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Brazil Blackout: Two Largest Cities Hit By Massive Power Outages

2009-11-11T02:45:45Z

RIO DE JANEIRO — A massive power failure blacked out Brazil's two largest cities and other parts of Latin America's biggest nation for more than two hours late Tuesday, leaving millions of people in the dark after a huge hydroelectric dam suddenly went offline. All of neighboring Paraguay also lost power, but for only about 20 minutes.

The huge Itaipu dam straddling the two nations' border stopped producing 17,000 megawatts of power, resulting in outages in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and at least several other big Brazilian cities, Brazilian Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao said. He said outages hit nine of the 27 states in a country of more than 190 million people.

The cause of the failure had not been determined, but Lobao said strong storms uprooted trees near the Itaipu dam just before it went offline and could be to blame. Rio was the hardest hit city, he said.

At 12:37 a.m. Wednesday, the lights in Rio's Copacabana neighborhood flashed back to life, prompting cheers and thunderous car honking.

"It's sad to see such a beautiful city with such a precarious infrastructure," said Igor Fernandes, a shirtless 22-year-old law student peddling his bike down a dark Copacabana beach. "This shouldn't happen in a city that is going to host the Olympic Games."

Lobao said the hydro plant at the dam itself was working, but there were problems with the power lines that carry electricity across Brazil. Brazil uses almost all of the energy produced by the dam, and Paraguay consumes the rest.

In Paraguay, the national energy agency blamed the blackout on a short-circuit at an electrical station near Sao Paulo, saying that failure shut down the entire power grid supplied by Itaipu. All of Paraguay went dark for about 20 minutes, the country's leading newspaper, ABC Color, reported.

The company in charge of the dam, Itaipu Binacional, said the blackout did not start at the hyrdoelectric complex. It said the most likely cause was a failure at one or more points in the transmission system.

The blackouts came three days after CBS's "60 Minutes" news program reported that several past Brazilian power outages were caused by hackers. Brazilian officials had played down the report before the latest outages, and Lobao did not mention it.

Brazil's official Agencia Brasil news agency said Tuesday's outage started about 10:20 p.m. (1220 GMT), snarling streets in Rio, where traffic that is normally chaotic turned riotous. Cars, taxis and buses zoomed through dark intersections, honking to let their presence known as they zoomed through. Pedestrians scampered across avenues, and tourists scurried back to a handful of luxury beach hotels, the only buildings with light.

Flavia Alvin, 37, a shopkeeper in Copacabana, waited with her co-workers for the blackout to end before making the long bus ride home to western Rio. Asked if she was worried about violence or looting, she shook her head and pulled her young daughter closer.

"I've heard of problems like rioting in other places with blackouts, but Brazilians are more relaxed," she said. "All I can do is wait here and drink a beer."

That was what a crowd was doing at the Eclipse restaurant, a block from Copacabana beach. Drinking quickly warming beer at a restaurant beat sitting in a sweltering apartment, said Paulo Viera, 35, a graphic designer. But he worried about how the outage might look for a city that last month was picked to host the 2016 Olympics and will be the showcase city for soccer's World Cup in 2014.

"The image of Brazil, of Rio, is bad enough with all the violence," he said. "We don't need this to happen. I don't know how it could get worse."

Subway service was knocked out in both Rio and Sao Paulo, and the G1 Web site of Brazil's Globo TV said Sao Paulo subway users were forced to abandon train cars.

Some landing lights on runways at airports in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo went dark, affecting take-offs and landings, according to Globo TV.

In the city of Taguatinga near the national capital of Brasilia, a second division Brazilian league soccer game was halted after lights illuminating the field went dark. No power outages happened in Brasilia.

Utility companies that provide electricity for Rio and Sao Paulo did not immediately offer explanations for why the power went off or when it would be restored, Agencia Brasil said.

Sao Paulo is South America's largest city, with 12 million residents. Rio has 6 million citizens. But the metropolitan area of both cities are much larger. Also affected was Belo Horizonte in central Brazil and the northeastern city of Recife.

The Itaipu dam is the world's second biggest hydroelectric producer, supplying 20 percent of Brazil's electricity. China's Three Gorges dam is the largest.

___

Associated Press writers Marco Sibaja in Brasilia, Michael Warren in Buenos Aires and Alan Clendenning in Mexico City contributed to this report.

Erwin Vermont Washington Drunk Pilot: United Pilot Arrested After Failing Breathalyzer Before London-To-Chicago Flight

2009-11-11T00:22:22Z

LONDON — A United Airlines pilot who was pulled from his trans-Atlantic flight to Chicago shortly before takeoff has been charged with having too much alcohol in his system, British police said Tuesday.

