Prophecy, Drought, Earthquakes, Famine, Pestilence, War, and Strange Weather.

[Shammu]

Volcano Erupts on Largest Galapagos Island

Sun Oct 23, 8:36 PM ET

QUITO, Ecuador - A volcano has begun to erupt on one of the
Galapagos Islands known for its diverse flora and fauna, including the archipelago's famed giant tortoises, park officials said Sunday.

The 4,920-feet Sierra Negra volcano, located on seahorse-shaped Isabela, the largest of the Galapagos Islands, began erupting late Saturday afternoon, producing three lava flows, officials from the Galapagos National Park told The Associated Press in a statement. It has not yet been determined whether the island's plant and animal life have been affected.

Many Galapagos tortoises, some of which have a lifespan of more than 150 years, live near volcano craters.

Puerto Villamil on Isabela's southern coast is home to 2,000 people, but the eruption posed "no risk to the population," the statement said. Tourist centers near Sierra Negra were closed as a precaution.

The Galapagos Islands, located 625 miles off Ecuador's Pacific coast, were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979 for their exotic wildlife such as marine iguanas and blue-footed boobies. The islands' rich biodiversity inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Volcano Erupts on Largest Galapagos Island

[Shammu]

Cuba Rescues 250 Flood Victims From Wilma

By ANITA SNOW, Associated Press Writer 8 minutes ago

HAVANA - Rescuers in inflatable rafts and amphibious vehicles pulled nearly 250 people from flooded homes Monday after huge waves churned by Hurricane Wilma flooded the capital's coastal highway and adjacent neighborhoods of old, crumbling buildings.

The ocean spread up to four blocks inland, inundating streets and buildings with water up to three feet deep.

There were no immediate reports of injuries anywhere on the island. Nearly 700,000 people were evacuated across Cuba's west in recent days as Wilma approached, first hitting Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and then plowing across southern Florida.

"We're amazed," resident Laura Gonzalez-Cueto said as she watched scuba divers carry small groups of people in black inflatable rafts with outboard motors.

Although the Malecon coastal highway and adjacent neighborhoods often flood during storms, the extent of Monday's inundation was highly unusual.

As of midmorning, 244 people, including some children, had been rescued, municipal official Mayra Lassale said. Mayor Juan Contino was with rescue workers in an inflatable raft at the scene of some of the worst flooding.

Residents worried that high tide in the afternoon could worsen the flooding.

"They say the water is going to go down, but it's only rising," 24-year-old Meibis Herrera said as she stood calf-deep in her apartment in central Havana. Her refrigerator and other appliances were balanced on chairs in hopes of keeping them dry.

"Too much water," she sighed as another surge of water pushed in through the door.

The outer bands of Wilma also flooded evacuated communities along the island's southern coast over the weekend after the hurricane clobbered Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

Flooding and high winds caused heavy damage to homes in the northern coastal community of Baracoa, just east of Havana.

In the Port of Mariel east of Havana, people gathered outside homes to watch in awe as waves several yards high rolled in one after another. Part of a concrete seawall crumbled, but otherwise no major damage was evident.

"Last night was really tense, just waiting for what might happen," said Joelsis Calderin, 30. "I've never seen waves like this. You have to respect the sea."

"Come on over," another Mariel resident, Sussel Acosta, joked to her neighbors. "Everyone's catching fish at my front door."

The government shut off electricity throughout the capital and across the island's west — a standard safety precaution — as high winds howled across the island.

Cuba prides itself on saving lives during hurricanes, and its civil defense plans have been held up by the United Nations as a model. Mandatory, widespread evacuations are common and face little resistance.

Cuba Rescues 250 Flood Victims From Wilma

[Shammu]

'Super storm' brewing, likely to hit Northeast

Forecasters: Wilma will combine with Alpha to pummel Mid-Atlantic, New England states

Posted: October 24, 2005
3:20 p.m. Eastern
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Hurricane Wilma, having barreled across Florida this morning with up to 125 mile-per-hour winds, is set to combine with other weather elements to form a "super storm" that will likely bring severe conditions to the Mid-Atlantic and New England states tomorrow.


AccuWeather.com meteorologists report that remnants of Tropical Storm Alpha will be drawn north along the Atlantic coast and will merge with Wilma and a large low pressure system that will develop off the Virginia Capes. The result is expected to bring wind, rain, snow and flooding to the Northeast.

