An official with the Tekes county, Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture in northern Xinjiang, confirmed that the quake caused no human casualties but leveled or damaged 2,120 homes.

The quake hit Tekes county at 6:06 p.m. on Friday (Beijing Time), with its epicenter at a mountainous region 60 kilometers from the county seat and 430 kilometers from Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang.

Rescuers have displaced 8,250 residents as their houses, most of which are mud-brick ones, either collapsed or became dangerous, said the official.

Since the start of the annual rainy season in May, floods have hit nearly half of China's regions and killed at least 400 people, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

In the southwestern city of Chongqing, 42 people died and 12 have been reported missing. Another 300,000 people have been evacuated.

Chinese media have reported that 266.6 millimeters (10.5 inches) of rain fell between Monday night and Tuesday afternoon in Chongqing, the largest volume since records began in 1892. The previous record of 206.1 millimeters (8.1 inches) was set on July 1996.

Water covering the tracks in Knippa, about 75 miles west of San Antonio, stopped a westbound Amtrak train carrying 176 passengers at around 9 a.m. Saturday, authorities said. Amtrak spokeswoman Vernae Graham said buses were driving the passengers to El Paso, where they were expected to board another train early Sunday.

The train never lost power, but buses could not reach it until early Saturday evening because of flooded roads, Graham said. Parts of northern Uvalde and Medina counties got as much as 17 inches of rain between 10 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. Saturday, said Pat McDonald, a National Weather Service forecaster.

Seco Creek overflowed, inundating the town of D'Hanis near San Antonio, said Medina County Sheriff Randy Brown. Many businesses were flooded with 3 to 4 feet of water. Boats, fire trucks and helicopters rescued stranded residents, but only one minor injury was reported, Brown said. In San Antonio, there were 20 to 30 road closures, said Orlando Hernandez, county emergency management coordinator.

"Other than a couple of days, we've had rain for the last three to four weeks," he said. "The ground is saturated. Any rain we get is resulting in flooding."

Now another voice is entering the debate, in dramatic fashion. He is Adnan Oktar, from Turkey, who under the name Harun Yahya has produced numerous books, videos and DVDs on science and faith, in particular what he calls the "deceit" inherent in the theory of evolution.

One of his books, Atlas Of Creation, is turning up unsolicited in the mailboxes of scientists and members of the US Congress, and at science museums around the country. The lavishly illustrated 800-page book is one of the most significant creationist challenges to Charles Darwin's theory, which Yahya calls a feeble and perverted ideology contradicted by the Koran.

In bowing to scripture, Yahya resembles some fundamentalist creationists in the United States. But he is not among those who assert that the Earth is only a few thousand years old.

Treated water supplies to Cheltenham, Tewkesbury and the surrounding villages are expected to run out later.

Severn Trent Water said a major pumping plant in Mythe near Tewkesbury had been overwhelmed by flood water and put out of action.

More than 200 people in the dockside area of Gloucester are preparing to evacuate their homes in preparation for the River Severn bursting its banks.

The town of Tewkesbury remains virtually cut off.

A record 180 millimetres (7.2 inches) of rain pummelled the city on Wednesday, snarling traffic and cutting off electricity and water supplies in the fiercest storms to hit the capital since 1916, meteorologists said. The latest toll was up from 32 dead as of early Friday.

By Saturday more than 559,000 people had been affected by flooding in Shandong and 112,600 evacuated as water-levels on the nearby Yellow River and in surrounding reservoirs remained above warning lines, the report said. The state flood headquarters issued warnings to shore up dykes and levies on major rivers and reservoirs and dispatch relief and medical supplies to hard hit regions in both east and southwest China.

Meanwhile, the death toll in Chongqing municipal in China's southwest rose to 42 people and 12 missing from torrential downpours that have affected up to 6.8 million people since Monday. More than 292,000 people have been evacuated in the mountainous region along the Yangtze river, with over 100,000 homes damaged and crops on about 175,000 hectares (432,000 acres) of farmland destroyed, Xinhua said in a separate report.

In neighboring Yunnan province, south of Chongqing, rescuers Saturday continued to search for two migrant workers that went missing when a giant landslide engulfed their work camp on Thursday killing 27 other labourers, other press reports said.

China's death toll from natural disasters this year reached 715 by July 16 with about half of the fatalities coming this month and 129 people still missing, Xinhua said Friday, citing the civil affairs ministry. The Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Finance have allocated 435 million yuan (57 million dollars) in relief aid to 18 disaster-stricken regions so far this year, it said.

"I was talking with my mother this morning," writes international viewer Ing. Hctor Manuel Germn Gardner, "and she says that in her whole life she didn't remember something like yesterday ever happening in Cananea, and she's almost 80 years old!!!"

