China: Massive Floods Now Affecting 36 Million People, Scores Killed, Nearly 600 Thousand Acres of Farmland Destroyed

By Subodh S. Lal – “Floods caused by torrential rains in southern and eastern China since the beginning of the month have left at least 175 people dead and another 86 missing, the Civil Affairs Ministry said Monday.

Heavy bouts of rain since June 3 have affected over 36 million people and left 1.6 million displaced in the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and the Chongqing Municipality, the ministry said in a statement.

In Zhejiang province alone, about 8,400 houses collapsed and many highways were closed, Xinhua news agency reported.

A total of 241,600 hectares (597,000 acres) of farmland have been destroyed and 1,846 factories have suspended operations in the province – one of China’s leading manufacturing centers – incurring 7.69 billion yuan ($1.18 billion) in direct economic losses, the agency reported.” Read more.

660 reservoirs at risk of overflowing in China – “An official at the media department of the Anhui Water Resource Department said water levels at more than 660 reservoirs in the province were above the warning level. Like most Chinese officials, she would give only her surname, Zhao.” Read more.

China braces for tropical storm amid floods – “China, already hit by torrential downpours that have left more than 260 dead or missing, braced Tuesday for more rains and wind as a tropical storm neared its southern coast, weather authorities said.” Read more.

Madagascar: New Build-Up of Locusts Threatens Crops, ‘The Livelihoods of 13 Million People Could be Affected’

By Joe DeCapua – “Madagascar is again facing a locust threat. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says there’s another build-up of locusts in southwestern Madagascar that could become a ‘plague’ if no action is taken. If unchecked, the FAO says, the livelihoods of 13 million people could be affected.

It’s the same area of the country where operations were conducted from last October through April to control the insects. Some 200 thousand infested hectares were sprayed.

‘The current situation is very serious because it’s what we call an upsurge. The locust infestations are still contained in the southwestern part of Madagascar. [It was the biggest] success of all operations we carried out during the locust campaign [of] 2010 / 2011. But there is still a high risk to have a worse situation during the next rainy season,’ said FAO locust officer Annie Monard.” Read more.

Sharia Creep: The ‘Religion of Peace’ is Creating No-Go Zones for Non-Muslims Throughout the West

Dearborn, Michigan: Muslims physically attack Christian groups – “The violent intimidation of anti-jihadists that I just saw in Stuttgart is coming to America. Authorities should act quickly and decisively to defend the freedom of speech, or it will most assuredly soon be gone. As Pamela Geller notes, these stories involve ‘two Christian groups, both under attack in a no-go zone zone in Dearborn, Michigan, in an increasingly sharia compliant America. Dearborn, the same city that refused to run my bus ads offering help to apostates (despite our win in the courts). On Friday, two separate groups were threatened and attacked because they came to Dearborn to stand for their beliefs. Whether you like their presentation or not is irrelevant. It’s free speech. Period.'” Read more.

Warning: Language Will Be Offensive To Some …

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Sharia Creep: Obama Appoints Pro-Sharia Muslim Scholar to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom

By Daniel Greenfield – “Obama has announced the appointment of Azizah al-Hibri to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Al-Hibri (full name, Azizah Yahia Muhammad Toufiq al-Hibri) is a Muslim professor and the granddaughter of a Sheikh, who claims that the Koran inspired Thomas Jefferson and the Founders and that the Saudi criminal justice system is more moral than the American one because it accepts blood money from murderers.

Appointing a Muslim scholar to a commission on international religious freedom is only justifiable if that scholar recognized that much of the injustice in the world originates from Islamic law. But Al-Hibri has made her career whitewashing Islamic law and even presenting it as superior to American law.

While she has been called a reformer, her call in 2001 for a return to the fundamentals echoes Wahhabi rhetoric. Rather than examining the incompatibilities of Islamic law and the modern world, and urging the appropriate adjustments, as genuine reformers have done, Al-Hibri instead builds myths that uphold the Islamist agenda.

According to Al-Hibri  “Islamic fiqh is deeper and better than Western codes of law”. She favorably compares Saudi Arabia’s willingness to accept blood moneybribes to excuse a murder, to the “impersonal and powerful” American justice system.

