• by Moms Clean Air Force
• September 7, 2012

BEIJING (AP) — Blocked mountain roads were hampering rescue efforts after twin earthquakes struck southwestern China and killed at least 80 people, leaving officials worried Saturday that the death toll could rise further.

More than 100,000 residents were evacuated after Friday's quakes toppled thousands of houses and sent boulders cascading across roads in a remote mountainous area along the borders of Guizhou and Yunnan provinces.

The damage was preventing rescuers from reaching outlying towns, and communications were disrupted after the midday quakes hit in a region of small farms and mines where some of China's poorest people live. Weather forecasts Saturday said there was a chance of rain over the next three days, which could hamper rescue work.

But there was some good news, with state television reporting that four babies had been born in temporary hospitals set up since the quakes hit.

The first magnitude-5.6 quake struck just before 11:30 a.m. Friday and was followed by an equally strong quake shortly after noon, joined by dozens of aftershocks. Though of moderate strength, the quakes were shallow, which often causes more damage.

The state-run Xinhua News Agency said Saturday that 80 people had died in the quakes. It said earlier that hundreds had been hurt, but did not immediately give a new injury toll Saturday.

Hardest hit was Yiliang County, where all but one of the deaths occurred, according to the Yunnan provincial government's official website. Another 730 people in the area were injured, Xinhua said. Yiliang's high population density, flimsy building construction and landslide-prone hillsides were blamed for the relatively high death toll.

China Central Television showed roads littered with rocks and boulders and pillars of dust rising over hilltops from the landslides. One image taken just as one quake struck showed people running out of a supermarket as the ground shook.

Other footage showed villages of blue tents being set up for the evacuated, as well as hundreds of people crowding into a school athletic field in Yiliang's county seat, a sizable city spread along a river in a valley.

Though quakes occur in the area frequently, buildings in rural areas and China's fast-growing smaller cities and towns are often constructed poorly. A magnitude-7.9 quake that hit Sichuan province, just north of Yunnan, in 2008 killed nearly 90,000 people, with many of the deaths blamed on poorly built structures, including schools.

Xinhua quoted Yunnan's civil affairs department as saying Friday's quakes destroyed 6,650 houses and damaged 430,000 others. Besides the 100,000 residents already evacuated, another 100,000 were in need of relocation, the department said.

"The hardest part of the rescue will be handling traffic," Li Fuchun, head of Luozehe township in Yiliang, was quoted as saying by Xinhua. "Roads are blocked and rescuers have to climb mountains to reach hard-hit villages."

That included a village near a zinc mine in Luozehe. "It is scary. My brother was killed by falling rocks," miner Peng Zhuwen told Xinhua. "The aftershocks struck again and again. We are so scared."

The government has sent thousands of tents, blankets and containers of water into the area, and the Red Cross spokesman for East Asia, Francis Markus, said 2,000 quilts, 2,000 jackets and 500 tents were being rushed to the area, which is largely inhabited by members of the Yi ethnic minority.

He said the use of light construction materials would likely create far more injuries than deaths.

A government official in Jiaokui town said a large number of houses had collapsed.

"The casualty number is still being compiled. I don't know what it was like for the other towns, but my town got hit badly," he said. Like many Chinese officials, he refused to give his name.

Mobile phone services were down and regular phone lines disrupted. Phones were cut off to clinics in four villages in Qiaoshan, another town in Yiliang, which has about half a million people.

Authorities sent thousands of tents, blankets and coats to the area, Xinhua said.

It said that so far no deaths had been reported in neighboring Guizhou, but that homes had been damaged or destroyed there.

Friday's quakes were relatively shallow, about 10 kilometers (six miles) deep, creating an intense shaking even at a lower magnitude.

By comparison, the magnitude-7.6 quake in Costa Rica this week was 40 kilometers (25 miles) below the surface, a fact that, combined with strict building codes, kept damage and deaths to a minimum.

NEW YORK (AP) — Two tornadoes struck New York City on Saturday, one swept out of the sea and hit a beachfront neighborhood and the second, stronger twister hit moments later, hurling debris in the air, knocking out power and startling residents who once thought of twisters as a Midwestern phenomenon.

Videos taken by bystanders showed a funnel cloud sucking up water, then sand, and then small pieces of buildings, as the first moved through the Breezy Point section of the Rockaway peninsula in Queens.

The second hit west, in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn also near the water, about seven minutes later. The National Weather Service said winds were up to 110 miles per hour, and several homes and trees were damaged.

No serious injuries were reported.

Residents had advance notice. The weather service had issued a tornado warning for Queens and Brooklyn at around 10:40 a.m. The storm took people by surprise anyway when it struck about 20 minutes later.

