Saturday, May 24, 2008

Haarp ႏွင့္ပတ္သက္သည့္ ဗီဒီယုိမ်ား

HAARP





DBICKFORD TRUTHTV HAARP IS HERE AND THE US GOV IS USING IT!


Steve Quayle_On The Alex Jones Show:Chemtrails/HAARP pt1




Steve Quayle_On The Alex Jones Show:Chemtrails/HAARP pt2

The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction

The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction:"Owning the Weather" for Military Use

by Professor Michel Chossudovsky


This article is follow-up on an earlier study by the author entitled Washington's New World Order Weapons Have the Ability to Trigger Climate Change, Third World Resurgence, January 2001, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO201A.html
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Environmental warfare is defined as the intentional modification or manipulation
of the natural ecology, such as climate and weather, earth systems such as the
ionosphere, magnetosphere, tectonic plate system, and/or the triggering of
seismic events (earthquakes) to cause intentional physical, economic, and
psycho-social, and physical destruction to an intended target geophysical or
population location, as part of strategic or tactical war." (Eco News)


What are the underlying causes of extreme weather instability, which has ravaged every major region of the World in the course of the last few years?
Hurricanes and tropical storms have ravaged the Caribbean. Central Asia and the Middle East are afflicted by drought. West Africa is facing the biggest swarm of locusts in more than a decade. Four destructive hurricanes and a tropical rain storm Alex, Ivan, Frances, Charley and Jeanne have occurred in a sequence, within a short period of time. Unprecedented in hurricane history in the Caribbean, the island of Grenada was completely devastated: 37 people died and roughly two-thirds of the island's 100,000 inhabitants have been left homeless; in Haiti, more than two thousand people have died and tens of thousands are homeless. The Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Cuba, the Bahamas and Florida have also been devastated. In the US, the damage in several Southern states including Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and the Carolinas is the highest in US history.
A study released in July 2003, by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) places the blame, without further examination, at the feet of global warming:
"These record extreme events [high temperatures, low temperatures and high rainfall amounts and droughts] all go into calculating the monthly and annual averages which, for temperatures, have been gradually increasing over the past 100 years," the WMO said in its statement (CNN, July 3, 2003, http://www.cnn.com/2003/WEATHER/07/03/wmo.extremes/ )
While global warming is undoubtedly an important factor, it does not fully account for these extreme and unusual weather patterns.



Weather Warfare


The significant expansion in America's weather warfare arsenal, which is a priority of the Department of Defense is not a matter for debate or discussion. While, environmentalists blame the Bush administration for not having signed the Kyoto protocol, the issue of "weather warfare", namely the manipulation of weather patterns for military use is never mentioned.
The US Air Force has the capability of manipulating climate either for testing purposes or for outright military-intelligence use. These capabilities extend to the triggering of floods, hurricanes, droughts and earthquakes. In recent years, large amounts of money have been allocated by the US Department of Defense to further developing and perfecting these capabilities.


Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally... It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog, and storms on earth or to modify space weather, ... and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of technologies which can provide substantial increase in US, or degraded capability in an adversary, to achieve global awareness, reach, and power. (US Air Force, emphasis added. Air University of the US Air Force, AF 2025 Final Report, http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/ emphasis added)
While there is no firm evidence that the US Air Force weather warfare facilities have been deliberately applied to modify weather patterns, one would expect that if these capabilities are being developed for military use, they would at least be the object of routine testing, much in the same way as the testing of new conventional and strategic weapons systems.
Needless to say, the subject matter is a scientific taboo. The possibility of climatic or environmental manipulations as part of a military and intelligence agenda, while tacitly acknowledged, is never considered as relevant. Military analysts are mute on the subject. Meteorologists are not investigating the matter, and environmentalists are strung on global warming and the Kyoto protocol.
Ironically, the Pentagon, while recognizing its ability to modify the World's climate for military use, has joined the global warming consensus. In a major study (pdf) , the Pentagon has analyzed in detail the implications of various global warming scenarios.
The Pentagon document constitutes a convenient cover-up. Not a word is mentioned about its main weather warfare program: The High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) based in Gokona, Alaska --jointly managed by the US Air Force and the US Navy.

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TABLE 1: Unusual Weather Patterns (2003-2004)
Alex, Ivan, Frances, Charley and Jeanne (August-September 2004): Four destructive hurricanes and a tropical rain storm occur in a sequence, within a short period of time. Unprecedented in hurricane history in the Caribbean, the island of Grenada is completely devastated: 37 people died and roughly two-thirds of the island's 100,000 inhabitants have been left homeless, in Haiti, more than two thousand people have died and tens of thousands have been made homeless. The Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Cuba and the Bahamas have also been devastated.

In the US, the damage hitting several Southern states including Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and the Carolinas is the highest in US history.

Brazil March 2004: The first-ever hurricane formed in the South Atlantic, striking Brazil with 90 mph winds and causing up to a dozen deaths. "Meteorologists were left scratching their heads in bewilderment as the familiar swirl of clouds, complete with a well-defined eye, appeared in an oceanic basin where none had been spotted before." (WP, 19 September 2004, See also http://www.climate.org/topics/climate/brazil_hurricane.shtml )

Japan, China and the Korean Peninsula: "Japan has suffered its highest number of typhoon strikes on record, and the storms -- which hit at the rate of one a week for much of the summer -- wreaked havoc in Taiwan, China and the Korean Peninsula." (ibid)

China (August 2004): Typhoon Rananim, the worst in 48 years, has killed at least 164 people and injured more than 1800 in China's Zhejiang province. Rananim is confirmed by China's meteorological authorities to be the strongest to hit the Chinese mainland since 1956. It is estimated to have disrupted the life of some 13 million people, http://www.cma.gov.cn/ywwz/englishread.php?recid=39616

United States May 2003 : 562 tornadoes hit the United States, the highest in recorded history, far exceeding the previous monthly peak of 399 in June 1992.(CNN, July 3, 2003, http://www.cnn.com/2003/WEATHER/07/03/wmo.extremes/ )

India, early 2003: a pre-monsoon heat wave caused peak temperatures of between 45 and 49 degrees Celsius (113 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit), killing more than 1400 people.(Ibid)

Sri Lanka, "heavy rainfalls from Tropical Cyclone 01B exacerbated already wet conditions, causing flooding and landslides and more than 300 fatalities." (Ibid)

Western Europe Summer 2003: experienced extremely high Summer temperatures. "Switzerland experienced its hottest June [2003] in at least 250 years while in the south of France average temperatures were between 5 and 7 degrees Celsius (9 to 13 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the long term average. England and Wales also experienced their hottest month since 1976." (Ibid)

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There are several mainstream explanations on weather and climate change, none of which fully explains, within their respective terms of reference, the highly unusual and erratic weather occurrences, not to mention the human toll and devastation, which have led to the destabilization of entire agricultural and eco-systems. Needless to say these explanations never address the issue of climate manipulation for military use.


Climatic Manipulation by the US Military: The HAARP Program

The High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) based in Gokona, Alaska, has been in existence since 1992. It is part of a new generation of sophisticated weaponry under the US Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Operated by the Air Force Research Laboratory's Space Vehicles Directorate, HAARP constitutes a system of powerful antennas capable of creating "controlled local modifications of the ionosphere" [upper layer of the atmosphere]:

"[HAARP will be used] to induce a small, localized change in ionospheric temperature so that resulting physical reactions can be studied by other instruments located either at or close to the HAARP site". (HAARP website)

Nicholas Begich --actively involved in the public campaign against HAARP-- describes HAARP as:

"A super-powerful radiowave-beaming technology that lifts areas of the ionosphere by focusing a beam and heating those areas. Electromagnetic waves then bounce back onto earth and penetrate everything -- living and dead." (for further details see Michel Chossudovsky, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO201A.html )

World renowned scientist Dr. Rosalie Bertell depicts HAARP as "a gigantic heater that can cause major disruptions in the ionosphere, creating not just holes, but long incisions in the protective layer that keeps deadly radiation from bombarding the planet." (quoted in Chossudovsky, op cit.)

According to Richard Williams, a physicist and consultant to the David Sarnoff laboratory in Princeton

HAARP constitutes "an irresponsible act of global vandalism." He and others fear a secret second stage where HAARP would "beam much more energy into the ionosphere. That could produce a severe disruption of the upper atmosphere at one location that may produce effects that spread rapidly around the Earth for years." (Quoted in Scott Gilbert, Environmental Warfare and US Foreign Policy: The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/GIL401A.html )

HAARP has been presented to public opinion as a program of scientific and academic research. US military documents seem to suggest, however, that HAARP's main objective is to "exploit the ionosphere for Department of Defense purposes." (quoted in Chossudovsky, op cit).
Without explicitly referring to the HAARP program, a US Air Force study points to the use of "induced ionospheric modifications" as a means of altering weather patterns as well as disrupting enemy communications and radar. (Ibid)
HAARP also has the ability of triggering blackouts and disrupting the electricity power system of entire regions.
An analysis of statements emanating from the US Air Force points to the unthinkable: the covert manipulation of weather patterns, communications systems and electric power as a weapon of global warfare, enabling the US to disrupt and dominate entire regions of the World.


Weather Warfare: A Corporate Bonanza

HAARP has been operational since the early 1990s. Its system of antennas at Gakona, Alaska, was initially based on a technology patented by Advanced Power Technologies Inc. (APTI), a subsidiary of Atlantic Ritchfield Corporation (ARCO). The first phase of the HAARP Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI) was completed by APTI. The IRI system of antennas was first installed in 1992 by a subsidiary of British Aerospace Systems (BAES) using the APTI patent. The antennas beam into the outer-atmosphere using a set of wireless high frequency transmitters.