According to the weather site, wind and snow could uproot trees and snap limbs, possibly leading to power outages if down trees strike power lines.

There are flash flood watches and warnings in effect today from the Delmarva Peninsula to central New York and southern Vermont, and winter storm watches are in effect in the northern half of those states, AccuWeather reports.

More rain would be a less than welcome sight for New England residents that have been hit with heavy precipitation in the last month.

New Hampshire Bureau of Emergency Management spokesman Jim Van Dongen says the state can handle up to 2 inches of rain, but there is "little wiggle room" if more rain falls.

After coming ashore as a Category 3 hurricane, Wilma weakened to a Category 2 storm before once again strengthening over the Atlantic. The hurricane hit the east coast of Florida harder than expected, shattering windows, peeling away roofs and knocking out power to millions of people.

Wilma, Florida's eighth hurricane in 15 months, came ashore at 6:30 a.m. Eastern today near Cape Romano, 22 miles south of Naples, spinning off tornadoes and bringing a potential for up to 10 inches of rain, the National Hurricane Center said.

'Super storm' brewing, likely to hit Northeast

[Shammu]

Galapagos Volcano Erupts for Third Day

By GONZALO SOLANO, Associated Press Writer Tue Oct 25, 8:16 PM ET

QUITO, Ecuador - A volcano on the largest of the Galapagos Islands erupted for the third straight day Tuesday, but experts said it didn't threaten villagers on the island or the super-sized tortoises that gave the remote archipelago its name.

In this undated photo released by Galapagos National Park, lava of the Sierra Negra Volcano flows off the side on Isabela, the largest of the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. The Sierra Negra

Oscar Carvajal, chief technician of the Galapagos National Park on Isabela island, said tortoises and land iguanas were not threatened because the lava flows were down the northeast slopes of Sierra Negra volcano where there were no animal populations.

"The lava flows have not affected the species because they are on the other side. There are no problems with tortoises or land iguanas. Only a small amount of vegetation has been burned in the interior of the caldron and on the flanks," Carvajal said.

The 4,920-foot high Sierra Negra volcano began erupting late Saturday, sending three rivers of spectacular lava flow down its northeastern slopes.

Carvajal said the lava expelled Tuesday was considerably less. He said most of the lava was flowing from a fissure at the top of the volcano back into the interior.

Park and local authorities say Puerto Villamil, the island's only village with 2,000 inhabitants, is also out of danger because it is located south of the volcano.

Puerto Villamil mayor Pablo Gordillo said authorities have taken precautions and were ready to evacuate people by sea and air if necessary.

Patricio Roman, a technician at Ecuador's Geophysics Institute, said the eruption of Sierra Negra was a normal process for islands that are of volcanic origin. He said the archipelago, made up of 13 islands, only four of which have human inhabitants, is still young enough in geological terms to be in a process of formation.

"Sierra Negra volcano is very active, one of the most active volcanos in the Galapagos, and the Galapagos are considered one of the most active volcano centers in the world," he said.

"The Galapagos Islands are what geologists know as a hot point, a point that draws magma from the depths," he said.

Sierra Negra last erupted in 1979, but in May of this year La Cumbre volcano on nearby Fernandina island, which is uninhabited, erupted with water vapor, gas and ash. Another volcano on Isabela, Cerro Azul, erupted in 1998.

The Galapagos Islands, located 625 miles off Ecuador's Pacific coast, were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

They are known for their flora and fauna, including marine iguanas, blue-footed boobies and giant tortoises that live up to 150 years of age. The islands' unique wildlife inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Galapagos Volcano Erupts for Third Day

[Shammu]

Eyes to the sky for the Mars spectacular

Mon Oct 24, 5:49 PM ET

PARIS (AFP) - The last time Mars swung so close to Earth, Hindu seers foretold of war, European astrologers predicted love and Germany reported a rash in UFO sightings.  

Thus is the spell cast by planetary alignment, so extreme predictions and odd events seem entirely possible this week as Mars and Earth edge together once more.

On Sunday, October 30, the Red Planet will be 69.4 million kilometers (43.1 million miles) from Earth -- a distance that in galactic terms is less than wafer-thin and will not be equalled until 2018.