Scotland Yard said that 51-year-old Erwin Vermont Washington, of Lakewood, Colorado, was arrested after officers were called to United Airlines Flight 949, which was already full of passengers and due to leave London's Heathrow Airport just after noon on Monday.

BAA, Heathrow's operator, said the plane had been due to leave imminently. A BAA spokesman quoted by Britain's Press Association news agency added that the pilot had been reported to authorities by another member of United's staff. BAA did not immediately return a call from the AP seeking comment late Tuesday.

It was not immediately clear how much alcohol Washington was accused of having consumed. Under British law, pilots are forbidden from having any more than 20 micrograms of alcohol for each 100 milliliters of blood in their system, or .02 percent. For most average-sized men, that is the equivalent of having just had about half a glass of regular strength beer.

Scotland Yard said that Washington, who has been released on bail, would have to appear at a court in northwest London on Nov. 20. If convicted, he faces up to two years in prison, a fine, or both.

United Airlines spokeswoman Megan McCarthy said Washington, who she did not identify by name, has been removed from service pending an investigation. She said her airline had strict rules on alcohol "and we have no tolerance for violation of this well-established policy."

She declined to say how long Washington had worked for the airline.

McCarthy said that the flight was canceled and that the plane's 124 passengers were put on other flights.

Monday's incident bears a strong resemblance to the arrest in May at Heathrow of an American Airlines pilot – also scheduled to fly a plane to Chicago – after he failed a breath test. Airport security staff had alerted airport police about the pilot.

In January, Southwest Airlines put a pilot on leave after passengers at a security checkpoint in Columbus, Ohio, told authorities that he smelled of alcohol. The pilot ran into a restroom and changed out of his uniform jacket and called in sick.

Union leaders say pilots are under increased scrutiny by security agents and passengers because of high-profile cases involving drunk pilots.

___

Associated Press Airlines Writer David Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report.

Blackwater Said To Approve Iraqi Payoffs After Shootings

2009-11-10T22:54:14Z

Former top executives at Blackwater Worldwide say the U.S. security contractor sent about $1 million to its Iraq office with the intention of paying off officials in the country who were angry about the fatal shootings of 17 civilians by Blackwater employees, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

Four former executives described the plan under the condition of anonymity, the newspaper said.

Iraqis had long complained about ground operations by the North Carolina-based company, now known as Xe Corp. Then the shooting by Blackwater guards in Baghdad's Nisoor Square in September 2007 left 17 civilians dead, further strained relations between Baghdad and Washington and led U.S. prosecutors to bring charges against the Blackwater contractors involved.

The State Department has since turned to DynCorp and another private security firm, Triple Canopy, to handle diplomatic protective services in the country. But Xe continues to provide security for diplomats in other nations, most notably in Afghanistan.

The former executives told the Times that the payments were approved by the company's then-president, Gary Jackson. They did not know if he came up with the idea.

It's also not clear whether the payments were actually delivered, or which Iraqi officials were intended to receive them. Any payments would have been illegal under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bans bribes to foreign officials. The company has paid legitimate compensation to several victims of the shootings, the Times reported.

Two of the former executives said they were directly involved in discussions about paying Iraqi officials, and the other two said they were told about the discussions by others at Blackwater.

Jackson, who resigned as president of Blackwater early this year, criticized the newspaper when reached by phone and said, "I don't care what you write."

Xe spokesman Mark Corallo said the company disputes "these baseless allegations" and had no comment on former employees.

The plan to pay Iraqi officials caused a rift within the company, the former executives said.

Five Blackwater guards involved in the Nisoor Square shooting are scheduled to face trial on federal manslaughter charges in February in Washington. A sixth guard pleaded guilty in December. Iraqi victims are also suing the company and its founder, Erik Prince.

The Iraqi government suspended the firm's license after the shooting and demanded that Blackwater be expelled from the country within six months. Iraqi authorities denied Xe an operating license in early 2009, but the company has continued to have some presence in the country. In September, the State Department announced it had extended a contract with a Xe subsidiary to provide air support for protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq.

A wide-ranging federal grand jury investigation is being conducted on Xe's operations. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Raleigh declined to comment to the Times on the probe and did not return calls seeking comment Tuesday evening by The Associated Press.

Several former Blackwater employees told the Times they have been interviewed by prosecutors or the grand jury on various topics, including alleged weapons smuggling. Two former employees have pleaded guilty to weapons charges and are believed to be cooperating with prosecutors.

___

Information from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com

World In Photos: November 10, 2009

2009-11-10T22:42:06Z

Here is the HuffPost's selection of photos of today's news and events from every corner of the globe. Check back Monday through Friday for this HuffPost World feature.

