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Storm-force
winds leave trail of death and destruction
By Neil Tweedie and Nicole Martin
(Filed: 28/10/2002)
Seven people, among them three children, were killed yesterday
as storm-force winds brought chaos to much of Britain.
Airports and roads were closed, ferry services suspended and
power supplies to more than 100,000 homes cut as winds of up to 96mph battered
the country, causing damage of at least £50 million.
Three of the victims were killed in separate incidents in East
Anglia yesterday morning.
Christopher Vince, 12, died from head injuries after he and his
dog were crushed by an uprooted tree while walking in woods with his family near
the village of Costessey in Norfolk.
Sixty miles to the south in Felixstowe, Suffolk, a
three-year-old boy died in his pushchair when he was hit by a falling tree. His
mother drove him to hospital, but he was pronounced dead from head injuries.
Eric White, 55, was the third victim in East Anglia. He died
after being struck by a falling tree in the garden of his home in Whittington,
Norfolk.
In Shropshire, an 11-year-old girl was killed and her mother
and sister seriously injured when their car was hit by a flying branch on the
A41 near Ternhill.
The mother was airlifted to hospital with multiple injuries and
the sister treated at a separate hospital for serious head and chest injuries.
In Oxford a 22-year-old woman travelling in a people carrier
with her two young sisters died when it was hit by a falling tree.
In Wales a man was killed on the A40 near Brecon when his car
was hit by a large branch. He died before an ambulance crew could free him.
An angler swept into the sea at Portlethen, Aberdeenshire, was
the seventh victim. He was rescued and taken by RAF helicopter to hospital, but
died despite attempts to revive him.
Matthew Ware of the East Anglian Ambulance Service said: "It's
been an utterly tragic morning for us. We've had a lot of problems actually
getting to the scenes of accidents because of blocked roads."
Others had narrow escapes. Two children were rescued from the
sea by police at Salcombe, Devon, while a third was found clinging to a nearby
cliff face.
Along the coast at Lyme Regis in Dorset, Hannah Simpson, six,
was dragged to safety after a wave swept her into the water as she watched the
storm from a seafront walkway.
Also at sea, Royal Navy and RAF helicopter crews struggled for
seven hours to rescue a Spanish fisherman from a trawler caught in huge seas 170
miles west of the Scilly Isles.
The highest windspeed recorded was 96mph at Swansea in south
Wales in what the Meteorological Office described as a severe autumn storm.
The damage was particularly severe in southern England and
Wales, with fallen trees and power lines blocking roads and significant damage
done to homes, schools and factories.
Much of the transport network was thrown into confusion.
British Airways cancelled 39 flights from Heathrow and Gatwick, and another 30
flights due out of Stansted were abandoned.
The Queen Elizabeth II bridge over the Thames at Dartford was
closed, as was the Severn Bridge carrying the M48. Railway services were
cancelled as fallen trees and damaged power cables forced line closures.
Virgin Trains cancelled all services at one point, and Great
North Eastern Railways halted trains between Doncaster and London.
West Anglia Great Northern's Cambridge to London line was also
suspended. South West Trains cancelled services between London and the south
coast.
The Port of Dover was closed and ferry services cancelled as
winds in the English Channel gusted up to 90mph. In Portsmouth the Navy's newest
warship, the frigate St Albans, was seriously damaged when it was hit by a P & O
ferry blown off course.
In the Isle of Man lifeboats and tugs were called to stop a
barge with 89 people on board drifting towards the shore in high seas.
Hundreds of passengers were stranded for much of the day when
the ferry Admiral of Scandinavia from Cuxhaven, found itself unable to dock at
Harwich. Another ferry from Denmark was also forced to ride out the storm at
sea.
The leisure industry was also badly hit. Alton Towers in
Staffordshire and Chessington World of Adventures in Surrey were among
attractions closed because of safety fears. Sporting fixtures such as the
Aintree race meeting in Liverpool were also cancelled.
In Devon police expressed anger at the recklessness of people
who waded into raging seas to recover pine planks jettisoned by a Cypriot
freighter in an effort to prevent it capsizing.
