Crystal Cave - Category: News    
 Time Is Running Out0 comments
12 Dec 2005 @ 10:57
Whether you hold a position on the death penalty or not I urge you to read this story about Stanley Williams. If you feel this man should be given another chance PLEASE sign the attached petition. Time is running out.

Regardless of where you live call call Arnold Schwarzenegger at 916-445-2841 and to email him at governor@governor.ca.gov to tell him to "LET STANLEY WILLIAMS LIVE." A man’s life is worth the cost of a phone call and a little of your time. This isn’t something that can be done at a later
date. Please, call and email on today.

[link]

 Massive Earthquakes in Asia9 comments
picture 9 Oct 2005 @ 02:34
Yet again Mother Earth has unleashed her fury on the people of the earth with massive earthquakes in Pakistan, Kashmir and India. All reports indicate that the death toll will be in the thousands many young children.

By all reports this most recent earthquake was the biggest to ever hit the Asian region and I fear this will not be last.

Our cousins in Guatemala are also suffering with 1400 people reported killed in mudslides. We are still recovering from the recent hurricanes in the US where once again hundreds of people perished or are no left with nothing.

The questions am now asking myself are – are these events linked? Is this part of the wake-up call for mankind and will these events get even more relentless if we don’t start changing our attitude. Are we manifesting these events ourselves as part of our ever-increasing behaviour of suspicion, hate and self-absorption? I’m OK stuff everyone else this goes for people and the earth. Or is this just part of the grand plan of self-destruction? .

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 London Rocked By Bomb Blasts0 comments
7 Jul 2005 @ 14:06
Yet again innocent people are torn apart by bomb blasts this time in beautiful London. There has been multi attacks with both a bus and the underground hit. The latest reports say that perhaps 15-20 people have died and the injured numbers many more. These were innocent people on their way to work. One has to ask the question yet again what does this achieve except misery, pain and more dangerously hate.

It saddens me to read many of the posts on various web sites to night where people are venting their anger against Muslims and various other groups. This serves nothing other than propagating hate of one group by another. Little has been said about the pain and loss of those impacted by this tragedy. .

I pray for those who have left this earth and I would hope that their passing (yet again) has not been in vain. I also send prayers to the families who have lost their loved ones as a result of the senseless act.

More shame on the human race.

 Lions Rescue a 12-Year Old Girl2 comments
picture 25 Jun 2005 @ 13:31
The animal world never ceases to amaze. We talk often of angels and angels can take many forms. In this case the angels took the form of three wonderful lions.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) -- Police say three lions rescued a 12-year-old girl kidnapped by men who wanted to force her into marriage, chasing off her abductors and guarding her until police and relatives tracked her down in a remote corner of Ethiopia.
[link]  More >

 Breaking News4 comments
15 Jun 2005 @ 09:32
Short but sweet.

It has just been announced that Australian hostage Douglas Wood has been released. This is not only great news for us Aussie's but also I suspect American's as Mr Wood and his family live in the US. This was a joint effort.

Of special note is the role that our local Australian Muslim leaders and in particular Australia's Mufti Sheikh Taj Aldin Alhilali played in securing Mr. Wood's release. Sheikh Alhilali made two trips to Iraq in an effort to secure Mr. Woods release. This does more toward bridging the divide than any posturing that comes from our so call political leaders.

One small step and so on and so on...  More >

 Burma - Forgotten Land2 comments
picture 29 May 2005 @ 02:45
Burma the little country which the world at large has conveniently forgotten. More importantly the self professed saviours of the modern world, the champions of the peace process and architects of liberation (said with tongue in cheek) from them nary a word is spoken.

It is 15 years since the people of Burma elected the National league for Democracy with a whopping margin of 80% and in doing so appointed their leader Aung San Suu Kyi to lead their nation. As is the wont in Burma it was only a matter of days before the generals overturned the result in one of most sadistic and genocidal acts of terror in our history. Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest ever since. This is 15-years held a prisoner and her crime she won a democratic election!

Human rights abuse in Burma is breathtaking. Children used as slave labour, people used as human landmine detonators. The peoples of Chin, Kachin, Karenni, Mon, Karen, Arakan and Shan exterminated, women and children raped and why – because they have the temerity to want to retain their culture, nothing more, nothing less. These are peoples who live in the deep jungles but of course the jungles are rich in teak and it would be no surprise to discover that the generals who wreck such havoc on the lives of the peasant tribes have made them multi-millionaires. Sounds familiar doesn’t it. Just another country and another corrupt regime.

When did you see this story on the front pages of the newspapers or on the TV? Well you don’t. American doesn’t care, we down here don’t care, the UK doesn’t care in fact no one cares. Burma used to be part of the British Commonwealth but as Frederick pointed out London is silent. The point of the story is this. If Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction (as we are now told) and the free world only invaded Iraq because Saddam was a despot (but sorry we couldn’t tell you this before we went it) and the free world was liberating the people why are we not invading Burma to set their people free? After all the democratically elected leader of Burma was overthrown and is now held prisoner and she has been for 15-years. I would have thought our self-professed saviours of the modern world; the champions of the peace process and architects of liberation would be in there is a flash.  More >

 Killer quake hits western Indonesia2 comments
picture 29 Mar 2005 @ 09:11
Killer quake hits western Indonesia
16:52 AEDT Tue Mar 29 2005

The latest death toll figure is 2000. Please say a prayer foe these people.

AP - A powerful 8.7-magnitude earthquake has hammered Indonesia's west coast, collapsing homes and burying sleeping residents inside and sparking panic across Indian Ocean countries still traumatised by the tsunami disaster three months ago.

Death toll estimates varied widely, from about 200 to ten times that number.