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Vatican Joins Search For Alien Life

2009-11-10T22:39:13Z

VATICAN CITY — E.T. phone Rome. Four hundred years after it locked up Galileo for challenging the view that the Earth was the center of the universe, the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church.

"The questions of life's origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration," said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory.

Funes, a Jesuit priest, presented the results Tuesday of a five-day conference that gathered astronomers, physicists, biologists and other experts to discuss the budding field of astrobiology – the study of the origin of life and its existence elsewhere in the cosmos.

Funes said the possibility of alien life raises "many philosophical and theological implications" but added that the gathering was mainly focused on the scientific perspective and how different disciplines can be used to explore the issue.

Chris Impey, an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona, said it was appropriate that the Vatican would host such a meeting.

"Both science and religion posit life as a special outcome of a vast and mostly inhospitable universe," he told a news conference Tuesday. "There is a rich middle ground for dialogue between the practitioners of astrobiology and those who seek to understand the meaning of our existence in a biological universe."

Thirty scientists, including non-Catholics, from the U.S., France, Britain, Switzerland, Italy and Chile attended the conference, called to explore among other issues "whether sentient life forms exist on other worlds."

Funes set the stage for the conference a year ago when he discussed the possibility of alien life in an interview given prominence in the Vatican's daily newspaper.

The Church of Rome's views have shifted radically through the centuries since Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1600 for speculating, among other ideas, that other worlds could be inhabited.

Scientists have discovered hundreds of planets outside our solar system – including 32 new ones announced recently by the European Space Agency. Impey said the discovery of alien life may be only a few years away.

"If biology is not unique to the Earth, or life elsewhere differs bio-chemically from our version, or we ever make contact with an intelligent species in the vastness of space, the implications for our self-image will be profound," he said.

This is not the first time the Vatican has explored the issue of extraterrestrials: In 2005, its observatory brought together top researchers in the field for similar discussions.

In the interview last year, Funes told Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that believing the universe may host aliens, even intelligent ones, does not contradict a faith in God.

"How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Funes said in that interview.

"Just as there is a multitude of creatures on Earth, there could be other beings, even intelligent ones, created by God. This does not contradict our faith, because we cannot put limits on God's creative freedom."

Funes maintained that if intelligent beings were discovered, they would also be considered "part of creation."

The Roman Catholic Church's relationship with science has come a long way since Galileo was tried as a heretic in 1633 and forced to recant his finding that the Earth revolves around the sun. Church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe.

Today top clergy, including Funes, openly endorse scientific ideas like the Big Bang theory as a reasonable explanation for the creation of the universe. The theory says the universe began billions of years ago in the explosion of a single, super-dense point that contained all matter.

Earlier this year, the Vatican also sponsored a conference on evolution to mark the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species."

The event snubbed proponents of alternative theories, like creationism and intelligent design, which see a higher being rather than the undirected process of natural selection behind the evolution of species.

Still, there are divisions on the issues within the Catholic Church and within other religions, with some favoring creationism or intelligent design that could make it difficult to accept the concept of alien life.

Working with scientists to explore fundamental questions that are of interest to religion is in line with the teachings of Pope Benedict XVI, who has made strengthening the relationship between faith and reason a key aspect of his papacy.

Recent popes have been working to overcome the accusation that the church was hostile to science – a reputation grounded in the Galileo affair.

In 1992, Pope John Paul II declared the ruling against the astronomer was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension."

The Vatican Museums opened an exhibit last month marking the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first celestial observations.

Tommaso Maccacaro, president of Italy's national institute of astrophysics, said at the exhibit's Oct. 13 opening that astronomy has had a major impact on the way we perceive ourselves.

"It was astronomical observations that let us understand that Earth (and man) don't have a privileged position or role in the universe," he said. "I ask myself what tools will we use in the next 400 years, and I ask what revolutions of understanding they'll bring about, like resolving the mystery of our apparent cosmic solitude."

The Vatican Observatory has also been at the forefront of efforts to bridge the gap between religion and science. Its scientist-clerics have generated top-notch research and its meteorite collection is considered one of the world's best.

The observatory, founded by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, is based in Castel Gandolfo, a lakeside town in the hills outside Rome where the pope has his summer residence. It also conducts research at an observatory at the University of Arizona, in Tucson.

___

On the Net:

Vatican Observatory, http://clavius.as.arizona.edu/vo

___

Associated Press writers Victor L. Simpson and Alessandra Rizzo contributed to this report

Robert Enke Dead: German Goalkeeper Dies In Apparent Suicide

2009-11-10T22:21:31Z

FRANKFURT — A goalkeeper expected to play for Germany at the World Cup died after being hit by a train in what police suspect is a suicide. He was 32.

