IOWA FLOODING CONTINUES

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.

Flood ravaged Iowa drenched with more rain by Mira Oberman
Sun Jun 15, 12:46 PM ET

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AFP) - More rain was headed to flood ravaged Iowa Sunday where tens of thousands of residents had been forced to flee their homes and officials struggled to reinforce breached levies and stem the rushing waters. More than 4.8 million sandbags had already been filled and damage was estimated to be in the billions of dollars with 83 of the state's 99 counties declared disaster areas.The flooding will likely put further pressure on already high global food prices as initial estimates place the damage at a loss of up to 20 percent of Iowa's crops and fields elsewhere in the nation's corn belt were also affected.Barge traffic was ground to a halt on the swollen Mississippi river and rail shipments were also hit as floodwaters covered and even washed out track and key bridges, officials said.Many towns were still bracing for the worst.

We've still got flood crests to go through all the way through Wednesday morning, Iowa Department of Emergency Management spokesman John Benson told AFP.Residents of hardest-hit Cedar Rapids - where 1,300 streets were submerged and 24,000 of the city's 124,000 residents were evacuated - were to be allowed briefly back to some homes but only under escort.They got some relief when floodwaters receded more quickly than expected, but the wreckage left behind was stunning.Television crews allowed into the downtown area came back with images of massive pieces of debris littering the streets, smashed store windows, warped furniture and sidewalks streaked with mud and sand.This is a traumatic event, Cedar Rapids police Chief Greg Graham said at a press conference.

We're going to have ministers at the checkpoints for counseling.

The rushing water leaving Cedar Rapids was heading straight for Iowa City, where 35 blocks were already inundated and crews loaded sandbags into boats and army trucks to reinforce barricades in danger of breaching.The college town's sloping hills will save it from total devastation, but at least ten percent of its buildings will be inundated by the time the river crests around midnight on Monday, said Johnson County spokesman Mike Sullivan.And it will take at least a week for the river to return to normal levels.This is a flood of epic proportions, Sullivan told AFP. It's absolutely devastating.Smaller towns in the flatter areas downriver of Iowa City were more at risk and sandbagging efforts continued on Sunday. Complicating efforts were forecasts of scattered thunderstorms which could bring localized flash flooding.A large swath of Des Moines remained underwater after a river levee was breached in the city of 200,000 Saturday morning and officials were concerned that a forecasted evening thundershower could raise river levels even higher.Muddy water from the Des Moines River covered several bridges and poured down streets north of the state Capitol, swallowing a neighborhood with about 200 homes and 40 businesses.

This held for about four hours this morning and they pulled everyone out because it was starting to get loose, Des Moines Fire Department Captain Tony Merrill said, as he looked at a hastily constructed sand berm that floodwaters busted. It's very disheartening, he told AFP. They put down two miles of sand bags (Friday) night. They were making 8,000 bags an hour.A levee breach in the town of Oakville forced a rushed evacuation Saturday night with the town expected to be inundated in less than three hours, the Iowa Department of Emergency Management said. The disaster began when a major tornado struck on May 25. It was followed by heavy rains, and on Wednesday another twister touched ground in western Iowa, killing four boy scouts. This has been a very trying week for our state, Iowa Governor Chet Culver said in a statement. Responding to a crisis like this takes the cooperation of everyone, from the federal government down to the local communities.Serious flooding has hit the entire region, including parts of South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. The death toll from the extreme weather currently stands at 16 in Iowa and five more elsewhere in the midwest.

Heavy rains in China leave at least 65 dead or missing
Module body Sun Jun 15, 1:12 PM

BEIJING (AFP) - Heavy rains in southern and eastern China have left at least 65 people dead or missing, while more than one million residents have been evacuated, state media said Sunday.Rains were expected to further pound southern China in the coming days, with rising river levels threatening towns in Jiangxi, Guangxi and Guangdong provinces, the state meteorological bureau said.According to the civil affairs ministry and provincial officials, at least 57 people have been killed and eight are missing following torrential rains in nine provinces over the past week, Xinhua news agency said.

More than 1.27 million people have been evacuated in the hardest-hit regions, with large swathes of farmland submerged and economic losses already totalling more than 10 billion yuan (1.45 billion dollars), it said.Almost 18 million people had been affected by flooding while more than 141,000 homes had been wrecked or damaged, the report added.State television showed people rowing boats in the middle of towns in flooded areas, while in rural areas farmers frantically filled sand bags in a bid to stop swollen rivers spilling their waters on to croplands.The rains have washed away roads across the nine provinces and many areas have been hit by landslides, Xinhua said.Prosperous Guangdong province was the worst affected. Rains there left at least 20 people dead, with flooding in the Pearl River delta the worst in decades, it added.The Guangdong government issued an emergency flood alert throughout the province as levels in tributaries of the Pearl River hit or were surpassing danger levels, Xinhua said.The government had dispatched 10 special boats to Changle city, one of the worst-hit areas in Guangdong, where up to 100,000 people were being evacuated.

