AFTERSHOCKS CONTINUE IN INDONESIA

EARTHQUAKES

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.

MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.

LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.

Quakes, aftershocks worry Indonesians By ANTHONY DEUTSCH, Associated Press Writer Fri Sep 14, 11:28 PM ET

PADANG, Indonesia - Days of colossal earthquakes and tsunami warnings have forced traumatized Indonesian villagers to seek safety in the last place imaginable: graveyards. With only plastic sheeting to keep her family dry, Dasima joined hundreds camping in the mud between headstones on the flat, high ground, far from the ocean's reach.I am very afraid of another tsunami, the 50-year-old said two days after an 8.4-magnitude temblor sent a towering wave into her remote fishing village. We will stay here until we feel it is safe.

Seismologists warn, however, the worst may be yet to come.

Kerry Sieh of the California Institute of Technology has spent decades studying the fault line that runs along Indonesia's western coast. He is among several experts predicting a repeat of the powerful earthquake that triggered the 2004 Asian tsunami, which killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen Indian Ocean nations.No one can say whether it will be in 30 seconds or 30 years, he said. But what happened the other day, I think is quite possibly a sequence of smaller earthquakes leading up to the bigger one.Wednesday's quake shook four Southeast Asian countries, damaged hundreds of houses and spawned a 10-foot-high tsunami. At least 17 people were killed. A series of powerful earthquakes and dozens of strong aftershocks followed — including one measuring 7.8 and another 7.1.The wall of water that slammed into several fishing villages along Sumatra island's coast Wednesday swept away nearly a dozen houses, but overall damage was minimal, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said after an air force aerial survey.A nine-member U.N. assessment team reached the same conclusion after visiting the area, saying that a major international relief operation was not required, John Holmes, the U.N.'s emergency relief coordinator, said in a statement from New York.

Many people said a public awareness campaign launched after the 2004 tsunami paid off, including warnings issued over mosque speakers and training provided by local officials on how to escape a disaster.When the earth started shaking, some people yelled, 'It's time to go up the hill ... Let's get going, said Fadil, 35, a father of two, describing how he and hundreds of neighbors watched from above as the 10-foot wave approached. Hundreds of houses were damaged, but no one died.Elsewhere, however, electricity blackouts prevented some sirens from going off.The latest quakes — together with the 9.0-magnitude temblor in 2004 and an 8.7 quake in early 2005 — deeply concern experts.The fault, which runs the length of the west coast of Sumatra about 125 miles offshore, is the meeting point of the Eurasian and Pacific tectonic plates, which have been pushing against each other for millions of years, causing huge stresses to build up.There is a strong indication this foreshadows the big one, said Danny Hillman, an earthquake specialist at the Indonesian Institute of Science. We all agree there is an 8.5 or stronger earthquake waiting to happen.

That's exactly what residents along Sumatra's western coast, which is expected to bear the brunt of the next disaster, are worried about. The island was hardest hit by the 2004 tsunami, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the deaths.In the fishing village of Sungai Pisang, just south of the badly damaged city of Padang, hundreds of people were too scared to return home after the recent tremors sent a large wave washing into their bay.Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, with a population of 235 million people, is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the Ring of Fire, an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin. Associated Press writer Zakki Hakim contributed to this report from Bengkulu.

STORMS HURRICANES-TORNADOES

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;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
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.

Tropical Storm Ingrid weakens in open Atlantic Fri Sep 14, 11:06 PM ET

MIAMI (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Ingrid, the ninth named storm of the 2007 hurricane season, weakened slightly on Friday as it churned far out in the Atlantic and may dissipate in the next two days, U.S. forecasters said. Some weakening is forecast and it seems likely that Ingrid will diminish to (tropical) depression strength in the next couple of days ... and possibly dissipate in that time, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in an advisory late on Friday.The storm had top sustained winds of 40 miles per hour (65 kph) and was in an area of upper-level winds that are unfavorable for development, the hurricane center said.The center of Tropical Storm Ingrid was about 655 miles east of the Lesser Antilles.

The 2007 Atlantic hurricane season, however, has already sprung a few surprises.

