Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: burma, china, earthquake, humanitarian aid, weather modification, weather warfare
Good lord, I barely get one posting of paranoid bullshit up and look at what the freakin’ cat dragged in…
China’s survivors panic as reports of new
earthquake spread
Panic swept through China’s ravaged earthquake zone late Monday after television reports predicted a strong, new quake could soon rattle the region.
Tens of thousands of people streamed onto the streets of the Sichuan capital of Chengdu and nearby Mianyang, as cars streamed out of the city. It followed television and radio reports that an earthquake as strong as 8.0 magnitude, along with a powerful aftershock, would hit Sichuan overnight.
A report on the government’s website cited central government seismologists as saying there was a chance aftershocks as strong as magnitude 6.7 could hit Monday or Tuesday, although the notice provided no further explanation.
People fled to the streets, where many say they will spend the night. Some people in Chengdu went into public squares.
The Mianyang Women and Children’s Hospital moved patients to the square outside the railway station, setting up beds, medicines trays and tents.
Mourning period begins
Earlier Monday, raid sirens wailed and car horns blared as people across the country began three days of mourning for last week’s earthquake victims.
China’s busy streets came to a standstill at 2:28 p.m. local time, exactly one week after the magnitude 7.9 quake hit central China. Rescuers briefly halted their work in the disaster zone, where some survivors are still being pulled from the rubble.
People paused for three minutes to bow their heads in silence. Flags across the country will fly at half-mast for three days.
Chinese President Hu Jintao and other top Communist party leaders were shown on state TV bowing their heads, white flowers pinned to the lapels of their dark suits. Hu had spent three days touring the worst-hit areas of Sichuan province.
In Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, thousands of people bowed their heads and began shouting “Long Live China!” thrusting their fists in the air.
The government death toll stands at 34,073, officials said Monday, with roughly 245,000 people injured. More than 29,000 people are missing. 
Beijing motorists on the six-lane Jianguomenwai Avenue stand beside their cars Monday, honking their horns for three minutes to honour earthquake victims. (Robert F. Bukaty/ Associated Press)
Chinese officials have issued an international appeal for more tents and offered to accept foreign medical teams.
“China requests the international community donate tents as a priority when they donate materials because many houses were toppled in the quake and because it is the rainy season,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement Monday, also thanking the international community for its help so far.
More potential landslides were predicted by China’s Central Meteorological Observatory, with heavy rains forecast this week for some areas close to the epicentre.
The appeal came as more than 200 rescue workers were reported buried by mudslides in Sichuan, said China’s state news agency Xinhua.
The report said some of the workers had died, but didn’t provide any numbers.
In another part of Sichuan, two women were pulled alive from a coal mine, said Xinhua.
Gaming sites, theatres closed
The government-ordered mourning period is an outpouring of state sympathy on a level normally reserved for dead leaders.
Officials said all internet gaming and entertainment sites have been blocked for the three-day period, while China’s National Grand Theatre will cancel or postpone all performances.
Reports said numerous bars, nightclubs, karaoke parlours and movie theatres had shut down beginning at midnight in major cities such as Beijing, Shenyang and Changsha.
Newspapers across China printed their logos in black and some ran entirely without colour. Several front pages were covered in black, with simple messages in white text across the middle: “The nation mourns,” “Pray for life” and “National tragedy.”
With files from the Associated Press
Filed under: disinfo reporting | Tags: 7/7, 9/11, Benazir Bhutto, burma, Chinese earthquake, Cyclone Nargis, Katrina, Madrid, Tsunami
I have a habit of watching news stories early on. The earlier the better, methinks. A story goes through dozens of changes depending on who’s reporting what and the final, agreed-upon “official story” rarely resembles the first “facts on the ground”.
I’m talking about 9/11, 7/7, Madrid, Katrina, Benazir Bhutto, Tsunami, Cyclone Nargis, the Chinese earthquake and the second cyclone to hit Burma….(SFX: record needle *screeeeeeee*…..)
It’s true….earlier this week CNN announced:
The Hawaii-based Joint Typhoon Warning Center said there is a good chance that “a significant tropical cyclone” will form within the next 24 hours and head across the Irrawaddy delta area…
The news of a second cyclone was not broadcast by Burma’s state-controlled media. But Rangoon residents picked up the news on foreign broadcasts and on the Internet.
And apparently the Burmese (the lucky ones with radios, tv’s and net access, that is…) aren’t hearing about the impending “second wave of death”, because the news from foreign broadcasts have all but dried up. (if you find anything, send it my way…).
It seems that Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, has pulled a superman-esque move by going to negotiate with the Burmese military junta and, has not only talked some sense into them…he seems to have stopped the storm as well. You have to admit, it took some balls of steel on the part of the Thai PM to fly in Burma as a fresh cyclone was heading in from the coast just to get visas for NGO’s. But, when Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej warned that “hardship would prevail if assistance isn’t accepted”, well…neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
Of course, it’s absurd to think that any nation would send its own Commander-in-Chief right into harm’s way.
Samak visited a government relief center in Rangoon and told reporters after returning to Bangkok that the junta has given him the “guarantee” that there are no disease outbreaks and no starvation among the cyclone survivors.
“They have their own team to cope with the situation,” Samak said, citing Burma Prime Minister Lt. Gen. Thein Sein. “From what I have seen I am impressed with their management.”
Oh….so….no second cyclone in 24 hours? Phew! That’s a good day’s work. Still, you’d think that news outfits might follow-up on the weather forecast that was spelling such doom and gloom. Or perhaps you wouldn’t think about news outfits needing to do follow-ups….that’s a depressing thought…
But what of Burma? What of Burma’s need to open it’s doors to foreign military humanitarian aid on its own soil? Why won’t their military dictators let our military start their work?? Are they crazy? I mean…they just got wiped out by one cyclone and another just….like….missed them by *this much*!!
Call me crazy, but I’m sure the military in Burma know a crap-load more than I do about weather modification.
Weather modification?! Are *you* nuts??
Well, Jimmy Carter’s own National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski (and now Obama’s advisor on national security issues) said in 1970:
“Technology will make available, to the leaders of major nations, techniques for conducting secret warfare, of which only a bare minimum of the security forces need be appraised… [T]echniques of weather modification could be employed to produce prolonged periods of drought or storm.”
Talk about being a “rainmaker”…
