Earthquakes

6.7 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Alaskan Islands
Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A powerful earthquake has shaken an Aleutian Island region of Alaska but there is no threat of a tsunami.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the 6.7-magnitude quake struck at 9:56 p.m. Saturday and was centered in the Bering Sea about 110 miles northeast of Dutch Harbor or 930 miles west of Anchorage. The quake hit about 21 miles beneath the seabed.

Alaska Tsunami Warning Center says there was no danger of a tsunami from the temblor.

USGS geophysicist Jessica Sigala says residents of the Dutch Harbor, the nearest sizable community, reported feeling a "weak shaking" from the quake.

A magnitude 6 quake is capable of causing severe damage.

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Earthquakes

Strong earthquakes strike off Papua New Guinea; no tsunami or reports of casualties
Associated Press

SYDNEY (AP) — Two strong earthquakes struck off the South Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea late Sunday, a U.S. monitor said. There were no immediate reports of casualty or damage.

The first quake, a magnitude 6.9, struck around 11 p.m. local time 325 miles (525 kilometers) northeast of the capital, Port Morseby. It struck 35 miles (57 kilometers) beneath the ocean floor, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The second, a magnitude 7.3, struck a half-hour later in the same area, at a depth of 31 miles (50 kilometers).

Indonesia issued a tsunami warning but lifted it soon after. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not issue an alert.

The archipelago nation is part of the Pacific Ocean's "ring of fire," where earthquakes of this magnitude are relatively common.

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Earthquakes

Magnitude 6.5 quake hits central Chile coast - Daily News
Daily News

SANTIAGO, Chile, July 14, 2010 (Reuters) — A magnitude 6.5 earthquake hit near the coast of central Chile on Wednesday, the U.S. Geological Survey said, but emergency officials said there were no reports of injuries or damage.

The quake's center was 61 miles north-northwest of Temuco, Chile, at a depth of 17.6 miles, the USGS said. The area is south of Chile's important copper mining region.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was no threat of a widespread tsunami but that earthquakes of such size could sometimes generate tsunamis along coasts within 100 km (60 miles) of the epicenter.

Chilean emergency officials said they had received no reports the quake damaged infrastructure or disrupted services.

Earthquakes are common in Chile. A 6.2 magnitude quake struck Chile's mine-rich north on Sunday, with no reports of damage or injuries.

A huge 8.8 magnitude earthquake hit south-central Chile in February, killing at least 500 people and causing massive damage.

(Additional reporting by Alonso Soto; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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Pestilence
 

Alarming Rise of HIV Infections in E. Europe, Central Asia
By Lillian Kwon

Eastern Europe and Central Asia are the only parts of the world where the HIV epidemic remains clearly on the rise, a new UNICEF report states.

The report, released Monday, found increases of up to 700 percent in HIV infection rates in some parts of the Russian Federation since 2006. The under-reported and largely underground epidemic has been fueled by injection drug use and high-risk sexual behavior.

More than 80 percent of people living with HIV in Eastern Europe and Central Asia are under 30 years old.

"Here in Vienna, we are right next door to the only region were HIV infection rates continue to rise," said Marine Adamyan, director for Health and HIV in the Eastern Europe/Central Asia/Middle East Region at World Vision International. "Because they have long been ranked as low-prevalence, many Eastern Europe and Central Asian countries have been falling under the HIV response radar, but unless higher-risk communities and groups are adequately reached, the epidemic will soon expand in a much larger way in the general population."

Titled "Blame and Banishment: The underground HIV epidemic affecting children in Eastern Europe and Central Asia," the report was released at the 18th International AIDS Conference in Vienna. The July 18-23 event has drawn world leaders, professionals and scientists, and various faith groups with the aim of keeping HIV on the front burner.

This year's conference is also coinciding with a major push for expanded access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. A United Nations General Assembly resolution adopted in 2005 had made 2010 the deadline for universal access to treatment.

Despite notable progress in responding to the epidemic, HIV infections continue to rise at an alarming rate in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and access to antiretroviral treatment is still among the lowest in the world, the UNICEF report states.

More than one million children and young people live or work on the streets of the region and many engage in HIV risk behaviors. A recent study of 15- to 19-year-old street children in St. Petersburg, involving 313 participants, found that almost 40 percent of them were HIV-positive.

"Today, street children in the region are dying of AIDS and drug use in much the same way as they died of cold, famine and typhoid in the twentieth century," the report states.

One of the largest contributors to HIV transmission is injecting drug use. According to the report, 3.7 million people in the region inject drugs. Up to 30 percent of young users started injecting before they were 15 years old.

Engaging in multiple unprotected sexual partnerships has also placed many adolescents at risk of HIV. In Ukraine, 20 percent of female sex workers are aged 10-19. In 2006, 19 percent of female sex workers aged 15-19 were infected with HIV.

