A mutated virus is driving the US into an early flu season, especially on the West Coast

By Brenda Goodman

Respiratory virusesVaccines

Even though this year's flu vaccines target a strain of H1N1, a new gene mutation means the virus can still break through. Hannah Beier/File/Reuters


Flu season is picking up months ahead of schedule with a mutated virus spreading in some parts of the United States, surprising some people who might not even be thinking about their annual flu shots yet.

This year, the season started 2 1/2 months earlier than what’s typical and hit states on the West Coast first, which is unusual, said Dr. Alex Greninger, head of the Division of Infectious Disease Diagnostics at the University of Washington’s Department of Laboratory Medicine.

Usually, the US flu season starts in the South – often in Florida, where it arrives from the Southern Hemisphere. Then it tends to spread north as fall and winter progress.

“In Seattle, we’re pretty far north. We see a pretty strong peak in January,” Greninger said, noting that the bulk of their cases typically come in late December through February.

That’s not how it’s playing out this year.

The Trail to Women’s Ordination in the NPUC Started in Oregon

Naomi Pepper 

September 3, 2026

The historic vote on women’s ordination at the 2026 North Pacific Union Conference (NPUC) constituency session was driven by Adventists in Oregon. The motion was voted onto the agenda after delegates successfully navigated complex internal union bylaws to secure a direct vote. The efforts of these delegates resulted in a major victory for women in ministry and longtime advocates of ordination equality across the region.

Kessia Reyne Bennett, lead pastor of the Pleasant Valley Adventist Church in Oregon and a delegate at large, offered support that was characteristic of the careful way in which the Oregon Conference constituents presented the proposal. Noting that the move was not oppositional toward either the General Conference (GC) or “the establishment,” Bennett said, “I appreciate the motion for recognizing the authority of of the unions to administer ministerial credentials,” and added that the motion was careful not to compel conferences to put forward candidates who would not align with the conference’s “convictions or the qualifications of the candidate.” Kessia Reyne Bennett praised the motion for recognizing unions’ authority to approve ordinations. Video NPUC

But it wasn’t only Oregonians who spoke out in favor of ordination. José Haroldo Alomia, pastor of the Kirkland Adventist Church in the Washington Conference, said in support of the motion, “As a Hispanic man growing up in Latin America, I used to be of the opinion that women could not be ordained, nor lead in the church as I could.” He added that in over two decades of ministry, he changed his position because “Scripture doesn’t explicitly prohibit it,” and because his ministry “has been blessed and amplified by all the women that have worked with me,” including his current associate.José Haroldo Alomia noted that the Mid-America Union had already implemented the same measure proposed by the NPUC with no adverse effects to the Adventist Church or its mission. Video: NPUC

During more than an hour of discussion on the motion, of the 26 delegates who commented on the motion, seventeen spoke in favor, six in opposition, and three raised questions or declined to state a position. Nine of the seventeen delegates who voiced support are Oregon Conference pastors; one is an administrator in the conference.

The road to getting the motion to the floor was far from simple. Organizers had to navigate significant administrative hurdles to ensure the union leadership heard what a majority—62 percent—of delegates wanted for the women working in their churches.

The question of women’s ordination remains one of the most debated issues within the Adventist Church. Notably, the issue was brought to delegates at the 2015 GC Session in San Antonio, Texas. Out of 2,358 voters representing the world church, that motion fell just 203 votes short of allowing each world division to decide whether to permit the ordaining of women within their territory. There has not been a GC vote about whether unions can decide.

Increasingly, Adventists have pushed back against this stance, advocating more flexibility for unions and conferences to do what they believe is best for their congregations and pastors in their local contexts. With their awareness of how biblical values need to be communicated to increasingly diverse communities, they note how inviting people to join a church that officially discriminates on the basis of gender impedes Adventist mission. Walla Walla, Washington resident Jack Hoehn, author of Adventist Tomorrow: Fresh Ideas While Waiting for Jesus, stated in an interview, “‘Not now’ to female pastors is just another way of men saying ‘no!’”

In 2012, well before the 2015 GC vote, the Pacific Union and the Columbia Union successfully voted bylaw amendments approving “ordination to the gospel ministry without regard to gender” in their respective territories.

In 2021, the Mid-America Union followed, stating in their motion that it,“recognizes the right and responsibility of each local conference to prepare and recommend names for ordination, and will consider all recommended persons for ordination as submitted by the respective local conference executive committees.”