HOME
US sends
troops to Ivory Coast
By Tim Butcher Africa Correspondent
(Filed: 25/09/2002)
Washington sent troops to the Ivory Coast last night to help in the rescue of
scores of American teenagers at a missionary school caught up
in vicious fighting.
Students cowered on the ground as heavy machine gun fire flew overhead in
exchanges that lasted all day between troops loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo
and well-armed rebels.
"We are in a state of emergency here and I am sorry but I cannot take a call at
this moment," a young and very scared female voice told The Telegraph last night
by telephone. Before the line went dead, gunfire could be heard in the distance.
Armed rebels had earlier entered the campus of the International Christian
Academy in the mainly Muslim town of Bouake. The Pentagon committed the 200
special forces troops after an urgent request for assistance from Arlene Render,
the US ambassador to the Ivory Coast.
There are about 170 American students at the school and another dozen US
teachers and staff. The US forces, drawn mainly from bases in Europe, flew to
the region last night to join a specialist State Department evacuation team
already there.
They will work alongside a
French expeditionary force of about 400 men in armoured vehicles and
protected by light tanks that is camped about 60 miles from Bouake.
Fighting has claimed about 300 lives so far in the Ivory Coast after violent
clashes between loyalist troops and former soldiers.
The deployment is America's largest to Africa since its doomed mission to
Somalia in support of United Nations humanitarian relief efforts.
24 September 2002: French close in on Ivory Coast rebels
23 September 2002: French fight Ivorian rebels
20 September 2002: Ex-ruler is killed in coup attempt
Previous story:
Hindu temple gun battle after 29 are killed in raid
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Next story:
Rolling Stone wants ramblers to fade away
Earthquake rocks Midlands
and Wales
Submitted By:mark
Click for Source Article
The largest earthquake to hit Britain for 10 years has struck large parts
of England and Wales triggering at least one aftershock.
The quake, which measured 4.8 on the Richter scale, hit at 12.54am. The
aftershock, which measured 2.7, struck at 4.32am. Both tremors had their
epicentres "right under the city of Birmingham" and people as far apart as
south and west Wales, Northamptonshire, south Yorkshire and Oxfordshire
felt the main quake, which shook homes, broke windows and set off alarms.
Emergency services across the region were deluged with calls, but there
were no reports of serious injury. Glenn Ford of the British Geological
Survey (BGS) said the earthquake reached 4.8 on the Richter scale. "It's
an extremely large earthquake in UK terms but not large in world terms -
we'd only classify it as a light earthquake.
"This would have been right under the city of Birmingham itself and we've
already had reports of the fire brigade being called out to fallen
chimneys." The earthquake would have lasted for at least 10-15 seconds, he
said. The BGS has only registered one tremor and one aftershock
HOME
Sept.16,
2002
No End in Sight to War in Chechnya
Submitted By:todd
Click for Source Article
As the war in Chechnya enters its fourth year, little has changed in the
conflict except the steadily rising Russian death toll.
While Moscow has long held nominal control over most of Chechnya, it has failed
to restore the rule of law. It refuses to negotiate with the rebels on their
independence demands, and now the military wants to widen the war by going after
Chechen rebels in neighboring Georgia.
"The tragedy is that the federal government with its policies has reached a dead
end and can't back down," said Dzhabrail Gakayev, a Chechen historian and
prominent member of Moscow's Chechen community.
Last month's downing by rebels of a military helicopter, in which 119 people
were killed, highlighted Russia's vulnerability. Intense clashes lasting several
days have erupted throughout the region this summer, along with hit-and-run
attacks and land mines. Sometimes a dozen Russians die in a single day.
The stepped-up attacks appear to be an effort by rebel President Aslan Maskhadov
to force the Kremlin into talks. Analysts say Maskhadov coordinates the actions
of many, though not all, of the motley rebel bands. His envoy, Akhmed Zakayev,
and Ivan Rybkin, a former chief of Russia's Security Council, met last month in
an attempt to prod the government into negotiations.
But Russian officials consider Maskhadov a criminal unfit to hold power.