The total number of HIV-positive pregnancies has doubled during the past five years throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In the Russian Federation and Ukraine, about 6 to 10 percent of children born to HIV-positive mothers are abandoned in maternity wards, pediatric hospitals and residential institutions.

Adamyan of World Vision – a Christian organization which has been responding to HIV and AIDS in Romania since 1990, expanding through Eastern Europe and Central Asia since then – said the extent of the risks and the toll HIV is taking on young lives have not been truly reflected in hard facts and statistics until now.

"This report is bringing those realities to light, and our hope is that it will awaken people to action against what is now the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemic," Adamyan commented.

To break the trajectory of the epidemic, UNICEF has called for the establishment of nonjudgmental, friendly services among medical and civil authorities that address the needs of marginalized adolescents.

Lamenting that some youth living with HIV are denied access to school or even criminally prosecuted when seeking treatment and information, UNICEF executive director Anthony Lake said the adolescents need access to health and social welfare services, rather than "a harsh dose of disapproval."

"This report is a call to protect the rights and dignity of all people living with or at risk of exposure to HIV, but especially vulnerable children and young people," Lake said in a statement. "We need to build an environment of trust and care, not one of judgment and exclusion."

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War and Rumors of Wars
 

Hizballah advances 20,000 troops to Israeli border
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu keeps on vowing that Iran will not be allowed to establish an outpost on Israel's borders, but he has not lifted a finger to stop this menace ensconcing itself in the north. He cannot realistically expect feeble UN reprimands and the puny French contingent of UNIFIL to blow away the 20,000 Hizballah troops dug in in 160 new positions in South Lebanon, backed by a vast rocket arsenal - even though this is a gross violation of UN Security Council resolution 1701.

Iran's proxy has therefore won the first round of its drive to recover the forward positions lost in the 2006 war and stands ready for the next. Israel has reinforced its border defenses against this massed Hizballah strength just a few hundreds meters away.

How could Jerusalem let this to happen?

The answer is by a misguided policy of misdirected reliance on international players and diplomacy, as though the military menace existed only in documentary form, instead of real armies led by single-minded terrorists with utter contempt for the rules of international diplomacy.

The guns Israel invoked for dealing with the Palestinian Hamas in Gaza - President Barack Obama and the European Union - were too big for their target and the Middle East Quartet's envoy former British premier Tony Blair had to be roped in. The guns Israel relied on to deal with Hizballah - the UN and France - are too small and ineffective for the job.

Following a French complaint, the UN Security Council convened Friday, July 9 and passed a resolution "strongly deploring the recent incidents involving UNIFIL peacekeepers which took place in southern Lebanon on June 29, July 3 and July 4." All parties in Lebanon were urged "to respect the safety of UNIFIL and United Nations personnel."

The UN was not even asked to address Hizballah's illegal redeployment in new positions in the South - only the harassment of peacekeepers - nor did it do so. In one instance last week, French troops on patrol were pulled out of their armed vehicles, their weapons snatched and they were beaten with sticks, rocks and eggs.

This was no spontaneous outburst. debkafile's military sources report that the "villagers" were instructed by Iran's new Iranian commander in Lebanon, Hossein Mahadavi, to hit on the French contingent to punish Paris for supporting the UN Security Council's expanded sanctions for its nuclear violations, while at the same time blocking the peacekeeper's access to the "closed areas" where the new Hizballah bases have been set up.

Tehran nominated a high-ranking officer to Lebanon - Mahadavi's former job was commander of Iran's Overseas Division - indicating the importance it attaches to this volatile borderland. Indeed, if Hizballah gets away with its new deployment in the South and is allowed to make it permanent, the UN force will have lost even this scrappy foothold and Hizballah will be free to carry on its preparations for war without the slightest hindrance.

So much for Netanyahu's pledge, reiterated during his talks and interviews in the United States last week, that in negotiations with Arabs, especially the Palestinians, Israel will never accept any accommodation that permits Iran to set up military and rocket bases on its borders.

The fact is that since he entered the prime minister's office, he and defense minister Ehud Barak have done nothing to hold back the stream of armed Hizballah militiamen flooding South Lebanon, although they are now actively endangering the one-and-a-half million Israelis living just across the border.

If they imagined that UN peacekeepers would suddenly stand up and start repelling this southward tide of men and war materiel, they need only to take note of the tepid UN reprimand last Friday to understand that the Elysee Palace had no intention of letting French troops pick up the Hizballah ball and chase the Shiite terrorists back to their former positions.

Tehran and Hizballah therefore felt they could safely issue a new spate of threats: Israelis traveling anywhere in the world faced kidnap or death in response to a series of hits attributed to their clandestine agencies, such as the assassination of a key Hizballah commander Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus in 2008, the deaths of the Iranian nuclear physicist Prof. Massoud Ali Mohammmadi in the middle of Tehran in January of this year, and the Hamas operative responsible for Iranian money transfers to the Gaza Strip Mohammed al-Mabhouh in Dubai nine days later.