Al-Hibri is often billed as a Muslim feminist, but she is equally hypocritical on women’s rights. Rather than conceding that Islamic law discriminates against women, she whitewashes its discriminatory treatment of women, arguing thatguardianship is meant to protect “inexperienced women”.

Rather than trying to bring Islam in line with the modern world, Azizah Al-Hibri pushes for the modern world to be brought in line with Islam. Rather than reforming Islam, it is America that she would like to reform to Islamic standards.” Read more.

Elvis Lives! ‘A Whole Lotta Shakin’ Still Going On as Quakes Strike Alaska, Chile, China, Indonesia, New Zealand, Solomon Islands …

Here’s a list of some of the moderate to strong quakes reported in the last 48 hours.  Fortunately, no reports of major damage or injuries so far …

Magnitude 6.1 Shakes Solomon Islands

Magnitude 5.1 Rattles New Zealand

Magnitude 5.1 Rolls Indonesia

Magnitude 6.5 Rocks Chile

Magnitude 5.0 Shimmys Tajikistan

Magnitude 5.0 Rumbles Alaska

Magnitude 5.3 Sways China

Magnitude 5.4 Swings Japan

Magnitude 5.0 Hits Fiji

Magnitude 5.5 Twists Vanuatu

China: Scarlet Fever Hits Hong Kong

“Officials are warning of an outbreak of scarlet fever among children in Hong Kong.

There have been more than 400 cases of the disease this year, including the death of a six-year-old last month.

Initial tests suggest a five-year-old boy may also have died from the bacterial infection, which is spread by coughing and sneezing.

Scientists in Hong Kong believe the bacteria may be spreading more quickly than usual due to a genetic mutation.

Cases have also been seen in mainland China and Macua.” Read more.

India ‘Mystery Illness’ Kills 28 Children in Bihar

“At least 28 children in India’s Bihar state have died in the past week from an unidentified illness, officials say.

Officials said that all of the children were between two and eight years. They died in Muzaffarpur town, 80kms (50 miles) from the state capital, Patna.

Bihar Health Minister Ashwani Choubey told the BBC that a team of doctors from Delhi is visiting Muzaffarpur on Tuesday to diagnose the disease.

Local doctors say the symptoms are similar to Japanese encephalitis.

But, they say, an important symptom of Japanese encephalitis is a stiffening of the neck, which is absent from the Bihar cases.” Read more.

‘With Turkey Flexing its Muscles, We May Soon Face a Revived Ottoman Empire’

No longer limited to ‘Eastern Paradigm’ students of Biblical eschatology, others are now beginning to understand how the empire that was is the empire that may be yet again …

By Niall Ferguson – “… But since 2003, when Recep Tayyip Erdogan was elected prime minister, that has changed. The founder of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Erdogan is a seductive figure. To many, he is the personification of a moderate Islamism. He has presided over a period of unprecedented economic growth. He has sought to reduce the power of the military. It was no accident that one of President Obama’s first overseas trips was to Istanbul. It was no surprise when the AKP won a third consecutive general election earlier this month.

And yet we need to look more closely at Erdogan. For there is good reason to suspect he dreams of transforming Turkey in ways Suleiman the Magnificent would have admired.

In his early career as mayor of Istanbul, Erdogan was imprisoned for publicly reciting these lines by an early-20th-century Pan-Turkish poet: ‘The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets, and the faithful our soldiers.’ His ambition, it seems clear, is to return to the pre-Atatürk era, when Turkey was not only militantly Muslim but also a regional superpower.

This explains his sustained campaign to alter the Turkish Constitution in ways that would likely increase his own power at the expense of the judiciary and the press as well as the military, all bastions of secularism. It explains his increasingly strident criticism of Israel’s ‘state terrorism’ in Gaza, where pro-Palestinian activists sent a headline-grabbing flotilla last year. Above all, it explains his adroit maneuvers to exploit the opportunities presented by the Arab Spring, chastising Syria, seeking to check Iran, and offering himself as a role model.” Read more.

