Floods and Fires Worldwide

I have compiled this information from the Lunatic Outpost thread:

Moscow Choked by Smoke as Forest, Peat-Bog Fires Spread, Delaying Flights

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-08/moscow-choked-by-smoke-as-forest-peat-bog-fires-spread-delaying-flights.html

Hundreds of wildfires burn in Canada’s British Columbia

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10895107

Lightning-sparked fires in WA prompt smoke warning

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012513642_apwawashwildfires2ndldwritethru.html

Forest Service warns of Tongass National Forest fire risk (Alaska)

http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=12935773

Record Hot Summer Ignites Forest Fires in Iran

http://www.greenprophet.com/2010/08/iran-forest-fire-summer/

Fresh showers worsen flood conditions (Pakistan)

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Fresh-showers-worsen-flood-conditions/Article1-583955.aspx

500 missing after floods in Indian Kashmir

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i7_dGpMHlOOvey4p70kg_XYQIfLAD9HF7QIG0

Ten dead, thousands evacuated in central Europe floods (Poland, Germany, Czech Republic)

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gKNPodd6YyMED2TbzQCIq0ZDL0Vw

At least 65 die in China flooding

http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100808/NEWS/308089936/1006/NEWS

Floods could cost farmers up to $3B (Canada)

http://www.calgaryherald.com/Floods+could+cost+farmers/3371918/story.html

Moscow authorities on Sunday opened more than 120 “anti-smog” centers to give residents an escape from record-breaking heat and choking smoke from wildfires blazing around the capital. Dozens of flights were grounded at local airports.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100808/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_fires

Trash clogging Three Gorges Dam

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1300606/Chinas-Three-Gorges-dam-threat-vast-floating-islands-rubbish.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

At least 127 dead, more than 1,000 missing after landslides in northwest China

http://wireupdate.com/wires/8483/at-least-127-dead-more-than-1000-missing-after-landslides-in-northwest-china/

Morgues and crematoria ‘overcrowded’ as toxic smog chokes Moscow

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0809/toxic-smog-choking-moscow-shows-sign-abating/

Via Lunatic Outpost:

http://lunaticoutpost.com/Topic-Floods-n-Fires-worldwide?page=1

A letter to Joe Lieberman

Mr Lieberman, you do not speak for us

“U.S. Senator Lieberman: Impose sanctions on Iran or attack it”

This is in regards to Mr Warmonger screaming that we need to be engrossed in yet another useless war. I need you to know something, Mr. LIEberman and other various creeps. You are not the majority. You do not speak for the millions of inhabitants of this world, nor do you speak for Americans. Perhaps you can fool some people, but certainly there are those of us who see through your façade. We, the citizenry of this world, do not bow down to your whims; we will not succumb to your tartuffery.

I believe there is evil on this planet, ambassadors of greed and pain such us yourself. There are also those that opt to ignore the suffering going on within our borders, and the funding we have made to cruel tyrants and regimes outside our borders. The problem is, all of this catches up with you. To make industries based on death and destruction is not progression; this is regression. For you cruel people who stick to the apocalyptic script, I cannot imagine there will be an easy time of it. I don’t know why you insist on lies, lies and more lies; I do not know why you inflict your insanity upon people who simply want to live.

I feel pain that we have not progressed to a better level of understanding; of course, this is exactly how you and your minions planned it, isn’t it? To make sure we never progress, never move beyond a mode of thinking that is outmoded, at best.

I cannot imagine that this is progression; if it is, we are living in a true nightmare, a matrix of lies perpetuated by ignorance and idiocy.

May the true arbiters of understanding get through these difficult times so that we may learn with whatever shred of sanity we might have left…

Signed

Heidi-Lore

Warmonger Wins Peace Prize

Warmonger Wins Peace Prize

By Paul Craig Roberts

It took 25 years longer than George Orwell thought for the slogans of 1984 to become reality.

“War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” “Ignorance is Strength.”

I would add, “Lie is Truth.”