"I was showing videos of tornadoes to my 4-year-old on my phone, and two minutes later, it hit," said Breezy Point neighborhood resident Peter Maloney. "Just like they always say, it sounded like a train."

In the storm's wake, the community of seaside bungalows was littered with broken flower pots, knocked-down fences and smashed windows.

At the Breezy Point Surf Club, the tornado ripped the roofs off rows of cabanas, scattered deck chairs and left a heavy metal barbecue and propane tank sitting in the middle of a softball field, at least 100 yards from any nearby home.

"It picked up picnic benches. It picked up Dumpsters," said the club's general manager, Thomas Sullivan.

Half an hour later the weather was beautiful, but he had to close the club to clean up the damage.

The roof of Bob O'Hara's cabana was torn off, leaving tubes of sunscreen, broken beer bottles and an old TV set exposed to the elements.

"We got a new sunroof," said O'Hara, who has spent summer weekends at the Breezy Point club for his entire 52 years. "The TV was getting thrown out anyway," he added.

The second tornado tore through parts of Brooklyn with strong winds, causing structural damage to several homes and felling trees.

The tornado struck as part of a line of storms that were expected to bring damaging winds, hail, heavy rain and possibly more tornadoes throughout the mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Saturday. AcrossNew York state, in Buffalo, strong winds from a broad front of thunderstorms blew roofing off of some buildings and sent bricks falling into the street.

The city of Albany canceled the evening portion of an outdoor jazz festival because of the threat of storms, and hundreds of upstate New York homes lost power as the weather system moved through.

The storm system killed four people, including a child, in Oklahoma on Friday.

Radar data, video and witness reports confirmed that the cyclone that hit New York City was a tornado, National Weather Service meteorologist Dan Hofmann said. He said an inspection team would assess the damage and before estimating the strength of the storm. Hofmann said some witnesses were reporting that the wind had been strong enough to lift cars off the pavement.

Lizann Maher, a worker at Kennedy's Restaurant at the edge of Jamaica Bay, said she saw a "swirling cone kind of thing with something flying in it" come down and then head back out into the water toward Brooklyn.

"It was scary. We have all glass so we kept saying, 'Get away from the glass!' just in case it did come back around," she said.

Tornadoes were once exceedingly rare in New York, but they have occurred with regularity in recent years. A small tornado uprooted trees on Long Island last month. In 2010, a September storm spawned two tornadoes that knocked down thousands of trees and blew off a few rooftops in Brooklyn and Queens. A small tornado struck the same year in the Bronx. In 2007, a more powerful tornado damaged homes in Brooklyn and Staten Island.

The storm delayed play at the U.S. Open tennis tournament a few miles away. The women's final, scheduled for Saturday night, was postponed until Sunday because of a forecast of additional rain. The second of two men's semifinals was suspended Saturday with David Ferrer leading Novak Djokovic 5-2 in the first set.

___

Associated Press writers David B. Caruso and Colleen Long in New York and Ed Donahue in Washington contributed to this report.

Kevin D. Annett, ITCCS, Issues Vatican With “One Week” Ultimatum

Stephen: This is just one of the many things brewing as we head into what I believe will be an incredible, life-altering week.

Kevin D. Annett of the International Tribunal of Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS) is currently in Dublin, Ireland, where he has issued a one-week ultimatum to the Vatican over its crimes against children.

One Week to go Before Direct Actions Commence Against Child-Killing Churches

By Kevin D Annett, ITCCS, Dublin Ireland – 7 September 2012

http://itccs.org/

An Update and Plan of Action from Kevin D. Annett, ITCCS fieldworker

Breaking News Item: Vatican officials have one week to respond to ten requirements issued last May by survivors of church terror, or face permanent banishment, occupations and legal summonses.

Hello to you all,

It’s fitting that I’m writing this from Dublin, where the top Catholic prelate in that land, Cardinal Sean Brady, is implicated in protecting child rapists in his diocese and may soon resign; and where his probable replacement, Archbishop Dermot Martin, has been forced to meet with ITCCS and ACCAW activists after they occupied Dublin’s main cathedral recently and one of them, John Deegan, even manacled himself to the cathedral altar during a mass.

This direct action by survivors has the church worried, and Archbishop Martin’s assistant, Rev. Damian O’Reilly, said yesterday that it was their concern about further church occupations that forced them to sit down and try to directly negotiate with survivors like John Deegan of ACCAW (an acronym meaning Anti Catholic Church Activists Worldwide, which is affiliated to the ITCCS).

