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Archive for May, 2011

Salafi Clerics in Egypt Express Hatred Toward Christians on TV; Military-Salafi Relations in Egypt Raise Questions

05/12/2011 Leave a comment

By Kristen Chick – “The deadly clashes between Muslims and Christians in Cairo this weekend have heightened already growing concern about the role of fundamentalist Muslims known as Salafis in post-revolution Egypt…

‘They don’t want Christians in Egypt. They want an Islamic state,’ said a woman who gave her name as Mona at a Christian protest Monday against the weekend violence…

They practice what they believe to be the purest form of Islam, and are primarily concerned with living their lives according to such teaching, and not with politics, says Diaa Rashwan, an expert on Islamist groups at the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. He describes Egyptian Salafis as ‘in this middle place between jihadists like Osama bin Laden and political Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood.’

… Al Qaeda’s members follow a form of Salafism, but Egyptian Salafi clerics say that unlike the global terrorist group they have renounced violence. Yet Salafi clerics on television have railed hatefully against Christianity, and in March a Christian man in Qena said Salafists cut off his ear after accusing him of renting an apartment to a prostitute.”  Read more.

Military-Salafi relations in Egypt raise questions – “As sectarian violence blamed on hard-line Salafi Muslims continues to rise, many are voicing sharp criticism of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and its transitional cabinet, accusing them of failing to apply the law so far as radicals are concerned.” Read more.

Categories: Radical Islam Tags:

Worst Drought in 50 Years: 400,000 Without Drinking Water in China, Yangtze River Too Dry for Ships

05/12/2011 11 comments

By Tom McGregor – “The longest waterway in Asia, the Yangtze River, which is China’s most important shipping route, has been shut down by the worst drought in 50 years that has kept cargo ships stranded and 400,000 people without drinking water.

The Daily Telegraph of London reports that, ‘water-levels have sunk as low as 10 ft. in the main thoroughfare of the 3,900 mile long river that stretches from the glaciers of the Tibetan plateaus to the coastal city of Shanghai.’

The Yangtze River basin is home to 1/3 of China’s population and is responsible for 40 percent of the nation’s economic growth.” Read more.

Categories: Famines and Crop Destruction, Natural Disasters

Scientists Discover Bedbugs Carrying a Staph ‘Superbug’ In Study

05/12/2011 1 comment

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — Hate insects? Afraid of germs? Researchers are reporting an alarming combination: bedbugs carrying a staph ‘superbug.’

Canadian scientists detected drug-resistant staph bacteria in bedbugs from three hospital patients from a downtrodden Vancouver neighborhood…

Five bedbugs were crushed and analyzed. MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, was found on three bugs. MRSA is resistant to several types of common antibiotics and can become deadly if it gets through the skin and into the bloodstream.” Read more.

Categories: Pestilence Tags: ,

Greater than Expected Damage Seen at Japan Reactor

05/12/2011 Leave a comment

By MARI YAMAGUCHI – “TOKYO (AP) — One of the reactor cores at Japan’s crippled nuclear power plant has been damaged more severely than originally thought, officials said Thursday, in a serious setback for efforts to stabilize the radiation-leaking complex.

The new findings followed repairs to monitoring equipment, which also showed that the water level in the core of Unit 1 at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant is much lower than previously thought, totally exposing remaining fuel rods and pointing to a greater-than-expected leak in the chamber.”  Read more.


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DAMAGED JAPANESE POWER STATION HAS NEW RADIOACTIVE LEAK – “(AGI) Tokyo – Reactor 3 at the damaged Fukushima nuclear power station is leaking, a TEPCo spokesman announced. It is not confirmed whether the radioactive water has gone from the holding tank into the ocean. TEPCO, the company that manages the power station, is conducting tests. A similar leak happened last month at Reactor 2 and was plugged with a mixture.” Source.

Categories: Man-Made Disasters Tags:

‘Unnerving’ Rumble in Virginia Beach a Mystery, NASA Says May Be Possible Meteor

05/12/2011 Leave a comment

By Kristin Davis, Lauren King, Meredith Kruse – “We may only ever know it as The Night the Earth Rattled.