Skywatchers are rubbing their hands at the opportunity.

In the runup to Sunday, but also for much of November, Mars will appear as a big orangey-yellow "star" in the east, an object so bright that it should be visible in almost any conditions of light pollution, says the US publication Sky & Telescope.

Weather permitting -- on Earth and also on Mars, where there are some worrying signs of an impending dust storm -- anyone with a modest telescope should be able to pick out some of the features that make Mars so special.

According to the French magazine Ciel et Espace, anyone who invests in a small 60mm (two-inch) -diameter telescope, priced in many countries at around 150 euros (180 dollars), should be easily able to spot Syrtis Major, Mars' most recognisable characteristic.

This vast region of cratered plateaux appears as a dark, roughly triangular-shaped tongue whose point heads towards Mars' North Pole.

They should also be able to make out Helas, a vast impact crater that is often covered by whitish mist and is sometimes mistaken for Mars' southern polar icecap.

Invest a couple of thousand euros (dollars) or more to get a telescope with a diametre of 200mm (eight inches) or more -- or go to your nearest observatory or visit an astronomy website -- and some really hunky stuff comes into view.

For size, nothing beats Mons Olympus, 26,000 metres (84,500 feet) high -- the biggest volcano in the Solar System. And Arizona's Grand Canyon would fit snugly inside Valles Marineris -- seven kms (four miles) deep and 200 kms (120 miles) across.

Mars' southern pole, seasonally shrunk by summer heat, will appear as a brilliant white dot. And with luck, one night you may bag Mars' tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, which once were asteroids until they were captured by the Martian gravity.

On August 27, 2003, Earth and Mars were a mere 55.76 million kms (34.65 million miles) apart, the closest in almost 60,000 years.

This time, the planets are slight farther apart, but the viewing prospects are better than in 2003, says the Institute of Celestial Mechanics at the Paris Observatory.

This is because, in 2003, Mars' course barely took it above the horizon for viewers in Earth's northern hemisphere, which meant the image was distorted by light passing through the atmosphere.

Earth, the third planet from the Sun, takes 365 and a quarter days to go around its star. Mars, the fourth planet, takes 687 Earth Days.

That means they come close every 26 months or so. But both planets take a slightly elliptical path around the Sun, and this factor determines precisely how close the flyby will be.

The next time the planets will be closer than in 2003 will be in 2287.

Eyes to the sky for the Mars spectacular

[Shammu]

Lisbon's 1755 earthquake a warning for today

By Barbara Cornell Tue Oct 25, 9:15 PM ET

LISBON (Reuters) - The aftershocks of a truly epic earthquake are measured not by magnitude or distance but by centuries.

Exactly 250 years after one of the world's most devastating quakes transformed regal Lisbon into a ghost town, experts from around the world will gather to find a prologue for the future.

The earthquake that hit Lisbon on November 1, 1755, rang Paris' church bells and triggered a tsunami from Norway to North America. It sent shockwaves through Enlightenment Europe, changing forever the way earthquakes were perceived and handled.

"We have to call attention to the authorities and the population in general that this past event, this terrible event, may come again," said Carlos Sousa Oliveira, president of the Portuguese Society for Earthquake Engineering.

"We don't know when. It might not be as strong. But we have to prepare to face it."

About 200 seismologists, engineers, architects, urban planners, historians, and even philosophers are expected at a four-day conference here, beginning on the November 1 anniversary.

Experts will present testimony from this month's killer South Asian quake and lessons from recent disasters, such as northwestern Turkey in 1999 and the Indian Ocean in 2004.

They will discuss research and preparedness in earthquake-prone countries, like Japan, Italy and Russia, and try to raise awareness of danger elsewhere.

"People living in Portugal have no idea of the risk. They are not aware of the risk because earthquakes have a long return period, meaning they can take hundreds of years to happen again," said Alfredo Campos Costa, an earthquake engineer working in seismic risk assessment research.

Experts concede that knowledge means little unless it is applied, and that the most potent argument for change, such as designing safer buildings, is the memory of previous disasters.

"It's folk memory rather than regulation that decides how people build," said Robin Spence, a professor of architectural engineering at Cambridge University and president of the European Association for Earthquake Engineering.