President Vladimir Putin has insisted that the only issue open to negotiation is
the disarming of the rebels. The rebels look willing and able to fight on
indefinitely.
"It's inevitable that Chechnya will be independent. It's just a problem of how
long the war will continue," said Pavel Felgenhauer, a Moscow-based military
analyst. "In a year or two, Russia will totally run out of resources to fight
this war and will have to withdraw."
Russians have been at odds with the Chechens since czarist times. After World
War II, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin deported them en masse to the Kazakh
steppe, falsely accusing them of collaborating with the Nazis.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, and fearful that separatist movements
would crumble its frontiers, the Kremlin sent the military into the poor,
Connecticut-sized territory of more than a million people, mostly Muslims. A
three-year war ensued to rein in Chechen separatists. The military returned in
September 1999, this time aiming to quell rampant crime and extremism that
threatened to spread into Russia.
Since then, 4,405 Russian servicemen have been killed and 12,530 wounded, not
including the helicopter crash victims, according to official figures cited by
the Interfax news agency this month. There are no reliable figures for
casualties among rebels or civilians, though human rights organizations say
thousands of Chechen noncombatants have died.
Suspicious that the rebels are aided by the local population, many servicemen
make no distinction between fighters and civilians.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said this spring that it had documented 80
disappearances of Chechen civilians in 2001 alone. In one case described as
typical, masked men burst into a villager's home, accusing him of being a rebel.
They threw him into a jeep and his family hasn't heard from him since.
Such abuses swell the rebel ranks, says historian Gakayev.
A minority of the militants are fighting for independence or radical Islam, but
most "took up arms because of the havoc that federal forces created there," he
said. "This is a real war of vengeance."
The Russian military, meanwhile, feels little public pressure to withdraw.
In contrast to the previous war in Chechnya, this one has failed to evoke
indignation among Russians. The public seldom hears the bad news from Chechnya,
Russian losses aren't regularly disclosed and major media report only the
deadliest attacks. The government makes it virtually impossible for journalists
to work in Chechnya except in close coordination with the military. The media
are banned from reporting interviews with rebels.
Now the military seems eager to open a new front in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge,
just over the border from Chechnya. Russia says Georgian authorities have let
rebels shelter in the gorge and cross back into Chechnya unimpeded. Georgia sent
troops after them, but Russian politicians express doubt that it can root out
the rebels.
Georgian officials have rejected Russian offers of help and have accused Moscow
of bombing villages in the gorge, killing a civilian. Russia denies it.
Meanwhile, Chechnya's Kremlin-appointed administration says it is planning for a
constitutional referendum early next year to pave the way for elections of a
president and parliament.
But Aslambek Aslakhanov, who represents Chechnya in the Russian parliament,
maintains that real peace must come before elections. He is promoting a plan for
negotiations between the rebels and Chechen community leaders who have managed
to remain above the fray. Ultimately, Chechnya should be given a special status
within Russia, he said.
"To even talk about holding elections now is to show disrespect to the
unfortunate people who are suffering, who every day are searching for their
children," Aslakhanov said. "We need peace first, so that people can move freely
and the media can work without censorship of the truth."
HOME
Sept.15, 2002
CDC: Ten More Deaths From West
Nile
Submitted By:todd
Click for Source Article
Ten more people have died from the West Nile virus this year, bringing the total
to 64, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
Four of the most recently reported deaths were in Michigan and three were in
Illinois. Mississippi, Missouri and Nebraska had one death each.
Those figures don't include two deaths in Massachusetts and one in Pennsylvania
reported by state health officials Friday.
The CDC on Friday reported 1,438 cases of West Nile infection in 30 states and
the District of Columbia.
The virus causes flu-like symptoms and sometimes swelling of the brain, although
most people bitten by an infected bug never get sick. The virus is most
dangerous for the elderly and people with weak immune systems.
West Nile is common in Africa and the Middle East, but didn't appear in North
America until 1999 in New York. The virus this summer spread to the West Coast,
with one case in California.
HOME
Vermont
Senator Wants Study of Terror Link to West Nile Virus
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
 ASHINGTON,
Sept. 12 Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, said today that the
authorities should examine whether the spread of the West Nile virus in this
country is a result of biological terrorism.
