NoteWorthy News 3-8-06
aNNa’S NoTe: It’s that time again. Full hopper time. I don’t even know what’s *in* there, to be honest. Shall we take a peek and clean some of the clutter out? ((wink!)) BTW, Ethan’s fever broke last night, I got the library books logged, and today I have to TOTALLY GO POSTAL on Blockbuster… not only did they send me a broken Alias 3:2, they skipped 3:3, sent me 3:4… and then ignored my request for a replacement 3:2 and sent me 3:5. Hello….? (((mutters ‘don’t get me started…’))) Tonight is NoTaWaNaS. ((I don’t know what it is… except it’s not AWANAs. So I’m calling it NoTaWaNaS. *shrugs* Kinda rolls off the tongue nice, don’tcha think?)) Brian’s coming… and he’s going to be hiding with me – hopefully avoiding Howie. Maybe we should just drop off the kids and go do something else…
IRAN THREATENS US
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/nuclear_agency_iran
Iran threatened the United States with “harm and pain” Wednesday for its role in hauling Tehran before the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear program. “The United States has the power to cause harm and pain,” said a statement delivered by the Iranian delegation. “But the United States is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if that is the path that the U.S. wishes to choose, let the ball roll.”
But the United States and its European allies said Iran’s nuclear intransigence left the world no choice but to ask for Security Council action. The council could impose economic and political sanctions on Iran.
aNNa’S NoTe: Okay, so lemme get this straight… they tell us they’re gonna hit us with harm and pain… and our response is to go to a group of pansies and ask them to consider doing something about it. I take it back – we’re the pansies. We really need to take ACTION, hello. Do you have *ANY* idea what those terrorists would do to us if we threated ‘harm and pain’ on them?!?! Wait, we saw what they would do with 9/11… and we didn’t even threaten THEM! This world, btw? Totally sucks. Gee, I hope the Security Council really thinks about it, this time… ((shakes head.))
HAMAS GOES TO RUSSIA
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060302/wl_nm/russia_hamas_dc
Hamas embarks on a quest for international legitimacy on Friday with an official visit to Russia, marking the Islamic militant group’s first talks with a major power involved in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. Although it deals a blow to U.S.-led efforts to isolate Hamas since it swept Palestinian elections in January, Russia’s mediation is seen by some in the West as a chance to talk the faction into renouncing violence and recognizing Israel.
“Our position is that if you are going to meet with a terrorist group, you should make it clear to them that their way of doing business is unacceptable, that their philosophy is contrary to the norms of the civilized world, and that they should get with the program,” State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said.
aNNa’S NoTe: Call me cynical, but Russia…? Making Hamas legitimate? Russia is as nasty at the core as the terrorists are. They’re making nukes for Iran, hello. They’re trying to weasle in on China’s military shtuff. Do you *really* think anything Russia does is going to be good at this point?
SETTING THE FLU STAGE
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060227/hl_afp/healthflubosnia…Ul
Bosnia confirmed its first case of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu which has been found on samples of two wild swans found dead earlier this month.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories…0.shtml
Niger has become the second African country with confirmed cases of the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain, a lab official said Monday. The H5N1 strain had earlier been confirmed in Nigeria, Niger’s southern neighbor, and officials had said in mid-February they were investigating whether it had surfaced in Niger.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LA125669.htm
Switzerland confirmed on Sunday its first case of avian flu in a duck found dead in the heart of Geneva, near the city’s famous jet d’eau fountain. Swiss officials said it was not yet clear if the wild bird, found on Wednesday, was infected with the H5N1 strain of the virus which can infect humans. “We have a first case of bird flu. It’s H5,” Federal Veterinary Office spokeswoman Cathy Maret said.