The seconds-long reverberation at approximately 7:20 p.m. Tuesday sent neighbors to porches, piqued slumbering pets and launched a thousand theories. But nobody can say for sure what it was – not police or seismologists or meteorologists or NASA or Oceana Naval Air Station or the Virginia National Guard.

‘No clue,’ said Scott Mohr, a spokesman for Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story.

People reported feeling it from Suffolk to Newport News to the Eastern Shore and beyond. The intensity of the grumble was perhaps greatest in Virginia Beach, where five calls came in to 911 and firefighters set out in search of the source of an explosion.

None was found, said Lori Stiles, communications operations manager for the city. She felt it, too, from her home in Dam Neck, a sensation like that of an approaching storm that caused the house to creak.”  Read more.

Meteor likely caused mysterious boom – “VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) – Virginia Beach is a city full of sound. Waves crash at the Oceanfront and fighter jets scream overhead. However, a boom Tuesday night caught hundreds of normally unfazed residents from Virginia Beach to the Eastern Shore completely off-guard. ‘It shook my house,’ said one man.” Read more.

Categories: Anything Else, Cosmic Craziness Tags:

New Eruption Started at Mount Etna in Italy

05/11/2011 Leave a comment

“This just came in via Dr. Boris Behncke (on Twitter) – after some signs such as increasing seismicity that activity was about to start on Etna, sure enough, the volcano has begun to erupt again (see below). The volcano has been sputtering earlier in the week with abundant steam/ash plumes and some strombolian explosions (top left) in the southeast pit crater. You can check out the Etna webcams to glimpse the action. Look for updates on the activity at the Etna Observatory.”  Source.

Categories: Natural Disasters Tags:

(Updated with Video) – At Least Ten Killed as Shallow 5.1 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Southern Spain

05/11/2011 3 comments

“An earthquake measuring 5.3 hit a town in southeast Spain today causing houses to collapse, damaging historic churches and killing at least six people.

Some reports said that the rare earthquake in Lorca, sent tremors through the region of Murcia and had affected a nursing home and the tower of an important church in the town which is dependent on farming.

The large quake struck the community on Wednesday evening, two hours after a moderate 4.7 earthquake hit the town.

‘Unfortunately, we can confirm … deaths due to cave-ins and falling debris,’ the mayor of Lorca, Francisco Jodar, told radio station Ser.

‘We’re trying to find out if there are people inside the collapsed houses.'”  Read more.

Update:  AFP reports quake has been reduced to 5.1 but has now killed 10 people and caused widespread damage.


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Categories: Earthquakes Tags:

Islamic Extremists Target Christian Village in Nigeria, Pastor’s Wife and Children Among Those Killed

05/11/2011 Leave a comment

“KURUM, Nigeria, May 10 (CDN) — As she lay on the ground after being shot and then slashed with a machete, Dune James Rike looked into her husband’s tear-filled eyes and asked, ‘Is this the end between us, so we shall not be together again?’

Pastor James Musa Rike told Compass he held the hands of his dying, 35-year-old wife and told her, ‘Hold on to your faith in Jesus, and we shall meet and never part again.’

Muslim extremists who attacked Kurum village, in the Bogoro local government area of Nigeria’s Bauchi state, had already killed two of the couple’s children in a rampage that began Wednesday (May 4) at midnight. Rike, pastor of a Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) congregation in Kurum, next heard the cries of his 13-year-old daughter, Sum James Rike, a few yards away.”  Read more.

Categories: Radical Islam, Wars and Rumors of War Tags:

Egypt: Situation Deteriorating Badly and Rapidly, Muslim Leaders Want Islamic State

05/11/2011 Leave a comment

“In the wake of bloody Muslim attacks on Egyptian Christians, the New York Times informs us:

‘By lifting the heavy hand of the Mubarak police state, the revolution unleashed long-suppressed sectarian animosities that have burst out with increasing ferocity….’

