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<p>WASHINGTON - Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said yesterday he does not plan to be inoculated with the smallpox vaccine and recommends that other Cabinet members not request the inoculation either.</p> <p>"I do not believe it is necessary or should be taking place," he said.</p>

Michael Jackson's bizarre behaviour is more thanjust a freak show. It begs serious questions aboutexactly what this man is doing as a parent to boysAt the zenith of his career, when Michael Jackson sang "I could scare you more than any ghoul could ever dare try," who would have fathomed that The Prince of Pop was anticipating his baroque period, which recently has reached a very different apex.Over the past week or so, Jackson has appeared in a California courtroom looking so frightening that his appearance elicited gasps from the gallery; dangled his third child, Prince Michael II, from a...

The Return of the Gold Dinarby Umar Ibrahim Vadillo The Muslim world has found a novel way to strike back at the West – or at least at Western bankers who rule the world's currencies – introduce a gold coin. Malaysia expects to use gold dinars to trade only between Islamic countries beginning in 2003. The gold dinar, which is 4.25 grams of 24-carat gold, would unite Muslim nations who blame "greedy" currency traders for Asia's downfall in the economic crisis of 1997–98. There is also a silver Islamic Dirham coin of 3.0 grams silver. The dinar is being...

<p>The 7.9 earthquake that slammed the state two weeks ago and continues to tremble even now unzipped an extraordinary geologic scar through the Alaska Range. A horizon-spanning fracture tore open glaciers, sliced mountains and rumpled the landscape with startling new folds and cracks.</p>

Date-Time   2002 11 02 01:26:11 UTCLocation    3.02N 96.18EDepth       33.0 kilometersMagnitude   7.5Region      NORTHERN SUMATRA,INDONESIAReference   175 miles (280 km) WSW of Medan, Sumatra, IndonesiaSource      USGS NEICThe following is a release by the United States Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center: A major earthquake occurred NEAR THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA about 175 miles (280 km) west-southwest of Medan or about 960 miles (1545 km) northwest of Jakarta, Java, Indonesia at 6:26 PM MST today, Nov 1, 2002 (Nov 02 at 8:26 AM local time in Indonesia). A PRELIMINARY MAGNITUDE OF 7.5 WAS COMPUTED FOR THIS EARTHQUAKE. The magnitude and location...

Date-Time   2002 11 02 01:26:11 UTCLocation    3.02N 96.18EDepth       33.0 kilometersMagnitude   7.5Region      NORTHERN SUMATRA,INDONESIAReference   175 miles (280 km) WSW of Medan, Sumatra, IndonesiaSource      USGS NEICThe following is a release by the United States Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center: A major earthquake occurred NEAR THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA about 175 miles (280 km) west-southwest of Medan or about 960 miles (1545 km) northwest of Jakarta, Java, Indonesia at 6:26 PM MST today, Nov 1, 2002 (Nov 02 at 8:26 AM local time in Indonesia). A PRELIMINARY MAGNITUDE OF 7.5 WAS COMPUTED FOR THIS EARTHQUAKE. The magnitude and location...

21 earthquakes from 4.3 - 5.5 magnitude in 24 hours in a tight area NNE of Taiwan. Something's happening.  NEIC: Near Real Time Earthquake List USGS NEIC: Historical Seismicity: NORTHEAST OF TAIWANThis follows yesterday's 6.7 in Alaska:   STRONG EARTHQUAKE JOLTS ALASKA

The following is a release by the United States Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center: A major earthquake occurred about 60 miles (95 km) west-northwest of Wewak, New Guinea, Papua New Guinea or about 520 miles (840 km) northwest of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea at 12:44 PM MDT today, Sep 8, 2002 (Sep 09 at 4:44 AM local time in Papua New Guinea). A PRELIMINARY MAGNITUDE OF 7.5 WAS COMPUTED FOR THIS EARTHQUAKE. The magnitude and location may be revised when additional  data and further analysis results are available. No reports of damage or casualties have been received at...

Four earthquakes off the coast of Oregon (and another in the bottomless pit in Fiji):  NEIC: Near Real Time Earthquake ListNear Real Time Earthquake ListUpdated as of Mon Sep 2 22:06:17 UTC 2002.DATE-(UTC)-TIME         Latitude Longitude Depth Magnitude Q  COMMENTSyyyy/mm/dd   hh:mm:ss   degrees  degrees   km                                                                                       2002/09/02  18:21:35    43.95N   128.36W   10.0  4.7       A  OFF COAST OF OREGON2002/09/02  15:17:13    44.01N   127.92W   10.0  4.4       B  OFF COAST OF OREGON2002/09/02  13:39:17    43.94N   128.29W   19.2  5.4       A  OFF COAST OF OREGON2002/09/02  13:38:10    43.91N   128.39W   21.6  5.2       A  OFF COAST OF OREGON2002/09/02  06:16:53    17.32S   178.79W   500.0 4.4       B  FIJI ISLANDS   NEIC: Historical Seismicity: OFF COAST OF OREGON          210 miles...

Deadly Flu Outbreak: Is History Repeating Itself?An out-of-control outbreak of influenza which has killed as many as 700 people and felled almost 23,000 victims is ravaging Madagascar and health authorities fear that if the disease is not confined to the huge island it could spread around the world. Madagascar which is larger than France and has a population of 16 million people is located off southeast Africa. World Health Organization (WHO) officials have said that samples taken from victims of the illness have shown it to be Type A influenza, a strain of flu believed to have devastated the world...