A sample has been sent to a European reference laboratory in Britain to test for the H5N1 strain and results are expected by the end of the week, she said. Switzerland has been on high alert for bird flu since the virus emerged in neighbours France, Germany, Austria and Italy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4750316.stm
The bird flu virus is spreading throughout Germany, as many scientists had feared. On Friday, the deadly H5N1 strain was detected in two more German states. According to the authorities, two wild ducks found in Schleswig-Holstein have tested positive for the virulent strain. Another wild duck found near Lake Constance, in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, in south-west Germany, also tested positive for the virus. This comes as more than 100 cases of the H5N1 strain have been confirmed on the Baltic island of Ruegen, in northern Germany. The authorities on the island have declared a state of emergency, which has enabled them to request the assistance of the federal army. Colonel Dr Klaus Binko, from Kiel Medical Command. “This is an ongoing phase of the infection. We have not yet reached a plateau. Just to give you an example, when you are on the beaches here, you can see the birds dying in front of your eyes – half an hour later they are dead.” All farmers have been ordered to keep their poultry indoors, as the real worry is that the H5N1 strain will spread from wild birds to domestic flocks.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/birdflu_dc…Ul
A nine-year-old girl has died of bird flu in China, state media said on Wednesday, as the United Nations stepped up efforts to battle the rapidly spreading virus. The girl, China’s 10th known death from bird flu, died on Monday night in the eastern province of Zhejiang, the official Xinhua news agency said. Her death comes days after the government confirmed that a 32-year-old man had died from the H5N1 virus in the southern province of Guangdong, near Hong Kong, triggering alarm there.
“The epidemic situation is very severe. Right now is spring, when there is a high chance of bird flu outbreaks due to the frequent movement of migratory birds. This epidemic has not been effectively controlled worldwide,” China’s deputy agriculture minister Yin Chengjie told reporters. The virus has spread rapidly since the beginning of February, killing birds in more than 15 new countries as it moves deeper into Europe and Africa.
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/conditions/03/06/birdflu.reut/
Avian flu extended its spread across Europe as Poland confirmed on Monday that two dead swans had the virulent H5N1 virus and Austria reported that several cats had been infected. Experts from the World Health Organization (WHO), meeting in Geneva, said the spread of bird flu was unprecedented and the threat of a human pandemic would not go away. The virus remains essentially an animal disease which humans contract through close contact with infected birds. However, the virus is mutating and there are fears it may eventually change enough to be transmitted easily from human to human.
aNNa’s NoTe: I have a hard time keeping up, I don’t know about you. But it seems to me almost like it’s ‘moving into place’ by taking itself across the globe… and THEN - when it’s everywhere – it will let loose. Doesn’t it look that way to you?
PEOPLE WITH ANIMAL DISEASES
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/2/19/201626.shtml?s=he
Humans risk being overrun by diseases from the animal world, according to researchers who have documented 38 illnesses that have made that jump over the past 25 years. That’s not good news for the spread of bird flu, which experts fear could mutate and be transmitted easily among people.
There are 1,407 pathogens — viruses, bacteria, parasites, protozoa and fungi — that can infect humans, said Mark Woolhouse of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Of those, 58 percent come from animals. Scientists consider 177 of the pathogens to be “emerging” or “re-emerging.” Most will never cause pandemics. Experts fear bird flu could prove an exception. Recent advances in the worldwide march of the H5N1 strain have rekindled fears of a pandemic. The virus has spread across Asia into Europe and Africa.
aNNa’S NoTe: Yuck. But then, we shouldn’t be surprised…
IN CASE YOU WONDERED WHY…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space…onsaturday
A population milestone is about to be set on this jam-packed planet. On Saturday, Feb. 25, at 7:16 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, the population here on this good Earth is projected to hit 6.5 billion people. “This figure is over 3.5 times the size of the Earth’s population at the beginning of the 20th century and roughly double its size in 1960,” the study explained. Even more striking is that the time required for the global population to grow from 5 billion to 6 billion—just a dozen years—was shorter than the interval between any of the previous billions.
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/050228_life_expectancy.html
The average life expectancy for Americans is 77.6 years, a record high according to the latest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The new CDC report also shows that the gender gap is closing. The difference between life expectancy in men and women (who live longer) closed from 5.4 years in 2002 to 5.3 years in 2003. The gap as 7.8 years in 1979.
aNNa’S NoTe: Or maybe I should call this “anna’s theory”. It seems like everytime there’s a population boom and things get HUGE, God sends something – like the Spanish flu, the Black Plague, the Cholera of the 1700s… to bring the population back down to more manageable numbers. The last ‘outbreak’ that was pandemic was in 1917… so it’s been a while. Someone said every 80 years or so, but that would mean we’re overdue. Hrm.
WHEN GALAXIES COLLIDE
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060307/sc_space…NTM
A galaxy in Stephan’s Quintet is rushing headlong into a cluster of neighboring galaxies at more than one million mph and generating one of the largest shock waves scientists have ever seen.
aNNa’S NoTe: I don’t get into all the details, but that seems pretty noteworthy, don’t it?
