Earthquakes

6.8-Magnitude Earthquake Injures Dozens in Northern Japan
 Fox News
 
 Officials say an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 struck off the northern Japanese coast, injuring nearly 100 people.
 
 The quake also triggered landslides and caused a blackout at more than 8,000 homes.
 
 The Meteorological Agency says there was no danger of a tsunami, or seismic waves, from the 12:26 a.m. Thursday (11:26 a.m. Wednesday EDT) quake, which occurred at a depth of about 65 miles near the coast of Iwate, 280 miles northeast of Tokyo.
 
 Japan is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries.
 
 "We must grasp the extent of damage as quickly as possible so that we can immediately take necessary steps," Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told reporters.
 
 No abnormalities had been detected at the nearest nuclear power plant in the area, which continued controlled operations, according to local media reports.
 
 Tomio Kudo, a grocery shop owner in the town of Hirono, where the shaking was most violently felt, was interviewed by public broadcaster NHK.
 
 "Everything has fallen off the shelves, scattered all over the floor," he said. "Even a big refrigerator has moved about 30 centimeters (1 foot)."
 
 National broadcaster NHK said some parts of highways had been closed to traffic and some rail lines were stopped after the quake in the region, which is mountainous and sparsely populated, Reuters reported.
 
 Last month, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck sparsely populated rural areas in northern Japan, killing at least 12 people, leaving 10 others missing and injuring more than 300.
 
 Click here for more from USGS.gov.
 
 The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
 
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Earthquakes

Quake Off East Coast of Japan Shakes Tokyo Buildings
By Stuart Biggs

A magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck off Japan's eastern coast, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site. There were no reports of injuries or damage, public broadcaster NHK said.

The quake struck at 11:39 a.m. Japan time, 125 kilometers (75 miles) east-northeast of Iwaki, a city 180 kilometers north of Tokyo, at a depth of 27 kilometers, the USGS said.

Japan's weather agency issued a tsunami alert for coastal areas, warning of waves of up to 50 centimeters (20 inches) from the quake, which shook buildings in central Tokyo. The agency removed the warning at 1:20 p.m. local time.

Coastal areas of Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures were hit by waves of up to 20 centimeters about one hour after the earthquake hit, NHK reported.

Japan, which experiences about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes annually, lies in a zone where the Eurasian, Pacific, Philippine and North American tectonic plates meet and occasionally shift, causing quakes.

Twelve people died and 10 remain missing after a 6.8- magnitude earthquake in the north of Japan last month, according to the government's Fire and Disaster Management Agency.

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Earthquakes

One dead from 6.3-magnitude quake on Rhodes
AFP

ATHENS (AFP) - - One woman died on the Greek island of Rhodes as a result of a strong undersea earthquake measuring 6.3 points on the Richter scale, officials said Tuesday.

The 56-year-old woman tripped and fell down the stairs while fleeing her house in the island village of Archangelos, officials said.

She was cradling her two-year old granddaughter in her arms at the time but the child was unharmed, state television Net reported.

The quake struck at 6:26 am (0326 GMT), causing alarm on the island, one of Greece's top travel destinations.

A hotel in the village of Neochori was evacuated pending an inspection after cracks appeared in its walls, Net reported.

The quake was felt in the outlying area as far as Crete but there were no reports of other injuries or damage.

"I don't think there are any serious repercussions, people are already going to work as usual," the deputy mayor of the town of Rhodes Yiannis Yiannakidis told Net.

"These (undersea) earthquakes are characterised by very weak or non-existent aftershock activity," George Stavrakakis, chairman of the Institute of Geodynamics at the National Observatory of Athens, told reporters.

"Once more, the sea saved us," he added.

The tremor had its epicentre in the sea south of Rhodes, 445 kilometres (275 miles) southeast of Athens, the institute said.

The US Geological Survey said earlier the quake measured 6.4 at a depth of 68 kilometers (42 miles) and 147 kilometers (91 miles) southwest of Mugla, Turkey.

Seismologists say that Greece, which accounts for half the seismic shocks recorded on the European continent, experiences tremors almost every day.

Most occur under the sea and cause little damage, but a 5.9-Richter quake near Mount Parnitha northwest of Athens killed 143 people in 1999.

In June, a 6.5 magnitude quake killed two people and injured about 140 in the northern Peloponnese.

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Earthquakes

Magnitude 6.2 quake rattles southern Peru
Yahoo News

AREQUIPA, Peru- A magnitude 6.2 earthquake shook southern Peru early on Tuesday, killing at least one person in the Andean country's second-largest city, Arequipa, and damaging scores of homes.

