Magnitude 7.3 Earthquake Auckland Islands New Zealand
September 30, 2007
The quake struck at 4.24pm AEST near New Zealand, the agency said in a statement.
A chance of tsunami near the epicentre was possible, it said.
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Dengue Fever Surges In Latin America
September 29, 2007
Dengue fever is spreading across Latin America and the Caribbean in one of the worst outbreaks in decades, causing agonizing joint pain for hundreds of thousands of people and killing nearly 200 so far this year.
The mosquitoes that carry dengue are thriving in expanded urban slums scattered with water-collecting trash and old tires. Experts say dengue is approaching record levels this year as many countries enter their wettest months.
“If we do not slow it down, it will intensify and take a greater social and economic toll on these countries,” said Dr. Jose Luis San Martin, head of anti-dengue efforts for the Pan American Health Organization, a regional public health agency.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has posted advisories this year for people visiting Latin American and Caribbean destinations to use mosquito repellant and stay inside screened areas whenever possible.
“The danger is that the doctors at home don’t recognize the dengue,” said Dr. Wellington Sun, the chief of the CDC’s dengue branch in San Juan. “The doctors need to raise their level of suspicion for any traveler who returns with a fever.”
Dengue has already damaged the economies of countries across the region by driving away tourists, according to a document prepared for a PAHO conference beginning Monday in Washington.
Some countries have focused mosquito eradication efforts on areas popular with tourists. Mexico sent hundreds of workers to the resorts of Puerto Vallarta, Cancun and Acapulco this year to try to avert outbreaks.
Health ministers from across the region meet at the PAHO conference and San Martin said he will urge them to devote more resources to dengue fever.
The tropical virus was once thought to have been nearly eliminated from Latin America, but it has steadily gained strength since the early 1980s. Now, officials fear it could emerge as a pandemic similar to one that became a leading killer of children in Southeast Asia following World War II.
Officials say the virus is likely to grow deadlier in part because tourism and migration are circulating four different strains across the region. A person exposed to one strain may develop immunity to that strain — but subsequent exposure to another strain makes it more likely the person will develop the hemorrhagic form.
“The main concern is what’s happening in the Americas will recapitulate what has happened in Southeast Asia, and we will start seeing more and more severe types of cases of dengue as time progresses,” Sun said.
The disease — known as “bonebreak fever” because of the pain — can incapacitate patients for as long as a week with flu-like symptoms. A deadly hemorrhagic form, which also causes internal and external bleeding, accounts for less than 5 percent of cases but has shown signs of growing.
Avian Flu Suspected In Mexico Illnesses
September 29, 2007
Dozens of people in a Mexican city are gravely ill with what is being treated as a possible outbreak of avian flu, according to a new report from a Spanish-language website.
According to El Universal, authorities in a neighborhood in Guanajuato say 45 patients have been given medical attention at the area’s hospital after they reported symptoms including extreme headaches, stomachaches, vomiting and diarrhea.
The cases have developed over the last two weeks and “feel [like] death,” according to Silvia Villalobos, one of the victims who spoke to El Universal correspondent Xochitl Alvarez in Spanish.
Syria Says Israel Preparing For War
September 29, 2007
Syria accused Israel of staging a strategic air raid to prepare international opinion for a future war between the countries.
Deputy Syrian President Farouk Shara said Saturday that an Israeli sortie over northern Syria on September 6, on which Jerusalem made no comment but which stirred foreign speculation that a secret North Korean-supplied nuclear facility had been bombed, was “psychological warfare” by the Jewish state.
“They are making things up to justify an aggression in the future. They are playing on public opinion to mislead it,” Shara told reporters.
Damascus, which denies seeking atomic weapons, said the Israeli warplanes dropped munitions harmlessly in the desert and were chased off by Syrian ground defenses.
Shara suggested that Israel ordered the raid to boost military prestige hit hard by the setbacks of last year’s war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.
“They want to rehabilitate the Israeli army after the Lebanese resistance broke it. But what Israel needs is to rehabilitate the Israeli mind. Only then will a real opportunity for peace be created,” he said.
Israel has called for renewed peace talks with Syria, but on condition Damascus first stop sponsoring Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorist groups. Israel also rejects Syria’s demand that it agree to return all of the Golan Heights before negotiations begin.
Colorado Students Walk Out During Pledge, Recite Own Version
September 29, 2007
About 50 Boulder High School students walked out of class Thursday to protest the daily reading of the Pledge of Allegiance and recited their own version, omitting “one nation, under God.”
The students say the phrase violates the constitutional separation of church and state.
They also say the daily reading of the pledge over the school public address system at the start of the second class takes away from education time and is ignored or mocked by some students.
A state law passed in 2004 requires schools to offer the opportunity to recite the pledge each day but does not require students to participate.
The protesting students, members of the Student Worker Club, want administrators to hold the pledge reading in the auditorium during each of the school’s two lunch periods for any students who want to participate.
Otherwise, they said, they plan to walk out each Thursday when the pledge is read and recite their version, which omits the reference to God and adds allegiance to constitutional rights, diversity and freedom, among other things.