"I think we have to ask ourselves: Is it a coincidence that we are seeing such
an increase in West Nile virus, or is that something that is being tested as a
biological weapon against us?" Mr. Leahy, who is chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Committee, said in a radio interview in Waterbury, Vt. "There are some
people, credibly, who feel that it is a test of our defenses and is a biological
weapon or somebody doing this for commercial purposes."
A 2000 report from the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee examined the
possibility that the West Nile virus could be bioterrorism. An article in The
New Yorker magazine the year before cited a book by a supposed Iraqi defector
who claimed that President Saddam Hussein might have developed a lethal strain
of the virus to use as a weapon.
Law enforcement and public health officials dismissed the theory. "Our research
up until this point has not indicated that this is anything other than a natural
evolution" of a virus that follows the migratory patterns of mosquitoes and
birds, said Rhonda Smith, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
When pressed later in Washington to elaborate on his statement, Mr. Leahy said:
"In the times in which we live, questions about our vulnerabilities are
unavoidable, and finding all the answers we can is more important than ever. I
have no way of knowing what the answers are, but some legitimate questions have
been asked, especially before Sept. 11 last year, and no doubt they are being
asked anew by the agencies that are working on this."
Last November federal investigators discovered a letter addressed to Mr. Leahy
that contained anthrax spores identical to those received by Senator Tom
Daschle, the Democratic leader from South Dakota.
West Nile virus is spread by the bite of an infected mosquito. Most people
suffer only mild symptoms, but the infection can result in severe and sometimes
fatal illness, particularly among the elderly or people with impaired immune
systems.
In the United States, 1,295 are known to have contracted the disease, and 54
have died. The virus has been detected in more than 30 states.
HOME
August
29, 2002
Mass
starvation threatens southern Africa, officials say
Submitted By:todd
Click for Source Article
As many as 300,000 people in southern Africa could die from preventable diseases
in the next six months if hunger and malnutrition are not addressed, health
officials warned Tuesday.
Disease and declining health services have made the lack of food faced by 14
million people across southern Africa the region's worst humanitarian crisis,
said Gro-Harlem Brundtland, head of the World Health Organization.
"A famine is about health. Food shortages are followed by illness ... food aid
must combined with health services," she told a meeting of regional and
international health officials in Harare.
HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases have increased the risk
of death in vulnerable, impoverished groups suffering from malnutrition, she
said.
The meeting of officials from U.N. agencies and 10 regional governments ends
Wednesday. Most officials are scheduled to travel on to the World Summit on
Sustainable Development in neighboring South Africa.
Carol Bellamy, head of the U.N. Children's Fund, said AIDS and the recruitment
of health professionals by countries outside the region drained already weakened
health services.
In areas where up to a third of all adults were infected with the virus that
causes AIDS, "young girls are selling themselves for shelter and food," she
said.
"Whenever the word food comes up, it is difficult to get anyone to focus on
anything but food. Our new crisis is far deeper. The implications of what we are
confronting are enormous," she said.
In Zimbabwe alone, nearly half of the country's 12.5 million need immediate help
in getting enough food.
Health Minister David Parirenyatwa said the hungry included 1.6 million children
under the age of 5.
Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since attaining independence in
1980. As a result, health services are having shortages in personnel, drugs and
money needed for new equipment and medication.
Relief agencies have blamed acute food shortages on political violence and the
often violent seizures of white-owned farms in the agriculture-based economy in
the past two years, along with drought.
Western aid and investment have dried up and revenue generated from tobacco and
tourism has dropped.
Parirenyatwa blamed the food shortages on bad weather and economic factors.
"The situation is completely different from what you hear outside. It is
exaggerated" in a Western propaganda campaign against Zimbabwe, he said.
HOME
August
27, 2002
Horseback
'Jesus' gathers his flock
Submitted By:todd
Click for Source Article
Thousands of pilgrims have converged on the hamlet of Petropavlovka, deep in the
Siberian tundra, to hear the annual sermon by a 41-year-old former traffic
policeman whom they believe to be Jesus.