The epicenter of the quake was located 35 miles north-northwest of Arequipa, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was recorded at a depth of 45 miles.

Police in Arequipa said a 93-year-old man died in a hospital, where he was taken after the quake caused an adobe wall in his house to crash on him. Witnesses said residents refused to go back into their homes after the quake, fearing structures might collapse in aftershocks.

In Moquegua, a province near Arequipa, at least five people were killed and another 34 injured when their bus tumbled into a ravine just minutes after the quake. Among the dead were a Chilean and a French tourist, local authorities said.

The regional police chief said it was not clear whether the crash was set off by a mechanical failure or by a road that buckled during the quake.

Dirt tumbled onto sections of the coastal highway, and the temblor was felt as far away as Peru's southernmost province of Tacna and in mineral-rich northern Chile. No injuries or damages were reported in Chile.

Carlos Nacarino, district chief of Peru's civil defense agency, said the epicenter was in an unpopulated area. Still, there were reports of isolated power outages.

Peru's third-largest copper mine, the Cerro Verde copper pit of Freeport-McMoRan, which is near the city of Arequipa, was unaffected by the quake, the company said.

Southern Copper has a mine and smelter in the neighboring Moquegua province, but also said its operations were fine.

"Everything has continued operating," Mauricio Pero, Southern's head of operations in Peru, told Reuters.

Arequipa lies about 445 miles southeast of Lima, the capital. The historic center of the city was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000.

(Reporting by Miguel Zegarra in Arequipa, Maria Luisa Palomino in Lima, Rodrigo Martinez in Santiago and Anna Stablum in London; Writing by Terry Wade; Editing by Walter Bagley and Jackie Frank)

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Bird flu breaks out in Nigeria
Dispatch On-line

NIGERIAN authorities have reported a fresh outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus in the northern states of Katsina and Kano.

The virus was confirmed through tests on affected birds on a poultry farm in Kano State and it has killed 4249 birds, the official NAN news agency said yesterday.

An agriculture official was quoted saying said the outbreak was reported at the weekend following an initial loss of 1514 birds on the farm.

He said 15 local chickens, 60 guinea fowls and 10 ducks had also been confirmed dead in another outbreak in Katsina State.

He said the government had asked scientists to carry out forensic investigation in the affected areas and some parts of the country.

“It is suspected that the disease might have been transmitted by migratory birds or through illegal importation of birds, because one of the affected birds in Gombe was a water animal,” he added.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation with some 140 million people, last year reported west Africa’s first human bird flu death.

A 22-year-old woman died in Lagos in January 2007, weeks after plucking and disembowelling a chicken.

Bird flu was first detected in Nigeria on a farm in Jaji town outside the northern city of Kano in February 2006.

Kano was the worst affected by the outbreak, which ravaged 97 farms in the city resulting in the death or culling of at least 300000 birds. — Sapa-AFP

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Report: Iran begins war game with warning to U.S. and Israel
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent and News Agencies

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards have begun a military exercise with a warning that Israel and the U.S. naval force in the Persian Gulf would be prime targets if Iran is attacked, according to the ISNA news agency.

The report did not say when or where the exercise is taking place but adds that missile squads are involved.

The report quotes guard official Ali Shirazi as saying Tel Aviv and American warships in the Gulf would be among the first targets if Iran comes under attack.

"The first bullet fired by America at Iran will be followed by Iran burning down its vital interests around the globe," Ali Shirazi was quoted as saying in a speech to Revolutionary Guards.

"The Zionist regime is pressuring White House officials to attack Iran. If they commit such a stupidity, Tel Aviv and U.S. shipping in the Persian Gulf will be Iran's first targets and they will be burned," the quote continued.

Shirazi, a mid-level cleric, is Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's representative to the Revolutionary Guards.

"The Iranian nation will never accept bullying. The Iranian nation is a nation of believers which believes in jihad and martyrdom. No army in the world can confront it," he added.

In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev, declined to comment on the threat to hit Tel Aviv, saying only: "Shirazi's words speak for themselves."

The U.S. and Israel have not ruled out the military option as part of international efforts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

Leaders of the Group of Eight rich countries expressed serious concern on Tuesday at the proliferation risks posed by Iran's nuclear program.

In a statement issued after G8 leaders met in Hokkaido, northern Japan, on the second day of a three-day summit, the grouping urged Iran to suspend all enrichment-related activities.

"We also urge Iran to fully cooperate with the IAEA," the G8 said, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said major world powers had decided to send European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana to Iran for talks on an incentives package they offered last month to induce Tehran to change its nuclear policy.