On Thursday, Hurricane Humberto slammed into the Texas-Louisiana border area with an unexpectedly powerful punch that killed at least one person, shut down three refineries and cut power to more than 100,000 customers.It had been forecast to hit land as a tropical storm, but strengthened into an 85-mph (137-kph) hurricane, a pace that forecasters said was the fastest on record for a storm near land.The season has also witnessed the first time since records began in 1851 that two maximum-strength Category 5 hurricanes made landfall in the same year.Hurricanes Dean and Felix, which both reached the top rank on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale at a frighteningly quick rate, hit Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and Central America in August and September, respectively.

OSU scientists simulate tsunami's impact Fri Sep 14, 5:58 PM ET

CORVALLIS, Ore. - A giant tsunami struck Seaside, Ore. this week — at least, a model version of the town, built by researchers at Oregon State University to demonstrate the potentially devastating effects of a real tsunami. This is sort of a sim-tsunami, said Harry Yeh, an ocean engineer professor at the college.The exercise at Oregon State's O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory, showed that there would be little time to get out of the way of a 35-foot wave in the coastal resort town, and that the best escape route might be straight up.Because Seaside's downtown is so flat, the search for higher ground will be an exercise in futility for anyone who's not able-bodied. It could be particularly dangerous for the thousands of tourists who flood into Seaside every summer, and might not be aware that they need to head for the Coast Range the moment they feel the ground shake.Professors at the wave research lab are hoping that the model they've built will allow them to figure out which buildings would be buried in water, so that they can compare the results with computer-generated guesses about where the waves will go.

And they want to figure out whether there's a better alternative for some folks than to race away along roadways that will likely be buckled in the accompanying earthquake.To answer these questions, scientists and engineers will place optical sensors in the miniature village, which is fifty times smaller than the actual town. The sensors will collect data as a hydraulic dam simulates a tsunami by pushing a wall of water across a basin and towards the waiting buildings.The sensors will gather information about how high the waves are, how fast they travel and how deep they will be, once the town is inundated.The research could also determine whether it would be a good idea to build vertical shelters like the ones in Japan, so that residents can flee upward.Information from: The Register-Guard, http://www.registerguard.com

Ugandans homeless after severe floods By KATY POWNALL, Associated Press Writer Fri Sep 14, 3:59 PM ET

KAMPALA, Uganda - The heaviest rainfall in 35 years has displaced 150,000 people in eastern Uganda since August and the rain has been worsening by the hour, authorities said Friday. Up to 400,000 people have lost their livelihoods by severe flooding in eastern Uganda, State Minister for Relief and Disaster Preparedness Musa Ecweru said.
Nine people died after being washed away by floodwater or struck by lightening during the violent storms. The death toll was expected to rise because rain still falling across large areas of the affected region, Ecweru said.About 150,000 people had to move because of the rising water, he said.For the other 250,000 or thereabouts, there is nothing in the kitchen. Their crops have been destroyed, he said. The floods are worsening by the hour — for the last 48 hours, the rain continues falling.The United Nations said rainfall since July has been the heaviest in 35 years for many parts of eastern Uganda.Joint aid efforts by the government and the United Nations was being hampered by submerged roads and bridges, Ecweru said. Three boats and four helicopters were being brought to Uganda by the United Nations on Monday to help deliver emergency aid including food, fresh water, tarpaulins and medication, he added.

Floods kill 15 in Rwanda, leave 1,000 homeless Fri Sep 14, 4:39 AM ET

KIGALI (Reuters) - Floods killed 15 people and left about 1,000 people homeless after torrential downpours in the hills of northern Rwanda, the government said on Friday. The death toll has reached 15 since the heavy rains started on Wednesday, said Local Government Minister Protais Musoni.He told Reuters the Northern Province had also suffered hailstorms and landslides, sweeping away livestock and property and complicating relief efforts. More people were expected to be uprooted as the rain continued to fall.We are undertaking some emergency measures, taking those displaced to drier areas and providing them with medical care and food, Musoni said.
Heavy rains killed 25 people in same region last November.

THIS MURDERER O.J MIGHT HAVE MET HIS MATCH THIS TIME, WE WILL SEE.