In 1994, ARCO sold its APTI subsidiary, including the patents and the second phase construction contract to E-Systems, a secretive high tech military outfit with links to the CIA (http://www.crystalinks.com/haarp.html ).

E-Systems specializes in the production of electronic warfare equipment, navigation and reconnaissance machinery, including "highly sophisticated spying devices":
"[E-Systems] is one of the biggest intelligence contractors in the world, doing work for the CIA, defense intelligence organizations, and others. US$1.8 billion of their annual sales are to these organizations, with $800 million for black projects-projects so secret that even the United States Congress isn't told how the money is being spent.( http://www.earthpulse.com/haarp/vandalism.html )
"The company has outfitted such military projects as the Doomsday Plan (the system that allows the President to manage a nuclear war) and Operation Desert Storm." (Princeton Review, http://www.princetonreview.com/cte/profiles/internshipGenInfo.asp?internshipID=998 )
With the purchase of APTI, E-Systems acquired the strategic weather warfare technology and patent rights, including Bernard J. Eastlund's US Patent No: 4,686,605 entitled "Method and Apparatus for Altering a Region in the Earth's Atmosphere, Ionosphere and/or Magnetosphere".
It is worth mentioning that the Eastlund /APTI patents were based on the research of Yugoslav scientist Nicola Tesla (many of whose ideas were stolen by US corporations). (See Scott Gilbert, Environmental Warfare and US Foreign Policy: The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/GIL401A.html )


Eastlund described this deadly technology as capable of:

"causing…total disruption of communications over a very large portion of the Earth…missile or aircraft destruction, deflection or confusion… weather modification…" ( http://www.wealth4freedom.com/truth/12/HAARP.htm ),
Not surprisingly, the patent had previously been sealed under a government secrecy order.
Barely a year following the E-Systems purchase of APTI's weather warfare technology, E-Systems was bought out by Raytheon, the fourth largest US military contractor. Through this money-spinning acquisition, Raytheon became the largest "defense electronics" firm in the World.
Meanwhile, ARCO which had sold APTI to E-Systems, had itself been acquired by the BP-AMOCO oil consortium, thereby integrating the largest oil company in the World (BP).
Raytheon through its E-Systems subsidiary now owns the patents used to develop the HAARP weather warfare facility at Gakona Alaska. Raytheon is also involved in other areas of weather research for military use, including the activities of its subsidiary in Antarctica, Raytheon Polar Services.


"Owning the Weather": Towards the Expanded Final Stage

The HAARP antenna array and transmitters were slated to be built in several distinct phases http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/phases.html
Developmental Prototype (DP) (See http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/dp.html ) Filled DP (FDP), Limited IRI (LIRI) Full size or final IRI (FIRI). See http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/fdp.html
During the Clinton administration, the "Filled Developmental Prototype" (FDP), namely a system composed of an array of 48 active antenna elements with connected wireless transmitters, was installed and completed at the HAARP facility in 1994. (See Figure 1 below) Under the initial Developmental Prototype (DP), only 18 of the 48 transmitters were connected.
Bernard Eastlund in a 1997 interview described this antenna array in its Filled DP stage as the "the largest ionospheric heater ever built".
This system of 48 antennas, however, while fully operational, was not according to Eastlund, powerful enough (in 1997) "to bring the ideas in his patents to fruition":
. "But they're getting up there", he said. "This is a very powerful device. Especially if they go to the expanded stage." (quoted in Scott Gilbert, op cit, see also http://www.emagazine.com/january-february_1997/0197currhaarp.html )
This 'final expanded stage' envisioned by Eastlund, which will provide maximum capability to manipulate the World's weather patterns, has now been reached.
Under the Bush administration, the main partner of Raytheon (which owns the patents) in the construction and development stage of the HAARP antenna array, is British Aerospace Systems (BAES), which had been involved in the initial installation of the antenna array in the early 1990s.
The multimillion dollar contract was granted by The Office of Naval Research to BAES in 2003, through its US subsidiary BAE Systems Advanced Technologies Inc. The contract was signed barely two months before the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq.
Using Raytheon's technology, BAES was to develop the HAARP Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI) to its maximum capabilities of "Full size or final IRI (FIRI)".
In April 2003, BAE Systems Advanced Technologies outsourced the production and installation of the antennas to Phazar Corp (http://www.phazar.com/ ), a company specializing in advanced wireless antennas for military use. (Phazar owns Antenna Products Corporation of Mineral Wells, Texas http://www.antennaproducts.com/ ). Phazar was entrusted with producing and installing 132 crossed dipole antennas items for the HAARP facility. (http://www.antennaproducts.com/News%20Release%2004-18-03.pdf )
A year later, in April 2004, the final phase in the expansion of the HAARP facility was launched. (Dept of Defense, 19 April 2004). This phase consisted in equipping all the 180 antennas with high frequency transmitters. BAE Systems was awarded another lucrative contract, this time for $35 million.
In July 2004, Phazar had delivered and installed the 132 crossed dipole antennas including the antenna support structures and ground screen items at the HAARP facility, bringing the number of antennas from 48 under the FDP stage to 180. (see Table 2).
Meanwhile, BAE Systems had contracted with Jersey based defense electronics firm DRS Technologies, Inc in an $11.5 million outsourcing arrangement, the production and installation of the high-frequency (HF) radio transmitters for the HAARP antenna array. (See http://www.drs.com/press/archivelist.cfm?PRESS_RELEASE_ID=1529&preview=1 and Business Wire, 15 June 2004). DRS specializes in a variety of leading edge products for the U.S. military and intelligence agencies. ( http://www.drs.com/corporateinfo/index.cfm ).
Under its contract with BAE Systems Information and Electronic Warfare Systems in Washington, D.C., DRS is to manufacture and install "more than 60 Model D616G 10-Kilowatt Dual Transmitters" to be used with the HAARP system of antennas. (It is unclear from the company statements whether all the 180 antennas will be equipped with a transmitter, bringing the system up to full IRI capabilities).
Deliveries and installation are to be completed by July 2006. While HAARP is described as a "research project", the production of the transmitters was entrusted to DRS' C41 "Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) Group"

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The diagram and images below describe the HAARP Alaska Facility in 1997.




Figure 1: The Array of 48 Antenna Elements with the Transmitter Shelters (FDP stage)
The 48 antenna array is supported by transmitter shelters, each of which contains 6 transmitter cabinets. (See image of shelter below)
Each cabinet contains two transmitters. (image of cabinet below)
The newly installed 132 dipole antennas supplied by Phazar vastly increase the size of the HAARP Alaska facility; the new transmitters are supplied and installed by DRS

Image 1: Aerial Photo of the HAARP Alaska Site


Image 2: HAARP Antenna Array




Image 3 Transmitter Shelter

Image 4: Inside the Transmitter Shelter


Image 5. Two Transmitters making up a Transmitter Cabinet




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Testing of HAARP Equipment (2003- 2004)


It is worth noting that the expansion of the antenna array (e.g. during 2003-2004) required, as part of the contracts reached with BAE Systems and its various subcontractors, the routine testing of the installed weather warfare equipment. An intermediate stage Limited IRI (LIRI), could be in operation by 2004, following the completion of the 180 antenna array under the Phazar contract and pending the final delivery of the remaining HF radio transmitters.
In this regard, a report published by the Russian parliament (Duma) in 2002, suggests that the US Military had plans to test its weather modification techniques at its Alaska facility, as well as at two other sites:

"The committees reported that the USA is planning to test three facilities of
this kind. One of them is located on the military testing ground in Alaska and
its full-scale tests are to begin in early 2003. The second one is in Greenland
and the third one in Norway.
"When these facilities are launched into space from Norway, Alaska and Greenland, a closed contour will be created with a truly fantastic integral potential for influencing the near-Earth medium," the State Duma said.



The USA plans to carry out large-scale scientific experiments under the HAARP program, and not controlled by the global community, will create weapons capable of breaking radio communication lines and equipment installed on spaceships and rockets, provoke serious accidents in electricity networks and in oil and gas pipelines and have a negative impact on the mental health of people populating entire regions, the deputies said. (Interfax News Agency, original Russian, BBC Monitoring, 8 August 2002, emphasis added)


Whether this report by the Russian Duma on testing "starting in early 2003" is correct or not, the US administration must be confronted nationally and internationally, at the political and diplomatic levels, at the UN and the US Congress, by the international scientific community, by environmentalists and the antiwar movement. The future of humanity is threatened by the use of weather modification techniques.
Moreover, to wage an effective campaign, it is essential that corroborating scientific investigation of the unusual weather occurrences observed in recent years (and particularly since early 2003) be undertaken. This investigation should be far-reaching, collecting relevant data, correlating specific weather occurrences to recorded antenna activity at the Alaska site as well as at the two other sites, etc.
The Full Size Ionospheric Research Instrument FIRI stage, described as "a maximum size of 180 antenna elements, arranged in 15 columns by 12 rows" is scheduled to be completed by mid-2006 (assuming the installation of the remaining dual transmitters), at which time the HAARP program will have reached its maximum FIRI capacity, meaning the ability to selectively modify, for military use, weather patterns anywhere in the World.
"The IRI is currently [June 2004] composed of 48 antenna elements and has a power capacity of 960,000 watts. When installed, the additional 132 transmitters will give HAARP a 3.6 mega-watt capacity [see Table 2 below]. The HAARP build-out is jointly funded by the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). (Business Wire, 10 June 2004)





This advanced stage of full capacity (FIRI) corresponds to what the US Air Force has called "Owning the Weather":