In parts of Guangdong, up to 415 millimetres (16.6 inches) of rain fell in a 24-hour period from Friday to Saturday, Xinhua said, while the freakish weather dumped up to 451 millimetres in parts of neighboring Fujian province.Food prices, already a main driver of inflation in China, were also rising due to the flooding, with vegetable prices in some Guangdong cities up between 30 percent and 70 percent on Saturday alone, it said.In Guangxi province, which lies west of Guangdong, officials warned of rock and mudslides in mountainous areas where torrential rain has been responsible for 14 deaths since last week, Xinhua said in a separate report.A section of the Xijiang River in Guangxi burst its banks on Sunday evening, forcing the evacuation of more than 3,000 people, Xinhua said, adding there were no reports of casualties.By late Saturday, 134 roads had been blocked and 22 bridges damaged in the province, leading to jams along highways and nearly 1,500 trucks stranded, it said.

In cyclone-hit Myanmar, rain drenches children in roofless school Sat Jun 14, 10:14 PM

KAWHMU, Myanmar (AFP) - Many remain traumatised after Cyclone Nargis flattened the impoverished farming village of Mawin, which is in Kawhmu township in a remote corner of the Irrawaddy Delta only accessible by a small motorized boat.The village's brick schoolhouse was destroyed by Nargis, and a broken blackboard and a tiny Buddha statue are the only reminders that the rubble was once classrooms.Building materials are difficult to come by. All of the 275 houses clustered in this village were blown away, except the teacher Hlang Thein's. It is, however, heavily damaged, and only the wooden frame and floor were left behind.It is here where she has decided to teach the children.Hlang Thein gently admonishes a group of primary school children to carefully repeat the alphabet after her so they can wrap up the lesson before the heavy rains drench them again.Hlang Thein, in her immaculate white teacher's blouse, is trying to bring some semblance of normality back to the children in her community.But how can they not remember? We are studying in a house without a roof and walls and every time the rain comes, they get wet, Hlang Thein told AFP. Our books and notepads are still damp.The children sit on the wooden floor, and while some have managed to save their green and white uniforms when the cyclone struck in early May, many are wearing clothes donated by private relief agencies.Hlang Thein said she has to be very patient with her pupils. Many of them do not want to study until the school house is rebuilt -- and that will take time.It is here where she has decided to teach the children.I do not want them to miss any lessons, even under these conditions, she said.None of the village's 100 registered primary school pupils were injured or killed but their minds are stuck on Nargis, she said.

Myanmar's military rulers insisted that schools around Yangon open on schedule on June 2 after a long holiday, despite the cyclone that left 133,600 dead or missing, with 2.4 million people in need of food, shelter and medicine.Schools in the hardest-hit regions of the delta were given another month to open, but UNICEF says 3,000 schools were wiped out by the cyclone. About 500,000 children have no classrooms at all.In Mawin, village chief Zaw Win, 46, said little aid had arrived so far, blaming intermittent heavy rains which make it hard to navigate the narrow tributary that connects the hamlet to the nearest port upriver.The tributary itself is still littered with debris, including uprooted, centuries-old birch trees and bloated animal carcasses.This is only accessible through the river. But only small motorized boats can get through, Zaw Win said. And they are too small to carry loads of relief supplies or building materials.He said the remaining food supplies will only be enough for 90 families, leaving 1,100 more families without any rations for the next few days.The cyclone has also wreaked havoc on the fields, with the flood waters washing away what would have been a bountiful harvest in early May. Now it is between planting seasons, and while the fields are ripe for ploughing and there is enough irrigation, the rice seedlings have been spoiled.We have vast rice fields, but no rice to eat, Zaw Win said. I am asking for donors to bring rice seedlings so we can again plant in the June-July season. Rice for cooking is also very essential.There is nothing left on the fields, he said, adding that government officials and medical personnel had visited once since the cyclone struck, but despite promising more rations have not returned.Many of the other villages lying along the tributary are in the same condition. What once were houses are now just mounds of broken wood and debris.Kitchen wares, trash and plastic containers line the shore and bamboo bridges that connected communities on both sides have not been repaired.Thein's students meanwhile are distracted by a distant rumbling of thunder. The sky is dark, and she decides to call off lessons for the day.We will try to get them to sing nursery rhymes tomorrow, she said smiling, but with a concerned look in her eyes.

Heavy rains and landslides kill 14 in India's remote northeast Sat Jun 14, 10:25 AM By The Associated Press

GAUHATI, India - An official says landslides and house collapses caused by heavy rains have killed at least 14 people and injured more than 50 others in India's remote northeast. Government official Bidol Tayeng says rescue workers recovered 14 bodies today after two days of heavy rains lashed areas around Itanagar, the capital of Arunachal Pradesh state. Tayeng says the death toll is likely rise as rescue efforts continue. Monsoon rains usually hit India from June to September.