ANTI-JEWISH TEMPLE MOUNT
http://www.arutzsheva.org/news.php3?id=99217
Discrimination against religious Jews who wish to visit the Temple Mount continues. A group was turned away today, as non-Jews passed freely through. A small group of Jewish tourists from Los Angeles attempted to ascend to Judaism’s holiest site this morning, after immersing in a mikveh and taking the other Halakhic precautions. They were stopped at the entrance, however, and told they could not enter because they did not have identification.
“The most frustrating part,” said their tour guide, Yossi Maimon, “was that lots of other tourists, clearly not Jewish, were allowed up without even being checked.” Maimon said he asked the local police commander about the discrimination against Jews, and was told that this is in fact the official policy. Long-time Holy Temple activists Rabbi Yosef Elboim of Jerusalem and Yehuda Etzion of Ofrah said that this policy is a long-running one.
“A sheikh can call for world-wide Moslem rule from the Temple Mount,” Rabbi Elboim continued, “but if a Jew whispers Yibaneh HaMikdash (a prayer that the Holy Temple should be rebuilt), they immediately take him away for questioning and restrict him from visiting the site again. Where are we living?!”
At present, religious Jews are permitted to enter the Temple Mount, if they are approved, from 7:30 to 10:00 Am, and for another hour beginning at 12:30. Etzion said that a special booth has been set up at the Mugrahbim Gate entrance to the Temple Mount, adjacent to the prayer area of the Western Wall, for the purpose of checking religious Jews. “The way they check Jews, under their yarmulke and all over the body, for any type of prayer, is simply humiliating,” he said.
aNNa’S NoTe: Doesn’t that just boil your blood? Hello…! This has GOT to totally piss God off. It has to. To treat His chosen people that way? I’m just glad it ain’t me… because holy wha, are they EVER gonna get it when the Lord decides He’s done putting up with this crap…
SAUDIS CONDEMN US OVER HAMAS
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060222/ap_on_re_mi_ea/rice
Saudi Arabia on Wednesday became the second Arab ally in as many days to reject the U.S. strategy of financially isolating Hamas if the militant group does not moderate its policies as leader of the Palestinians. Saud and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the world should not “prejudge” Hamas, whose sweep in Palestinian elections last month stunned Washington and threw the Israeli-Palestinian peace process into new turmoil.
aNNa’S NoTe: Hahahaha!! We shouldn’t prejudge Hamas…? Um, we’re only going on precedence, people. That’s not prejudgment, that’s past experience… not to mention present statements that they have no intention of changing from their own leadership. Hello! Oh, and need I add that the Arabian Emirates are those buying our ports…? ((I’ll go there next time, k? Once I figure out what the HELL Bush is thinking…))
QUICK CLOSING MENTION OF THE EU
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/04a464bc-8f5c-11da-b430-0000779e2340.html
Dominique de Villepin, French prime minister, on Friday called on the European Union to apply the brakes to future enlargement, claiming the admission of 10 new member states in 2004 had heightened hostility towards the EU. French concerns about the pace of the EU’s expansion is shared in some other countries, including Austria, the holder of the rotating EU presidency, which on Friday launched a new debate about Europe’s future direction.
He claimed the enlargement from 15 to 25 members in 2004 had not been “sufficiently prepared” and that the arrival of the new members from eastern Europe was “often seen as too heavy a financial burden” by citizens in the west. Mr de Villepin said the EU must honour its commitment to admit Romania and Bulgaria and countries in the western Balkans when they are ready, but said Turkey’s final destiny was not certain.
Mr de Villepin said Europe needed crises to move forward, but other speakers claimed the EU might have already turned the corner after a dire 2005. Javier Solana, EU foreign policy chief, said the December deal on a new seven-year EU budget was “the tipping point”.
aNNa’S NoTe: I love this article. It’s like a recap and update in brief. First, it confirms that the 7-year ENP is still in place, and Solana is still at the helm, and that everything is still on track. Which means there’s only one Rosh Ha’Shanna left before the 7-year treaty goes into play. Woo!!! Second, it confirms that they still are playing mind games with Turkey – who according to prophecy will quit the Western idiocy and join forces with the Muslims. Third, it shows the scope and size of the Revived Roman Empire, their current status, and where they are aiming. Although I wish I knew when France and Germany are going to get the helm… I need more reading time…! But as always, this is already long and I have to get going on other things, so… more later!