While fears of another tsunami catastrophe faded when no waves appeared in the hours immediately after the overnight quake, the force of the temblor brought down 70 per cent of the buildings in a market district in a town on nearby Nias island, officials said.

"It is predicted - and it's still a rough estimate - that the number of the victims of dead may be between 1,000 and 2,000," Vice President Jusuf Kalla told the el-Shinta radio station in Jakarta on Tuesday morning.

He said the estimate was based on the number of buildings damaged when the quake hit about an hour before midnight Monday, not on bodies counted.

Hours later, Information Minister Sofyan Djalil said that initial reports from the island indicated that between 100 and 200 had perished. Local officials reported nearly 300 dead, and said they were pulling bodies from the rubble.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono postponed a planned visit Wednesday to Australia and said he would fly to Nias to assess damage. The timing of his visit to Nias was not immediately confirmed, nor was a new date for Yudhoyono's Australian trip.

"The president would like to find out the extent of the damage and casualties," Presidential spokesman Andi Malarangeng told The Associated Press. "It is certain that the visit to Australia has been postponed."

Early reports suggested the town of Gunungsitoli on Nias, which lies off Sumatra's western coast, was worst hit.

"From the window I see very high flames," the Rome-based missionary news agency MISNA quoted Father Raymond Laia as saying by telephone. Laia was stationed about 3km from town.

"The town is completely destroyed," Laia said, adding that reports said thousands were injured.

Thousands more fled to the island's hills and remained there Tuesday morning.

"It's difficult to get information - all the government officials have run to the hills because they are afraid of a tsunami," said presidential envoy T.B. Silalahi.

The United States, Japan and Australia said they were ready to send troops to the stricken island to help with the cleanup if Jakarta asks.

The earthquake - which occurred along the same tectonic fault line as the massive 9.0-magnitude temblor that caused the Dec. 26 Indian Ocean tsunami - triggered panic in several Asian countries when governments issued warnings that another set of deadly waves may be about to hit.

Coastal residents from Indonesia to Thailand to Sri Lanka fled to higher ground, before hearing hours later that no killer waves had materialised.

In Banda Aceh, capital of Indonesia's Aceh province, which was hardest-hit by the December tsunami, thousands of people poured into the streets, most getting onto motorcycles or into vehicles to flee low-lying areas.

"It was horrible, the only thing on my mind was how to get out of the house immediately and save my 3-and-a-half month baby girl," said 27-year-old Marlina. "I ran outside with my husband to our neighbour's house and sat there for about a half-hour, and prayed that the tsunami won't come again because we have suffered enough."

In Sri Lanka, warning sirens blared along the island nation's east coast and President Chandrika Kumaratunga urged people to evacuate. The government later withdrew its tsunami warning.

"It was like reliving the same horror of three months ago," said Fatheena Faleel, who fled her home with her three children.

On Nias, about 70 per cent of the houses and buildings in the market area in Gunungsitoli town collapsed from Monday night's quake, local police Sgt. Zulkifli Sirait said.

Another police officer, who identified himself as Nainggolan, said rescuers were trying to pull people out of the rubble and struggling with a lack of electricity, and that more rescuers and medics were sorely needed. Many people were panicking because of aftershocks, he said.

A quake of 5.7 magnitude struck the area Tuesday morning, the Hong Kong Observatory reported.

Dave Jenkins, a New Zealand physician and surfer who runs the relief agency SurfAid International from the western Sumatran city of Padang, said he feared for the safety of about 10,000 people living on the tiny Banyak Islands, close to the undersea quake's epicentre.

He said he was departing for the islands in a boat carrying enough medical supplies to treat 10,000 people for three months.

"We're sending two doctors and two nurses. I'll get up there myself," he told The Associated Press.

Nias, a renowned surfing spot, was badly hit by the Dec. 26 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that killed at least 174,000 people in 11 Indian Ocean nations. In that quake, at least 340 Nias residents perished and 10,000 were left homeless.

Indonesian officials said the epicentre of Monday's quake was 90 kilometres (56 miles) south of the island of Simeulue, off of Sumatra's western coast, and just north of Nias. It was felt as far away as Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.




©AAP 2005  More >

 The Dragon Snake:A Solomon Islands UFO Mystery2 comments
19 Sep 2004 @ 04:46
This article starts.....

We had not long returned from the New Georgia group, where I had just bought a beautiful tropical island with white sand beaches and coconut palms, and we were desperately in need of new rental accommodation on Guadalcanal. My best friend Joseph had been helping me find a house that was preferably outside the Honiara area. As there was a shortage of livable housing, it had almost come to the point of taking what we could get.

Joseph told me of a house that he knew of at his village but he thought it wouldn't suit me as I'm a white man. I told him to stop that kind of rubbish thinking and that we should go and have a look. I knew of Joseph's village, but I couldn't place the house that he had been describing to me as we drove the roughly 70-kilometre journey westward along the coast from Honiara.

Upon arriving at Cape Esperance, Joseph pointed to the quaint little three-bedroom timber house that was on the eastern extremity of the village. It had a cement floor and a galvanised iron roof with an out-house near the grass-hut kitchen, and the most beautiful island sea view that anyone could wish for. There was a tap and shower outside with perpetual mountain spring water. It didn't bother me that there was no electricity, as I had a generator. I made up my mind to take the house, as I didn't have too many options left. While I was inspecting the house, the divorced woman who owned the house arrived, and so I formalised an agreement to move in the next day.

Late the next afternoon, we arrived at the house with a six-tonne truck and proceeded to unload all our possessions into the house. This attracted the attention of a good portion of the village folk, as I was the only white man ever to have come to live in their area.  More >