Disaster

Colum Lynch has more details on how the Saudis pressured the U.N. into removing its Yemen war coalition from the blacklist of violators of children’s rights:

Saudi Arabia threatened this week to break relations with the United Nations and cut hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance to its humanitarian relief and counterterrorism programs to strong-arm the U.N. into removing Riyadh and its allies from a blacklist of groups that are accused of harming children in armed conflict.

The governor of Florida has declared a state of emergency in 34 of the state’s 67 counties, as Tropical Storm Colin made landfall in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Governor Rick Scott said the state’s National Guard is ready to deploy up to 6,000 personnel to areas affected by the hurricane. The storm hit land near the Big Bend area about 2 a.m. Tuesday with 50 mph winds, flooding roads and knocking out power to thousands. Press TV reports: Colin approached Florida from the southeast, knocking down power lines and trees in the Tampa Bay area and dumping up to 16 centimeters of rain.

Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,

After the crisis, there could be nothing left of human populations.

There is no doubt that a disaster big enough to wipe out humanity exists – the threat of an EMP, a plague-level outbreak event, a total nuclear war, it doesn’t really matter what it is. Even if there were survivors, the larger forces at work will undo the artificial forms that now dot the landscape and define our culture.

A train towing cars full of oil derailed on Friday in Oregon's scenic Columbia River Gorge, sparking a fire that sent a plume of black smoke high into the sky. According to witnesses, multiple cars derailed and smoke and flames can be seen in downtown Mosier near the Rock Creek overpass. The train is operated by Union Pacific, who had not returned calls at the time.

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From KSL

A boat carrying hundreds of refugees in the Mediterranean has capsized and sunk near Crete. Four migrants were reported dead by Greek officials on Friday. The Independent reports: Around 340 people have been rescued so far, with four bodies recovered, but more were feared to remain missing south of the Greek island of Crete. “The number of people in distress could be counted in the hundreds,” a spokeswoman for the coastguard told the AFP news agency.