FIRST MODERN DISASTER

Before the conference, experts will hold a one-day workshop on October 31 to draw up a Europe-wide strategy to deal with the risk of quakes.

"We don't know exactly what are the most prone areas in terms of seismic risk and worse, we don't know how to mitigate this risk," said Campos Costa.

"If something happens like the 1755 earthquake today ... all of Europe is going to pay because we are all united at the economic level ... Europe is nowadays like a city," he added.

The 1755 earthquake, which also devastated Morocco and claimed around 70,000 lives, shattered the prevailing optimism that this was the best of all possible worlds.

Scientists say it was the first modern disaster, with coordinated emergency responses and a reconstruction plan that was drawn up with a possible, future disaster in mind.

"The event and the administrative organization afterwards can be regarded as the beginning of seismology, because it was the first time that a government took responsibility for disaster management," said Karl Fuchs, a geophysics professor and former director of the Geophysical Institute at the University Fridericiana at Karlsruhe, Germany.

BURNING CANDLES, BROKEN BUILDINGS

The earthquake struck on a sunny Saturday in Lisbon, one of Europe's richest cities and an international trading center.

Tremors, so violent that they stirred waters off Finland, toppled buildings and set off a devastating tsunami that swept through the city's center. Fires, blamed on church candles, burned for six days. Aftershocks continued for nine months.

The earthquake, estimated at 8.75 on the Richter scale, knocked down all but 3,000 homes and ruined 53 palaces, 32 churches and 46 monasteries and convents. Today the skeleton of the Convento do Carmo still haunts the Lisbon skyline.

The quake's epicenter and magnitude are still debated. But what is certain is how quickly the authorities responded.

"Bury the dead and feed the living," are words attributed to Sebastiao Jose de Carvalho e Melo, the Marques de Pombal who was Portugal's virtual dictator at the time and whose statue gazes from a major traffic circle toward the city he rebuilt.

Under his direction, Lisbon immediately took such steps as erecting gallows to deter looters and salvaging building materials from debris.

Assessment questionnaires -- asking people how many shocks were felt, what kind of damage was caused -- were sent out. Some of the questions are the same as those used today.

Pombal is mostly remembered for a construction plan for Lisbon's Baixa neighborhood which created a grid of level streets and uniform buildings using construction techniques designed to resist both earthquakes and fire.

Although recent disasters show man's science is still unable sometimes to cope with nature's ferocity, the Lisbon conference will show how far seismology has come since the 1755 quake.

"In Japan, almost all scientists have given up predicting future earthquakes," said Takashi Furumura, a seismologist at the University of Tokyo's Earthquake Research Institute.

He uses supercomputers to see how the ground shifts during quakes. Since many population centers are in sedimentary basins, his research can help cities detect how vulnerable they are.

The idea, Furumura said, is to anticipate ground movement before a seismic wave hits and oscillate buildings in the opposite direction so the motion cancels out.

"It's a dream," he said, "but who knew we could go to the moon?"

Lisbon's 1755 earthquake a warning for today

[Shammu]

None Hurt After 20-Ton Yosemite Rockslide

2 hours, 50 minutes ago

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. - Lodging that had been shut down after a 20-ton rockslide forced hundreds of visitors to relocate was reopened on Wednesday, park officials said.

No one was hurt in Tuesday's rockslide, which happened near Curry Village, but tourists were sent to other accommodations inside the park until a geologist could conduct an assessment.

No damages were reported when the rocks crumbled and rained down behind the construction site of the new Curry Village employee dormitories. Most of the debris piled onto a parking lot that is under construction.

Yosemite officials said the construction site was designed to keep visitors and staff safe if there is a rockslide.

Rockslides are not frequent in the park. But in 1999, another slide near Curry Village killed one climber — Peter J. Terbush, of Gunnison, Colo. — and injured three others.

None Hurt After 20-Ton Yosemite Rockslide

[Soldier4Christ]

Popping Rocks Reveal New Volcano
By Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News

type size: [A] [A] [A]

Oct. 27, 2005 — Noisy popping rocks hauled up from the deep Pacific seafloor off northern Mexico appear to be from a very young undersea volcano, say U.S. and Mexican geologists.