US aerospace forces [will] 'own the weather' by capitalizing on emerging
technologies and focusing development of those technologies to war-fighting
applications... From enhancing friendly operations or disrupting those of the
enemy via small-scale tailoring of natural weather patterns to complete dominance of global communications and counterspace control, weather-modification offers the war fighter a wide-range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary... In the United States, weather-modification will likely become a part of national security policy with both domestic and international applications. Our government will pursue such a policy, depending on its interests, at various levels.(US Air Force, emphasis added. Air University of the US Air Force, AF 2025 Final Report, http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/ )




Weather Warfare against "Rogue States"

The unusual climatic occurrences in the US and Western Europe have been extensively documented.
However, what the news media has failed to underscore is that a number of unusual and dramatic climatic changes have occurred in recent years in countries which are identified as possible targets under the US Administration's pre-emptive war doctrine.
Weather patterns in North Korea, for instance, have been marked since the mid-1990s by a succession of droughts, followed by floods. The result has been the destruction of an entire agricultural system. In Cuba, the pattern is very similar to that observed in North Korea. (see Table 3)
In Iraq, Iran and Syria, a devastating drought occurred in 1999. In Afghanistan, four years of drought in the years preceding the US led invasion in 2001, have led to the destruction of the peasant economy, leading to widespread famine.
While there is no proof that these weather occurrences are the result of climatic warfare, Phillips Geophysics Lab, which is a partner in the HAARP project provides a course for military personnel at the Hanscom Air Force Base in Maryland, on "Weather Modification Techniques". The course outline explicitly contemplates the triggering of storms, hurricanes, etc. for military use. (See his slide show at http://www.dtc.army.mil/tts/1997/proceed/abarnes/ open PowerPoint presentation at http://www.dtc.army.mil/tts/tts97/abarnes.zip )

Weather manipulation is the pre-emptive weapon par excellence. It can be directed against enemy countries or even "friendly nations", without their knowledge. Weather warfare constitutes a covert form of pre-emptive war. The manipulation of climate can be used to destabilize an enemy's economy, ecosystem and agriculture (e.g. North Korea or Cuba). Needless to say it can trigger havoc in financial and commodity markets and can potentially be used as an instrument of "insider trade" for financial gain. It has the ability of destabilizing a country's institutions. Concurrently, the disruption in agriculture creates a greater dependency on food aid and imported grain staples from the US and other Western countries.
The Bush administration has stated that it reserves the right to attack these countries preemptively, with a view to ensuring the security of the American homeland.
Washington --as part of its nuclear posture review-- has threatened several countries including China and Russia with pre-emptive nuclear strikes. One would assume that the same targeting of rogue states exists with regard to the use of weather modification techniques".
While there is no evidence of the use of weather warfare against rogue states, the policy guidelines on "weather intervention techniques" have already been established and the technology is fully operational.


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Table 3: Unusual Weather Occurrences: North Korea, Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq


North Korea

Recurrent flooding and drought often in the same year has hit North Korea since 1995, 220,000 people died in the ensuing famine, according to Pyongyang's own figures. U.S. figures place the number of deaths resulting from famine at 2 million.

The first major flooding occurred in 1995.

There were floods and drought in 1999. The serious water shortage resulting from the 1999 drought was conducive to the destruction of crops.

"The temperature of water in rice fields goes beyond 40 degrees and the tall rice plants fresh from the rice seedling beds are withering. In particular, nearly all after-crop maize seedlings and seeds are perishing," it added.

In 2001, in June there was an extensive drought with rainfall just 10% of normal levels, which served to undermine agricultural crops. And then a few months later, in October, there were extensive floodings leading to the further destruction of rice harvests and a crisis situation in food distribution.

"Officials in Kangwon province - an area which already suffers food shortages - say the impact of the torrential rain and flooding has been devastating. The normal recorded rainfall for October should be around 20mm. But in the worst-affected areas 400mm (18 inches) of rain fell in just 12 hours. "It was the worst flooding we've had since records began in 1910," said Kim Song Hwan, head of the government's Flood Damage Rehabilitation Committee for the region. (BBC, 23 Oct 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1614981.stm )

Cuba

For several years Cuba has been affected by recurrent droughts. In 1998, rainfall in Eastern Cuba was at its lowest level since 1941.

A United Nations team estimated 539,000 people, 280,000 of them farmers, were directly affected by reduced availability of food or reduced income through production losses. Some reported effects are: hunger in areas; a loss of up to 14% of the sugar cane crop planted last year and a reduction in this spring's planted crops, since rains were not sufficient for some seeds to germinate (which will reduce next year's crop); as much as 42% losses in food staples such as root vegetables, beans, bananas, and rice in the five eastern provinces; and livestock, poultry, and egg production losses

(UN Relief, http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/0/2975570e60ff2a7685256680005a8e2d?OpenDocument )

In 2003, a devastating drought hit the Western part of Cuba

In 2004 May-June, the country is hit by the worst drought in its history:
"A severe drought enveloping eastern Cuba has eroded 40 percent of the farmland, starved thousands of heads of cattle and has close to 4 million people counting every drop of water they consume." The drought is described as the worst in 40 years.


“The drought has robbed underground water levels of some 10 feet over the past 10 years, leaving over 5,000 wells across the province dry,” said Leandro Bermudez, a geologist and the second man at Cuba’s National Institute of Hydraulic Resources. (MSNBC, 21 June 2004 http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5262324


The cities are running out of water. According to the Independent, "Drought is bringing Cuba to its knees

Unnoticed by the world, the longest dry period for decades has brought much of Cuba to its knees. Could this be the crisis that finally destroys Fidel's revolution?
"All across central and eastern Cuba, farmers, ranchers, city dwellers and government officials are scrambling to deal with a punishing drought that began a decade ago and intensified in the last two years.
Although traditionally arid, the provinces of Holguin, Camaguey and Las Tunas hold some of Cuba's finest pasture and farmland and have long been crucial to this communist nation's dairy, beef and agricultural industries.
More than 12,500 cattle have died in Holguin alone in 2004 and milk production has fallen 20 percent. The price of beans, plantains, sweet potatoes and other staples has soared in private markets.
The drought has caused millions of dollars in losses and officials are spending millions more digging wells, building a water pipeline and taking other measures to try to ease the crisis - huge sums in an impoverished nation struggling through tough economic times and a battle with the United States.
Officials also have moved thousands of cattle to more fertile areas and are working furiously to finish a 32-mile pipeline that will draw water to Holguin city from Cuba's largest river, the Cauto. The $5 million pipeline could be completed next month. (Chicago Tribune, July 29, 2004, http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/9271316.htm )
The above report date to September 2004, it was published before, the hurricanes hit the Cuban coastline followed by torrential rains.


Afghanistan and The former Soviet Republics of Central Asia


The worst drought in Afghanistan history occurred in the three consecutive years prior to the onslaught of the US led invasion, from 1999 to 2001. The agricultural recovery of the 1990s, in the wake of the Soviet-Afghan war was brought to a standstill.
In the wake of the US led 2001 invasion, the United States supplied Afghanistan with genetically modified wheat and appropriate types of fertilizer to be used with the GM wheat, which was said to be high yield drought resistant. The donation of GM wheat, however, also led to destabilizing the small peasant economy because the GM wheat varieties could not reproduced locally. In 2002, famines which were barely reported by the media, swept the country.
Similar although less severe conditions prevailed in the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Like Afghanistan, Tajikistan has had its infrastructure ruined by prolonged
civil war with Muslim fundamentalists. Since then, the worst regional drought in
74 years has destroyed food crops over a large part of the nation, rendering
almost half of the 6.2 million people in the country vulnerable to the threat of
famine and disease, up from 3 million last year. About the only portion of the
economy that has been unaffected is the drug trade. Tajikistan is the transit
route for 65 to 85 percent of heroin smuggled out of Afghanistan, the world’s
largest producer. (http://www.americanfreepress.net/Mideast/Drought__Desperation_Breed_Vio/drought__desperation_breed_vio.html ]


Triggered by the lowest rainfall (2001) in living memory, vast tracts of Iran, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan are being reduced to desert as the water table sinks, long-established wells dry up and herds of livestock perish.
The crisis appears to fulfill alarming climate change predictions suggesting that states along the old Silk Road will experience steeper rises in temperature than any other region on earth. By the end of the century it will be 5C hotter in an area which regularly sees the thermometer soar above 40C.


The study, published last year by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia, predicted that Asian countries from Kazakhstan to Saudi Arabia will warm up more than twice as much as others. "Several states," the report added, "including Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Iran, [are facing] famine."
In Tajikistan, the United Nations appealed for aid to avert disaster. "Substantial foreign aid is needed or else there will be a large-scale famine," said Matthew Kahane, the UN's humanitarian aid coordinator, speaking from the capital, Dushanbe.
"The country has had its lowest rainfall for 75 years. Families who survived last year by selling their cows and chickens now have no other means of coping. Some households have sold the glass out of their windows and the wooden beams from their roofs to raise money for food."
(The Guardian, 0ct 30, 2001, http://www.guardian.co.uk/famine/story/0,12128,736902,00.html )

Iraq

In 1999, Iraq suffered its worst drought of the century, with the effect of triggering an even greater dependence on imported grain under the oil for food program. There was a drop of up to 70 percent in domestic yields of wheat, barley and other cereals, which served to further weaken the country's economy, crippled by economic sanctions and the routine bombing by allied aircraft in the no-fly zones.
A similar (although less serious) situation prevailed in Syria and Iran, marked by significant declines in agricultural output.