Sergei Torop, known to his followers as Vissarion, has descended on horseback
for the occasion from the mountain log cabin that he shares with his wife and
six children, near Petropavlovka in the republic of Khakassia, near the
Siberian-Mongolian border.
Dressed in flowing red velvet robes and sporting long dark hair, Vissarion has
appeared before his growing band of followers every year on the anniversary of
his revelation in 1989 that he was Christ returned.
More than 4000 followers have travelled from all over the former Soviet Union,
and some as far away as Australia, to listen to his sermon and be baptised in
the river that runs by Petropavlovka.
Vissarion leads one of the largest and most remote religious communities in the
world. His most dedicated followers have been drawn from about 40 hamlets in
southern Siberia, where his name is spoken in hushed tones and his image hangs
in thousands of homes. Vissarion's preaching appeals directly to nationalist
instincts and to those who long for a return to past ways of life lost on a wave
of change.
His most loyal followers have abandoned modern life. A core of several hundred
have built log huts and yurts in an area outside Petropavlovka that they have
named Sonsiya Gorod (Sun City).
No drinking, swearing or smoking is allowed, and there is little contact with
the outside world.
RELATED ARTICLE:
JESUS OF SIBERIA
HOME
August
24, 2002
How Christianity is being replaced by 'green'
religion, goddess worship, globalism
Submitted By:
Click for Source Article
Relentless attacks on America's Christian churches not just from without, but
from within which are steadily remolding institutionalized Christianity to
serve a new, non-Christian, globalist agenda, are the focus of August's
eye-opening edition of WorldNetDaily's popular monthly Whistleblower magazine.
For years, Christians have stood by helplessly as their once-dominant religion
has been increasingly scoffed at, marginalized and demonized. They have watched
a dizzying succession of outrageous court decisions outlawing the 10
Commandments in schools and courtrooms, forbidding acknowledgement of God in
graduation speeches, and most recently, declaring public recitation of the
Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional.
And they have reeled at prosecutions that criminalize conscientious Christians,
such as that of the Canadian printer fined $5,000 for refusing to print
materials for a "gay rights" group. Or the shocking revelation that the Swedish
parliament is pushing to amend that country's constitution to ban speech or
writing opposing homosexuality even within churches themselves violations of
which could result in prison sentences.
But while these are the conflict's familiar flashpoints, the real fight lies
elsewhere. Indeed, the biggest war of all is that raging within the churches
themselves.
The Catholic Church's devastating clergy sex scandal with its seemingly
endless revelations of predatory homosexual priests molesting boys, and the
stunning failure of their superiors to put a stop to it is the tip of the
iceberg. As August's Whistleblower shows, the fierce battle for control, not
only of the Catholic Church, but of many of the mainline Protestant
denominations as well, is the real story.
The combatants range from the familiar front-line storm troopers homosexual
activists, ACLU lawyers, atheists to the exotic environmentalists, the
United Nations, globalists, New Agers, witches, occultists and many others
almost too strange to believe. But all are engaged in an ultimate fight a
battle to the death, winner takes all for control of the major institutions of
the Christian religion.
"America is rapidly changing from the jewel of Judeo-Christian Western
Civilization to a screaming babel of wild religious movements, each more wacky
than the next, and all animated by rebellion against the religion and values
upon which America was founded, and which made it the greatest nation in world
history," said WND Editor and CEO Joseph Farah.
And just what, exactly, is attempting to replace Christianity as the dominant
religion in America?
Superficially, it appears to be just a freak show, ranging from the seemingly
harmless "Entertainment Paganism" ("Dungeons and Dragons," "white witchcraft,"
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Witchblade") to "Teen Cult Paganism" (teens in
Gothic drag, freaky hair colors, tattoos, body piercing, "body art," black garb,
studs and chains) to "Ecology Theology" (free-form sexual morality, "gaia"
worship, native spirituality rituals) to the wide-ranging "New Age Movement"
(believes humankind is on the cusp of a new dawn, beginning new phase in
evolutionary history) to "Dark Paganism" (believes there's no such thing as
"evil," and that destruction and death are forms of beauty) to "Wicca"
(witchcraft is reportedly the fastest growing religion in Australia) and
"Satanism" (consciously acknowledges Satan as master, and seeks power to corrupt
all things, especially Christianity).