The coming Turkish-led caliphate – “We are now nearing the conclusion of a perfectly executed plan to purge Turkey of its secular Kemalist system and ensconce the Islamists in power indefinitely. In the name of democracy, the Islamists have toppled what was once a shining beacon of hope for the Middle East. And behind it all is the architect, Prime Minister Erdogan, who once projected, ‘Democracy is like a streetcar. You use it to get you where you wish to go, and then you get off.'” Read more.

Russia: Kamchatka Volcano Belches Out Ash Cloud 10 KM Above Sea Level

“PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, June 21 (Itar-Tass) – One of the major volcanoes in the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Shiveluch, has belched out ash to the elevation of 10 kilometers above sea level, sources at the Kamchatka affiliation of the Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences told Itar-Tass Tuesday.

A total of two series of local seismic events lasting from 40 minutes to 60 minutes have been registered at the volcano. According to seismic surveyors, they might have been accompanied by the exuding of ash to the elevations of 6.7 kilometers and 10 kilometers respectively.

The ash columns could not be observed visually, however, since the summit of the volcano is overcast with clouds.

There has been no fallout of volcanic ash in the nearby population centers, including the town of Klyuchi, which is located some 30 kilometers away from the Shiveluch’s foothills.

A senior researcher at the Geophysical Service said the trail of ash had shifted northwards from the volcano where there are no townships of villages.

In the meantime, volcanic dust and gasses may pose danger for aviation, and all the services and agencies concerned have been notified about it.” Read more.

Chilean Ash Cloud Causes More Chaos for Australian Travellers, Flights Could Be Disrupted for Months

By Andrew Heasley – “AUSTRALIA’S airlines are in chaos for the second time in 10 days after the busiest airports, Melbourne and Sydney, were largely shut down by the return of the volcanic ash cloud.

Tens of thousands of travellers face being marooned for days after the main airlines cancelled more than 500 domestic flights yesterday.

While the ash plume is expected to start clearing over south-eastern Australia this morning, Melbourne flights are not expected to resume until 11am. And it will be much longer before the backlog is cleared.

Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesman Peter Gibson said hundreds of thousands of domestic passengers would be affected today and potentially into tomorrow.

The ash cloud this time is larger – about 2000 kilometres long – and its base lower, at about 6000 metres. ‘It just makes it impossible for airlines to be able to fly underneath it or around it,’ Mr Gibson said.” Read more.

 

Fukushima is the Greatest Nuclear and Environmental Disaster in Human History

By Steven C. Jones – “By way of comparison, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster that occured in 1986 in the Ukraine, Russia- heretofore the worst nuclear disaster on record- burned for 10 days and cumulatively killed an estimated 1 million people worldwide. The Fukushima, Japan nuclear disaster has 5 nuclear reactors burning, 2 in partial meltdown and 3 in full meltdown- and they’ve ALL been uncontrollably burning since March 11th. Its been over 3 months and this nuclear disaster remains completely out of control. In fact, some industry estimates cite the possibility that these meltdowns will be contained (optimistically) in 1-3 years, at the very earliest.

The amount and intensity of the radioactive fallout from this particular nuclear disaster will assuredly kill hundreds of millions of people worldwide over time. Japan itself is, of course, the epicenter of this radioactive contamination that has spread out from these reactors.

However, the Korean peninsula, China and nations immediately surrounding the Japanese archipelago will also bear the brunt of a significant amount of radioactive fallout from this disaster. Immediately downwind of this radioactive release, though, is the United States of America and the entire northern hemisphere, comprising the majority of the world’s industrialized nations on Earth. Significant amounts of plutonium, strontium, cesium, uranium and a whole plethora of other highly radioactive particles have already fallen on the continental land mass of the USA and have already entered the food chains and water tables of the nation.” Read more.

Tokyo area parents’ radiation worries grow with discovery of local ‘hotspots’ – “More than three months after the Great East Japan Earthquake and the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, Tokyo region residents are becoming increasingly worried over radiation exposure as a number of radioactive ‘hotspots’ have been discovered in and around the capital.” Read more.