Nowhere else in the world has the church hierarchy actually bargained with their opponents; the church generally relies instead on obliging governments to shield them from the fallout from their crimes towards children. But the fact that this storm is erupting in the heart of the reputedly “most catholic” nation in the world is a sign of how desperate the church leaders are becoming. But more to the point, it demonstrates that only direct disruption and civil disobedience gets results when it comes to the oldest corporation on earth.

Now is the time, as they say, to press the matter home.

As John Deegan and the ITCCS said this week to Damian O’Reilly and his church bosses, the Vatican must do two simple things if it wants to avoid ongoing occupations: defrock all present and future child raping priests, and those who protect them; and make every clergy and church officer, from Pope Benedict on down, take a public, binding oath to protect children from predators and expose those who harm the innocent, even if doing so contradicts and defies church laws and customs.

If the hierarchy equivocates on this requirement of humanity and the law, or says no, then direct actions against the Vatican and its churches will commence in one week.

In this event, our Common Law Court will publicly convene in seven countries on September 15, to publicly share and judge extensive evidence of criminal actions by church and state. The following day, in the midst of Catholic masses around the world, a Public Banishment Order will be issued, binding on every catholic establishment. Church occupations will then follow.

The Banishment Order will, in effect, expel the Catholic Church from our communities and declare their churches and other property open to all people for their own use, like the homeless. Church officials will then be illegally trespassing and subject to arrest. Known and suspected child rapists will also face citizens’ arrests, as will anyone who protects them. And in some cases, “street corner tribunals” will be held on church property where victims of genocide and torture by the same church will tell their stories and share other evidence with the public and the media.

Coinciding and building on these actions, our Common Law Court will start broadcasting its proceedings, which will involve presenting our cases and issuing public summonses to church officials.

We have chosen five cases to present in the initial round of the Court, involving the most solid evidence we have of intentional genocide, child trafficking, homicide and crimes against humanity by various churches.

This evidence will be simulcast to nearly one hundred citizen jurors in seven countries by the prosecutors of the Court, for the jurors’ deliberation. And a transcript of the evidence and cases will be available online to anyone and the media.

Finally, knowing that our battle is fundamentally a spiritual one, on Sunday, September 23, we will be staging our third and final Public Exorcism aimed at the power behind the Vatican. Our first exorcism outside the papal residence in Rome in October, 2009, was followed the next day by a fierce tornado in the heart of Rome, and an even fiercer media revelation the next month of Pope Benedict’s personal complicity in protecting child rapists.

We are at the heart of a great wind of justice and reformation.

So in summary here is our Plan of Action:
1. Saturday, September 15: Public Court Case against the Vatican commences
2. Sunday, September 16: Banishment Order is read inside and outside Roman Catholic churches in seven countries
3. Monday, September 17: Permanent Occupation of Catholic churches and institutions commence worldwide
4. Sunday, September 23: Third and Final Public Exorcism is held aimed at the spirit and power behind the Vatican (to be televised and posted)

Please help this all happen by agreeing to read the Banishment Proclamation inside and outside your local Catholic church, on Sunday September 16 during their mass. Contact this email and a copy of the Proclamation will be sent to you.

(Such actions will be staged in thirteen cities in seven countries as of this date).

Please stay tuned on Saturday, September 15 for these actions to commence: at 9 am pacific time, 12 noon eastern time, and 5 pm GMT in Europe. Live broadcasts will begin and will be posted on the internet.

In closing, here’s a an item for concern, or levity, depending on your disposition.

I learned today that our ITCCS Council of Elders in Brussels was just informed by trusted sources of theirs in the British civil service and the European Parliament that the Home Office in London has declared me, Kevin Annett, a threat to British national security allegedly for having “caused threats to the peace of mind and security of Her Majesty”. I am therefore to be immediately detained and imprisoned under the Fixated Threat Assessment Protocol (FTAP) the moment I set foot on British soil.

FTAP is a way nowadays in England to brand activists as mentally disturbed and lock them away for years, under medieval-like laws harking back to the Inquisition and Star Chamber private courts. It’s also supposed to get us all too frightened to publicly protest, or speak out.

Well, I’m not frightened, Liz. This is just more obstruction of justice – more belated attempts to fog the fact of centuries of genocide by the Crown. Your own Archbishop of Canterbury did so last January, when he ordered Anglican Primate Fred Hiltz in Canada to bury all evidence of the deaths of Mohawk children at the Church of England residential school in Brantford.

Thus do the guilty squirm and evade judgement. But only for so long. For as Martin Luther King said,

“The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice”.

But I would add, only when enough of us make it bend.

Spread the word, and stand ready with us and all the fallen children on September 15.

- Kevin Annett – Eagle Strong Voice