But that's only the surface. As WND reveals in this issue of Whistleblower, the
paganization of America's churches already well under way is consciously
intended to usher in a "new age" of global government, with the United Nations
as the global "brain" of a new world order.
And no, this is not conspiracy stuff. It's real and it's happening now.
A new world religion
This "new" religious worldview is sugar-coated with high-minded and universal
ideals of environmental protection and species preservation, but the ultimate
agenda behind the movement is much darker.
The ultimate purpose of "green religion" is to convince the people of the world
to embrace world governance which for a free nation like America represents a
massive loss of national sovereignty and personal freedom for the supposed
sake of Mother Earth ("gaia") and the environment. After all, it is a lot easier
to administer world government if all people believe it represents their
salvation, rather than tyranny.
How is this to be accomplished? To begin with, assign new names to old demons.
What once was called "paganism" has been renamed and assigned a new
respectability as the "gaia hypothesis." The once-hated idea of world government
has been renamed "global governance." The concept of national sovereignty is
eroding and transmuting into the concept of "sovereign equality."
"The vanguard of this movement," explains Henry Lamb in "The rise of global
green religion," "people like James Parks Morton, James Lovelock, Robert Muller,
Al Gore, Timothy Wirth and many, many others, have been 'enlightened' through
their biocentric belief in gaia" the belief that the earth itself is a
conscious, living organism "and therefore they know what is best for the
planet. They also know that the only way to protect the sacred gaia is to
control the people who are degrading her. The only way to control the people is
through an omnipotent government that is, at this moment, consolidating its
power into an ever-growing bureaucracy, now stretching around the globe,
extending its tentacles into every corner of human life, creating de facto
global governance."
And guess what? Not only has this new "enlightened" worldview permeated Western
schools and governments, but America's Christian churches themselves also are
rapidly being converted to this new religious paradigm.
Most Americans have no idea this is happening. Many don't want to know. And yet,
Americans are the only power on earth strong enough to prevent global governance
from taking control of the entire planet.
HOME
August
24, 2002
GEORGIA SCHOOL BOARD REQUIRES BALANCE OF EVOLUTION AND BIBLE
The New York Times reports: "After an angry debate among parents, Georgia's
second-largest school district adopted a policy last night that requires
teachers to give a 'balanced education' about the origin of life, giving equal
weight to evolution and biblical interpretations.The district, Cobb County, had
already come under attack this summer for attaching disclaimers to all science
textbooks, saying that evolution 'is a theory, not a fact,' and should be
'approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.' On
Wednesday, a parent and the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties
Union filed a lawsuit demanding that the disclaimers be removed. Yesterday, they
vowed to amend the suit to ask the court to reverse the new policy.Board members
said they were not restricting the teaching of evolution or encouraging the
teaching of creationism. The policy, they said, was simply a reflection of the
district's philosophy of teaching a wide and objective range of ideas,
particularly in discussing 'disputed views of academic subjects, including the
origin of species.'
"
HOME
July 18, 2002
Poll: 53% of Israelis want third temple
Over half of all Israeli Jews would like to see the building of a third temple,
according to a survey commissioned by the Reform movement's Israel Religious
Action Center.
The survey was commissioned for Tisha Be'av, which falls today. The fast, which
marks the destruction of the First and Second Temples, ends tonight at 8:16 p.m.
According to the survey, conducted by the Dahaf Institute, a total of 53 percent
of the 775 people queried said that they would like a third temple erected on
the Temple Mount.
These included some 87% of religious and haredi respondents and 64% of those who
described themselves as traditional, but it also included 63% of respondents
from the former Soviet Union, as well as most of those of Middle Eastern origin
and those of Western origin aged 18 to 35. Only among older respondents of
Western origin did a majority, 53%, not want to see the Temple rebuilt.
At the same time, 55% of the respondents said that the present arrangement on
the Temple Mount, according to which public Jewish prayer is not permitted,
should remain in force.