Some of the weird and scientifically valuable gas-charged volcanic rocks were first discovered in the same area in 1960, but no one had been able to find them again until now.

It took some careful and persistent dredging of the 10,500-foot-deep (3,200-meters) seafloor by a bi-national crew of students and researchers near what is called Popcorn Ridge, 200 miles south of San Diego near Guadalupe Island, to relocate the remarkably loud rocks.

"People don't know how many volcanoes there are off the coast here," said Dana Vukajlovich, one of the chief scientists on the cruise, organized by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.

Another Scripps oceanographer, Dale Krause, who first found the popping rocks 45 years ago.

The rocks pop because they contain pressurized pockets of gases that had bubbled out of the rock when it was molten and erupting from a submarine volcano, explained Vukajlovich.

But under intense pressure two miles underwater, the bubbles remained locked inside the lava rocks. Once brought to the surface, however, where the pressure is a small fraction as much, the high-pressure gases in pockets near the surfaces of the rocks broke through explosively.

"It's kind of like the sound of ice cracking in water," said Dana Vukajlovich, describing the racket made by spontaneous explosions of the rocks when they were brought aboard the Roger Revelle research vessel in early October.

Unlike ice in water, however, the rocks were was as loud as firecrackers, she said. "You could hear it over the sound of the machinery on deck." There were even small pieces of the rocks flying off, she said.

And while all the noise is exciting, it's not what makes them so valuable to scientists, she said.

"They're pretty rare," said geochemist David Graham of Oregon State University of the few sites where popping rocks have been found worldwide. "They're typically found on relatively slow-spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridges."

That's an undersea rift zone where the crust of the Earth is being pulled in opposite directions and there are many volcanoes spewing out molten rock to fill the gap.

The rocks from what Vukajlovich's crew has dubbed the Krause Volcano are the only popping rocks found outside the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, said Graham.

What the popping rocks offer scientists is a chance to study volcanic gases that may have come undisturbed from deep in the Earth, said Graham.

While chemical analyses are just getting started on the Krause Volcano rocks, similar Atlantic popping rocks contained primarily carbon dioxide gas, said Graham.

Of more interest, however, are smaller amounts of argon and helium, both "noble gases" that do not chemically react with any other elements. Argon and helium are leftovers from the heat-producing nuclear decay of larger elements deep inside the planet, he said.

How much of each gas that's found in the rocks could support or challenge theories about how the interior of the Earth is heated.

"It helps in understanding the thermal budget of the Earth," said Graham.

And since argon tends to escape rocks more quickly than helium, the amounts of both in the Krause Volcano rocks will give a clue to how quickly the magma that made the rocks moved up from the Earth's mantle.

If, for instance, there's a lot of argon, it's more likely the rocks made a quick trip up. "We're hoping it's very well preserved gas from the mantle," Vukajlovich said.

[Soldier4Christ]

Galapagos Volcano Erupts for Third Day
Galapagos Volcano Erupts for Third Day but Experts Say It Not a Threat to Humans, Animals
By GONZALO SOLANO
The Associated Press

QUITO, Ecuador - A volcano on the largest of the Galapagos Islands erupted for the third straight day Tuesday, but experts said it didn't threaten villagers on the island or the super-sized tortoises that gave the remote archipelago its name.

Oscar Carvajal, chief technician of the Galapagos National Park on Isabela island, said tortoises and land iguanas were not threatened because the lava flows were down the northeast slopes of Sierra Negra volcano where there were no animal populations.

"The lava flows have not affected the species because they are on the other side. There are no problems with tortoises or land iguanas. Only a small amount of vegetation has been burned in the interior of the caldron and on the flanks," Carvajal said.

The 4,920-foot high Sierra Negra volcano began erupting late Saturday, sending three rivers of spectacular lava flow down its northeastern slopes.

Carvajal said the lava expelled Tuesday was considerably less. He said most of the lava was flowing from a fissure at the top of the volcano back into the interior.

Park and local authorities say Puerto Villamil, the island's only village with 2,000 inhabitants, is also out of danger because it is located south of the volcano.

Puerto Villamil mayor Pablo Gordillo said authorities have taken precautions and were ready to evacuate people by sea and air if necessary.