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Related Global Research Articles on Weather Warfare

Michel Chossudovsky, Washington's New World Order Weapons Have the Ability to Trigger Climate Change, Jan 2001, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO201A.html


Vladimir V. Sytin, Secret Use of Weather Modification Techniques by US Air Force? August 2003, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/SYT308A.html


Interfax,.US Could Dominate The Planet if It Deploys This Weapon In Space, CRG, August 2002, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/INT208A.html


Scott Gilbert, Environmental Warfare and US Foreign Policy: The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction, January 2004, http://globalresearch.ca/articles/GIL401A.html


Bob Fitrakis, Rods from Gods: The insanity of Star Wars, 24 June 2004, http://globalresearch.ca/articles/FIT407A.html


Did a Secret Military Experiment Cause the 2003 Blackout? 7 September 2003, http://globalresearch.ca/articles/ANA309A.html

Earthquake cloud, Chinese photographer catch prediction 2 days before earthquake occurred

Tianshui city, Gansu province. An Chinese photographer took this picture 2 hrs b4 12th May China earthquake.

Video:




May, 09,2008, 2 days b4 this chinese deadly earthquake, somebody took those photo in Linyi, Shandong province, east China, which you can see lot “line-shaped” cloud, and somebody spot it is Earthquake Cloud and predicted a 6+ earthquake will happen within 2 days, but they dont know where. Of course, nobody believe them that time. Then, 12, May, a 7.8 earthquake occurred in Wenchuan, Sichuan province, west China.
here is those cloud photo.

Man-made Cyclones Used for Clearing Smog

NEWS ARTICLE: "Malaysia to Battle Smog With Cyclones", by Chen May Yee, Staff Reporter of the Wall Street Journal, The Wall Street Journal, Thursday, November 13, 1997, page A19.

KULA LUMPUR -- Malaysia's war on smog is about to get a new twist. The government wants to create man-made cyclones to scrub away the haze that has plagued Malaysia since July. 'We will use special technology to create an artificial cyclone to clean the air', said Datuk Law Hieng Ding, minister for science, technology and the environment. The plan calls for the use of new Russian technology to create cyclones -- the giant storms also known as typhoons and hurricanes -- to cause torrential rains, washing the smoke out of the air. The Malaysian cabinet and the finance minister have approved the plan, Datuk Law said. A Malaysian company, BioCure Sdn. Bhd., will sign a memorandum of understanding soon with a government-owned Russian party to produce the cyclone.

Datuk Law declined to disclose the size of the cyclone to be generated, or the mechanism. 'The details I don't have', he said. He did say, though, that the cyclone generated would be 'quite strong'. Datuk Law also declined to disclose the price of creating the cyclone. But, he said, Malaysia doesn't have to pay if the project doesn't work.

Monday, May 19, 2008

The case for invading Myanmar

Souce
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/JE10Ae01.html
http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/164021


ASIA HAND
The case for invading Myanmar
By Shawn W Crispin

BANGKOK - With United States warships and air force planes at the ready, and over 1 million of Myanmar's citizens left bedraggled, homeless and susceptible to water-borne diseases by Cyclone Nagris, the natural disaster presents an opportunity in crisis for the US.

A unilateral - and potentially United Nations-approved - US military intervention in the name of humanitarianism could easily turn the tide against the impoverished country's unpopular military leaders, and simultaneously rehabilitate the legacy of lame-duck US

President George W Bush's controversial pre-emptive military policies.

Myanmar's ruling junta has responded woefully to the cyclone disaster, costing more human lives than would have been the case with the approval of a swift international response. One week after the killer storm first hit, Myanmar's junta has only now allowed desperately needed international emergency supplies to trickle in. It continues to resist US and UN disaster relief and food aid personnel from entering the country. Officially, 60,000 people have died; the figure is probably closer to 100,000.

The US is prepared to deliver US$3.25 million in initial assistance for survivors, which if allowed by the junta could be rapidly delivered to the worst-hit areas using US Air Force and naval vessels, including the US C-130 military aircraft now in neighboring Thailand, and the USS Kitty Hawk and USS Nimitz naval warships, currently on standby in nearby waters.

With the host government's approval, the US military led the multinational emergency response to the 2004 tsunami, including in the politically sensitive, majority Muslim areas of Aceh, Indonesia. The response to Myanmar's tragedy, in comparison, is being undermined by the play of international power politics, including most notably the military government's antagonistic relations with the US.

Washington has long-held economic sanctions against the regime, which were recently enhanced through financial sanctions against individual junta members, their families and business associates. Despite the economic suffering the sanctions have had on the grassroots population, many Myanmar citizens support the measures against their perceived abusive government, according to one Myanmar researcher. Early last year, the US tried to have Myanmar's abysmal rights record put onto the UN Security Council's agenda, but the motion was later vetoed by Myanmar allies China and Russia.

In the wake of the cyclone, the criminality of the junta's callous policies has taken on new human proportions in full view of the global community. Without a perceived strong UN-led response to the natural disaster, hard new questions will fast arise about the UN's own relevance and ability to manage global calamities.

This week, French Foreign Minister Bernard Koucher suggested that the UN invoke its so-called "responsibility to protect" civilians as legitimate grounds to force aid delivery, regardless of the military government's objections. On Friday, a UN spokesman called the junta's refusal to issue visas to aid workers "unprecedented" in the history of humanitarian work.

Because of the UN's own limited powers of projection, such a response would require US military management and assets. US officials appear to be building at least a rhetorical case for a humanitarian intervention. While offering relief and aid with one hand, top US officials have with the other publicly slapped at the Myanmar government's lame response to the disaster.

Shari Villarosa, head of the US Embassy in Yangon, has challenged the veracity of the government's official death count, telling reporters that storm-related casualties could eventually exceed 100,000 at a time the junta claimed 22,500 had perished. The junta has since revised up its official death toll figure to around 60,000.

US First Lady Laura Bush, who last year publicly goaded Myanmar's population to rise up against the military junta during the "Saffron" revolution, has in the wake of the cyclone revived her criticisms, referring to the government as "inept" and claiming that despite it receiving forewarning it failed to alert its citizens of the impending cyclone.

"It should be a simple matter," said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, referring to the junta's refusal to allow foreign aid workers into the country. "It's not a matter of politics. It's a matter of a humanitarian crisis."

Armed and ready
Should the junta continue to resist foreign assistance while social and public health conditions deteriorate in clear view of global news audiences, the moral case for a UN-approved, US-led humanitarian intervention will grow. Fistfights have already reportedly broken out over food supplies in Yangon, raising the risk that Myanmar troops could soon be called to put down unrest in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. Last September, Myanmar's army opened fire against and killed an unknown number of street demonstrators.

Apart from putting significant US military assets on standby, there are no indications yet that President George W Bush or the Pentagon is preparing a unilateral rescue operation. Yet policymakers in Washington are now no doubt weighing the potential pros and cons of a pre-emptive humanitarian mission in a geo-strategically pivotal and suddenly weakened country that Bush administration officials have recently and repeatedly referred to as an "outpost of tyranny".

Within that policy matrix, the deteriorating situation presents a unique opportunity for Bush to burnish his foreign policy legacy. Some note that a US military response to Myanmar's humanitarian crisis would follow in the footsteps of Bush's presidential father, George H W Bush, who after declaring victory over the Soviet Union's communist threat, moved to demonstrate to the post-Cold War world that US military might would be a force for global good.

That included his government's US military-led humanitarian aid mission in civil war- and famine-struck Somalia in August 1992 that morphed later in the same year into a full-blown US Marine invasion of the capital Mogadishu, including the airport and main port, to protect the integrity of future aid deliveries from marauding militias. That military mission was mostly abandoned by 1993 after fierce fighting between US troops and Somali militias, while television images of a slain US soldier being dragged through Mogadishu's streets took the idealistic edge off the supposedly humanitarian military exercise.

This time, it is almost sure-fire that Myanmar's desperate population would warmly welcome a US-led humanitarian intervention, considering that its own government is now withholding emergency supplies. Like his father then, Bush is now clearly focused on his presidential legacy, which to date will be judged harshly due to his government's controversial pre-emptive military policies, waged until now exclusively in the name of fighting global terror.

In an era when the US routinely launches pre-emptive military strikes, including its 2003 invasion of Iraq, the 2003 Predator drone assassination attack against an alleged al-Qaeda leader in Yemen, a similar drone attack in 2006 in northwestern Pakistan, and last week's attack against a reputed al-Qaeda ringleader in Somalia, it is not inconceivable that the US might yet intervene in military-run Myanmar, particularly if in the days ahead the social and political situation tilts towards anomie.

Whether or not a US military intervention in the name of humanitarianism would, as in Somalia, eventually morph into an armed attempt at regime change and nation-building would likely depend on the population's and Myanmar military's response to the first landing of US troops. Some political analysts speculate that Myanmar's woefully under-resourced and widely unpopular troops would defect en masse rather than confront US troops.

While Myanmar ally China would likely oppose a US military intervention, Beijing has so far notably goaded the junta to work with rather than against international organizations like the UN, and more to the point, it lacks the power projection capabilities to militarily challenge the US in a foreign theater. Most notably, the US would have at its disposal a globally respected and once democratically elected leader in Aung San Suu Kyi to lead a transitional government to full democracy.

Many have speculated that Myanmar's notoriously paranoid junta abruptly moved the national capital 400 kilometers north from Yangon to its mountain-rung redoubt at Naypyidaw in November 2005 due to fears of a possible pre-emptive US invasion, similar to the action against Iraq. Now, Cyclone Nagris and the government's woeful response to the disaster have suddenly made that once paranoid delusion into a strong pre-emptive possibility, one that Bush's lame-duck presidency desperately needs.