This was the exact language that members of the Oregon Conference executive committee used when submitting their proposed motion for the constituency session agenda. Though this does not compel conferences within the union to take any particular action, it gives each conference the flexibility to follow its own convictions on employment gender equality.

Major Earthquake 7.3 Vanuatu Area following a major X Class Solar Flare Monday update.

 

Marcos, Trump Confirm Subic Bay Ammo Hub Plan in the Philippines | Taiwa...

Experts Warn: HUGE Earthquake as Volcanoes Erupt in the Pacific

Deadly Pacific (Full Episode) | Drain the Oceans

Watch Out California! 53 Major Earthquakes Just Hit The Ring Of Fire In A 24 Hour Period

by Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/20/2018 - 17:25
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Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Is something unusual starting to happen to the crust of our planet?

The USGS defines any earthquake of at least magnitude 4.5 as “significant”, and there were 53 earthquakes that met that criteria along the Ring of Fire on Sunday alone.



If you would like to verify that information for yourself, you can so do right here.

Not too long ago, I wrote about how “Earth changes” seem to be accelerating all over the world, but even I was stunned by the ferocity of the seismic activity that we witnessed over the weekend. Because none of the earthquakes happened in the United States, the mainstream media almost entirely ignored this story, but that is a huge mistake.

The entire west coast of the U.S. falls along the “Ring of Fire”, and experts assure us that it is only a matter of time before the seismic tension that is building up along the tectonic plates in that area is released.



Much of the seismic activity on Sunday was near the small island nation of Fiji, and it is true that Fiji often experiences earthquakes because it sits directly inside the Ring of Fire…


Fiji falls in the Pacific Ring Of Fire – a massive horseshoe-shaped area in the Pacific basin.

The ring is formed of a string of 452 volcanoes and sites of seismic activity (earthquakes), which encircle the Pacific Ocean.

Roughly 90 percent of all earthquakes occur along the Ring of Fire, and 75 percent of the world’s active volcanoes are dotted along the expansive ring.

Pentagon: China deploys 16 fighter jets to disputed South China Sea island

38 minutes ago



By Corey Dickstein
Stars and Stripes
Published: April 13, 2016

An armed Chinese fighter jet flies near a U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon patrol aircraft over the South China Sea about 135 miles east of Hainan Island in international airspace.
U.S. Navy

Related

Use of 5 bases just beginning of increased US presence in Philippines, Carter says

U.S. plans to rotate troops to five bases in the Philippines are just the beginning of an increased American presence in the country, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Wednesday.

China's island building hurting environment, US report says

China's reclamation work in the South China Sea may have destroyed coral reefs, damaged fisheries in a region heavily dependent on seafood and breached international law on protecting the environment, according to a report to Congress.

N. Korea, South China Sea friction complicate Obama’s Asia ‘rebalance’

Late in his first term, President Barack Obama announced a new emphasis on Asia and the Pacific Rim, a way of pivoting from the morass in the Middle East and focusing on a peaceful, booming region that the first Pacific-born president saw as the future.

Britain urges refrain in South China Sea's disputes

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has urged claimants of the South China Sea to refrain from the use of force and uphold international law in resolving their disputes.

 WASHINGTON — The Chinese have now deployed the largest number of fighter jets ever to Woody Island, one of the disputed South China Sea islands that they claim is their territory, a U.S. defense official said Wednesday.

China moved 16 Shenyang J-11 advanced fighter aircraft to Woody Island on April 7, said the defense official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly. He said such a large deployment was “unprecedented,” though it’s not the first time China has sent fighter jets to Woody Island, the largest landmass in the Paracel Islands, which are situated in the hotly disputed South China Sea region.

Positioning military aircraft on the island seems to contradict Chinese President Xi Jinping’s vow not to militarize the South China Sea, a statement he made while visiting Washington, D.C. in February.

U.S. officials have said such deployments, alongside the aggressive buildup of manmade islands throughout the South China Sea, threaten stability in the region. They have repeatedly called for China and other countries that claim disputed territory in the South China Sea, a key international shipping route, not to militarize the land in the area.

 Defense Secretary Ash Carter is now in the Philippines, where he will visit bases that the United States considers critical to countering Chinese aggression in the region. The bases are about 100 miles east of the contested Spratly Islands, where China has used some 2,000 acres of landfill to bolster once-submerged reefs into islands.

Carter said the United States will invest in and deploy rotational American troops to the Philippines bases.