Patricio Roman, a technician at Ecuador's Geophysics Institute, said the eruption of Sierra Negra was a normal process for islands that are of volcanic origin. He said the archipelago, made up of 13 islands, only four of which have human inhabitants, is still young enough in geological terms to be in a process of formation.

"Sierra Negra volcano is very active, one of the most active volcanos in the Galapagos, and the Galapagos are considered one of the most active volcano centers in the world," he said.

"The Galapagos Islands are what geologists know as a hot point, a point that draws magma from the depths," he said.

Sierra Negra last erupted in 1979, but in May of this year La Cumbre volcano on nearby Fernandina island, which is uninhabited, erupted with water vapor, gas and ash. Another volcano on Isabela, Cerro Azul, erupted in 1998.

The Galapagos Islands, located 625 miles off Ecuador's Pacific coast, were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

They are known for their flora and fauna, including marine iguanas, blue-footed boobies and giant tortoises that live up to 150 years of age. The islands' unique wildlife inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

[Shammu]

Season's 23rd Tropical Storm Forms

By MICHELLE SPITZER, Associated Press Writer Thu Oct 27, 8:54 AM ET

MIAMI - Tropical Storm Beta formed Thursday in the southwestern Caribbean Sea, extending this year's record of named storms in the Atlantic hurricane season.

Beta is the season's 23rd tropical storm, the most since record keeping began in 1851. The disturbance formed Wednesday night and warnings were issued for the entire Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. The storm was also expected to bring heavy rain across western Panama and Costa Rica.

Forecasters said it was not expected to threaten the United States.

Richard Knabb, hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center, said it was not unusual to get storm activity toward the end of hurricane season, which ends Nov. 30.

"It may not be over with Beta, but let's hope so," he said.

At 8 a.m. EDT, it was located about 70 miles south of San Andres Island and about 135 miles east-southeast of Bluefields, Nicaragua. A hurricane watch and a tropical storm warning has been issued for the islands of San Andres and Providencia. Heavy rain and strong winds were expected there Thursday.

A tropical storm warning has been issued for the entire Caribbean coast of Nicaragua and adjacent islands. Hurricane conditions are possible in the next several days, forecasters said.

Its maximum sustained winds were near 40 mph and was moving northwest near 4 mph. Tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 35 mph.

Beta is expected to produce 10 to 15 inches of rain across western Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua, forecasters said.

Last week Tropical Storm Alpha formed, which was the first time a letter from the Greek alphabet has been used because the list of storm names was exhausted. The previous record of 21 storms stood since 1933.

Season's 23rd Tropical Storm Forms

[Shammu]

Beta upgraded to hurricane, batters Caribbean
Sat Oct 29, 2005 6:57 AM ET162

 By Cyntia Barrera Diaz

PUERTO CABEZAS, Nicaragua (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Beta was upgraded to a hurricane on Saturday as it punished a small Caribbean island with fierce winds and hundreds of Miskito Indians streamed into shelters in a sleepy Nicaraguan port to escape exposed villages.

Beta, the latest cyclone in a record-breaking season, whipped Colombia's Providencia island with winds nearing 80 mph (130 km/hr) as it inched its way toward Central America.

The wind ripped roofs off homes on the island, which along with neighboring San Andres, was once a favored hideaway of famous 17th-century Welsh pirate Henry Morgan. No deaths were reported.

In Nicaragua, barefooted fishing families carrying clothing in bags and furniture on their backs fled coastal hamlets to seek protection in Puerto Cabezas, where schools doubled as storm shelters.

"We heard on the radio we had to leave," said fisherman Bismark Williams, 35, who was picked up by a boat under government orders to evacuate as many people as possible from the coast.

Beta was upgraded early Saturday to a Category 1 hurricane and was forecast to strengthen further in the next 24 hours and could become a strong Category 2 before it makes landfall along the east coast of Nicaragua on Sunday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

"We think 600-700 people have already come in, and there are more boats on their way," said Orlando Aberlado, in charge of deploying the fishing craft used in the evacuation.

Small fishing villages populated by Indian tribes like the Miskitos and descendants of escaped African slaves are strung along the Caribbean coast of Honduras and Nicaragua.

It is one of the region's most isolated areas and transport is often by plane or boat along muddy rivers.