You see hail the size of golf balls and bigger fell upon the town, along with flooding rain. "There was a lot of damage caused by the hailstorm," writes Ing. Gardner. "It lasted more than one hour and it was really scary. Lots of cars got their windshields broken and many houses were flooded."

Colorado Equal Rights spokesman Mark Meuser told WND that the larger vision is more than just abortion in Colorado. "Our goal is to take this all the way to the Supreme Court, and argue the personhood of the preborn baby. When we were writing this, we wanted to have a singular focus so that nobody is confused," he said.

"We want to force the argument that has been avoided for 34 years by the U.S. Supreme Court," he said.
Georgia, Montana and Mississippi also are in various stages of similar proposals, he said. Noting Colorado was the first state to legalize abortion, due to the work of ex-Gov. Dick Lamm, then a state lawmaker, Meuser told WND, "We should be the first state to turn around and acknowledge our mistake and grant personhood to the unborn."

The proposal would read:
Be it Enacted by the People of the State of Colorado: SECTION 1. Article II of the constitution of the state of Colorado is amended BY THE ADDITION OF A NEW SECTION to read: Section 31. Person defined. AS USED IN SECTIONS 3, 6, AND 25 OF ARTICLE II OF THE STATE CONSTITUTION, THE TERMS "PERSON" OR "PERSONS" SHALL INCLUDE ANY HUMAN BEING FROM THE MOMENT OF FERTILIZATION.

The new definition of person specifically would be applied to sections 3, 6, and 25 of Article II of the state constitution. Those sections confirm that all "persons" have certain natural, essential and inalienable rights, including "the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties," that courts of justice shall be open to every "person," and no "person" shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.

Promoting itself as a comedy about two straight fireman who get married in order to receive better pension benefits, the movie is nothing more than anti-Christian, pro-homosexual propaganda that attacks the traditional, Judeo-Christian moral values of American culture.

The content of this movie is abhorrent. Apart from the homosexual subject matter, the other strong sexual content is out of control. Sandler's character, Chuck, is a womanizing sexual deviant. From implied group sex with five women who appear from his room to receiving mail that includes pornography magazines and videos as well as sexual toys, Chuck is clearly a pervert. Also, in one scene, Larry tries to get his effeminate young son to become interested in the nude photos in Chuck's porn magazines, and the son runs away.

The excessive homosexual content is just more psychological conditioning from the neo-Marxist, anti-Christian politically correct philosophers of our day who are trying to normalize all such aberrant behaviors. Some of these opinion leaders even support lenient prison sentences for pedophiles who abuse children (unless, of course, the pedophile happens to be a Christian leader or white male clergyman).

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said in its daily e-mail dispatch today an audio clip of the conversation - the date is not indicated - "is circulating on anti-Muslim Internet hate sites."
The caller began: "Sir, I'm calling because of some statements you've been making in the past week about the religion of Islam and "

Boortz interrupted: It's a cult, it's not even a religion."

After a long list of crimes perpetrated all over the world in the name of Islam, the talk host told the caller, "YOU DON'T HAVE A WORD OF CONDEMNATION IN YOU UNTIL THE NON-ISLAMIC WORLD RISES UP AND STARTS TO MAKE IT CLEAR THAT WE ARE FED UP WITH YOUR DAMNED RELIGION. We've had it up to here.

"And somebody, like I said yesterday, somebody needs to grab the Muslim world by the shirt collar, backhand it a good one, knock it into the damn corner and say straighten up or we're gonna eradicate you beetles from the face of the Earth. "

CAIR asked its constituents not to contact Boortz, because he "can and will use any comments to further defame Islam and Muslim." "This clip was offered only to demonstrate the growing level of Islamophobic rhetoric in our society," the group said.

AIR, which brands itself as a mainstream promoter of civil rights, has been named with two other prominent U.S. Islamic groups as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in a plot to fund the terrorist group Hamas. Jury selection is underway for the trial in Dallas.

CAIR is a spinoff of the defunct Islamic Association for Palestine, launched by Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook and former university professor Sami al-Arian, who pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to provide services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Several CAIR staffers have been convicted on terrorism-related charges, and CAIR FOUNDER OMAR AHMAD ALLEGEDLY TOLD A GROUP OF MUSLIMS THEY ARE IN AMERICA NOT TO ASSIMILATE - BUT TO HELP ASSERT ISLAM'S RULE OVER THE COUNTRY.

Nasrallah allegedly entered Syria via an underground tunnel, the television channel said. "We hope that the hot weather of this summer will coincide with similar victories for the region's peoples, and with consequent defeat for the region's enemies," Ahmadinejad added, in an apparent reference to Israel.