“It is important for all of the nations – China, the Philippines, Vietnam, others – not to engage in any unilateral steps of reclamation, of building, of militarization,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in February. “The fact is that there have been steps by China, by Vietnam, and by others that have unfortunately created an escalatory cycle.”

Woody Island has been under Chinese control since the 1950s, but it is also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam. China first built a runway capable of handling various military aircraft, including advanced fighter jets, in the 1990s. It expanded the runway in 2014.

The Pentagon has confirmed smaller-scale deployments of Chinese fighters to Woody Island in the past, including in November 2015 and more recently in February.

New information obtained by Pentagon officials suggests China could be further building up its military on Woody Island.

Satellite photos taken by ImageSat International appear to show a fire control radar system present on Woody Island, which would allow China to use the surface-to-air missile systems it deployed there in February. The imagery shows the surface-to-air missile systems on the east side of the island, with several missiles in firing position.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in February that China was “deploying necessary, limited defensive facilities on its own territory.”

dickstein.corey@stripes.com
Twitter: @CDicksteinDC


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Who Owns The South China Sea?

Who Owns The South China Sea?




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April 13, 20165:12 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition







Frank Langfitt




Members of the Chinese navy stand guard on China's first aircraft carrier, Liaoning, in 2013. Tensions in the South China Sea have grown over territorial disputes between China, the Philippines, Japan, Vietnam and others. Reuters/China Stringer Network/Landov



The South China Sea fills Ma Sijin with national pride.

The retired ink factory worker says he is glad to see China challenging foreign powers, including the United States, over control of the strategic waterway.

"All the Chinese people have now stood up!" says Ma, 66, quoting the famous words of Chairman Mao Zedong when he announced the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

"When all is said and done, everybody knows who these islands belong to," Ma continues, polishing off a dinner of meatballs, rice and greens in Shanghai. "They belong to China."

Some analysts see nationalistic sentiment like Ma's as fertile ground for Chinese leaders. A recent report by the Council on Foreign Relations warned that as China's economic growth continues to ebb, President Xi Jinping may stoke nationalism to distract citizens from the country's myriad problems.

"China's foreign policy may well be driven increasingly by the risk of domestic political instability," said the report, written by Kurt M. Campbell, former assistant U.S. secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and Robert D. Blackwill, deputy national security adviser for strategic planning under President George W. Bush. "Xi will most probably stimulate and intensify Chinese nationalism ... to compensate for the political harm of a slower economy."

China is communist in name only. The government can no longer rally the nation of more than 1.3 billion people around ideology, so it long ago turned to nationalism to help provide a sort of societal glue.

After the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, the government refreshed a patriotic education campaign to develop more support for the Communist Party.

Teachers emphasized what the Chinese call "The Century of Humiliation" — roughly 1842 to 1949 — when China lost wars, was invaded and ceded territory to imperial powers.

The Competing Claims In The South China Sea

Many countries claim islands in the South China Sea, and tensions have been on the rise in recent years.



Credit: Stephanie d'Otreppe / NPR


Schoolchildren here are exposed to a map of China with a nine-dash line encompassing most of the South China Sea. Although the government has never fully defined that line, the implication is that China sees everything inside, including the islands, as its own. China says it wasn't able to enforce its claims to islands in the South China Sea earlier because it was too weak militarily.

Like many young people, Qin, a psychology grad student at Shanghai's East China Normal University, supports the official position.

"Regardless of whether it's true or not, the government says since ancient times these islands have been part of our territory," says Qin, 24. "I feel if other people aggressively occupied these places, it would damage our national pride."

But all that patriotic education and the Chinese state media's steady drumbeat on the issue have not convinced everyone here that the South China Sea even matters. Many people on campus seem to have tuned out the government's message.

"I am not paying attention," says Wang, a neuroscience grad student, who is sitting on a bench behind a giant statue of Mao. Wang says he sees the state media reports, but forgets them immediately. The South China Sea, more than 1,300 miles from Shanghai, has no resonance.

"It doesn't really affect you," says Wang, who refuses to give his full name because of the political sensitivities surrounding the issue. "You pay more attention to the price of eggs, the price of a meal, how much an apartment costs."

Some Chinese even oppose the government's policy. Li Yougen, a retired factory worker, says claiming most of the South China Sea and building artificial islands, as China has, is unreasonable.

"I think it's unfair," he says. "You can't simply say since ancient times it's been ours. You need to tell ordinary Chinese how it became ours. I think it ought to be resolved through diplomacy. Otherwise, it will be the law of the jungle."