"We are considering evacuating some 8,000 people from different places along the coast," said Col. Mario Perez-Cassar, the head of Nicaragua's civil defense.

Puerto Cabezas' hospital stocked up with medicines for pneumonia in case slow-moving Beta cuts off the low-lying area with its strong winds and torrential rains.

Beta upgraded to hurricane, batters Caribbean

[Shammu]

Magnitude 6.5 earthquake shakes southern Indian Ocean: Hong Kong

Sat Oct 29, 5:44 AM ET

HONG KONG (AP) - A strong earthquake measuring magnitude 6.5 shook the southern Indian Ocean on Saturday, the Hong Kong Observatory said.

The quake struck at 0417 GMT and was centred about 2,200 kilometres southwest of Perth, Australia, the observatory said. No other information was immediately available.

Magnitude 6.5 earthquake shakes southern Indian Ocean: Hong Kong

[Shammu]

Militant-Linked Group Claims India Blasts

By RAJESH MAHAPATRA, Associated Press Writer 41 minutes ago

NEW DELHI - A little-known group that police say has ties to
Kashmir's most feared militants claimed responsibility Sunday for a series of terrorist bombings that killed 59 people in New Delhi.
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Authorities said they already had gathered useful clues about the near-simultaneous blasts Saturday night that ripped through a bus and two markets crowded with people preparing for the Hindu festival of Diwali.

Investigators reportedly raided dozens of small hotels across India's capital looking for possible suspects, and police said "numerous" people were being questioned.

The attacks came at particularly sensitive time as India and Pakistan were hashing out an unprecedented agreement to partially open the heavily militarized frontier that divides the disputed territory of Kashmir to speed relief to victims of a massive earthquake earlier this month.

The agreement was finalized early Sunday, and Indian officials appeared hesitant to quickly put the blame for the bombings on Pakistan-based militants, unlike in previous terror attacks during a 16-year-old insurgency by Islamic separatists in India's part of Kashmir.

The United States "strongly condemns the heinous terrorist attacks in India," said White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan.

"By targeting innocent civilians making final preparations for holiday celebrations, terrorists have demonstrated yet again that they are enemies of humanity and contemptuous of the values all in the civilized world share," McClellan said in a statement.

India's accusations of Pakistani involvement in a 2001 attack on parliament put the two nuclear-armed rivals on the brink of a fourth war. But they pulled back and, after pursuing peace efforts since early last year, both appeared intent on keeping the atmosphere calm.

"We have lots of information but it is not proper to disclose it yet," Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil told clamoring journalists after an emergency meeting of the Cabinet called to discuss the attacks. "Our people are making good progress. The investigation is going well."

A man called a local news agency in Indian Kashmir to say the militant Islamic Inquilab Mahaz, or Front for Islamic Uprising, staged the bombings, which police said killed 59 people and wounded 210.

The caller, who identified himself as Ahmed Yaar Ghaznavi, said the bombings were "meant as a rebuff to the claims of Indian security groups" that militants had been wiped out by security crackdowns and the Oct. 8 earthquake that devastated the insurgents' heartland in the mountains of Kashmir.

A senior police officer in India's Jammu-Kashmir state said the caller's name was not familiar to intelligence agencies, and New Delhi's deputy police chief, Karnail Singh, said the group had not been very active since 1996.

However, while Singh refused to comment on the claim of responsibility, he said the group is linked to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, the most feared of the dozens of Kashmiri militant groups.

A leading anti-terrorism expert said earlier that the timing and nature of the blasts appeared to indicate the work of Lashkar.

"It looks like Lashkar. They are the most active group here," said Vikram Sood, the former head of the Research and Analysis Wing, India's foreign intelligence agency.

Lashkar and some other Kashmiri groups are known to have expertise in using the powerful explosive RDX, and a police officer with knowledge of the investigation said forensic experts were studying whether RDX was used in the attack.

He said witnesses reported that the biggest explosion created a huge ball of fire like that usually caused by RDX. The officer agreed to discuss the probe only if granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with journalists.

Police said they also were looking for a man in his 20s who refused to buy a ticket on a bus and got off in the Govindpuri neighborhood, leaving behind a large black bag. When some of the 40 passengers raised an alarm, the driver and conductor examined it and threw it out just as the blast occurred, injuring them both along with seven others.