The Nobel Committee has awarded the 2009 Peace Prize to President Obama, the person who started a new war in Pakistan, upped the war in Afghanistan, and continues to threaten Iran with attack unless Iran does what the US government demands and relinquishes its rights as a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty.

The Nobel committee chairman, Thorbjoern Jagland said, “Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future.”

Obama, the committee gushed, has created “a new climate in international politics.”

Tell that to the 2 million displaced Pakistanis and the unknown numbers of dead ones that Obama has racked up in his few months in office.  Tell that to the Afghans where civilian deaths continue to mount as Obama’s “war of necessity” drones on indeterminably.

No Bush policy has changed. Iraq is still occupied. The Guantanamo torture prison is still functioning. Rendition and assassinations are still occurring. Spying on Americans without warrants is still the order of the day.  Civil liberties are continuing to be violated in the name of Oceania’s “war on terror.”

Apparently, the Nobel committee is suffering from the delusion that, being a minority, Obama is going to put a stop to Western hegemony over darker-skinned peoples.

The non-cynical can say that the Nobel committee is seizing on Obama’s rhetoric to lock him into the pursuit of peace instead of war.  We can all hope that it works.  But the more likely result is that the award has made “War is Peace” the reality.

Obama has done nothing to hold the criminal Bush regime to account, and the Obama administration has bribed and threatened the Palestinian Authority to go along with the US/Israeli plan to deep-six the UN’s Goldstone Report on Israeli war crimes committed during Israel’s inhuman military attack on the defenseless civilian population in the Gaza Ghetto.

The US Ministry of Truth is delivering the Obama administration’s propaganda that Iran only notified the IAEA of its “secret” new nuclear facility because Iran discovered that US intelligence had discovered the “secret” facility.  This propaganda is designed to undercut the fact of Iran’s compliance with the Safeguards Agreement and to continue the momentum for a military attack on Iran.

The Nobel committee has placed all its hopes on a bit of skin color.

“War is Peace” is now the position of the formerly antiwar organization, Code Pink.

Code Pink has decided that women’s rights are worth a war in Afghanistan.

When justifications for war become almost endless—oil, hegemony, women’s rights, democracy, revenge for 9/11, denying bases to al Qaeda and protecting against terrorists—war becomes the path to peace.

The Nobel committee has bestowed the prestige of its Peace Prize on Newspeak and Doublethink.

http://www.vdare.com/roberts/091009_warmonger.htm

Russia-China Warn US That Israeli Attack On Iran Means World War

A chilling report circulating in the Kremlin today states that President Medvedev and Chinese President Hu have issued an “urgent warning” to the United States that says if the Americans allow an Israeli nuclear attack upon Iran, “World War will be our response”.

Fueling Russian and Chinese fears are intelligence reports stating that Israel has moved over three-quarters of its Naval Forces through the Suez Canal and has assembled over 30 of its US-built fighter jets in Kurdistan for a planned attack using American made “bunker busting” bombs and nuclear armed cruise missiles.

Russian Military Analysts state in these reports that Israel first plans to use its US-built fighter jets to target Iran’s nuclear facilities, and upon a combined Iranian and Lebanonese Hezbollah  “response”, that is said will “rain missiles down upon Israel”, Israeli submarines and surface vessels with unleash nuclear armed cruise missiles against Iran’s military, religious and political infrastructure.

Israeli news sources are also confirming Russian and Chinese fears over an attack by their country upon Iran, and as we can read as reported the Haaretz News Service:

“Israel’s recent deployment of warships across the Red Sea should be seen as serious preparation for an attack on Iran, an Israeli defense official told the Times of London on Thursday.

“This is preparation that should be taken seriously. Israel is investing time in preparing itself for the complexity of an attack on Iran. These maneuvers are a message to Iran that Israel will follow up on its threats,” the official was quoted as saying.”

President Bush had become so alarmed over Israel’s plan to attack Iran that in an unprecedented move, just prior to leaving office, he refused the Israelis “secret request” for 1,000 of the American bunker busting bombs they wanted, but, Israel had obtained 100 of these dreaded weapons in a 2005 deal with the Pentagon.