Israel responded to the verbal escalation on July 7, by doing something it has never done before: Col. Ronen Marli, chief of the northern border's Western Brigade - the unit which will have to hold off the enemy in the early hours of attack from Lebanon - exhibited to the public aerial photos and intelligence maps recording the new spread of Hizballah forces: He reported 20,000 armed men scattered through 160 village and towns - only in the South, where its presence is prohibited by the UN-mediated ceasefire of 2006. The images did not include the substantial strength Hizballah maintains in central Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley to the east, or its estimated 40,000 rockets and missiles.

The Israeli colonel was of the opinion that an "event (a military attack or terrorist operation) could erupt today or in a year." He admitted it could be a surprise. Adding: "But we are working in different ways to thwart any event and if happens, we'll know how to handle it."

The IDF backed him up with an announcement that Israel is beefing up its strength along the Lebanese border and, the next day, July 8, the Jerusalem center for terrorist threats, published a warning to Israelis abroad, including the United States, to beware of abductions and murderous attacks.

Saturday, a Hizballah spokesman responded: "All three (UN, France, Israel) are preparing something, but we are ready," it said. "Our forces in the South are on the highest level of war preparedness."

The next conflagration may be just a single lighted match away. It could be ignited by some local incident, a terrorist event outside the Middle East or an order from Tehran.

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War and Rumors of Wars
 

Hezbollah: If Israel attacks, it will be defeated
YNet News

Hezbollah's deputy secretary-general, Sheikh Naim Qassem, said Friday that his organization would crush any attempt by Israel to launch an attack on the Shiite group and warned the Jewish state against an embarrassing defeat.

In an interview to a Syrian television station, Qassem said of the 2006 Second Lebanon War: "If the result of the July war was an Israeli defeat, it will suffer an even greater blow in its next offensive."

Hassan Nasrallah's deputy called on the United Nations Security Council to discuss what he referred to as "Israel's violations" against Lebanon in regards to Resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War.

He added that the new Lebanese government, which includes Hebzollah, was helping stabilize the country.

The remarks were made several days after the Israel Defense Forces released images proving that Hezvbollah has been transferring weapons and equipment to southern Lebanon, not far from the Israel border.

On Wednesday, the IDF revealed aerial photographs of sites at the village of al-Khiam, where the army suspects Hezbollah is storing various weapons and even operating headquarters and control centers.

Colonel Ronen Marley, commander of the western brigade at the northern border, commented on the rearmament of Hezbollah: "An event can take place today, or a year from now; I am ready for it to happen by surprise. We are operating in different ways to thwart any event – if one should take place, we will know how to handle it."

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War and Rumors of Wars
 

Israel vs. Hizballah: Drumbeats of War
by Andrew Lee Butters

Lebanon is basking in the high summer of what promises to be its best tourism season ever. Since the peaceful re-election of its pro-Western government in June, Lebanon has been flooded with visitors — mostly expatriate Lebanese and wealthy Gulf Arabs. Last month alone, the country of 4 million welcomed more than 1 million tourists. But while hotels are booked out and the nightclubs packed with revelers, rumors of war are never far away.

Israel and Hizballah have been issuing threats since the weekend, when an Israeli official made the improbable claim that the Lebanese Shi'ite militant group was behind an alleged al-Qaeda plot to kill Israel's ambassador to Egypt — and other attempted operations against Israelis abroad. (Hizballah and al-Qaeda are not allies, and al-Qaeda leaders have publicly criticized the Lebanese organization — and are believed to have backed rival Sunni militia in Lebanon.)

"If one hair falls off an Israeli's head, we will hold Hizballah responsible," said Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon. Then, on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu upped the ante, promising to hold all of Lebanon responsible for any provocation by Hizballah. Hizballah responded by vowing that the next war would be even bloodier for Israel than the 2006 clash that killed about 160 Israelis and about 1,200 Lebanese.

Despite the saber-rattling, analysts on both sides of the border believe war is unlikely to break out, at least for now. Hizballah would risk alienating its own support base — and the rest of a country that hasn't yet repaired all the damage from 2006 — by provoking another war. And Israel is unlikely to scupper the Obama Administration's push for a comprehensive Middle East peace by launching a war of choice. But the war of words is a reminder of an ever-present danger of military adventurism across the Israel-Lebanon border. And the danger is amplified by the fact that Israel sees a potential conflict with Hizballah as another front in its showdown with the movement's key sponsor, Iran. Still, the track record of cross-border military operations against guerrilla enemies should give Israel pause for thought.