ETROIT, Aug. 23 — Eighteen years ago, Eddie Joe Lloyd confessed in horrific detail to the rape and murder of 16-year-old Michelle Jackson, solving a case that had terrified this city after a wave of fatal child abductions in the area. Mr. Lloyd's account, in a six-page statement and an audiotape, was chillingly accurate. It described Michelle's Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and half-moon earrings, the red-handled knife used to threaten her, the long johns that strangled her, the dirty green bottle left in her rectum. The only false thing about the confession was the confession itself. At a hearing on Monday,...

A Soviet Ilyushin 76 (Courtesy GlobalEmergency Reponse)It covers an area the size of 12 football fields with one 10-second drop [of liquid – water or retardant]. It puts a fireline down 300 feet wide and 3,900 feet long in 10 seconds. It would have saved every community in Colorado and Arizona this year. It would have saved those 300 homes in Los Alamos two years ago." ] -Tom Robinson, chief administrator for Global Emergency Response, on the Ilyushin-76 "Waterbomber" The gargantuan Biscuit wildfire in Southern Oregon has now engulfed just under half-a-million acres since lightning ignited it and other western...

There are reports coming from everywhere that Saddam Hussein plans a preemptive attack on Israel, Turkey, Jordan and Kuwait and Bahrain. Much of this information is said to be coming from Israeli and US intelligence. Two reports I received today, one from Hal Lindsey and one from DEBKAFiles claim to have information that Saddam has coordinated a mega attack in Israel and has the capabilities to hit all the above with Nuclear weapons, some nuclear dirty bombs and some are nuclear war heads.Well I don't have any sensitive military information to disclose to you, but I can tell you...

The United States, Egypt, and Jordan will guide reforms to Palestinian security services, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat said on Friday. "There is an agreement that Americans, Egyptians, and Jordanians will come and administer the training of our security branches," Arafat told the Arab satellite television network al-Jazeera. He said he hopes the reform program would be implemented soon, but gave no timetable.Any American role in Palestinian reforms is a sensitive matter for Arafat, since that would be perceived as giving in to US dictates and would provoke opposition from Hamas and the Fatah Tanzim. Therefore, the Egyptian and Jordanian...

<p>GRANTS PASS, Ore.  — The nation's largest active wildfire grew to about 333,890 acres early Saturday, making it Oregon's largest wildfire in over a century.</p> <p>The blaze in the Siskiyou National Forest and adjoining lands in southwestern Oregon and Northern California is now larger than the 1933 Tillamook Fire, which burned 311,000 acres.</p>

World Affairs Brief, June 28, 2002 Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief -- http://www.joelskousen.comExcerpt: THE BUSH MIDDLE EAST POLICY SPEECHPresident Bush emerged this week to deliver his postponed policy speech on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [Full text of GWB speech here] He waited for the briefest possible lull in terror to launch his new initiative, which attempts to please both sides, but provides no realistic solution. In its basic form, it is a typical 'carrot and stick' approach, offering all kinds of financial and other incentives to the Palestinians if they...

MOSCOW - A Russian woman injured by an explosion while trying to remove an anti-Semitic sign from the side of a road outside Moscow will travel Tuesday to Israel for plastic surgery — with all costs for her treatment covered by Russia's Jewish community. Tatyana Sapunova, 28, will be accompanied by Russia's chief Rabbi Berel Lazar and her mother Yelena, the Moscow hospital where she was being treated told the Interfax news agency. Sapunova was driving along the Kiev highway outside Moscow when she spotted the roadside sign reading "Death to Jews." She stopped the car and tried to pull...

43 perish in Sohawa road crashUpdated on 6/3/2002 11:03:55 AM  ~~ F.P. Report ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN: At least 43 persons were killed and ten others seriously injured when a passenger bus fell over a bridge near Sohawa on GT Road early Sunday.The bus was on its way to Islamabad from Lahore when it met with the accident near Sohawa, nearly 125 km east of federal capital, Islamabad at 5.30 am. The accident is said to have been caused by over-speeding. Police says most of the passengers were on their way to Islamabad to attend the annual Urs of Bari Imam.  Thirty-three...

57 died when the volcano erupted on May 18, 1980 Friday, May 19, 2000By ERIN MIDDLEWOOD, Correspondent, TheOregonianHOFFSTADT BLUFFS, Wash. -- When Mount St. Helens erupted 20 years ago, Paul Nickell's mother and stepfather were camping there. It was as if the mountain swallowed them.  Their bodies were never recovered. Nickell felt hopeless sorrow seeing their names on the list of those presumed dead.  "It doesn't seem real until you see their names on a list," he said. On Thursday, the 45-year-old Portland resident saw Ellen and Robert Dill's name on another list.  But this one brought him comfort.  It's...

Today Tomorrow  by Edgar J. SteeleApril 17, 2002This will be a quick report to members of my list about recent events, primarily in the Christine case, since that trial is now less than two weeks away.  As you may remember, Brian and Ruth Christine face life in prison (adding up all the penalties for the laundry list of charges levied against them) for having rescued their children from the snatch-n-sell Nazis of the rogue Oregon State Department of Services to Children and Families (SCF). Please tune in to NBC's Today Show tomorrow morning (April 18) for a live interview of...