirmed that the May 27 earthquake in Yogyakarta was indeed a sign, but of Indonesia sitting on top of unstable tectonic plates.Dr. Fauzi, a US trained geophysicist who monitors earthquakes for the Indonesian government, says that science and religion did not necessarily contradict each other. You can see it purely on a scientific level. We rest on tectonic plates,he says, but God created them. We can study nature and understand it, but if we misuse it, the Koran – and the Bible – can tell us the consequences.In Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country, all citizens by law must subscribe to at least one of five state-sanctioned religions.

Pantheism endures in Indonesia

Aside from the 88 percent Muslim majority, Indonesia has Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists. But religions imported in the past 1,000 years have in many places blended with pantheistic beliefs and nature worship. Qodari, who helped research the LSI survey, believes pantheism may be strongest on the most populous island of Java.The spiritual caretaker of the Merapi volcano in central Java, an octogenarian known as M'bah Maridjan, showed the strength of such beliefs in May when he chose to defy orders from the government – and warnings from seismologists – and remain in his house on the mountain's smoldering slopes. Hundreds of villagers chose to follow Mr. Maridjan's example, angering some scientists who warned of an imminent eruption. Maridjan, instead, chose to pray and lead a procession up the mountain, claiming that he was told by a nearby sultan, the late Hamengkubuwono IX, to guard the volcano and take care of the villagers. Maridjan's credibility jumped after the government relaxed its alert warning in June, allowing thousands of villagers to return to their homes.