An international court in The Hague is expected to rule soon on whether China's claims are excessive, but Beijing has boycotted the proceedings.

Several years ago, a Chinese firm did a rare public survey on the South China Sea. Fifty-seven percent supported compromise through negotiation. In addition, young people were cautious about aggressively pressing China's case with other countries that also claim South China Sea islands, such as the Philippines and Vietnam.

Andrew Chubb, a doctoral candidate at the University of Western Australia who studies Chinese public opinion on the issue, says the results run counter to the sort of nationalistic vitriol that tends to dominate the online conversation here and raise fears in the West.

"There is a sort of a silent majority in China that really doesn't have any time for the idea of a war in the South China Sea," says Chubb.

Cheng Li, who studies Chinese politics at the Brookings Institution, says Chinese leaders don't want war either, in part because China's military is still not advanced enough to win one. Nor does Li think military conflict would find much public support given that most Chinese are focused on domestic issues.

"Basically, the middle class still wants to have stability," Li says.



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California man swept out to sea during Sunday baptism

U.S.

Benito Flores, 43, was helping his cousin — Pastor Maurigro Cervantes — perform the religious ceremony on a man at Guadalupe Beach when a wave toppled the trio. Cervantes said he tried to grab his cousin, but the man was swept away by another wave.



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/california-man-swept-sea-sunday-baptism-article-1.1740218#ixzz2y2txKs7l
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Family leaves US on sailboat over religious concerns to start new life, becomes lost at sea

August 10, 2013 7:59 pm


By Greg Moore The Associated Press





Hannah Gastonguay, holding her baby Rahab, is followed by her husband Sean and the couple's 3-year-old daughter Ardith, as they disembark in the port city of San Antonio, Chile, Friday, Aug. 9, 2013. AP Photo/Las Ultimas Noticias






PHOENIX – A northern Arizona family that was lost at sea for weeks in an ill-fated attempt to leave the U.S. over what they consider government interference in religion will fly back home Sunday.

Hannah Gastonguay, 26, said Saturday that she and her husband “decided to take a leap of faith and see where God led us” when they took their two small children and her father-in-law and set sail from San Diego for the tiny Pacific island nation of Kiribati in May.

But just weeks into their journey the Gastonguays hit a series of storms that damaged their small boat, leaving them adrift for weeks, unable to make progress. They were eventually picked up by a Venezuelan fishing vessel, transferred to a Japanese cargo ship and taken to Chile where they are resting in a hotel in the port city of San Antonio.

Their flights home were arranged by U.S. Embassy officials, Gastonguay said. The U.S. State Department was not immediately available for comment.

The months-long journey has been “pretty exciting” and “little scary at certain points,” Gastonguay told The Associated Press by telephone.

She said they wanted to go to Kiribati because “we didn’t want to go anywhere big.” She said they understood the island to be “one of the least developed countries in the world.”

Kiribati is a group of islands just off the Equator and the international date line about halfway between Hawaii and Australia. The total population is just over 100,000 people of primarily Micronesian descent.

Hannah Gastonguay said her family was fed up with government control in the U.S. As Christians they don’t believe in “abortion, homosexuality, in the state-controlled church,” she said.

U.S. “churches aren’t their own,” Gastonguay said, suggesting that government regulation interfered with religious independence. “Jesus isn’t the head of the church. God isn’t the head of the church,” she said.

Among other differences, she said they had a problem with being “forced to pay these taxes that pay for abortions we don’t agree with.”
The family moved in November from Ash Fork, Arizona, to San Diego, where they lived on their boat as they prepared to set sail. She said she gave birth to the couple’s 8-month-old girl on the boat, which was docked in a slip at the time.

In May, Hannah, her 30-year-old husband Sean, his father Mike, and the couple’s daughters, 3-year-old Ardith and baby Rahab set off. They wouldn’t touch land again for 91 days, she said.

She said at first, “We were cruising.”

But within a couple of weeks “when we came out there, storm, storm, storm.”

The boat had taken a beating, and they decided to set course for the Marquesas Islands. Instead they found themselves in a “twilight zone,” taking more and more damage, leaving them unable to make progress.

They could have used a sail called a genoa, she said, but they risked snapping off the mast and losing their radio and ability to communicate.

They had been on the ocean for about two months and were low on supplies. They were out of food and were down to “some juice and some honey.” She said they were able to catch fish, but they didn’t see any boats.