“Boulder High has a highly diverse population, not all of whom believe in God, or one God,” said Emma Martens, a senior and president of the club, which has about a dozen members.
Democratic Candidates Say They’re OK With Second-Grade Teacher Reading Gay Prince Fairy Tale
September 29, 2007
A fairy tale about two princes falling in love sparked a backlash and a lawsuit against a teacher and a school last year when it was read to a second-grade class in Massachusetts.
But the three frontrunners in the Democratic presidential race suggested Wednesday night at their debate in New Hampshire that they’d support reading the controversial book to children as part of a school curriculum.
Moderator Tim Russert asked John Edwards, Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton whether they’d be comfortable having the story called “King & King” read to their children in school.
Edwards gave the first and most definitive answer a resounding and instant “yes, absolutely” although he added that it “might be a little tough” for second-graders.
Obama agreed with Edwards and revealed that his wife has already spoken to his 6- and 9-year-old daughters about same-sex marriage.
Clinton said she believes it’s up to parents to decide how to handle such topics, but added that it’s important to teach kids about the “many differences that are in the world.”
Conservatives Rebuke Hate Crimes Bill Ploy
September 29, 2007
Prominent Christian leaders, such as Chuck Colson and Dr. James Dobson, defended the right of people of faith to speak out on their religious beliefs.
Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship and former top aide for then President Richard Nixon, highlighted cases in Europe, Canada and even in the United States where Christians have been prosecuted for peaceful speech on the sin of homosexuality.
“In Pennsylvania, 11 Christians were prosecuted under the state’s hate crime law for preaching on a street corner against homosexuality,” he noted, referring to the case of the ten adults and one teenager who were arrested shortly after “sexual orientation” was added to the state’s hate crimes law as a victim category in 2004. The group was reportedly singing hymns and carrying signs peacefully at a homosexual celebration in Philadelphia.
“The Hate Crimes Act will be the first step to criminalize our rights as Christians to believe that some behaviors are sinful,” said Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family Action, in a message for a petition to oppose the bill.
“Pastors preaching from Scripture on homosexuality could be threatened with persecution and prosecution,” he noted.
Items Found In U-Haul Prompt Arizona Terrorism Investigation
September 29, 2007
Unusual items discovered in the back of a rental truck in Tempe prompted the county’s anti-terrorism unit to launch an investigation Friday evening.
An employee at the U-Haul rental center near Priest Drive and Elliot Road called authorities around 5 p.m. after finding items that Maricopa County Sheriff’s Deputy Doug Matteson called “suspicious” in a 15-foot rental truck
No explosive material, hazardous items or weapons were inside the truck, Matteson said. Instead papers and other items were found.
Matteson would not divulge exactly what the other items were or what they were related to, only saying it was significant enough for the Maricopa County’s anti-terrorism group to be called out to investigate.
Authorities are currently checking where the truck came from and who last rented it.
Matteson said that he believes the truck has been at that U-Haul location for 3 to 6 months and that as far as he knows no one has had access to it during that time. The rental center is surrounded by fences and has a security unit, Matteson said.
The Department of Homeland Security would be notified, Matteson said, although the current situation was not to a level that would require that federal agency or the FBI to get involved in the investigation.
Dollar’s Retreat Raises Fear Of Collapse
September 29, 2007
Finance ministers and central bankers have long fretted that at some point, the rest of the world would lose its willingness to finance the United States’ proclivity to consume far more than it produces - and that a potentially disastrous free-fall in the dollar’s value would result.
But for longer than most economists would have been willing to predict a decade ago, the world has been a willing partner in American excess - until a new and home-grown financial crisis this summer rattled confidence in the country, the world’s largest economy.
On Thursday, the dollar briefly fell to another low against the euro of $1.3927, as a slow decline that has been under way for months picked up steam this past week.
“This is all pointing to a greatly increased risk of a fast unwinding of the U.S. current account deficit and a serious decline of the dollar,” said Kenneth Rogoff, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and an expert on exchange rates. “We could finally see the big kahuna hit.”
In addition to increased nervousness about the pace of the dollar’s decline, many currency analysts now also are willing to make an argument they would have avoided as recently as a few years ago: that the euro should bear the brunt of the dollar’s decline.
Russia, China buy more time for Iran
September 29, 2007
In a reprieve for Iran, the six major powers have agreed to wait until mid-November before pushing for tougher sanctions against the country to force it to abandon its uranium enrichment activities, dealing a blow to US-backed efforts to step up the heat on Tehran.
Foreign ministers of the US, Britain, France, permanent members (P-5) of the Security Council, and Germany on Friday failed to convince Russia and China, the other two P-5 countries with veto power, to back effort to strengthen the embargo connected to its controversial nuclear programme immediately.
A joint statement from the P5 1 said they would finalize the new resolution on a third round of sanctions and bring it to a vote unless reports in November from the UN nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency and EU foreign policy Javier Solana chief “show a positive outcome of their efforts.”
However, Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns claimed the statement sent “a very tough and strict message to Iran.”
At the meeting, diplomats and officials said, the US pushed for quick action but Russia sought time for negotiations to resolve the issue.
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