Simpson named suspect in armed robbery By KATHLEEN HENNESSEY and LINDA DEUTSCH, Associated Press Writers SEPT 15,07

LAS VEGAS - O.J. Simpson says he went into a casino hotel room only to retrieve memorabilia that he felt was stolen from him. But police are investigating it as an armed robbery and named the fallen football star as a suspect Friday in yet another surprising chapter to his legal saga. In an interview with The Associated Press, Simpson insisted there were no guns involved and that he went to the room at the Palace Station casino only to get stolen mementos that included his Hall of Fame certificate and a picture of the running back with J. Edgar Hoover.It's stolen stuff that's mine. Nobody was roughed up, Simpson told the AP.Las Vegas Metro Police Capt. James Dillon said the confrontation was reported as an armed robbery involving guns. But he said no weapons had been recovered and stressed that the investigation was in its infancy.Simpson was questioned by police immediately after the incident Thursday night. Dillon said Simpson would not agree to a formal, recorded interview until his lawyer arrived, but did offer some statements about the incident. No charges had been filed and no one was in custody.Simpson said auction house owner Tom Riccio called him several weeks ago to say some collectors have a lot of your stuff and they don't want anyone to know they are selling it.Simpson, who was in Las Vegas for a friend's wedding, said he arranged to meet Riccio at the hotel. Riccio had set up a meeting with collectors under the guise that he had a private collector interested in buying Simpson's items.

We walked into the room, Simpson said in the telephone interview. I'm the last one to go in and when they see me, it's all Oh God.He said he was accompanied by several men he met at a wedding cocktail party, and they took the collectibles.Simpson said he wasn't sure where the items were taken.A message left by the AP for Riccio was not immediately returned.He told the Los Angeles Times he arranged the meeting after receiving a phone call about a month ago from a person who claimed to have personal items — including footballs, awards and photos — that had belonged to Simpson and wanted to sell them.Simpson was supposed to show up, identify the items and tell the men to either give the stuff back or he would call the police, Riccio told the newspaper.The plan unraveled after Simpson showed up with about seven intimidating looking guys, at least one of whom had a gun, he said.We tried to peacefully reacquire these personal items, not for their monetary value, but for their family value. O.J. wanted to be able to pass these things down to his kids, Riccio said.

They (Simpson and his companions) took the stuff, and they left. What can I say? Things went haywire, he said.Dillon said investigators were trying to untangle the web of ownership, and that some items had been recovered. He did not say which ones.
We do have some conflicting statements, there is legitimate information that part or all of the items possibly are the possessions of O.J. Simpson, Dillon said, adding that would not excuse a robbery. One of the collectors in the room was Alfred Beardsley, a real estate agent and longtime collector of Simpson memorabilia, some of which he has been ordered to turn over as part of a lawsuit. I'm OK. I'm shaken up, Beardsley told the AP by phone. He said Simpson's account of the incident was fairly accurate except that there were guns.

Simpson said: I didn't see anybody with any guns.

Bruce Fromong, a collector who testified at Simpson's civil trial, said he was in the room when Simpson barged in with other men. Him and some of his guys come busting through the door, Fromong told the celebrity gossip site TMZ.com. They came in with guns, hollering and screaming.Fromong, who reportedly tried to sell the suit Simpson wore when he was acquitted of murder, described him as a former close friend and said he couldn't explain the behavior. O.J.'s in enough trouble. For him to come and do this kind of thing, I don't know what's wrong with O.J. This is stupidity.
Simpson was released after he and several associates were questioned, and he remained in Las Vegas. We don't believe he's going anywhere, police spokesman Jose Montoya said. The Las Vegas district attorney's office will decide whether to pursue charges in the casino case. Both Beardsley and Simpson indicated the underlying issue was recovery of photos from Simpson's childhood. The Heisman Trophy winner, ex-NFL star and actor lives near Miami and has been a tabloid staple since his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman were killed in 1994. Simpson was acquitted of murder charges, but a jury later held him liable for the killings in a wrongful death lawsuit. Simpson has had to auction off his sports collectibles, including his Heisman Trophy, to pay some of the $33.5 million judgment awarded in the civil trial. On Thursday, the Goldman family published a book about the killings that Simpson had written under the title, If I Did It, about how he would have committed the crime had he actually done it. After a deal for Simpson to publish it fell through, a federal bankruptcy judge awarded the book's rights to the Goldman family, who retitled it If I Did It: The Confessions of the Killer.Fred Goldman, Ron's Goldman's father, said he was stunned by the news from Las Vegas. I'm overwhelmed and amazed, Fred Goldman told the AP. If it turns out as it is currently being played, I think this shows more of who he is. He is proving over and over and over again that he thinks he can do anything and get away with it.Goldman's lawyer, David Cook, said he would seek a court order on Tuesday to get whatever items Simpson took in Las Vegas. The Palace Station, an aging property just west of the Las Vegas Strip, is one of several Station Casinos-owned resorts that cater to locals. The 1,000-room hotel-casino, with a 21-story tower and adjacent buildings, opened in 1976. A company spokeswoman did not immediately return a call for comment.
AP Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writer Tony Winton in Miami contributed to this report.