Still, we “didn’t feel like we were going to die or anything. We believed God would see us through,” she said.

At one point a fishing ship came into contact with them but left without providing assistance. A Canadian cargo ship came along and offered supplies, but when they pulled up alongside it, the vessels bumped and the smaller ship sustained even more damage.

They were getting hit by “squall after squall after squall.”

“We were in the thick of it, but we prayed,” she said. “Being out on that boat, I just knew I was going to see some miracles.”

They watched the surrounding storms disperse, and “next thing you know the sun is out. It’s amazing.”

Eventually, their boat was spotted by a helicopter that had taken off from a nearby Venezuelan fishing vessel, which ended up saving them.

“The captain said, ‘Do you know where you’re at? You’re in the middle of nowhere,”‘ she said.

They were on the Venezuelan ship for about five days before transferring to the Japanese cargo ship, where they spent nearly three weeks before landing in Chile on Friday. The Chilean newspaper Las Ultimas Noticias reported the story of their arrival.

Sean Gastonguay’s brother Jimmy, who lives in Arizona, said he had provided a description of the family’s vessel to the U.S. Coast Guard and exchanged emails with them once they were picked up by the first boat.

“There was some concern, but we were hoping for the best, and they eventually popped up,” he said. He was able to keep track of the family with the help of the Coast Guard as they were transferred from ship to ship.

“We’re all happy. We have good peace of mind now,” he said.

Hannah Gastonguay said the family will next, “go back to Arizona” and “come up with a new plan.”

AP Writer Susan Montoya Bryan contributed to this report.


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US F-15 Fighter Crashes in Pacific off Okinawa

US F-15 Fighter Crashes in Pacific off Okinawa




TOKYO May 28, 2013 (AP)



A U.S. Air Force F-15 fighter crashed off the southern Japan island of Okinawa early Tuesday after the aircraft developed problems in flight. The pilot ejected and was recovered safely.

The F-15, flying out of Kadena Air Base, went down in the Pacific about 115 kilometers (70 miles) east of Okinawa, the military said in a statement.

Lt. Col. David Honchul, the chief spokesman for the U.S. Forces, Japan, said the pilot was recovered safely after a search by U.S. and Japanese rescue crews. After he ejected from the plane the pilot remained in contact with the rescuers.

The cause was under investigation. The pilot's name has not been released.

The U.S. military has about 50,000 troops based in Japan, about half of them on Okinawa. Kadena Air Base is one of the largest U.S. airbases in the Asia-Pacific region. The F-15 was attached to Kadena's 18th Wing.

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SDA Church Dispute Heads to Court

March 17, 2013

EventPolynesia.com

SDA church at Matatufu

Last month leaders of the SDA church in the South Pacific Division (SPD) met again in Australia with pastors from Samoa and Samoan pastors representing Samoan churches in New Zealand and Australia. The bible conference discussed the impasse in Samoa which is detrimental to a fundamental doctrine of the SDA church where there are now two seventh-day Sabbaths, some worshipping on Saturday and the majority worshipping on Sunday.

An outcome of the meeting is the matter to be referred to the Biblical Research Committee of the South Pacific Division for further research.

But in Samoa, the local church administration has instructed the law office of Schuster-Betham-Annandale to write to the Leauva’a-uta SDA members who are worshipping on Saturday to refrain from using the church facility there. The letter dated 6th February warns that failure to comply within 7 days will result in the matter been taken to the High Court for an order regarding ownership, demolition and removal by the church of assets.

Leauvaa-uta Sabbath keepers in front of their church building.

The letter from the lawyer however states that the church does not dispute the land belongs to the title Sala (held by Fonoti Peteli). This is further confirmed in a letter from the Register of the Lands and Titles Court stating the ownership of the land known as Laumasa is with Sala Fonoti Peteli and is not being disputed. The Register however goes further advising the parties involved to seek legal advice from lawyers in regards to dividing of church assets.

The SDA Sabbath dilemma in Samoa today centers around which day is the seventh-day of the week after the IDL change in 2011, the second time Samoa has changed its location to the IDL. Is it Saturday or Sunday?

Seventh-day Adventists keep the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week which is Saturday like everywhere else in the world. Most Christian churches in Samoa however also call Sunday the Sabbath but for a different reason – to commemorate the day of Jesus’ resurrection which falls on Sunday, the first day of the week.

