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Archive for May, 2011

New Al-Qaeda Chief Promising a Major Attack in London to Avenge Death of Bin Laden

05/21/2011 Leave a comment

By NICK PARKER – “AL-QAEDA’S new leader has vowed to launch a devastating terror blitz on London to avenge Osama Bin Laden’s death.

Saif al-Adel, 51, is determined to make Britain and the US pay, Taliban chiefs revealed yesterday.

The fanatic warns that London will be the first to face a new 7/7 atrocity because terrorist cells are already in place waiting for orders to strike.

The threat emerged after a summit meeting of Taliban and al-Qaeda chiefs near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.” Read more.

Drought in US, EU Stressing Crops and Farmers

05/21/2011 Leave a comment

By Marie Maitre and Karl Plume – “PARIS/CHICAGO — Drought from Paris, France to Paris, Texas has farmers and grain dealers looking upwards. The farmers are looking to the skies for rain and the dealers are wondering where rising grain prices are going to stop.

U.S. wheat prices are on their way to their biggest weekly gain and European benchmark wheat futures have jumped just under 30 percent in the past nine weeks as wheat belts on both sides of the Atlantic show signs of irreversible drought damage.

‘We need Mother Nature’s help to save a crop, which whatever happens will be mediocre,’ said a senior European trader, referring to France, the EU’s biggest wheat producer.

An unusually dry and hot spring in top EU wheat producers and severe dryness in U.S. states Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma, have revived memories of the dry summer of 2010, which ravaged Russian and Ukrainian wheat harvests and choked off supplies from the key exporters.” Read more.

Yellowstone National Park is Moving

05/21/2011 2 comments

By Brent Hunsaker – “Yellowstone sits atop one of the world’s biggest, active volcanoes, one capable of laying waste to much of north America.

… Professor Emeritus Robert Smith of the University of Utah … says the park is in constant motion. Visitors can’t see it, but the ground at their feet is moving up and down as magma pushes against the thin crust and powers the park’s many geysers.

The changes are most evident at the Norris Geyser Basin. Henry Heasler, the Yellowstone Park geologist said, ‘It changes daily. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with the change near boardwalks because that impacts visitor and employee safety.’

‘Why are all the hydrothermal features here?’ Heasler continued, ‘The geysers? The mud pots? The steam vents? The hot springs? It’s because of the heat beneath our feet.’

The heat from the volcano.

And beginning in 2004, volcanic pressure caused an amazing rise at the park: Three-inches a year for five-years.” Read more.

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Iceland’s Most Active Volcano Erupts, Scientists Say

05/21/2011 Leave a comment

“REYKJAVIK, Iceland — Iceland’s most active volcano has started erupting, scientists said Saturday — just over a year after another eruption on the North Atlantic island shut down European air traffic for days.

Iceland’s Meteorological Office confirmed that an eruption had begun at the Grimsvotn volcano, accompanied by a series of small earthquakes. Smoke could be seen rising from the volcano, which lies under the uninhabited Vatnajokull glacier in southeast Iceland.

A no fly zone has been designated for 120 nautical miles in all directions from the eruption. Isavia, the company that operates and develops all airport facilities and air navigation services in Iceland, described this as standard procedure around eruptions.” Read more.

Magnitude 6.1 Earthquake Hits Kermadec Islands, New Zealand

05/21/2011 Leave a comment
Categories: Earthquakes

Netanyahu Speaks His Mind in Front of the Media with Obama, Gives Obama a Dose of Reality

05/20/2011 2 comments

The Israeli Prime Minister demonstrated today what real leadership looks like …

Reuters “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bluntly told President Barack Obama on Friday his vision of how to achieve Middle East peace was unrealistic, exposing a deep divide that could doom any U.S. bid to revive peace talks.

In an unusually sharp rebuke to Israel’s closest ally, Netanyahu insisted Israel would never pull back to its 1967 borders — which would mean big concessions of occupied land — that Obama had said should be the basis for negotiations on creating a Palestinian state.

‘Peace based on illusions will crash eventually on the rocks of Middle East reality,’ an unsmiling Netanyahu said as Obama listened intently beside him in the Oval Office after they met for talks.

Netanyahu insisted that Israel was willing to make compromises for peace, but made clear he had major differences with Washington over how to advance the long-stalled peace process.

Netanyahu’s resistance raises the question of how hard Obama will push for concessions he is unlikely to get, and whether the vision the U.S. leader laid out on Thursday to resolve the decades-old conflict will ever get off the ground.

Despite assurances of friendship by both leaders, this week’s events also appeared to herald tense months ahead for U.S.-Israeli relations, even as the Arab world goes through political tumult and Palestinians prepare a unilateral bid this fall to seek U.N. General Assembly recognition for statehood.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Obama said he reiterated to Netanyahu the peace ‘principles’ he offered on Thursday in a policy speech on the Middle East upheaval.