Several Indian television stations said dozens of hotels in New Delhi had been raided after the bombings and suspects were detained.

Singh, the deputy police chief, refused to comment on the reported raids. He insisted that "no one is under detention," but said many people were being questioned.

After the attacks, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party — India's main opposition party — called on the government to review what it called the "soft border" policy agreed to with Pakistan.

The deal reached early Sunday will allow people to cross the frontier in Kashmir at five points starting Nov. 7 to help get food, shelter and medical aid to victims of the quake, which killed about 80,000 people and left 3 million homeless, most in Pakistan.

Opening the border is a touchy issue in India because of the uprising by Islamic militants who are fighting to make India's part of Kashmir independent or unite it with Pakistan.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since the subcontinent was partitioned at independence from Britain in 1947, two over Kashmir, but they have been pursuing efforts to improve relations and ease tensions since early last year.

"Both India and Pakistan internalized the experience of the last few years. This is reflected in the sobriety" of official comments about the bombings, said C. Uday Bhaskar, an analyst at New Delhi's Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses.

He noted that after the bloody 2001 attack on parliament, Indian leaders quickly blamed Kashmir militants and Pakistan's spy agency, nearly bringing on another fourth war.

"We now have a better appreciation of the linkages in such terror attacks and a better assessment of how to articulate it in public," Bhaskar said.

This time, too, Pakistan's government has been quick to condemn the bombings, which drew worldwide condemnation.
Militant-Linked Group Claims India Blasts

For those of you that don't know why, this is posted here. Terrorism is a war of sorts.

[Shammu]

Earthquake Shakes Parts of Montana, Idaho

2 hours, 12 minutes ago

HELENA, Mont. - A moderate earthquake shook parts of western Montana and eastern Idaho on Sunday, but no injuries or property damage were reported.

The epicenter of the temblor — which had a preliminary magnitude of 4.5 — was in a sparsely populated, mountainous area along the Montana-Idaho line, about 29 miles southeast of Salmon, Idaho, according to the U.S. Geological Survey Web site.

The Lemhi County Sheriff's Department in Salmon received dozens of calls about the 5:23 p.m. quake, but no damage reports.

"I myself did not feel it, but the inmates felt it," said Deputy Jess Bowen, whose office is next to jail cells. "They were probably just paying attention, and we were busy doing other things."

More than 75 people who felt the quake posted reports on the geological service's Web site, including some in Missoula and Helena, about 130 miles northeast of Salmon.

A 4.5 temblor beneath a city could bring damage such as cracked chimneys or windows, said Michael Stickney of the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology. But little damage was reported Sunday in part because of the sparse population, he said.

Earthquake Shakes Parts of Montana, Idaho

[Shammu]

Senior British Muslim Warns on Terror Laws

By MICHAEL McDONOUGH, Associated Press Writer
58 minutes ago

LONDON - A prominent British Muslim warned lawmakers Monday that proposals for tough new anti-terror laws could undermine the Muslim community's willingness to cooperate in fighting terror.

Abdurahman Jafar, a senior member of the Muslim Council of Britain, expressed concern about the Terror Bill, which was drawn up in the wake of the July attacks on London's transit system.

The bill would extend the maximum 14-day detention for terror suspects without charge to three months, outlaw attending terrorist training camps and make it an offense to glorify or encourage terrorism.

Addressing a meeting of Parliament's joint committee on human rights, Jafar told lawmakers that he feared a "really horrific counter-productive effect" from the bill, partly because of the proposed glorification offense.

He said the measure threatens to merge "the issue of illegitimate attacks against peaceful democracies, with legitimate acts of resistance against illegitimate regimes around the world."

Jafar, who is vice chairman of the legal affairs committee of the Muslim Council of Britain, also voiced concern about the plans to lengthen the detention period for terror suspects who haven't been charged.

He said the legislation risked weakening the wider Muslim community's commitment to fight terrorism in the wake of the July 7 attacks, which killed 52 commuters and four suicide bombers, who were devout Muslims.

The House of Commons voted last week to back the Terror Bill. But before the bill can become law, it faces further scrutiny by a committee of lawmakers, a further vote in the Commons, and votes in parliament's upper chamber, the House of Lords.

Senior British Muslim Warns on Terror Laws