On the TVNZ program Tagata Pasefika last year, President of the SDA church in Samoa, Pastor Uili Solofa stated that “now in Samoa, the seventh-day falls on Sunday.” The same argument was published in the Samoa Observer 1st July issue saying, “The practical result in terms of Sabbath keeping is that Sunday not Saturday has become the seventh day of the week.”

In a document dated 29th December 2011, Pastor Uili Solofa wrote,


“The majority of church leaders, worshippers and villages (in Samoa) are not saying they are happy that Seventh-day Adventists are keeping Sunday, instead what they are saying is that – we are going to keep the Sabbath of the Seventh-day Adventist church; praise God!”

In a separate correspondence, Pastor Uili Solofa also wrote, “You have to know that all the other Christian religions in Samoa have publicly testified that they have moved to keep the seventh–day Sabbath of the Bible.”

Catholic Chancellor Ono does not appear to share that view. Asked about casinos opening on Sunday, Father Ioane says that personally, he had no problems with it. “For Catholics or any Christian for that matter, Sunday is a day of rest, a day of giving thanks and praise to the Lord. It is also a day of joy and celebration because for the Catholic Church, Sunday is the day of resurrection of Jesus.” (Samoa Observer, March 12, 2013)

Such statements by SDA leaders in Samoa and the Pacific that Sunday is the “seventh-day” in Samoa today appear to contradict the reason Christian churches worship on Sunday, the first day of the week, to commemorate the day of Jesus’ resurrection.

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P.S. 
Samoa SDA's: Happy Sabbath, faithful Brethren!
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Quake of 7.4 magnitude hits off El Salvador coast-USGS

Mon Aug 27, 2012 1:23am EDT

(Adds tsunami warning for Pacific nations)

Aug 27 (Reuters) - A major earthquake of 7.4 magnitude hit in the Pacific Ocean about 78 miles (125 km) off the coast of El Salvador late Sunday night, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

No destructive Pacific-wide tsunami is expected, and there is no tsunami threat to Hawaii, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.

The center said, however, that although it did not know if a tsunani had been generated, a warning was in effect for Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama and Mexico.

The earthquake struck 74 miles (120 km) south of Usulutan, El Salvador, at a depth of 33 miles, the Geological Survey said.

There were no immediate reports of damage to coastal areas or to shipping.

(Reporting by Philip Barbara; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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8.6 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes North Sumatra

Analysis by Christina Reed
Wed Apr 11, 2012 07:42 AM ET





UPDATE (7:33 a.m. ET): An aftershock of magnitude 8.2 has struck at 16.4 km (10 miles) deep - at 617 km (383 miles) south southwest of the coast of Banda Aceh. We are continuing to monitor the situation. Follow sea level changes here.

A magnitude 8.6 earthquake struck North Sumatra, Indonesia, at 2:38 p.m. local time today. First estimated as a magnitude 8.7 by the U.S. Geological Survey, the earthquake originated 22.9 km (14.2 miles) below the Earth's crust and struck 434 kilometers (270 miles) southwest of the coast of Banda Aceh, the capital of Indonesia's Aceh province.

NEWS: Hidden Fault Amplified 2004 Tsunami

A tsunami watch and warning was put into effect for the Indian Ocean, immediately after the event. The power is out in Banda Aceh, where residents have moved to high ground, reported Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for the Indonesian National Disaster Management Agency.

The island of Simeulue, Prih Harjadi, and other coastal areas of Aceh are also on alert.

India has taken caution on Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where authorities have ordered people to move out of low-lying areas, CNN reported.

However the geophysics of today's quake do not indicate a repeat of Indonesia's 2004 earthquake is in progress. The magnitude 9.1 earthquake that struck in 2004 and triggered a tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people in 14 countries was a subduction megathrust earthquake closer to shore (250 kilometers south-southeast of Banda Aceh).

Today's temblor appears to have ripped along a transform fault, tearing the seafloor as opposed to popping it apart. Though local tsunami waves are a considerable risk, with calculations showing Simeulue could receive waves as high as 6 meters (20 feet) the widespread tsunami damage seen in 2004 is not anticipated.


IMAGES: Earthquake location map (USGS) Indian Ocean warning in effect (PTWC)

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Magnitude 7.5 quake hits Vanuatu in Pacific: USGS

WASHINGTON Sat Aug 20, 2011 1:37pm EDT

(Reuters) - A powerful magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck off the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, the U.S. Geological Survey reported Saturday.