The goal, he said, ‘has to be a secure Israeli state, a Jewish state, living side by side in peace and security with a contiguous, functioning and effective Palestinian state.

Obama on Thursday embraced a long-sought goal by the Palestinians: that the state they seek in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip should largely be drawn along lines that existed before the 1967 war in which Israel captured those territories and East Jerusalem.

Netanyahu, who heads a right-leaning coalition, responded with what amounted to a history lecture about the vulnerability to attack that Israel faced with the old borders. ‘We can’t go back to those indefensible lines,’ he said.” Read more.

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Network That Once Refused to Air ‘Support the Troops’ Ad, Currently Running Ads from Group with Terror Links

05/20/2011 Leave a comment

By Rusty Weiss – “In December of 2007, a conservative organization known as Freedom Watch created an advertisement with a message of support and thanks to America’s troops serving around the world. They were rejected by NBC.

In April of this year, a Muslim organization known as the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) created an advertisement with a message to counter Islamophobia from the ‘conservative right’. They are currently running on NBC Universal media networks.

The alleged difference?

NBC claimed their reason for rejecting the Freedom Watch ad was because ‘the group insisted that the spot contain the URL address of its Web site.’ However, the new ICNA ads clearly contain the groups WhyIslam.org website.

The real difference?

Freedom Watch is an organization that supports the war on terrorism. The ICNA simply supports terrorism.” Read more.

Categories: Anything Else

Muslim Brotherhood Leader of Tunisia Calls for an End to Israel

05/20/2011 Leave a comment

Speroforum – “Arab media has reported an interview with Tunisian Muslim Brotherhood leader Rachid Ghannouchi in which he calls for and predicts the end of Israel. According a Muslim World News translation of the interview in the London-based Elaph:

… Ghannouchi maintains that altogether the Arab revolutions are positive for the Palestinians, and threaten to bring Israel to an end. He says that the Palestinian problem lies at the heart of the Nation [umma], and that all the land between the mosque in Mecca and Jerusalem represents the heart of the Islamic Nation, and any [foreign] control over part of this heart is a stamp on the umma’s illness. There is no doubt, he continues, that the revolutions open a new age, in which the regimes which support the West and Israel fall – Egypt, Tunis and soon Libya, Yemen and Syria. The foundations of Western interests in the Arab countries are shaking. Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, he concludes, said that Israel will come to an end prior to 2027; this date looks far, and may be Israel will come to an end sooner.”  Read more.

Hundreds of Christians Slaughtered in Nigeria: The Aftermath

05/20/2011 Leave a comment

Persecution.org – “While many in Nigeria were still celebrating the victory of Christian presidential candidate Goodluck Jonathan, Christians in northern Nigeria were grieving over the mass graves that would be the final resting place of their loved ones.

In the Muslim north, Muslim mobs reacted to the news of Goodluck’s election on April 18th by launching massive simultaneous attacks against Christians in almost every northern state. The mobs massacred hundreds of Christians, torched more than 300 churches, and destroyed countless Christian homes.

Nigerian government authorities were in such a hurry to hide the extent of the massacre that they organized mass burials of the victims almost immediately after the attacks. As a result, the exact death toll remains unknown.” Read more.

Standing in the Holy Place: Interfaith Service at St. John’s Parish in Montclair, Not So Holy Anymore

05/20/2011 Leave a comment

Lest we forget the church in Thyatira…

Revelation 2:18-22, “To the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first. Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways.”

BY Megan Schaefer – “This Sunday morning, May 22, at 10 a.m., the sounds of the adhan — the Muslim call to prayer — will ring out in St. John’s Episcopal Church Montclair.

While there’s no minaret

at the church, the words of ‘Allahu akbar,’ (God is greater) will none-the-less invite both Christians and Muslims to worship side by side. During the interfaith service, verses from the Holy Qur’an will complement readings from the Holy Bible, including during Communion, embracing the traditions of both religions.” Read more.

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Hundreds Evacuated from Nicaragua’s Telica Volcano

05/20/2011 Leave a comment

“MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — Nicaraguan authorities have evacuated hundreds of people from the foothills of a volcano because of heightened seismic activity.

The Nicaraguan Institute of Territorial Studies says 600 workers have been moved from a factory near the Telica volcano in western Nicaragua. Women and children who live nearby have also been evacuated.”  Read more.



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Magnitude 6.0 Earthquake Strikes East Coast of Japan near Tokyo

05/19/2011 Leave a comment

Earthquake magnitude 6.0 – NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
Friday, May 20, 2011 at 09:46:16 AM
35.736°N, 140.981°E
Depth: 26.2 km (16.3 miles)

Categories: Earthquakes