Sarkozy did not say when Solana would travel to Tehran. Iran formally replied on Friday to the offer by the United States, France, Britain, China, Russia and Germany.

France said Iran's response had ignored the world powers' demand for a suspension of uranium enrichment before talks on implementing the package - a condition rejected on Monday as "illegitimate" by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

U.S. analyst: Mullen made clear Israel has no 'green light' to attack Iran
A senior U.S. strategic analyst says the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, sent Israel an unequivocal message stating that Israel does not have a "green light" from the U.S. to attack Iranian nuclear facilities.

Professor Anthony Cordesman of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies foreign policy think tank is considered a leading researcher in the area of U.S. national security. In the past he served in senior positions in the Defense Department, and was Senator John McCain's National Security Assistant.

Cordesman is visiting Israel this week, and gave a lecture Monday at Tel Aviv University and at Hebrew University on Sunday. He talked about Mullen's comments last week in Washington when the Admiral said such an Israeli attack would be dangerous and could destabilize the Middle East.

Mullen spoke after returning from a visit to Israel, during which he met with Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi and other senior IDF officers.

Cordesman said Mullen came to Israel to deliver a message that Israel did not have a green light to attack Iran and that it would not receive U.S. support for such a move.

According to Cordesman, Mullen was expressing the official opinion of the U.S. administration, including that of President George W. Bush and the National Security Council.

Mullen said last week that the president, Secretary of Defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff said they are choosing to work for now through diplomatic channels to put pressure on Iran: "The best way to solve it diplomatically is for the United States to work with other nations to send a focused message, and that is that you will be isolated and you
will have economic hardship if you continue trying to enrich," explained Mullen.

Cordesman explained that senior American officers do not make such public statements without permission from the White House.

In his Jerusalem lecture, Cordesman said the U.S. has a plan for a military attack on Iran, but is continuing with diplomatic efforts for now. He estimated that if a change were to be made in the U.S. position on an attack against Iran, it would only be made during the next administration.

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Somalia hovering on famine's brink
The Washington Post

EL BARDE, Somalia – Not too long ago, Irad Hussein Ali regularly drank milk and ate steak. He spent his days in the countryside, grazing his 50 cows and dozens of goats.

"I had everything," the 72-year-old said. "I was very rich."

That was before a drought crept across western Somalia last year and again this year. Since then, the sorghum fields have dried up, the grass has vanished and all Mr. Ali's cattle have died, leaving him dependent on corn-soya rations.

By the end of the year, U.N. officials predict, nearly half of this nation's population, or about 3.5 million people, will need food aid, a dramatic spike driven by rampant political insecurity, skyrocketing global food prices, the devaluation of the local currency and a failure of nature's mercy, rain.

Those factors are also in play just across the border in Ethiopia, and aid groups are warning that large swaths of the Horn of Africa are hovering at the threshold of famine.

The signs are coming from all directions, especially near Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, where fighting between the Ethiopian-backed transitional government and Islamist insurgents has been heaviest.

Aid groups in both countries are overwhelmed. The political insecurity in Somalia has rendered it the worst humanitarian disaster in Africa. And with roads menaced by militias, a thriving business of aid worker kidnappings, piracy on the seas and an often-uncooperative government, little international relief is in sight.

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Muslim nations warn of disaster from food, fuel crisis
By Reuters

Warning that escalating food and fuel prices could lead to disaster, a group of developing Muslim nations called on Tuesday for urgent measures to lift food and oil output and a rethink on bio-fuels.

Malaysia and Indonesia, the world's largest producers of palm oil, told the summit of eight developing Muslim-majority countries (D8), that they wanted to see an end to the conversion of arable land for bio-fuel production.

Palm oil is used as a feedstock to produce biofuel and also widely consumed in the region as cooking oil.

Leaders of the eight nations comprising nearly one billion people said at the summit in Kuala Lumpur that the twinproblems of food and energy security were putting a severe strain on their countries, especially on the poor.

The group of Developing Eight (D-8) countries - Iran, Indonesia, Egypt, Malaysia, Turkey, Pakistan, Nigeria and Bangladesh - represent about one billion people, or 14 percent of the world's population.

"We must act on it once and in concert. To delay action on this great challenge of our time is to court disaster," Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told the meeting. Yudhoyono's popularity in his country has slumped because of a fuel price hike which also sparked numerous street protests.

Other leaders, including host Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, also painted a gloomy picture of the crisis, which has seen crude oil prices at record highs and food prices rising by more than 75 percent since 2000.