Shawn W Crispin is Asia Times Online's Southeast Asia Editor. He may be reached at swcrispin@atimes.com

(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing .)


** Comments **



US preparing to deliver $3.25m
by paul pawlowski on 10.05.2008 [11:48 ]


Yes, US would deliver $3,000,000
to destabilize Burma
take over Burma wealth - enslave the Burma people
and advance on Tibet Xinjiang some ethnic group on this side...

US would spend the $3m as it spent in Bosnia -
US bomb Bosnia - then set $m dollars Aid for Bosnia
spent it on US/Brit/JudaeoFascists Advisors
Relief Specialist
CIA/MOSSAD/JudaeoFascists took over the wealth of Yugo

Same thing in Afghan
same in Iraq
same thing Burma

Burma government is asking for Aid for victims
UA/UK/JudaeoFascists are offering "specialists" to enslave Burma
as they enslaved Yugo Afghan Iraq

___________________________________________

More Lies,,,
by ben.douglas on 10.05.2008 [12:58 ]

..Russia, China, Singapore and other countries have already provided aid in aircraft deliveries to Myanmar on the 8/9th May.

US, EU, GB, Australia continue to demonize the Government of Myanmar for geopolitical imperial reasons.

Really, this is a tragedy,... can they really go any lower?

The proof of their lies is in the evidence that non-western news agencies are reporting these deliveries of aid to Myanmar.

Poor captive citizens of the NWO are not aware of this, and are being positively deceived by their own governments/media,...despicable behavior by any standard of human principles.

___________________________________________

Very Interesting....
by BlackPanther on 10.05.2008 [14:23 ]

Well, well, well. The cat is out of the bag. This Asia Slimes editor Shawn W Crispin is brazenly advocating invading another country under the pretext of humanitarianism no less. It's for their own good, doncha know?

How fucking Orwellian. This is part of the broader doctrine of HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION (i.e. Imperialism) favored by Neo-Liberals such as the Democrats and their aggression against Yugoslavia in the 1990s or the bogus Save Darfur campaign.

Whereas, NEOCONS favor the War on Terrorism to justify their aggressive wars, the more cunning NEOLIBERALS favor Humanitarianism to justify their aggressive wars. This development could signal that NEOLIBERALS (Clinton or Obama) are now being promoted by the American ruling class to replace the failed Neocons.

The USA and its allies tried to stage one of their Colored Coup d'etats against Myanmar last year. It failed, so now they play the humanitarian aid card.

Even though America and its allied Coalition Killers are guilty of genocide in Iraq and a humanitarian nightmare in Afghanistan, they still delude themselves that they have some moral legitimacy to pose as humanitarians!

Another issue is how damned convenient this cyclone is for Anglo-American imperial designs. Could it be that this cyclone wasn't so natural but was deliberately created by the USA's Weather-Modification program (HAARP)?

I wonder if what is happening in Myanmar is a TEST CASE for how the USA and crime partners plan to justify their invasions and coup d'etats in the future?

They might think it's EASIER TO SUCKER THE SHEEPLE INTO SUPPORTING WARS OF AGGRESSION AND REGIME CHANGE BASED UPON HUMANITARIANISM--instead of "fighting terrorism" or disarming mythical WMDs.

Reading between the lines, that's exactly the sinister agenda that this Shawn Crispin is proposing.

1. Covertly create a humanitarian crisis in a targetted nation using Weather Modification Warfare or a manufactured economic crises (like food riots)
2. Demand that the targetted country allow access to the American military ... for purely humanitarian and altruistic reasons of course.
3. Use American military black ops and spooks to overthrow that nation's government.

Welcome to the New World Order!

Chokepoint! The Geopolitical Stakes of the Saffron Revolution
htt p:
//www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/Geopolitics___Eurasia/Myanmar/myanmar.html

Environmental Warfare and Climate Change
ht tp://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=1336

Controversial Experimental Weather Modification Bill in US Congress
ht tp://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=2423


___________________________________________

I am for invading the US and force a change in government !
by gazza on 10.05.2008 [15:28 ]


Talk of military intervention for " Humanitarian reasons " is just Neocon talk . We saw how false were the " Humanitarian reasons " in the bombing of Serbia .
The current criminals in charge are desperate about provoking more wars that's why there is talk about war with Iran and now intervention in Myammar under false reasons . I hope Myammar has plenty of air to air missiles they need plenty of them to F@@@ amerikan child killers .
After the illegal invasion of Iraq and Afghanstan , in IRAQ there have been more than ONE million dead people and more than 4 million displaced . Is this not a humanitarian disaster ?

___________________________________________

Myanmar is right to refuse US "help"
by Legolas_Greenleaf on 10.05.2008 [15:39 ]


US "aid" ALWAYS comes with a price: CIA destabilization and economic "reforms". Fuck the USA and their Jew fiat dogshit dollars!

These motherfuckers will use ANY excuse to wage another war. Fucking swine.


___________________________________________
Whiff of fresh air over London
by paul pawlowski on 11.05.2008 [10:11 ]


METRO Friday 9 May 2008 carried picture
of ship in port
caption
On its way: Sailors in the Burmese navy unload aid from India


___________________________________________

Nobody in their Right Mind should accept US "Aid"
by IvanGrozny on 13.05.2008 [07:32 ]


Ukraine received "aid" from the US in the 1990's which consisted of defective, damaged, or expired/outdated goods that were not fit for use. We received medicine that was made in the 1960's. And they called this attempt to poison us with defective medicine "help"!

I don't care how repressive the Government in Myanmar/Burma is. How is their response any different to what the US Government did not do in 2005 when the Katrina hurricane struck the southern US states? How many people died then? Is there a list of deaths?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And to those super magnificent C-130's. They are junk. An Antonov-124 can deliver 10 times more Cargo than this American plane. Anybody with brains would use Russian planes to deliver aid not US Military aircraft and ships, we don't know their "other" motives.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As far as Weather control, this is currently impossible. But it is possible some type of Nuclear weapon was detonated under water near Myanmar that resulted in such widespread destruction.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Media Misquotes Threat From Iran’s President

Sources:
Global Research, January 20, 2007
Title: “Wiped Off The Map—The Rumor of the Century”
Author: Arash Norouzi
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=NOR20070120&articleId=4527

Information Clearing House, May 9, 2006
Title: “Full Text: The President of Iran’s Letter To President Bush”
Translated by Le Monde
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12984.htm

Student Researchers: Becky Bazell
Faculty Evaluator: Peter Phillips, Ph.D.

Across the world a media story has spread that Iran’s President Ahmadinejad has threatened to destroy Israel, by saying that, “Israel must be wiped off the map.” Contrary to general belief, this statement was actually a misinterpretation. However, it was the Islamic Republic News Service in Iran that first mistranslated the quote. Iran’s Foreign Minister attempted to clarify the statement, but the quote ended up having a life of its own in the corporate media.
Amid heated wrangling over Iran’s nuclear program and the threat of preemptive strikes by the US, the quote has been continually used to reinforce the idea that Iran is being run by extremists seeking the total destruction of Israel.
So what did Ahmadinejad actually say? To quote his exact words in Farsi:
“Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad.”
Rezhim-e is the word “regime,” pronounced just like the English word with an extra “eh” sound at the end. Ahmadinejad did not refer to Israel the country or Israel the landmass, but the Israeli regime. This is a vastly significant distinction, as one cannot wipe a regime off the map. Ahmadinejad did not even refer to Israel by name, he instead used the specific phrase “rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods” (regime occupying Jerusalem).
A similar statement by Ahmadinejad in December 2006, “As the Soviet Union disappeared, the Zionist regime will also vanish and humanity will be liberated,” has also been misinterpreted.
In May of 2006 President Ahmadinejad published an open letter to President Bush clearly asking for peace and the mutual respect of human rights. He warns that Western media, through contrived and deceptive information, has intensified the climate of fear that leads to attacks on innocent peoples. The letter was not reported in the US news media. Ahmadinejad began the letter writing, “Mr. George Bush, For some time now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arena. Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ (PBUH), the great Messenger of God, Feel obliged to respect human rights, Present liberalism as a civilization model, Announce one’s opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and WMDs, Make “War on Terror” his slogan, And finally, Work towards the establishment of a unified international community—a community which Christ and the virtuous of the Earth will one day govern, But at the same time, have countries attacked; The lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed and on the slight chance of the … of a … criminals in a village city, or convoy for example the entire village, city or convey set ablaze.”

