Asian Tsunami: Natural Disaster? Or Nuclear Test?
by NATIONAL BUSINESS REVIEW
[Removed]
http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=11043&cid=1&cname=Media
7-Jan-2005
During his press conference at the Jakarta summit, United Nations
Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland took time to address a rumour --
apparently rife in the Arab world -- that the Boxing Day earthquake had been
triggered by an Indian nuclear experiment.
While conspiracy theories generally abound in the wake of any large scale
disaster, this one appears to have sprung from the Arab press -- or, at least,
to have been given credibility by it.
Israeli news outlets, which keep close tabs on Arab language news outlets, have
reported sightings of the story in Arab newspapers.
Both the Jerusalem Post and Arutz Sheva report that a prominent Egyptian weekly
-- identified variously as Al-Osboa and Al-Usbu -- claims that India, in its
heated nuclear race with Pakistan, has lately received sophisticated nuclear
technology from the United States and Israel.
The paper claims, according to these reports, that India has been experimenting
with this technology -- and other nuclear devices -- in the region of the Indian
Ocean known as 'the Fire Belt,' which housed the epicenter of the earthquake.
It said that both Israel and India are conducting nuclear tests in the Indian
Ocean, and the United States has recently decided to carry out similar tests in
the Australian deserts, which, it said, is also part of the Fire Belt.
Abutz Sheva said the paper reported: "The three most recent tests appeared to be
genuine American and Israeli preparations to act together with India to test a
way to liquidate humanity.
"In the most recent test, they began destroying entire cities over extensive
areas. Although the nuclear explosions were carried out in desert lands, tens of
thousand of kilometers away from populated areas, they had a direct effect on
these Asian areas," according to the weekly.
The JPost said the paper reported a history of failed attempts at intervention
by Islamic states.
JPost said the paper reported: "Last year only, Arab and Islamic states have
asked the United States to stop its nuclear activities in that region, and to
urge Israel and India to follow suite."
JPost said:
Although Al-Osboa' does not rule out the possibility that the tsunami could have
been caused by a natural earthquake it speculates however that, "while it has
not been proved yet, there has been a joint Israeli-Indian secret nuclear
experiment [conducted on December 26] that caused the earthquake."
Arutz Sheva notes that:
The article also claims that last year "Arab and Islamic countries intervened
more than three times in the U.S. to stop this joint nuclear activity."
The Times of India also reports this rumour but lumps it in with many others it
discovered.
Among them:
# The earthquake was caused by testing of "eco-weapons which can trigger
earthquakes and volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves;"
# The earthquake was a side effect of an experiment to try and correct the
"wobbly rotation of the Earth;"
# Aliens did it.
Meanwhile, back in Jakarta, Mr Egeland said he would like to stop the rumour
mill "here and now."
"The seismic surveillance people around the globe know exactly what happened.
This is a fault line," he said.
The UN is concerned that such rumours -- and the even more widely circulated
contention by Islamic clerics that the catastrophe was divine retribution -- are
impeding fund raising efforts in the Arab world.
Arutz Sheva reports that one cleric on Saudi television gave a sermon in which
he said:
"The problem is that the (Christian) holidays are accompanied by forbidden
things, by immorality, abomination, adulterers, alcohol, drunken dancing
and…revelry. A belly dance costs 2,500 (English) pounds per minute and a singer
costs 50,000 pounds per hour, and they hop from one hotel to another from night
to dawn. Then he spends the entire night defying Allah.
"Haven't they learned their lesson from what Allah wreaked upon the coast of
Asia, during the celebration of these forbidden? At the height of immorality,
Allah took vengeance on these criminal (and) Allah struck them with an
earthquake. He finished off the Richter scale. All nine levels are gone."