Upon Obama assuming the US Presidency, Israel’s Prime Minister gave the American leader a stark warning that “Either you take care of Iran-quickly-or I will”, a challenge that Obama, while in Russia last week, slapped down by warning that the United States is “absolutely not” giving Israel a green light to attack Iran, a curious statement, however, when viewed in the light of the American Vice President Biden stating just days before that “Israel is free to do whatever it deems necessary to remove the Iranian nuclear threat”.

Fueling Russian and Chinese fears over Israel’s planned attack on Iran, these reports continue, is the Jewish states planned use of Iraqi territory from their Kurdistan region which borders Iran, and which this past week furthered its goal to become an independent Nation with the adopting of a new constitution, and with its Israeli trained army can expect an “immediate” invasion from both its sworn enemies Turkey and Iran.

Even worse, Syria’s leader has reportedly warned the US that upon Turkey and Iran declaring war upon Kurdistan and Israel it would “no choice” but to honor its defense agreements with the Iranians calling for their Nations to protect each other in times of peril.

Further complicating this mess is Turkey’s membership in NATO, and which under that alliances agreement calls for the United States and Europe to join with the Turkish military in fighting against what in essence would be their own allies of Israel and Kurdistan.

Not being known to the American people is that while their Military Forces have been fighting in Iraq, the United States and Iran have longstanding agreements allowing the Iranians to shell Iraqi Kurd territory without fear of reprisal, an agreement that also includes Turkey who have battled against the Iraqi Kurds for decades.

Most ominously in these reports though, both Russia and China state that they will have “no choice” but to place an “immediate embargo” against any oil and gas coming from the Middle East and weapons to the region the United States may try to supply.  China further states in this warning that upon an Israeli attack upon Iran they will “immediately cease” to purchase any more US debt, and with the American deficit hitting $1 Trillion for the first time in their history, and with it expecting to exceed $2 Trillion by the end of the fiscal year on September 30th, a particually grave threat being that China’s $2 Trillion in reserves are the only thing keeping the US economy afloat.

Russian Intelligence Analysts further report that the long-serving head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, resigned today over fears for his and his family’s safety upon an attack by Israel upon the Persian Nation.

What is not known at this time, these reports summarize, is if Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, which the Israelis report has been “successfully tested”, would be able to withstand the estimated 6,000 plus missiles expected to be fired at it by the combined powers of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah.

But, to Israeli war leaders believing that upon the conventional destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Persian Nation will “sue for peace” rather than be hit by nuclear weapons, these reports state, unequivocally, that Iranian leaders are “fully prepared” to engulf the entire World in “brutal fire” rather than to ever “kneel down” before the “Zionists” they have long stated have no right being in the Middle East in the first place.

http://dprogram.net/2009/07/18/russia-china-warn-us-that-israeli-attack-on-iran-means-%E2%80%9Cworld-war%E2%80%9D/

Iran on PM’s speech: Int’l community must stop greedy Zionist regime

// Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi slammed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy address and called on the international community and the Arab nations to do whatever was necessary “to stop the greedy Zionist regime” and defend the Palestinian people.

According to Ghashghavi, “The root of the problems in the Middle East it occupation and aggression. As long as there are occupation and aggression there can be no solution to the conflict.” (Dudi Cohen)

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3732383,00.html

Iran Launches Airstrikes on Iraqi Villages

By Noah Shachtman

Iranian aircraft attacked three villages inside Iraq over the weekend. The airstrikes — Iran’s first on Iraqi soil since the U.S. invasion — could complicate the Obama administration’s efforts to normalize relations with Tehran.

“The bombardments appeared to have targeted the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), an Iranian Kurdish separatist group which has launched attacks on Iran from rear-supply bases in the mountains of northern Iraq,” AFP reports. Iran has attacked the Kurdish group before, with artillery. But this is the first time the Iranians followed up, with assaults from the air.