During his one-day trip to Damascus, Ahmadinejad held talks with counterpart Bashar Assad which focused on the Iraq situation, Palestinian territories and Lebanon, where both Teheran and Damascus wield influence."The enemies of the region should abandon plans to attack the interests of this region, or they would be burned by the wrath of the region's peoples," the hardline Iranian leader said at a joint press conference with Assad.

Ahmadinejad, accompanied by a high-level delegation, was greeted at Damascus airport by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem ahead of the official reception by Assad at the People's Palace. Assad was sworn in Tuesday for a second seven-year term.

He described Syrian-Iranian relations as "amicable, excellent and extremely deep," adding that the two countries have common stands on regional issues and face common enemies. Ahmadinejad also called on all countries in the region to be vigilant of Israel's attempts to revive itself following its "failure" of the Second Lebanon War.

Ahmadinejad's visit posed a snub to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has called on Syria to cut its relations with Iran as a precondition to restart peace process, deadlocked since 2000.

A campaign document seen by the newspaper said that "The main focus has to be Brown and how we can raise the political cost of him not giving us a referendum and, conversely, raising the political benefit to him of giving people a vote."

It also reports that parliament's European Scrutiny Committee is reported to be "angered" by continuing "ministerial stonewalling" and attempts by the Government to play down the significance of the revised Constitution, "CREATING A POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS ENEMY FOR THE GOVERNMENT."

In addition to other groups, the article notes that the Government can expect pressure for a referendum from trade unions, with the GMB already calling for a referendum, and other major unions - including the T&P and Unison - potentially in favour of a vote.

He argues that the responsibility of our generation is to give a more ambitious dimension to the defence of Europe. He says, "Soon, a new institutional treaty will permit reinforced cooperation, notably in the area of defence, SINCE "DEFENCE EUROPE" WILL MOVE FORWARD BY USING A HARD CORE OF COUNTRIES WHICH WANT TO TAKE ON THEIR OWN SECURITY."

That implies giving substance to the spirit of European defence, reinforcing the Union's headquarters, favouring the European framework for external operations, and developing concrete achievements (for example, the European gendarmerie force.)

The President of the Republic has underlined the necessity of a real European industrial policy in the face of Chinese or American giants. It will be a question of both building common programmes and achieving A EUROPEAN INTEGRATION OF INDUSTRY.?

The UK Government originally opposed the proposals in the Constitutional Treaty which would allow the creation of a hard core in defence (known in the jargon as "permanent structured cooperation"). Peter Hain tried to have it deleted and said that "The UK has made clear that it cannot accept the proposed ESDP reinforced cooperation provision. While we support Member States making higher capability commitments and co-operating with partners to this end, the approach described here - A SELF-SELECTING INNER GROUP - undermines the inclusive, flexible model of ESDP that the EU has agreed?"

However, the UK gave way on this point. THE CONSTITUTIONAL TREATY WOULD ALLOW THE HARD CORE TO BE SET UP AND MAKE ITS DECISIONS BY QMV. Sarkozy is very clearly keen to use this new facility to create the "defence Europe" which the Government has always opposed - so Brown might live to regret Blair's weakness on this issue.

The country's most senior civil servant has disclosed that the election of the SNP has brought an end to the informal contacts that used to be commonplace between the Scottish Executive and UK government.
In a development that will alarm unionist politicians at Westminster, Sir John Elvidge has revealed civil servants no longer exchange information informally, as they did in the first eight years of devolution.

The sea change in relations between Edinburgh and Whitehall was revealed as Sir John, the Permanent Secretary at the Executive, said he was pressing ahead with plans to create a separate Scottish civil service, severing the link with Whitehall that has existed for more than a century. In an exclusive interview with The Scotsman, he also hinted that there could be a formal move to drop the title Scottish Executive and replace it with Scottish Government.

I had a delicious South African Viognier the other day and was staggered to find, when I glanced at the label, that it was 15.5 per cent alcohol by volume - nearly as strong as a fortified wine. A glass later and I was feeling the effects. Twenty years ago, the average strength was around 12.5 per cent, whereas today it is nearer 14 per cent.

Avery believes there's a simpler answer. "THE MORE POWERFUL AND CONCENTRATED RED WINES SEEMED TO PLEASE WINE CRITICS AND COMPETITION JUDGES, ESPECIALLY IN THE US," he says. "The resulting high scores encouraged producers to go for higher alcohol levels." Others say improvements in viticulture and vinification led to the hike in alcohol levels.

In the old days, vines were often pretty much left to get on with it. Today, careful pruning allows buds to appear earlier and in greater numbers, and the grapes to then ripen for longer. Riper grapes mean more sugar; more sugar produces a higher alcohol content.

Skinner, too, believes producers are "deliberately making wines that are big, blowsy and very alcoholic to catch judges' attention at wine shows".