Weather

» Over the past several weeks, torrential rains and deadly winds caused flash floods and sometimes landslides all over the world. Such storms, occurring in Japan, China, Taiwan, India, Nepal, Germany, Poland, Britain, Ireland and the United States, have killed 4,500 people.

» A drought in eastern China has caused more than $1.2 billion in economic losses. Ninety-five percent of the province's rivers and 57 reservoirs are completely dry. The region has experienced 62% less rainfall than normal.

» Ethiopia reports that it will need emergency food aid for 3.5 million people because of drought there.

» Drought in Indonesia, China and Alaska is being credited to the unusually severe heat caused by the present El Niño condition, which has also produced a sharp decrease in fish populations along the Pacific Coast.

Middle East

» In the first week of August, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yassir Arafat told leaders of the PLO's Fatah faction: "This people will never kneel. . . . We have a big battle ahead of us, one that is much more difficult than anything that came before, but we will conduct it as we conducted all past battles. . . . We are all live martyrs committed to our oath. . . . We are going to protect Palestinian dreams, until one of the flowers of our youth raises the flag of revolution from the minarets and churches of Jerusalem."

» Yehuda Etzion, a Jewish terrorist convicted of planning to bomb the Temple Mount mosques in 1985, has organized "training" in sacrificial matters in preparation for the construction of the Third Temple. His group's first sacrifice took place on Passover eve in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Tor, southwest of the Temple Mount. A second sacrifice in mid-June occurred in the presence of hundreds of onlookers in the Hebron hills.

Health

The National Cancer Institute reports that fallout from the 1950's nuclear tests exposed millions of children to radioactive iodine and that up to 75,000 might develop thyroid cancer.

Volcanos

While Mexico's Popocateptl smolders, scientists fear Guatemala's El Pacaya, which burped ash and rocks from its cone in mid-July, could erupt explosively. In the same week, a ten-mile-long, 1000-foot-wide river of lava flowed from Hawaii's Kilauea to the ocean, destroying about 300 homes and an old temple on the way. Two weeks later, Montserrat's Soufriere Hills volcano destroyed the island's abandoned capital, Plymouth.

Marine Disease

An exotic Pacific seaweed, Caulerpa taxifolia, that escaped from an aquarium in Monaco 15 years ago is deadly to many Mediterranean Sea creatures. It grows up to six times the size of its tropical cousins, spreads faster and quickly dominates its surroundings, suffocating everything in its path. Antoni Grau, head of marine resources on Majorca, says, "Where this seaweed grows, everything else disappears. There are no more sea anemones, starfish, crabs, shrimps and very few fishes. The whole ecosystem changes."

Earthquakes

August 3 brought Australia its largest earthquake (6.3) in over a decade. The quake, centered in the remote Kimberly region in northwestern Australia, caused no major damage or injuries. In July, northern Taiwan (6.0) and the Aleutian Islands (6.1) also felt major quakes.