No kidding! Did you think a single Egyptian Christian didn’t know this in February? Why didn’t the media report or the U.S. government understand that this was absolutely inevitable and predictable? But the only mentions of Christians were to claim that they were really enthusiastic about the revolution.

The remaining Christians in most of the Arabic-speaking world may be on the edge of flight or extinction. All of the Christians have left the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip which is, in effect, an Islamist republic. They are leaving the West Bank. Half have departed from an increasingly Islamist-oriented Iraq where they are under terrorist attack. Within a few years they might all be gone.”  Read more.

Muslim leaders: We want an Islamic state – “‘God’s words must rule and Islam must be in the hearts of the citizens,’ said Jama’a al-Islamiya spokesman Osama Hafez. ‘The Islamic movements are uniting, despite their different ideologies, because they feel Islam is threatened,’ said Muslim Brotherhood lawyer Montasser al-Zayat.”  Read more.

Categories: Radical Islam, Wars and Rumors of War Tags:

Crab Nebula’s Gamma-Ray Flare Mystifies Astronomers

05/11/2011 Leave a comment

By Jason Palmer – “The Crab Nebula has shocked astronomers by emitting an unprecedented blast of gamma rays, the highest-energy light in the Universe.

The cause of the 12 April gamma-ray flare, described at the Third Fermi Symposium in Rome, is a total mystery.

It seems to have come from a small area of the famous nebula, which is the wreckage from an exploded star.

The object has long been considered a steady source of light, but the Fermi telescope hints at greater activity.

The gamma-ray emission lasted for some six days, hitting levels 30 times higher than normal and varying at times from hour to hour.”  Read more.

Categories: Cosmic Craziness Tags:

Hamas Reiterates Prior to Unity Gov’t: They Will Never Recognize Israel, Israel Must be Destroyed

05/11/2011 Leave a comment

“Hamas would be willing to accept a Palestinian state within 1967 borders, a leader of the militant group, Mahmoud Zahar, told the Palestinian news agency Ma’an on Wednesday, adding, however, that Hamas would never recognize Israel since such a move would counter the group’s aim to ‘liberate’ all of Palestine.

Zahar’s comments come amid Palestinian efforts to form a unity government that would include former rivals Fatah and Hamas, following a reconciliation agreement the two factions signed last week in Cairo.

Speaking to Ma’an on Wednesday, Zahar, hinting at the possible political line of a future Palestinian unity cabinet, said that recognizing Israel would ‘preclude the right of the next generations to liberate the lands,’ wondering: ‘What will be the fate of the five million Palestinians in the diaspora?'”  Read more.

Categories: Radical Islam Tags: , , ,

Al Qaeda Promises America: ‘What is Coming is Greater and Worse’

05/11/2011 Leave a comment

Breitbart – “Al-Qaeda’s supremo in Yemen — Osama bin Laden’s ancestral homeland — has warned Americans of a bloodier jihadist struggle to come following the terror mastermind’s killing by US commandos…

AQAP leader Nasir al-Wahishi said in a statement posted on an Islamist website that the ’ember of jihad (holy war) is brighter’ following the May 2 death of bin Laden, according to the SITE monitoring group Wednesday.

The Yemen-based fugitive warned Americans not to fool themselves that the ‘matter will be over’ with the killing of bin Laden, the Saudi-born architect of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

‘Do not think of the battle superficially … What is coming is greater and worse, and what is awaiting you is more intense and harmful,’ Wahishi said, according to a SITE translation.”  Read more.

Al Qaeda Leader Vows Revenge So Fierce That U.S. Will Miss Osama Bin Laden – “A leader of the al Qaeda offshoot that U.S. officials have called the greatest threat to the U.S. vowed in a message posted on Islamist websites Wednesday to take revenge against the U.S. for the death of Osama bin Laden, saying that jihad would only intensify and that Americans would come to ‘wish for the days of Osama.'” Read more.

Categories: Radical Islam, Wars and Rumors of War Tags: ,