Evaluator Comment
Ahmadinejad declared that Zionism is the West’s apparatus of political oppression against Muslims. He says the “Zionist regime” was imposed on the Islamic world as a strategic bridgehead to ensure domination of the region and its assets. This position is viewed as threatening to many in the West. While threats and counter-threats escalates tensions in the Persian Gulf, I believe it is important for the media to publish both sides of issues and be as accurate as possible by seeking to build understanding rather than fear and anger.
—Peter Phillips

UPDATE BY Arash Norouzi
In May 2007, the US House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution calling on the U.N. Security Council to charge Ahmadinejad with the crime of inciting genocide “because of his calls for the destruction of the State of Israel”—a violation of the U.N.’s 1948 Genocide Convention—specifically citing the false “wiped off the map” quote from October 2005. It also called for the U.N. to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, with the “potential means to the end of carrying out President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threats against Israel.”
This misquote has become a key component of the push for war with Iran, a war that would make Iraq look like the cakewalk it was predicted to be. Attacking Iran would result in massive death and destruction, affect world oil supplies, provoke terrorism, could initiate the next World War, and might even include the use of nuclear weapons for the first time since WWII. In this heated atmosphere, an accurate narrative is essential in averting the next cataclysmic Mideast intervention. When President Bush emphasizes the importance of taking the words of America’s enemies seriously, that process begins with first determining just what exactly those words are.
Yet my article is about more than just clarifying a mistranslated statement. It’s about the media, propaganda, plagiarism, language, false assumptions ...Functioning much like a puzzle, it engages readers by allowing them to deconstruct the quote and its meaning themselves. This self-verification process adds a compelling aspect in which credibility becomes largely obsolete. The article’s ’punchline’ demonstrates undeniably that members of the mainstream media knowingly spread this rumor, and readers are challenged to check for themselves by comparing linked sources proving this claim.
The idea is not merely to contest a single misquote, but to also promote skepticism about all pre-war intelligence. If this quote is false, then it’s logical to assume that other accusations against Iran could be wrong too—just as they were with Iraq.
The overwhelming ubiquity of this misquote has deterred others from correcting what they probably view as a lost cause. Yet my article alone has been viewed by millions, translated into at least half a dozen languages, garnered radio interviews, inspired videos on YouTube, and become the subject of an entire article in The Bangkok Post. It got the attention of people at the BBC, Washington Post, IAEA, State Department, United Nations, and the Islamic Republic itself. It’s been quoted by numerous journalists, authors and academics, in published letters to the editor, and on call-in TV shows such as on C-SPAN. The Associated Press has now begun citing the “vanish from the page of time” phrase, adding that “independent analysts” have refuted the “map” quote; and Dennis Kucinich was prepared to correct the rumor when asked about the subject on TV recently.
These are hopeful signals that underscore the importance of alternative voices in the media, and their potential effectiveness in influencing the discourse. If the first casualty of war is the truth, then it’s up to the truth tellers—whomever they may be—to enlighten us.

Drinking Water Contaminated by Military and Corporations

Sources:
Environment News Service, March 24, 2006
Title: “Factories, Cities Across USA Exceed Water Pollution Limits”
Author: Sunny Lewis
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2006/2006-03-24-05.asp
AlterNet, August 4, 2006
Title: “Military Waste in Our Drinking Water”
Authors: Sunaura Taylor and Astor Taylor
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/39723/

Student Researchers: Jonathan Stoumen, Adrienne Magee, and Julie Bickel
Faculty Evaluator: Sasha Von Meier, Ph.D. and Steve Norwick, Ph.D.

Water is essential to life, contributing to blood circulation, digestion, metabolism, brain activity, and muscle movements. Yet reliably pure water is growing scarce, even in the United States. Despite the federal government’s avowed commitment “to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters,”1 corporations, municipalities, and the US military pollute our waters—often with little or no accountability.
“Polluters are using America’s waters as their dumping ground,” said US PIRG’s Clean Water Advocate Christy Leavitt. (US PIRG is the national lobby office for the state Public Interest Research Groups, nonprofit public interest advocacy organizations.) “Troubled Waters: An Analysis of Clean Water Act Compliance,” released by US PIRG in March 2006 shows that, between July 2003 and December 2004, over 62 percent of industrial and municipal facilities across the country discharged pollution into US waterways at rates above limits established by the Clear Water Act (CWA).
Using the Freedom of Information Act, US PIRG investigated major facilities’ compliance—or lack of it—with established federal limits on pollution discharges. The average facility discharged pollutants in excess of its permitted limit by over 275 percent, nearly four times the legal limit. Nationally, 436 major facilities exceeded their limits at least half of the time during the study’s timeframe. Thirty-five facilities exceeded their permits during every reporting period. Seven states allowed more than one hundred violations of at least 500 percent (Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York, Tennessee, Texas, and Massachusetts). The study could not analyze facilities in California, Oregon, or Washington due to unreliable data.
Corn farming—think ethanol—is the crop most likely to leach chemical contaminants into waterways.2 Atrazine, which several European nations have banned, is an herbicide widely used in agribusiness, especially on major crops such as corn. The EPA identifies atrazine as the second-most common herbicide in drinking wells. Maximum safe levels of atrazine in drinking water are three parts per billion, but scientists have found up to 224 parts per billion in Midwestern streams, and 2,300 parts per billion in Corn Belt irrigation reservoirs.
Today more than 40 percent of US waterways are unsafe for swimming and fishing, and, as shown by the PIRG study, industrial pollution of the nation’s waters persists—despite the goals of the 1972 Clean Water Act to make all US waters safe for fishing, swimming, and other uses by 1983, and to eliminate the discharge of pollutants into waterways by 1985.
One reason for these ongoing failures is the Bush administration’s consistent efforts to shortchange the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget and to gut the Clean Water Act. In 2003, the Bush administration significantly weakened protections for small streams, wetlands, and other waters, despite Bush having declared 2002-2003 the Year of Clean Water.
However, opposition to environmental protection for clean waterways stems from not only the Bush administration but also the US military, whose pollution poisons the very citizens it is supposed to protect in the name of national security. Weapons production, by the US military and its private contractors, generates more hazardous waste annually than the five largest international chemical companies combined, accounting for one-third of the nation’s toxic waste. Furthermore, the US military is among the most frequent violators of environmental laws.
The Department of Defense (DoD) has sought and received exemptions from a number of crucial public health and environmental laws. Dramatic increases in the amounts of trichloroethylene (TCE) in public aquifers have been one fatal consequence of these exemptions. TCE, a known carcinogen, is used commercially as a solvent. It is the most widespread industrial contaminant in US drinking water. Since the Korean War, military contractors, such as Hughes Missiles Systems (purchased by Raytheon in 1997), have used TCE to degrease airplane parts, and to clean fuel lines at missile sites.
Consequently, TCE contamination is especially common around military facilities. The Pentagon is responsible for the TCE contamination of over 1,400 properties. In 2001, the EPA sought to force the government to require more thorough cleanups at military sites, by lowering the acceptable limits on TCE from five parts per billion to one part per billion. In response, the DoD joined the Department of Energy and NASA in blocking the EPA’s proposed action. The Bush administration charged the EPA with inflating TCE’s risks, and called on the National Academy of Sciences to evaluate the EPA’s claims. The Academy’s 2003 report confirmed the EPA’s assessment, linking TCE to kidney cancer, impaired neurological function, reproductive and developmental damage, autoimmune disease, and other human ailments. The Bush administration and the DoD have ignored these inconvenient findings. As a result, citizens, who pay for the military budget with their tax dollars, are also paying with their health and sometimes their lives.

Citations
1. Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 USC. 1251 et seq), Section 101(a).
2. Sasha Lilley, “Green Fuel’s Dirty Secret,” CorpWatch, June 1, 2006.

UPDATE BY SUNNY LEWIS
Compliance with the Clean Water Act on the part of industrial and municipal water facilities and land developers is of utmost importance to the quality of America’s waters—from wetlands, ponds, and small streams to mighty rivers and the Great Lakes.
The US Public Interest Research Group, US PIRG, which discovered the failure of 62 percent of facilities to comply with the law based on documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, intends to do more work on this subject later this year.
Christy Leavitt of US PIRG, quoted by ENS in the original article, says the group will issue another report based on updated figures obtained in May from the US Environmental Protection Agency.
As ENS reported, US PIRG recommended that all US waters be protected by withdrawal of what the group called “the Bush administration’s 2003 No Protection” policy which excludes many small streams and wetlands from protection under the Clean Water Act.
Since the ENS report was published, the US Supreme Court handed down a ruling on the scope of the Clean Water Act that many water and environmental experts as well as Members of Congress believe has muddied the legal waters and made new legislation necessary.
In June 2006, the high court ruled in the case Rapanos et ux., et at. v. United States that there are limits to the federal government’s authority to regulate wetlands under the Clean Water Act, but failed to agree on the confines of that power.
The consolidated case involved conflicts between developers who wanted to build condos and stores on wetlands and federal regulators, who refused to allow the developments under the authority of the Clean Water Act. The waters at issue were wetlands adjacent to ditches and drains that connected to “navigable waters” of the United States.
For a full discussion of the ruling, please see the ENS report, “US Supreme Court Decision Fails to Clarify Clean Water Act,” at http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2006/2006-06-19-10.asp.
In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled in another case, Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. Corps of Engineers, SWANCC, that non-navigable, isolated, intrastate waters do not fall under the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act.
On May 25, 2007, a bi-partisan bill was introduced in the House of Representatives that attempts to clarify the original intent of Congress in the 1972 Clean Water Act in the wake of these two decisions.
To achieve clarification, the new measure, the Clean Water Restoration Act, replaces the term “navigable waters of the United States” with the term “waters of the United States.”
The Clean Water Restoration Act has 158 original cosponsors, and the endorsement of more than three hundred organizations representing the conservation community, family farmers, fishers, surfers, boaters, faith communities, environmental justice advocates, labor unions, and civic associations.
It replaces a bill mentioned in the original ENS report, the Clean Water Authority Restoration Act, that was not approved during the 109th Congress.
As ENS reported in March 2006, US PIRG recommended that the Clean Water State Revolving Fund be fully funded to help communities upgrade their sewer systems.
The Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund guarantees loans for cities and towns so they can borrow for sewer projects at a lower interest rate, saving local taxpayers billions of dollars nationwide.
On March 8, 2007, ENS reported that the Bush administration’s budget proposal to cut some $400 million from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund budget came under fire by members of both parties in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
On March 9, 2007, ENS reported that the US House of Representatives passed the Water Quality Financing Act of 2007. For the first time in twenty years, the measure H.R. 720, would reauthorize the Clean Water State Revolving Funds. At press time, this measure had not come before the US Senate.
For its part, the US EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, OECA, says its actions to enforce Clean Water Act requirements in FY 2006 resulted in more than 283 million pounds of pollutants reduced.
Most of these reductions are the result of the EPA’s “national priority efforts” to control overflows from combined sewer overflows and sanitary sewer overflows and contamination caused by surface runoff from stormwater and concentrated animal feeding operations, the agency said.
Working in partnership with states, OECA says it concluded major legal settlements with dozens of cities to bring critical sewer systems back into compliance.
The settlements require comprehensive plans to improve the maintenance and operation of systems to reduce overflows, and long-term capital construction projects to expand treatment capacity to ensure that sewage is properly treated before being discharged, the OECA said in the “EPA Fiscal Year 2006 Accomplishments Report.”
The settlements concluded in FY 2006 will reduce overflows of untreated or inadequately treated sewage by 26 million pounds, with an estimated investment of $930 million in sewer system upgrades and improvements.
To find out more about the scope of the Clean Water Act and compliance with this law, visit:

US Public Interest Research Group: http://www.uspirg.org/

US EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance: http://www.epa.gov/compliance/

US EPA Clean Water Act Compliance Assistance:
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/assistance/bystatute/cwa/index.html

Clean Water Act State Revolving Fund:
http://www.epa.gov/owm/cwfinance/cwsrf/index.htm

Stormwater Authority: http://www.stormwaterauthority.org

Big Media Interlocks with Corporate America

By Peter Phillips

Mainstream media is the term often used to describe the collective group of big TV, radio and newspapers in the United States. Mainstream implies that the news being produced is for the benefit and enlightenment of the mainstream population—the majority of people living in the US. Mainstream media include a number of communication mediums that carry almost all the news and information on world affairs that most Americans receive. The word media is plural, implying a diversity of news sources.
However, mainstream media no longer produce news for the mainstream population—nor should we consider the media as plural. Instead it is more accurate to speak of big media in the US today as the corporate media and to use the term in the singular tense—as it refers to the singular monolithic top-down power structure of self-interested news giants.
A research team at Sonoma State University has recently finished conducting a network analysis of the boards of directors of the ten big media organizations in the US. The team determined that only 118 people comprise the membership on the boards of director of the ten big media giants. This is a small enough group to fit in a moderate size university classroom. These 118 individuals in turn sit on the corporate boards of 288 national and international corporations. In fact, eight out of ten big media giants share common memberships on boards of directors with each other. NBC and the Washington Post both have board members who sit on Coca Cola and J. P. Morgan, while the Tribune Company, The New York Times and Gannett all have members who share a seat on Pepsi. It is kind of like one big happy family of interlocks and shared interests. The following are but a few of the corporate board interlocks for the big ten media giants in the US:
New York Times: Caryle Group, Eli Lilly, Ford, Johnson and Johnson, Hallmark, Lehman Brothers, Staples, Pepsi Washington Post: Lockheed Martin, Coca-Cola, Dun & Bradstreet, Gillette, G.E. Investments, J.P. Morgan, Moody’s Knight-Ridder: Adobe Systems, Echelon, H&R Block, Kimberly-Clark, Starwood Hotels The Tribune (Chicago & LA Times): 3M, Allstate, Caterpillar, Conoco Phillips, Kraft, McDonalds, Pepsi, Quaker Oats, Shering Plough, Wells Fargo News Corp (Fox): British Airways, Rothschild Investments GE (NBC): Anheuser-Busch, Avon, Bechtel, Chevron/Texaco, Coca-Cola, Dell, GM, Home Depot, Kellogg, J.P. Morgan, Microsoft, Motorola, Procter & Gamble, Disney (ABC): Boeing, Northwest Airlines, Clorox, Estee Lauder, FedEx, Gillette, Halliburton, Kmart, McKesson, Staples, Yahoo, Viacom (CBS): American Express, Consolidated Edison, Oracle, Lafarge North America Gannett: AP, Lockheed-Martin, Continental Airlines, Goldman Sachs, Prudential, Target, Pepsi, AOL-Time Warner (CNN): Citigroup, Estee Lauder, Colgate-Palmolive, Hilton
Can we trust the news editors at the Washington Post to be fair and objective regarding news stories about Lockheed-Martin defense contract over-runs? Or can we assuredly believe that ABC will conduct critical investigative reporting on Halliburton’s sole-source contracts in Iraq? If we believe the corporate media give us the full un-censored truth about key issues inside the special interests of American capitalism, then we might feel that they are meeting the democratic needs of mainstream America. However if we believe — as increasingly more Americans do— that corporate media serves its own self-interests instead of those of the people, than we can no longer call it mainstream or refer to it as plural. Instead we need to say that corporate media is corporate America, and that we the mainstream people need to be looking at alternative independent sources for our news and information.
Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and Director of Project Censored. For a listing of current censored news stories see http://www.projectcensored.org/ Sonoma State University students Bridget Thornton and Brit Walters conducted the research on the media interlocks.


(ယုံျကည္ခ်က္။ ။ ဒီမုိကေရစီ၊ လူအခြင့္အေရးဆုိတာ စာရြက္ေပၚမွာပဲရွိပါတယ္။ ဗုဒၶတရားေတာ္နဲ႔ အညီ ေလာဘ၊ ေဒါသ၊ ေမာဟ နည္းေအာင္ လုပ္ခ်င္းသည္သာ လက္ေတြ႔က်ေသာ ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးစံနစ္ျဖစ္ေပၚ လာေစမည္ျဖစ္ပါသည္။)

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

China bloggers cook up quake conspiracies

ေအာက္တြင္ရွိသည့္ Comment မွ ေဆြးေႏြးခ်က္မ်ားမွာ စိတ္၀င္စားဖုိ႔ ေကာင္းသည္ ထင္ပါသည္။

As the death toll in China's Sichuan province climbs, the nation’s bloggers have joined together in the search for a scapegoat.

Broadband connections across the country are pulsing with rumours of "earthquake omens" involving toads or butterflies - all allegedly ignored by the authorities. Some even talk of a vast pre-Olympic conspiracy.

One blogger from Shandong province, in eastern China, wrote that more than a month ago, he went to his local earthquake resesarch centre several times to report that his animals had been disturbed and restless.

But, he wrote: "They not only ridiculed me, they accused me of making up stories."

Other blogs link to Chinese newspaper reports of bizarre natural occurrences in the past few weeks.

The Chutian Metropolis Daily reported that on April 26, 80,000 tonnes of water suddenly drained from a large pond in Enshi, Hubei province. The province shares a border with Chongqing Municipality, which was devastated by the earthquake on Monday.

On May 10, a Sichuan-based newspaper, the West China Metropolis Daily, reported that hundreds of migrating toads descended upon the streets of Mianyang, the second largest city in the province which neighbours Wenchuan County, the epicentre of the earthquake.

The Chinese state news agency reported today that 18,645 people were buried under the city's collapsed buildings and 3,629 people confirmed dead.

In the city of Mianzhu, 60 miles from the epicentre, bloggers pointed to reports just weeks before the earthquake of a mass migration of more than one million butterflies.

Other bloggers seized upon an as yet unsubstantiated rumour that a Chinese geologist had predicted the earthquake in advance but had been stifled by the authorities, and by fear.

"On the seventh of May, a geologist predicted this [earthquake]," wrote one blogger. "But he didn't dare make it public."

Another blogger from Beijing wrote: “Everyone is talking about the rescue effort but they are not actually joining it.

“So, instead we should turn our thoughts to why [the authorities] didn’t forecast the earthquake and evacuate the people...

“Could it be that it was out of a desire for a peaceful Olympics?”

In an editorial in the Southern Metropolis Daily, the established journalist and commentator, Chang Ping, cited the growing tide of rumours and speculation surrounding the earthquake as evidence of the need for greater freedom of information in China.

He wrote: “As the phone lines went down, rumours multiplied...I understood that the vast majority of this information could not be verified and that the police regarded it as the transmission of rumours punishable by criminal detention.

“But as someone with relatives in the affected area, I could not stop myself from seeking whatever information I could ...”

He added: ”The information was clearly unreliable, and it was difficult to tell what was true or false.

“Together it all spoke of a single problem, and that is the people’s fierce appetite for information when faced with a public incident.”



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Have your say

This stuff sounds like spin to me. The story here is that staff at the seismic station say they were prevented from issuing a warning because of the Olympic games and the possibility of unrest of in Tibetan Northern Sichuan

antony clark, Deyang, China

Humans have lost their ability to sense natural disasters but other animals haven't. Animals have better sensed than we do and it's not totally unbelievable that the animals knew what would happen.

Cindy, New York City, USA

In the last days the Bible says there will be a great increase in wars, EARTHQUAKES, famines and diseases (Luke chapter 21) .
Theres also a micro chip for either the right hand or forhead economy prophesied in Revelation 13:16-18 and 14:9-11 on the horizon.
It all points to Jesus' soon return.

G. Gibson, Sydney, Australia

maybe we should question why bush has money to send to china and burma, while we still have homeless people in new orleans and whole communities that still need clean up. what about those people. let china take care of china! we need to take care of our own!

maria, atwater california,

The other day, I saw 10 million ants having a wild orgy. That must mean the world is coming to an end!

jj, Columbus, US

The earthquake is notorious for its quickness in movement and difficulty in prediction. The abnormal behaviours of animals can be caused by so many different factors. How can we just draw a hasty conclusion that our gov delibrately ignores the quake omens?

wuyou, wuhan, China

All the blogging in the world isn't going to hide what is obvious to most of the Chinese people: that the "judgement of heaven" is on the Chinese government, in fact many times over. Brutal suppression of all dissident opinion is the crime, and judgement is the penalty.