"There is also the danger of the food crisis creating political unrest in many societies," Abdullah said. "I think this meeting must come out with a clear message on the need to boost food production in the world." Abdullah's popularity has also taken a beating after his government hiked up fuel prices.

The leaders are expected to discuss a Malaysian proposal for joint investments in food-related projects such as a fertilizer plant. "If we can have a big economic project, a big fertilizer project as a D-8 project to cater for the needs of its members as well as for exports, I think that will be very good,"

Abdullah told Reuters in an interview on Monday. "Some of the D-8 countries are also oil producing countries, that can assist us." Most fertilizer plants use gas and naphtha as feedstock.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Pakistan Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani are also attending the one-day summit.

Yudhoyono and Abdullah told the meeting that the bio-fuel frenzy has worsened the global food crisis. "We must not allow the zeal for energy security to come into direct conflict with the basic needs for food production," Abdullah said.

An estimated 1 percent of the world's arable land is used for biofuels, a figure that will rise to between 2.5 and 3.8 percent by 2030, depending on policy incentives in different countries, according to International Energy Agency figures. And use of food such as maize, palm oil and sugar to produce biofuel has been blamed in part for record high commodity prices which are driving millions of people into
hunger.

But the expansion of Malaysia and Indonesia's palm oil driven biodiesel industry has been hampered by sky-high prices of the commodity which is also used in hundreds of food products and in a wide range of consumer goods from soap to
cosmetics.

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Israel Facing Worst Water Crisis in 80 Years
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

Israel Water Authority Director Uri Shani announced Tuesday morning that Israel's water supply faces "the worst crisis in 80 years, since they started keeping records."

Major sources of drinking water in Israel, including Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee), the mountain aquifer, and the coastal aquifer, are all below their red lines, Shani said at a special press conference in Tel Aviv. The coastal aquifer has fallen below the black line, indicating it could suffer rapid and possibly irreversible damage. Shani predicted that the Kinneret itself could fall below its black line by December 2008.

The Kinneret's red line - below which it is not recommended to draw water from the northern lake - is at 213 meters below sea level. Speaking with Israel National News earlier this month, a water economy official explained: "You must understand that the red line is merely a recommendation. The government definitely tries to make sure not to reach that level, but it really has no choice but to continue drawing water even beyond the 213 mark." However, he added, "in the past few years, the government has designated a black line, at 215 meters below sea level, and that is something that truly cannot be breached."

According to Director Shani, "Israel's water needs have been met by borrowing on the future."

To ameliorate the crisis, the Israel Water Authority has authorized the following emergency measures: water will be pumped from the sources of the Kinneret (water which should have reached the Kinneret in 2010); desalination plants will increase output; and polluted wells will be purified. Water use for gardening will also be limited.

The price of water is expected to nearly double, from 3.90 NIS per cubic meter to 7.40 NIS, for some uses. Home consumption will rise by tens of percent. Income from the price hike,

and a government investment of one billion shekels, will be used over the next five years for water infrastructure, desalination and sewage treatment for agriculture, according to the Water Authority.

The Water Authority's announcement Tuesday follows a warning Shani issued in March at a meeting of the Knesset Interior Committee. Shani told the MKs at the time: "I have no doubt that the level of the Kinneret will drop this coming July below the red line," ultimately leading to a situation in which "water will not be able to be drawn."

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New E Africa food crisis warning
BBC

Rising food prices are putting millions of people in East Africa at risk of severe hunger and destitution, the UK-based charity Oxfam has warned.

Droughts, war and poverty have put an estimated nine to 13 million people in the region in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, it says.

The situation has been made worse by rising food prices, with wheat and rice particularly expensive.

A BBC correspondent in Ethiopia says people are waiting for rain - or death.

The BBC's Elizabeth Blunt has just travelled to the remote north-eastern Afar region and says people there are eating animal feed, as they cannot afford anything else.

She says the last rain fell in the area eleven months ago and is the second serious drought in the region in three years.

The region's nomadic people raise animals for a living but many camels have died and some people are selling their goats in order to buy food.

She says the local shop does have maize but few local people can afford to buy it.

Oxfam is calling on donors to increase aid levels to the region.

"The cost of food has escalated by up to 500% in some places, leaving people who have suffered drought after drought in utter destitution," says Oxfam's Rob McNeil, who has just returned from the Somali and Afar regions of Ethiopia.

"Some of the roads we travelled on were littered with dead livestock. There is little or no pasture or water for the animals that people rely upon. People are increasingly becoming desperate.

The call follows another warning on Tuesday from the UN World Food Programme, saying that more than 14 million people in the Horn of Africa needed food aid because of drought and rising food and fuel prices.