It said the quake, which struck at 3:55 a.m. local time on Sunday (12:55 p.m. EDT on Saturday), was centered 38 miles southwest of the town of Port-Vila and was quite shallow, at a depth of 25.2 miles.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the major quake had not triggered a Pacific-wide tsunami but said: "Earthquakes of this size sometimes generate local tsunamis that can be destructive along coasts located within a hundred kilometers (80 miles) of the earthquake epicenter."

There was no immediate information of any damage or casualties, but when on land quakes of this magnitude can cause widespread and heavy damage.

The quake was followed by a weaker aftershock of magnitude 5.9 some 20 minutes later.

The Vanuatu archipelago is located on the so-called "Ring of Fire," one of the most seismically active regions in the world. Port-Vila is the capital of Vanuatu and has an estimated population of 40,000 people.

(Reporting by Sandra Maler, Editing by Vicki Allen)
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Surprise! Underwater volcano has erupted

Scientists going back to pick up monitoring equipment find a changed seafloor

Bill Chadwick, Oregon State University, © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
The chain is all that is visible of an ocean-bottom hydrophone, an instrument that detects earthquakes, buried in about 6 feet of new lava produced by a recent eruption at the Axial Seamount.



By Andrea Mustain
OurAmazingPlanet

updated 8/9/2011 5:36:28 PM ET


An undersea volcano has erupted off the coast of Oregon, spewing forth a layer of lava more than 12 feet thick in some places, and opening up deep vents that belch forth a cloudy stew of hot water and microbes from deep inside the Earth.

Scientists uncovered evidence of the early April eruption on a routine expedition in late July to the Axial Seamount, an underwater volcano that stands 250 miles off the coast of Oregon.

The discovery came as a surprise, as researchers attempted to recover instruments they'd left behind to monitor the peak a year earlier. When the researchers hefted a seafaring robotic vehicle overboard to fetch the instruments, the feed from the onboard camera sent back images of an alien seafloor landscape.

"At first we were really confused, and thought we were in the wrong place," said Bill Chadwick, a geologist with Oregon State University. "Finally we figured out we were in the right place but the whole seafloor had changed, and that's why we couldn't recognize anything. All of a sudden it hit us that, wow, there had been an eruption. So it was very exciting."

In addition to producing hardened lakes of blobby lava, in places more than a mile across, the eruption changed the architecture of the region's seafloor hot springs.

"There are more vents, they're higher temperature, and there are microbes living in them that are usually deep in the crust that come up to the surface in these events," Chadwick told OurAmazingPlanet.

Eruption predicted
The Axial Volcano rises 3,000 feet above the seafloor, the most active of a string of volcanoes along the Juan de Fuca Ridge, a plate boundary where the seafloor is slowly pulling apart.

Chadwick and colleagues have been keeping tabs on the peak since it last erupted in 1998. Thanks to a monitoring system they developed to measure the mountain's minute movements, the team predicted the volcano was due for another eruption sometime between 2011 and 2014.

"So for me, it's a very exciting thing that this worked!" Chadwick said.

The instruments kept track of the movement of the seafloor, which very gradually inflates and deflates like a giant, magma-filled balloon, Chadwick said, collapsing suddenly after an eruption, and rising, in this case, by about 6 inches a year in the lead-up to an eruption.

First long-term picture
Scientists have long known about the existence of subsea volcanoes, but information on their behavior is relatively sparse. Eruptions were first observed in the 1990s, and, although technology has improved, getting to the underwater peaks to study them is difficult.

Data from the Axial Seamount's recent eruption will provide the first long-term picture of a subsea volcano from one eruption to the next.

Chadwick said scientists are still trying to figure out how seafloor volcanoes differ from their terrestrial counterparts.

It could be it's easier to predict ocean eruptions, Chadwick said. It's possible that because the crust is thinner there, and magma is in ready supply, the mountains' slow inflations provide a good analogue for knowing when eruptions will occur. However, he cautioned that a single successful prediction wasn’t enough to forecast what the future holds.

"At Axial, we've only seen this once, so we don't know for sure it's going to be reliable," Chadwick said. "So we'll certainly keep making these measurements, and hopefully be around to see what happens next."


Reach Andrea Mustain at amustain@techmedianetwork.com . Follow her on Twitter @AndreaMustain .



Bill Chadwick, Oregon State University, © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Before the eruption: A spider crab sits atop a hydrophone, an instrument that detects earthquakes, at the Axial Seamount.


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6.9 earthquake hits central Tokyo

14:56 AEST Tue Nov 30 2010

A 6.9-magnitude earthquake has hit Japan swaying large buildings in the centre of Tokyo.