John, La Paz,

Come on. You can't blame the Chinese government for not evacuating people ahead of time. Earthquake science is about the "possibility" of an earthquake occuring, not an exact prediction. It was a natural disaster, that's all. And those of us close by, in China, should organize clothing drives.

Brian Compton, Shanghai, China

Chinese culture is riddled with superstation and in some ways this helps them make sense of what has happen. We cant use animal behavior to predicting earthquakes, science is the only way. It's time that all countries living in earthquake zones need to think more about their construction methods.

Stephen, Newport, IOW,

Pray for the people in Sichuan. I don't want to find whether the earthquake is predictable or not. The most important thing is to rescue those lives buried. 2008 should be a luck year for Chinese. But so many disasters happened. Anyway, I believe that we can recover from the natural disasters.

Wei, Shanghai, China

Claim : ' elephants strangely moved inward many hours before tsunami hit '
Evidence : ' elephants satellite collars record ' ' no evidence of flight behavior was found ' ' moved to the beach, not away '

Nothing ' unusual ' . Humans love to tell stories , especially fictional ones ....

Sal Thomas, Calgary , Canada

You used the wrong word, conspiracy, in the article. The bloggers are not talking about conspiracies, but about the fact that there exist "alternative" modes of predicting earthquakes and tsunamis that are based on "natural" rather than scientific knowledge.

Dayahka, Aberdeen, USA

Chinese are strong people and all of our best wishes for china and good luck in Olympics games..

Mohammad, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Many people claim to be able to predict the stock market as well. You always hear how the last recession was "predicted". You never hear the *countless* theories that failed to find the mark. The same goes here. "Obvious" warnings are only such upon retrospection.

greg, Vancouver, Canada

I cried at the news and photos.

As a Chinese student in the US, I couldn't help wondering why the school buildings were that vulnerable. Children are the hope of Chinese families, not to mention the "one child per family" policy. I can't imagine how the parents will handle the loss.

Lina, Newark, US

Accounts of animal anticipation of earthquakes have surfaced across the centuries since. Catfish moving violently, chickens that stop laying eggs and bees leaving their hive in a panic have been reported. Countless pet owners claimed to have witnessed their cats and dogs acting strangely before....

Susan Lovejoy, Byron Bay, Australia

Hindsight is always 100% accurate

Tom, Toronto,

But ancient methods still exist. We lost our instincts and our sensitivity to nature. Therefore we require a canary in the coal mine. We need to heed any strange migrations or animal activities. Even with the Tsunami the animals had made their way towards higher ground well before it hit.

Gen, Lowell, US

There is no sure way to predict an earthquake... although there are some interesting precursors. The West Coast of Canada closely watches the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate as it slides along, little tremors that put us on notice that someday something big and bad is eventually gonna happen.

Richard , Victoria , Canada

I think perhaps the problem for the Chinese bloggers is that when they normally receive information it has been massaged by the information ministry so that all the media outlets are singing from the same red book. In an emergency they get the same type of fragmented information we are used to.

Callum, Jakarta, Indonesia

With so many people in China, each with their own story, coincidences are bound to show themselves. Without good "truthy" information sources, people are bound to cling to whatever shreds of information they can find--anything to explain such a tragedy. China needs a better ministry of information.

Will C., Portland, Oregon, USA

I live in California where we have earthquakes often and are expecting a big one soon. I predict "the big one" just about every time something unusual happens (weather/animal behavior/etc..) but fortunately I've been wrong every time. One of these days I will be right and viewed as a prophet.

Charles, Santa Monica, CA, USA

The Chinese have led the world in researching earthquake omens including a vast amount of research into animal behaviour. My understanding is that there is little evidence to suggest that animals are capable of earthquake prediction. This is not time for the peddling unhelpful conspiracy theories.

Ian , Pett, United Kingdom

I've read a book about the Tangshan earthquake, animals were behaving strangely as well on the days before that earthquake. I guess it must be some special sense that humans do not have. Of course, it'll take years before someone proves this scientifically.

Alasdair, London, UK

Compared to the government policy of not many years ago I am amazed at the information being released. Scientists should note and investigate the reports of unusual animal and physical activity of water because this has been seen elsewhere in the world. My sympathy for the injured and those lost.

Phil de Buquet, Newport,

The Chinese have been able to predict earthquakes before and successfully evacuate people to safety before the quake. If there were signs of a coming earthquake the government should have taken heed of them. It's not all quackery and hocus pocus if you read the research.

Daniel, Los Angeles,

Animal behaviour predicting natural disasters is a favourite amongst superstitious people as well as nature buffs who think it's cute to assume that frogs are smarter than scientists. One thing the bloggers are right about though is the need for information - here the need for education is obvious.


Mark, London,

Why do we need to read this? If incredibly someone knew an earthquake was coming, there are still 30milion people in Chongqing city alone, what are you going to do? Ask them to wait outside?This is a terrible tragedy compounded by poor building standards, in an emerging economy, no conspiracy needed

Paul Smout, Wuhu, China

The death of thousands should not be trivialized by the idea that the government was looking for sympathy from the global community to bring balance to controversy. Perhaps there were subtle signs from nature but either way this event was unpreventable and as tragic as it was, part of nature itself

Lyle, Winnipeg, MB, Canada

I wish it could be predicted, if there's anyway.
Guess the bloggers are doing this because they don't want to face the fact that, the disaster just happened and there's no way to prevent it even with all the high-tech tools. They want to believe they could have done something....

Iris, Hong Kong,

I agree that animals/birds can exhibit strange behaviors at times of natural calamities - - but no one in China, including the government, should be accused of negligence or cover-up!! That's ludicrous.

My prayers go to the victims.

Robert Greene, Florida , USA

Several species behave abnormally prior to big events. It is their senses.Ex: Dogs can hear higher decibels, like many animals. Mass migrations and sinking water are clues to something big. Listen to an earthquake's sound: http://www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/class/100/seismic-waves.html

LUIS LEON, SOUTH GATE,CA, U.S.A

I feel sooo sorry for all the victims of the earthquake in China! That had to be so frightening!
We had a slight earthquake of 5.2 here in Indiana, on April 18th. That was scary enough, and we don't usually have tremblers here!
People noticed animals acting strange here too.

Julie, Fort Wayne, U.S.A.

One good characteristic of Chinese is never give up, no matter how hard or difficult!
All best wishes to China and Chinese people.


William, Adelaide, Australia

There is documented evidence of many correlations between natural phenomena which consistently occur before quakes. Animal Behavior, EMFs, DEMETER satellite data... Why not have a warning system? We have "Terror Alert Levels"... are those based on any exact science? The only difference is politics

Ryan , Santa Rosa, CA, Quake country

You've got to be kidding me! There is no vast conspiracy hiding the forecast of an earthquake. You can't accurately predict earthquakes. It's just terrible that the infrastructure is so bad that it caused so much destruction. I wouldn't trust this country to build olympic stadiums!

Autumn, London,

Such a horrible experience for anyone to endure. My heart and sympathy goes out to all the people impacted by this catastrophe.

Ron, Dripping Springs, USA

If someone can invent a method to predict earthquakes precisely, he/she will certainly be the next Nobel Prize winner!

Terry, Victoria, Canada

this article makes it like Chinese government wants to cover up everything. if there's clear evidence of earth quake forecast, of course they will warn the people. but the fact is there is no scientific evidence shown the links between animal behavior and the earthquake.


Ren, limerick, ireland

I was on the 34th floor of a hotel in Chengdu when this happened. I have been in earthquakes in China before, and I didn't see them coming either. They just happened. How accurate could your predictions be - month/week/day? - and what would you do if you did predict this - shut everything down?

Chris, Chengdu,

It is not new that some animals/birds might have sensed the earthquake and behave abnormally well before the quake happened. Other abnormal natural phenomenon, such as the sudden loss of water of a lake may all be part of the earthquake symptoms, which should not be simply dismissed as superstitious.

Kenpgh, Plymouth, England

As a Pakistani I mourn for the loss of life and property in our all-weather friend China.

I send my condolences, peayers and good wishes to my Chinese friends..

Dr M A R, London,

There have been instances of strange animal behavior days before the occurrence of natural disaster. Japanese scientists even conduct experiments on this. For example in SriLanka, elephants along the coastline strangely moved inward many hours before tsunami hit.

However, it is not proven yet.

Rajesh, Gillville,

The Chinese are such a great people...even in the midst of a truly terrible earthquake, they still go ahead with the Olympics!

No wonder they are the longest continuous soverign people on planet earth!

China, my hat is off to you!

Pauline, Brooklyn, NY

But we should know earthquake is still unpredictable at the moment. So for no one geologist managed to predict a earthquake in practice, remember the recent quake near Lincolnshire in February? even BGS couldn't know it in advanced. All we could do now is to pray for people in Sichuan!

Enoch, Leicester, UK

chinese are strong and will rebuild everything.

My best wishes for china

Saudi Arabia

Mohammad, Gold Coast , Australia

There is no absolute way to predict such a thing and be accurate. If any one person knew the exact date of the earthquake, how would one prepare a whole country without causeing mass histaria?

Ricco, Redlands,

Useful earthquake predictions are not possible with modern science and technology, unfortunately.

Maybe in the near future someone will discover a reliable forecasting tool, but in the meantime we will have to live in earthquake-resistant buildings and prepare for the next big one.


Tim, Melbourne, Australia