Agencies work on DNA 'barcodes' database By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer SEPT 15,07

WASHINGTON - To help shoppers avoid mislabeled toxic pufferfish and pilots steer clear of birds, federal agencies are starting to tap into an ambitious project that is gathering DNA barcodes for the Earth's 1.8 million known species. A consortium of scientists from almost 50 nations is overseeing the building of a global database made from tiny pieces of genetic material. Called DNA barcoding, the process takes a scientist only a few hours in a lab and about $2 to identify a species from a tissue sample or other piece of genetic material.David Schindel, a Smithsonian Institution paleontologist and executive secretary of the Consortium for the Barcode of Life, said the purpose is to create a global reference library — a kind of telephone directory for all species.If I know that gene sequence, I can submit it as a query to a database and get back the telephone number, he said. I can get back the species name.The government's interest in the project stems from a variety of possible uses.
The Food and Drug Administration has begun eyeing it as a tool to ferret out hazardous fish species and to confirm a type of leech used in some surgery. In May, the FDA used it to warn that a shipment labeled monkfish from China might actually be a type of pufferfish that could contain a deadly toxin if not prepared properly.

The Federal Aviation Administration and Air Force hope it will help them identify birds prone to collide with aircraft. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sees it as a means to track commercial fish and reduce killing of unwanted species also caught by nets.A growing collection of feathers and other remains of birds that collided with planes has provided operational information for the FAA, said Scott Miller, a scientist at the Smithsonian Institution who chairs the consortium's executive committee.They have an almost complete reference database for the North American bird species, Miller said. It is a routine tool that they use.
Elsewhere, the Environmental Protection Agency is testing species barcoding to identify insects and other invertebrates that indicate how healthy rivers and streams are. The Agriculture Department is contributing genetic data it has compiled on fruit flies in an effort help farmers control pests.Among the agencies experimenting with the database, EPA has found that as it grows in size it is becoming more and more useful as a practical tool for identifying species, EPA spokeswoman Jessica Emond said.Scientists call it barcodes to compare it to the supermarket scanner codes that are indecipherable except to machines. But with plants and animals, the scanners look at the specific order of the four basic building blocks of DNA to identify the species.

Users gain free access to a repository of archival genetic material run jointly by U.S., European and Japanese facilities.About 30,000 species have been logged in the database so far, but scientists hope to reach 500,000 within five years. A two-year goal is to have sequenced 2,800 — or about 80 percent — of the 3,500 different species of mosquitoes.Yvonne-Marie Linton of the Natural History Museum in London, said efforts to reduce mosquito populations blamed for up to 500 million human malaria cases and 1 million annual deaths each year are consistently hindered by misidentifying the species responsible.Linton, who heads a project to barcode the mosquito species, said correctly identifying and controlling those carriers of malaria and other mosquito-borne illnesses like dengue fever and the West Nile virus are the key to disease management.Miller said barcoding is basically going to revolutionize the way that mosquito survey and monitoring is done.The consortium is sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of Natural History. It grew out of 2003 research paper in which geneticist Paul Hebert at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, proposed a database of DNA barcodes for identifying all species. Now, the Smithsonian and university share in the barcoding work. On the Net:
Consortium for the Barcode of Life: http://barcoding.si.edu
Barcode of Life Initiative: http://www.dnabarcodes.org

DISEASES

REVELATION 6:7-8
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).