The earthquake hit on Tuesday afternoon, centred off the country's southern Bonin Islands, Japan's meteorological agency said.

There are no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The agency said there was no danger of a tsunami.


Source: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8173061/6-9-earthquake-hits-central-tokyo
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World Church Leader Calls for Relevant Evangelism

November 1, 2010, Ilsan City, South Korea


Gary Krause reiterates the importance of showing God's love in practical ways









Former PMM to Taiwan, Chung HaeSub, relates some of his struggles and victories in the field.



Connecting with people in their community, showing God’s love in practical ways, and building a sense of belonging should be the focus of outreach in urban areas, a Seventh-day Adventist official from the denomination’s world headquarters said yesterday.

Gary Krause, an associate secretary of the Adventist world church and director of the church’s Office of Adventist Mission, urged leaders from the church’s Northern Asia-Pacific Division to continue following Christ’s model of mingling with people and reaching them with examples from their own culture.

“Church itself is not a destination, but it’s a place to get people to where they need to be spiritually,” Krause said. “Often, though, our focus is how to attract people to church instead of getting out into the community where people are.”

Krause delivered his remarks as the key presenter for the division’s Council on Evangelism and Witness, held a day before the church region’s annual business meetings at the administration’s headquarters in Ilsan, Goyang, South Korea. The meeting included some 40 church leaders from China, Japan, South Korea, Mongolia and Taiwan.

Krause also used the occasion to mark 20 years since the denomination released a global strategy for offering outreach in many un-entered areas, including India, the Middle East, Russia, China and growing urban areas. Many of his themes touched on the church’s 2005 outreach initiative Hope for Big Cities.

He revisited church co-founder Ellen White’s call for members to offer outreach in urban areas. The worldwide denomination has historically spent much of its resources on rural areas, Krause said. In 1950, he said, about 30 percent of the world’s population lived in urban areas. He said that figure is expected to increase to 60 percent by the year 2030. Already, about 75 percent of people in developed countries live in urban areas.

Krause showed a model for outreach that emphasizes creating a sense of belonging for potential new members. The method, he said, has been demonstrated in many world regions as more effective than soon pushing potential new members for Bible studies and an immediate change in behavior in order to become a church member.

The day highlighted several of the mission movements in the division, including the Pioneer Mission Movement (PMM), a church planting initiative. Already in the past eight years, about 60 pastors have served in the program in other countries.

One of several guest presenters yesterday was Pastor Chung Hae Sub, who served in the PMM program in Taiwan. He said he struggled for the first seven months of his ministry there, with few people showing interest. Eventually, though, he helped establish a community center, teaching Korean culture and language, as well as exercise and health programs. The center led to several people joining Chung’s small congregation. He said he later became well known, with people stopping him on the street to offer greetings.

Chung, who now serves as a chaplain at Sahmyook University, said he originally entered the PMM because he had little experience approaching people. “Many times pastors push their members or deacons to reach out to people. I wanted to have that experience myself,” he said of his six-year commitment to the program.

Several leaders at yesterday’s meeting highlighted the need for contributions of lay members to drive church mission. Still, several challenges remain.

“Members are very busy,” said James Wu, director of the church’s outreach to Chinese people of the world. He said members come to church once a week, but they have little time to contribute to mission activities during the week.

Ken Osborn, NSD treasurer, said the denomination doesn’t need to ignore successful outreach methods of other Christian churches. “We need to be careful that we don’t become so insular that we adopt the attitude that we can’t learn anything from other Christian groups,” Osborn said.

Krause agreed, saying the Adventist Church wouldn’t just accept what other groups are doing, but would carefully examine what outreach methods could be adopted.

CEW is part of the Northern Asia-Pacific Division’s Annual Council, which meets through Monday, November 1.


Source - Ansel Oliver, Adventist News Network

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1-6.5 magnitude earthquake hits Philippines -- USGS

Sat Jul 24, 2010 1:58am EDT

(Adds depth of quake)

WASHINGTON July 24 (Reuters) - A 6.5 magnitude earthquake struck the Philippines on Saturday, 83 miles (134 km) south southwest of Cotabato, Mindanao, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

It initially put the quake's strength at 6.7 and then revised it downward to 6.5. The depth was 350 miles (563 km).

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said a destructive tsunami was not generated, "based on earthquake and historical tsunami data." (Reporting by Alan Elsner)

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2416078820100724
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