“The incident comes a week after reports of a clash between Iranian police officers and suspected PJAK fighters in the country’s western province of Kermanshah,” Al-Jazeera reports. “At least 10 policemen and 10 fighters were killed in the gun battle.”

Details on the airstrikes remain sketchy. Voice of America says the attacks were carried out by helicopters, which remained in Iranian airspace. Al-Arabiyah television, on the other hand, says it was “Iranian planes [that] raided those villages.”

It is a serious development because the Iraqi airspace is under the control of the US Air Force and under US protection.  So the raids are either approved by the United States, as was the case when a US nod was previously given to the Turkish Army, or such operation was a surprise by the Iranians.  According to eyewitnesses, the planes were flying at very low altitudes, which may indicate that they were trying to escape detection by radars. So these planes were able to attack many locations.  Eyewitnesses and official Kurdish sources said that the raids were carried out by fighter jets and not helicopters.

In February, American fighter jets shot down an Iranian drone flying over Iraq. Such an incursion would’ve likely provoked an angry response from the previous administration. But the reaction to the drone incident was muted — perhaps in the interest of keeping the dialogue with Tehran going.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/iran-launches-airstrikes-on-iraqi-villages/

Canada backs Israeli attack on Iran?

*This guy just needs to shut up…*

Canada casts new aspersions on Iran’s nuclear activities, vowing to throw its weight behind Israel in the event of a military conflict.

In his harshest rhetoric so far, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper vowed steadfast support for Israel and claimed that the Iranian government has “evil” purposes for its technological achievements.

“My government is a very strong supporter of the state of Israel and considers the Iranian threats to be absolutely unacceptable and beyond the pale,” said The Canadian prime minister, the Wall Street Journal’s online edition reported.

The comments come while The Islamic Republic has long been a supporter of peace in the region and is among the states that have never invaded or threatened to invade another country.

“It concerns me that we have a regime with both an ideology that is obviously evil, combined with a desire to procure technology to act on that ideology,” Harper said.

Western accusations against Iran gathered pace, after the country staged successful tests at the 1000-megawatt light-water reactor facility in Bushehr, stimulating fuel rods with lead rather than virtual nuclear fuel.

While the pilot operations were seen as a milestone in the construction of Iran’s first nuclear power plant, it provoked a tidal wave of criticism from Israel and its Western allies.

The US, Israel and their European allies accuse Tehran of making efforts to develop a military nuclear program. Iran, however, dismisses the allegations, saying it will prove the civilian nature of its uranium enrichment in future negotiations.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=87162&sectionid=351020104

Report: Israel Preparing to Strike Iran Without U.S. Consent

*HERE WE GO…more of the same script, eh??*

Israel is drawing up plans to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and is prepared to launch a strike without backing from the U.S., an Israeli newspaper reported Thursday.

Officials in the Israeli Defense Ministry told The Jerusalem Post that while they prefer to act in consultation with the U.S., they are preparing plans that would allow them to act alone.

“It is always better to coordinate,” a senior Defense Ministry official told the newspaper. “But we are also preparing options that do not include coordination.”

It would be difficult, but not impossible, to launch a strike against Iran without permission from the U.S., as the American Air Force controls the Iraqi airspace Israel’s jets would have to enter on a bombing mission.

“There are a wide range of risks one takes when embarking on such an operation,” a senior Israeli official told the Post.

Iran, the world’s fourth-largest crude oil producer, maintains that its uranium enrichment activities are aimed at making fuel for a network of planned electricity-generating nuclear power plants and not for developing weapons.

However Israel intelligence sources say Iran has sufficient nuclear material to make an atomic bomb.

Last month, amid mounting fears in Israel that the U.S. was doing nothing to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, Ehud Olmert, Israel’s Prime Minister, warned President Bush the last chance of destroying Tehran’s nuclear bomb-making program was passing.

Iran dismisses the possibility of an Israeli strike.