Acute malnutrition

In Somalia, the cost of imported rice increased by up to 350% between the beginning of 2007 and May 2008.

In areas of Ethiopia, the price of wheat has more than doubled over a six-month period, and food prices are expected to remain high until the next harvest in October.

In the areas of East Africa heavily dependent on food imports, such as Somalia, global food price rises are making food more expensive.

-----In Somalia, 2.6 million (35% of the population) require emergency assistance, Oxfam says. This could increase to half the population of the country (3.5 million) by the end of 2008. Between 18% and 24% of children are acutely malnourished
-----In Ethiopia, the government estimates 4.6 million people are now in need of emergency food assistance. This has more than doubled from 2.2 million in need of help at the beginning of this year. Some 75,000 children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition in drought-stricken areas, the government says
-----In Turkana, northern Kenya, an Oxfam survey showed 25% of children are suffering from acute malnutrition, the highest in the country

High malnutrition rates have been reported in several parts of Ethiopia and could increase without an immediate increase in humanitarian assistance.

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Millions of Africans facing starvation
By Mike Pflanz in Lokitaung

Millions of Africans are again facing looming famine, prompting yet another international call for food aid less than two years after the last appeal

More than 14.5 million of the world's poorest people living in five countries across East Africa need immediate help, the United Nations said, 3.6 million more than during the last food crisis of 2006.

This has led to questions why international aid pleas for Africa's hungry are coming ever more frequently and for ever more numbers of people.

"The British public always responds generously to emergency appeals but they public be asking why does this happen year after year," agreed Barbara Stocking, Oxfam's chief executive.

"The answer is that the world consistently fails to address adequately the underlying causes of these crises." That failure means that this year's looming disaster threatens to be among the worst of recent years, due to what Mrs Stocking called a "toxic cocktail" of factors.

Soaring world food and fuel prices, worsening conflict and disease have intensified the effects of chronic poverty and climate change which has brought ever-more frequent droughts.

In Kenya's parched far north, close to Lake Turkana, a herd of more than 200 goats yesterday fought two dozen camels for space around a withering waterhole in Kaeris village, 47 miles east of the district capital, Lokitaung.

"Our livestock are dying, there is no pasture, the little money we have cannot buy anything in the market because prices are now too high," said Lukas Ingolan, 55, a Turkana tribe elder squatting in the shade.

"The last time it rained here was in April, for one day. Before that, nothing for so long. Without more rain, I can see only death for us unless people come with relief food." The same appeals were being made almost word for word in 2006, and in similar crises across East Africa stretching back to 2004, 1999, 1993 and even to the 1984 famine which killed more than one million Ethiopians.

Since then, there have been more than 60 fresh hunger crises in Africa, prompting emergency aid flows to rise more than 20 per cent each year to £2.7 billion annually.

The problem is that even that vast sum is often "too late, too brief, inappropriate and inadequate", according to research by the charity Care International.

Action to save lives in the short term must be matched by longer term investment to help the most vulnerable side-step the next disaster, said Oxfam's Mrs Stocking.

Aid policies of Western donors cannot all be blamed. Somalia's conflict has worsened to the point where aid workers are now almost entirely unable to reach the worst affected. Kenya's political crisis paralysed its crop planting season. Government investments in modern agriculture are woefully inadequate.

And despite this, there have been some successes.

In Ethiopia, the British Department for International Development has pumped in more than £93 million to fund a cash-for-work programme which has kept more than five million people off handouts this year.

Half-a-day's drive south of the watering hole at Kaeris, Jecinta Nakoli, 37, and three friends pooled cash grants from Oxfam given in 2006 to open petty-trading kiosks in their village, Nachukwi.

This year, they have also been left off food aid registers.

"When people give you food, it is not good," she said, as her cooperative colleagues, all women, nodded enthusiastically in agreement. "It is better to find money from your own sweat and hard work." But these are still the exceptions. Millions of others are still relying on charity to stay alive.

"We hate repeatedly raising the alarm," said Peter Smerdon, spokesman for the United Nations World Food Programme in Nairobi, which has just appealed for £201 million to feed the most vulnerable in Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Uganda and Djibouti.

"It is much more expensive to save lives during a famine than to stop an emergency from becoming a famine, but we don't receive enough funds to do as much as we would like in order to build up people's ability to survive a sudden shock without emergency assistance." Without that earlier cash injection, all that is left is â to speak up and warn of impending catastrophe', Mr Smerdon added.

"If there is no response and millions of people eventually die then at least governments, UN agencies, donors and the general public knew what was going to happen rather than it coming as a terrible surprise."

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