As for the fast day itself, 64% of the respondents said that they did not
observe Tisha Be'av in any particular manner and 29% said they fasted. However,
72% favor the closure of places of entertainment on the fast day.
HOME
July 21, 2002
GIANT HAILSTONES KILL 15 IN CENTRAL CHINA
Reuters reports: A downpour of giant hailstones, some the size of eggs, killed
15 people and left hospitals overflowing with head-wound victims in central
China, state media and local officials said on Saturday.The hailstorm, with
winds of up to Force Eight, struck northern parts of Henan province on Friday
evening, uprooting trees, smashing car windscreens, cutting off electricity and
destroying buildings, they said.Locals described it as the worst hailstorm in at
least half a century, state radio said. Television news showed pictures of a
gutted petrol station, uprooted trees and victims being loaded into
ambulances.The violent hailstorm only lasted for half an hour but by the time it
had finished, all the ambulances in the cities of Zhengzhou and Luoyang had been
called out and emergency rooms were soon crammed full of people with head
gashes, the radio said.An official in the Zhengzhou city government contacted by
telephone said the death toll of 15 was only for cities in the affected area
along the south bank of the Yellow River.About 10 people were killed on the
spot, he said. Some more were seriously wounded and may have died in
hospital.
HOME
June 6, 2002
Upcoming Eclipses
Here is a summary of upcoming solar and lunar eclipses.
By Paul Deans
The following is a brief summary of the upcoming eclipses
of the sun and Moon. More details will appear on the Web site and in Sky &
Telescope magazine as the date of each eclipse draws near. All times are in
Universal Time (UT).
June 10, 2002:
An annular solar eclipse, centered on 23:44 UT and visible at sunset just south
of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
June 24, 2002:
A shallow penumbral lunar eclipse, centered on 21:27 UT that will be very
difficult to detect as the Moon barely grazes the southern edge of the Earth's
penumbra.
November 20, 2002:
The third (and best) penumbral eclipse of the year, centered on 1:46 UT and
visible from the Americas, Europe, and Africa. The northern limb of the Moon
passes very close to the Earth's umbra.
December 4, 2002:
A total solar eclipse, centered on 7:31 UT and visible from southern Africa
(beginning) and south-central Australia (end). The maximum length of totality is
2 minutes 4 seconds (southeast of Madagascar).
May 16, 2003:
A total lunar eclipse, centered on 03:40 UT and visible from the Americas,
Europe, and Africa. Totality lasts approximately 53 minutes. May 31, 2003:
An annular solar eclipse, centered on 04:08 UT and visible from northern Europe,
Russia, and northern North America. November 9, 2003:
A total lunar eclipse, centered on 01:18 UT and visible from Europe, Africa, and
the Americas. November 23, 2003:
A total solar eclipse, centered on 22:49 UT and visible from Antarctica. It has
been a while since North America experienced a total eclipse of the Sun. A map
at the NASA/GODDARD
Eclipse Home Page shows the path of the next North American total solar
eclipse on August 21, 2017, as well as future eclipse paths through 2050.
Sky & Telescope associate editor Paul Deans has witnessed five total solar
eclipses and is anxiously looking forward to seeing more.
verses for story: "There will be signs in the sun, moon
and stars."
Luke 21:25
"The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give
its light"
Mark 13:24
commentary:
I see these eclipses as a warning
of what God is going to do during the tribulation which Mark 13:24 describes.
They are just a taste of what is to come when the judgments from God are cast
down on mankind .So wake up people for your redemption draws near! God is
constantly giving us signs. They are all around us. God is cornering us. Alls we
have to do is pick up a bible and start reading it. The pestilence that is
spreading hear in the U.S. is getting epidemic, soon we won't even be able to go
camping or play outside without contracting the West Nile virus, the worrying is
already here. This is only the tip of the iceberg.
"There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great
signs from heaven."Luke 21:11 These are all signs of the end of the age and
the return of Jesus to save his believers from the calamities to come and set up
his kingdom on earth after the tribulation. So now is not a time to be
afraid....concerned perhaps, but we must rejoice in the fact that our Savior
draws near!
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