“We think that regional and international developments and the complicated situation faced by Israel itself will not allow it to launch military strikes against other countries,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said, according to the Press TV Web site.

“Israel makes threats to promote its psychological and media warfare,” Qashqavi said.

A report, published in September in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, claimed that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert requested a green light to attack Iran in May but was refused by Bush.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,461588,00.html

IAEA info suggests Iran worked on nuclear missile

*Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of deaths construction*
VIENNA, Austria (AP) — The U.N. nuclear monitoring agency shared new photos and documents purporting to show that Iran tried to refit its main long-distance missile to carry a nuclear payload, said diplomats who attended the meeting Tuesday.

Responding to the presentation to the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a senior U.S. envoy said the information was compelling evidence against the Islamic Republic. His Iranian counterpart said the material shown was fabricated.

Other diplomats, who demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on the closed meeting’s details, described the information as credible but unverified. The presentation relied on photos and documents pertaining to what U.S. intelligence says were Iranian efforts to work on nuclear weapons program up to 2003. After that year, according to a U.S. intelligence estimate, Iran apparently stopped such activity.

The briefing focused on an IAEA report circulated to the board members Monday that faulted Iran for blocking efforts to further investigate the alleged weapons program. The report also confirmed that Iran was expanding uranium enrichment activities — which can make both nuclear fuel and warhead payloads — despite three sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions.

Part of the report spoke of what appeared to be drawings and calculations by Iranian engineers on reconfiguring its Shahab-3 missile to be able to carry a nuclear payload, and the presentation Tuesday went into greater detail, the diplomats said.

Iranian officials say the missile has a range of 1,250 miles, enabling a strike on Israel and most of the Middle East.

The presentation “showed board members for the first time photographs and documents of work undertaken in Iran on the redesigning of the Shahab-3 missile to carry what would appear to be a nuclear weapon,” said Gregory L. Schulte, the chief U.S. representative to the IAEA. He said the senior IAEA official doing the briefing “told us that information they have is very credible.”

The Iranian envoy said the IAEA determined that the material shown could not verified.

“We have given clear information … (on) why this material is fabricated,” Ali Ashgar Soltanieh told reporters in separate comments. He called for “an end to this endless process” of probing Iran for evidence of an arms program he said never existed.

A diplomat inside the meeting said the truth lay somewhere between the U.S. and Iranian standpoints, telling The Associated Press board members were told “the information is credible but cannot be verified.”

Another said that while the information was compelling, most of it was known and what was new in the presentation “appeared to be only a few new photos and diagrams.”

With IAEA deputy Director General Olli Heinonen ill, the briefing was conducted by his aide, Hermann Naeckerts, who was “more cautious” than Heinonen had been at an earlier briefing, he said.

In Washington, the State Department said it would host a meeting of top negotiators from the five U.N. Security Council countries and Germany on Friday to discuss how to proceed in wake of Monday’s IAEA report, which was also send to the council. Officials said the meeting would be held to prepare for a gathering of the six foreign ministers expected next week on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly session in New York.

The U.S and its Western allies would like to see new U.N sanctions against Iran, but Russia and China traditionally oppose harsh Security Council action. China said Tuesday that further penalties will not resolve the nuclear impasse.

Still, White House spokesman Gordon Johdroe spoke Monday of “the possibility of new sanctions.” And on Tuesday, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier told reporters that Paris had “no other choice than to work in the days and weeks to come toward a new Security Council sanctions resolution.”

The IAEA’s latest report suggested Iran has now amassed a third of the amount of enriched uranium it could reprocess into the material for the fissile core of a nuclear weapon should it choose to do so. But U.N officials familiar with the report emphasized that Iran — whose known nuclear programs are under IAEA supervision — has shown no indication it wanted to go that route.

The U.S. and its allies allege that Iran wants to develop its uranium enrichment program to make nuclear weapons. But oil-rich Iran insists it only wants to make nuclear energy, and IAEA oversight and inspections of its known enrichment program has not found any evidence that contradicts that.