WHO: Cholera cases in Iraq keep rising Fri Sep 14, 7:52 PM ET

BAGHDAD - The number of suspected cholera cases in northern Iraq continues to rise, with 16,000 people now showing symptoms, the World Health Organization said Friday. As of Sept. 10, 6,000 have been reported with symptoms such as diarrhea and vomiting in the province of Sulaimaniyah, another 7,000 in Tamim province, and 3,000 in Irbil province, the WHO said in a statement.To date 10 people have died and 844 cases of the disease have been confirmed, the WHO said.Earlier in the week, regional authorities reported 11,000 people with symptoms, 700 confirmed cases and 10 deaths.

Cholera is a gastrointestinal disease that is typically spread by drinking contaminated water and can cause severe diarrhea that in extreme cases can lead to fatal dehydration. It broke out in mid-August and has so far been limited to northern Iraq.The WHO reported earlier this week that all public water supply systems in the affected districts have been chlorinated by provincial authorities in an attempt to stop the disease from spreading further.

Palestinian envoy has high hopes for Mideast conference Fri Sep 14, 3:45 PM ET

PRETORIA (AFP) - The special envoy to the Palestinian president said during a visit here Friday that he hoped a US-proposed regional Middle East peace conference would lead to the creation of Palestinian state. There are plans to hold a meeting... We hope this will produce some framework that will allow detailed negotiations on issues of land, water, border, Jerusalem and refugees, Nabil Chaath told a Pretoria press conference.We hope this might be crowned by a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, he said, ahead of a meeting with South African President Thabo Mbeki.And we could have peace through the end of the Israeli occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state.Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met on Monday in Jerusalem for the third time since August 6.They have been trying to reach a framework agreement before an international peace conference sponsored by the United States and expected for November.On Friday, Chaath acknowledged that the military conquest of Gaza has made things very difficult, referring to the June takeover of the territory by Islamist movement Hamas.The Gaza Strip has been divided for months between Hamas fighters and the security forces faithful to Abbas, the head of Fatah.If you put people under severe pressure, siege and humiliation through occupation, their vision of the way out changes, said Chaath.Some see a way out through negotiation and others see the only way out through further conflagration.

US claims Hezbollah still smuggling arms through Syria Fri Sep 14, 11:26 AM ET

BEIRUT (AFP) - The US ambassador to Lebanon said on Friday that there was clear evidence the Shiite militant group Hezbollah was still smuggling weapons across the Syrian border, in violation of UN resolutions. We find the evidence to be strong that arms smuggling is continuing across the Syrian-Lebanese border, Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman told AFP, without giving any specific details.We are concerned by the reports and by the public statements by Hezbollah that Hezbollah has actively rearmed.He added: In our view this poses one of the biggest dangers to Lebanon and it is a violation of the spirit and the letter of a number of Security Council resolutions.The Lebanese Shiite militant and political organization, which is backed by Syria and Iran, is considered a terrorist group by the United States. It had one minister in the Lebanese government until he and five other pro-Syrian ministers resigned last November.

Hezbollah, which claimed its resistance against Israel forced the Jewish state's 2000 withdrawal from south Lebanon, seized two Israeli soldiers in July 2006, sparking last year's devastating 34-day war with Israel.This led subsequently to the reinforcement of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the deployment of the Lebanese army along the tense border zone with Israel for the first time in decades.The militant group, however, was not disarmed and recently said it still had weapons that could reach Israel.Feltman said there were several initiatives under discussion with the Lebanese government on how to put a stop to weapons smuggling.Saying that the international community would respond favourably to any Lebanese government request to help in border security, Feltman said "there are several initiatives under discussion with the government about how best to prevent smuggling, most importantly arms smugglings.He also rejected arguments that controlling Lebanon's border with Syria would amount to interfering in the country's sovereignty.Controlling borders is an assertion of sovereignty, he maintained.