TROUBLE WITH TRACKING TOMATOES
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=8331701&ch=4226713&src=news

PROTESTS AS BUSH VISITS UK
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Bush is straight-talker, so what's EU-3? By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer Sun Jun 15, 1:28 PM ET

PARIS - President Bush is a straight-talking guy, so what's he doing talking about the EU-3? It's part of Bush diplomatic-speak. Derided by some as a cowboy during his first term, Bush is ending his presidency knee-deep in group diplomacy.Throughout his weeklong trip through Europe he's talked a lot about ways the U.S. is huddling with other countries to push for change in rival nations like North Korea and Iran, or push for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.Diplomatic rhetoric that sounds like alphabet soup is not as snazzy as statements like dead or alive — a comment he uttered after the Sept. 11 attacks about Osama bin Laden and one he later had second thoughts about saying.On Iran, there's the EU (European Union), the EU-3 (Germany, France and Britain), and if you add the United States, Russia and China, you get the EU-3 plus 3. If Italy eventually makes it into the club, it will become the EU-3 plus 4.On North Korea, it's the six-party negotiations pitting Pyongyang against South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.And don't forget the Quartet of Middle East peacemakers — the U.S., Russia, the European Union and the United Nations — all nudging Israel and the Palestinians toward a peace accord.

How can the president keep it straight, let alone have confidence that any of these thorny disputes can be resolved in the seven months he has left in office? The EU-3 is leading the charge on a diplomatic effort to try to get Iran to stop enriching uranium, a pathway to a nuclear weapon. That diplomacy, which Bush talked about throughout his trip, hit a snag Saturday when Tehran said no to a package of incentives the EU group was offering if Iran stopped enriching uranium.Expecting the rejection, Bush was working to bolster the European partners' resolve to levy stiffer sanctions on Iran. It's unlikely, however, that the nuclear standoff, which Europe fears could lead the U.S. or Israel to attack Iran, will be resolved before Bush leaves office.Bush hinted at that in Slovenia, the first stop on his farewell trip to Europe.I leave behind a multilateral framework to work this issue, Bush said. You know, one country can't solve all problems. I fully agree with that. A group of countries can send a clear message to the Iranians, and that is: We're going to continue to isolate you. We'll continue to work on sanctions. We'll find new sanctions if need be if you continue to deny the just demands of a free world.In an interview in Rome with The Observer of London, Bush said the multinational forum in place on the Iranian nuclear issue will help future presidents deal more effectively with it.I have changed the foreign policy of the United States to make it more multilateral because I understand that diplomacy without consequences is ineffective, he said. Unilateral sanctions don't work.Alan Henrikson, director of diplomatic studies at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford, Mass., said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has heavily influenced the Bush administration's current diplomatic approach.She deserves a fair amount of credit for this historic shift, but the main cause surely is that, through trial and error, the go-it-alone style of international leadership the Bush administration was offering proved that it just wasn't working, Henrikson said.The White House disagrees that Bush has ever tried to go it alone.In Afghanistan and Iraq there were large coalitions, White House press secretary Dana Perino said Saturday. That dwindled in Iraq, no doubt about it. But it didn't start out that way. That is a fact.She also said that while the six-party talks on North Korea and the EU-3-led talks on Iran took time to assemble, what we're seeing now is the wisdom of the president's vision for these diplomatic formats as they start to solidify and bear results.

John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, thinks Bush is listening too exclusively to Rice at the State Department — an agency he calls a European outpost. He suggests the problem is not any kind of unilateralism on the part of America, but Europe's unwillingness to do much of anything to stand up to external threats whether from Iran or from a newly resurgent Russia.Bolton said he thinks that for the remainder of his presidency, Bush will be focused exclusively on Iraq and Afghanistan. The rest is damage control, which is unfortunate, Bolton said. It's unclear whether Bush's successor will keep the U.S. active in these diplomatic clubs. Henrikson predicts the six-party talks on North Korea will continue beyond the Bush presidency, and might even be turned into a six-power organization for Northeast Asia, which does not have a formal multilateral-regional security structure. With regard to Iran, I would expect that (a Barack) Obama administration would adopt a more direct approach, without necessarily involving Obama himself in encounters with Iran's leadership, said Henrikson, who advocates for a U.S. ambassador in Tehran. Regardless of their outcome, Bush's willingness to join in these diplomatic huddles has helped restore U.S.-European relations, said Steve Flanagan, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' international security program in Washington. The first foreign trip Bush took in his second term, for instance, was to Brussels, base of the European Union. That was seen as an admission by the Bush administration that it might not have utilized the Atlantic alliance as effectively as it could have in the first term, Flanagan said. The pragmatism of much of the second term's foreign policy has been much more appealing to the key European governments, he said. But there are still differences that are out there and I think many of the European governments do recognize that some of these differences will persist either under an Obama or (John) McCain administration.