Israel's first Lebanon debacle began in 1978, when then Defense Minister Ariel Sharon used the pretext of preventing attacks by Palestinian militants in the southern part of the country for an invasion that went all the way to Beirut, in the hope of installing an Israel-friendly government of Lebanese Christians. The operation was a spectacular failure, with the assassination of Israel's chosen man, Lebanese President-elect Bashir Gemayel, and his supporters' reprisal massacres in the Palestinian refugee camps at Sabra and Chatila that still haunt the Israeli psyche. The Israelis did drive the PLO out of Lebanon, but their invasion and occupation caused Lebanese Shi'ites backed by Iran to form Hizballah — an enemy far more dangerous to Israel than the PLO ever was.

Israel remained in Lebanon for 22 years, and then, six years later, it invaded again — in response to a 2006 Hizballah cross-border attack on a squad of Israeli soldiers. This time, Israel — encouraged by the Bush Administration — sought to eliminate Hizballah as a military threat. Instead, the most powerful army in the Middle East found itself pinned down in the hills of southern Lebanon by small bands of guerillas armed with high-tech anti-tank weapons, while one of the world's best-equipped air forces failed to suppress rocket fire into northern Israel. An official Israeli inquiry lambasted the government for launching a war without clear and achievable goals. Still, Israel arguably repeated the mistake at the end of last year by launching a major offensive against Hamas in Gaza, with the goal of eliminating the military threat from Hamas — which it never did.

The net effect of Israel's military campaigns against Hamas and Hizballah has been to leave those groups politically strengthened, while the massive collateral damage inflicted on Lebanon and Gaza has turned world opinion against Israel. Hizballah has re-armed and the Israelis themselves warn that it is stronger than ever militarily. And the Shi'ite movement is politically more powerful in Lebanon than it was in 2006. Recent reports indicate that Hizballah may have as many as 40,000 rockets aimed at Israel, is trying to increase its anti-aircraft capability, and may have missile technology that would enable it to strike Tel Aviv.

Still, Israel's leaders believe they have no choice but to plan for further military action, because they have concluded that the Arab and Muslim world will never truly accept Israel's existence, and that withdrawing from territory (as Israel did from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005) only brings more rocket fire. For all the hand-wringing after the embarrassment of the Second Lebanon War, Israel's military still prides itself on the fact that the Lebanese border has been surprisingly quiet since 2006, and that Hamas is not suppressing rocket fire from Gaza. Military force, at least as a deterrent, appears to be working.

Rather than placing its hopes in settling its conflicts with Arab neighbors by moving toward withdrawing from the West Bank and the Syrian Golan Heights, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is building a case for a military strike against Iran. Israeli officials believe that Tehran's support for Hamas and Hizballah, and its looming capacity to build a nuclear weapon, make tackling Iran their overriding priority.

The problem, of course, is that history suggests that whatever damage Israel may succeed in inflicting on Iran's nuclear facilities will likely come at a cost of a hardening of political sentiment against the Jewish state. Iran may be able to rebuild its nuclear program more quickly than Israel would be able to reverse the trend that has already given the next generation in Lebanon and Gaza a burning desire for revenge.

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War and Rumors of Wars
 

Mullen: Iran strike plan exists
by AP and JPost Staff

WASHINGTON —The US military has a plan to attack Iran, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said Sunday, although he added that he thinks a strike is probably a bad idea.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the highest-ranking US military officer, has often warned that a military strike on Iran would have serious and unpredictable ripple effects around the Middle East. At the same time, he said the risk of Iran developing a nuclear weapon was unacceptable.

Mullen would not say which risk he thought was worse. But he told NBC television program "Meet The Press" that a military strike remains an option if need be.

He added that, should it come to that, the military has a plan at hand. He didn't elaborate further.

Mullen said very directly in his February visit to Israel that he opposed Iran's acquisition of a nuclear capability. However, he also warned Israel tellingly of the “unintended consequences” of a military strike.

During a press conference at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, Mullen said, “From a policy standpoint, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, [or] nuclear capability.”

He added, “I’ve also been clear, them getting a weapon and/or the outbreak of a conflict would be a big, big problem for all of us. And I worry a great deal about the unintended consequences of a strike, that are pretty hard to be specific about in a pretty volatile region that’s pretty hard to predict.”

Yaakov Lappin and Haviv Rettig Gur contributed to this report.

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Famines
 

Peru Hit by Bubonic Plague
By Rob Quinn

(Newser) – The disease that decimated much of Europe in the Middle Ages is alive and well in Peru, where health officials say an outbreak in the north has killed a 14-year-old boy and infected at least 30 other people. Twenty-five of the cases are bubonic plague, which is spread by fleas, and the others are pneumonic plague, spread through airborne contagion, the AP reports. The disease is curable with antibiotics if symptoms are detected early enough.

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