Robert Enke played for the German club Hannover. Team president Martin Kind confirmed his death, and police later released a statement saying a man had been fatally struck by a train Tuesday night. The statement said the "first police indications are that it was a suicide."

"You expect many things, but not something like that," Kind said. "I do not know how and why it happened, but I do not think that it had anything to do with football."

The train crossing was not far from Enke's Hannover home. His car was found near the scene, unlocked, with his wallet on the seat. The two train drivers reported seeing a man on the tracks and applied the brakes while traveling at about 100 mph but could not stop in time, police said.

"We are speechless," German soccer federation president Theo Zwanziger said.

Hundreds of fans lit candles and placed flowers outside the Hannover stadium on Tuesday night.

Enke had been diagnosed with a bacterial stomach ailment and missed nine weeks before returning 11 days ago and playing two Bundesliga games.

He had not been selected for Germany's exhibition games against Chile on Saturday and Ivory Coast on Wednesday. But coach Joachim Loew had said Enke remained the leading candidate to be Germany's goalie at next year's World Cup in South Africa.

Enke and his wife lost their 2-year-old daughter to a heart ailment in 2006. The couple adopted a girl in May, who is now 8 months old.

"We are all shocked. We can't find the words," national team manager Oliver Bierhoff said from Bonn, where the national team assembled.

Enke played eight matches for Germany. After Jens Lehmann retired following the European Championship in 2008, Enke was promoted to No. 1 for Germany, but was set back by a broken hand.

Enke debuted for the national team in a 1-0 loss to Denmark in 2007. His last international game was a 2-0 win over Azerbaijan on Aug. 12.

He made 196 Bundesliga appearances and also played for Borussia Moenchengladbach after starting his career in East Germany at Jena. He also played for foreign clubs, among them CD Teneriffa, Fenerbahce, Barcelona and Benfica.

Anwar al-Awlaki, Radical Imam, Becomes New Focus In Fort Hood Killings Investigation

2009-11-10T21:27:24Z

According to ABC News, the investigation of last week's Fort Hood shootings has also begun to focus on Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical imam currently living in Yemen who had contact with two 9/11 hijackers and is believed to have ties to al Qaeda. As the AP reported Monday, U.S. officials were aware that Hasan had attempted to reach out to Awlaki by "electronic communication,"--ABC puts the figure at "10 to 20 contacts beginning late last year"--but that the matter was put aside after being deemed non-threatening. Awlaki himself made headlines Monday after he wrote on his personal web site, in a blog post entitled "Nidal Hasan Did The Right Thing," that Muslims could only justify serving in the U.S. military by eventually following "in the footsteps of men like Nidal."

"Nidal Hassan (sic) is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people," Awlaki wrote. Awlaki has voiced his support for suicide bombing in writings, as well as for groups believe to be affiliated with al Qaeda.

It's not clear what, if any, relationship Awlaki had with Nasan, but as a former FBI agent put it to ABC: "Awlaki is known as a senior recruiter for al Qaeda. He would be the spiritual motivator. Almost like someone you would go to and say, 'this is what I'm thinking about doing.' And they join in and encourage you and basically help you rationalize your behavior."

Before moving to Yemen, Awlaki was an imam at a mosque in Falls Church, Virginia. As the AP previously reported, Hasan attended the mosque while Awlaki was there.

Police Shoot Dead Three-Year-Old In South Africa For Allegedly Holding Pipes

2009-11-10T21:09:34Z

Police in South Africa have allegedly shot dead a three-year-old boy because they mistook a metal pipe he was holding for a gun.

Rajiv Shah To Be Named USAID Administrator

2009-11-10T20:42:16Z

POLITICO reported yesterday that the 36-year-old USDA chief scientist and undersecretary for research, education and economics, a medical doctor who previously managed major vaccine, agriculture and financial programs at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, seemed to be the most intriguing and plausible candidate, despite his youth.

NATO Seizes Bomb-Making Materials In Afghanistan

2009-11-10T20:23:02Z

KABUL — International troops and Afghan police seized 250 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer – enough to make up to a couple hundred roadside bombs, the Taliban's most lethal weapon in what has been the deadliest year of the war, NATO announced Tuesday.

Separately, video footage emerged of insurgents brandishing what appears to be limited stocks of U.S. ammunition in a remote area of eastern Afghanistan where eight Americans died in a battle last month.

Sunday's raids in the southern city of Kandahar appeared to net one of the largest hauls of the war. NATO officials hoped the fertilizer seizure would hurt Taliban militants, whose homemade bombs have become the biggest killer of U.S. and allied troops.

Acting on a tip, international forces and Afghan police discovered 1,000 100-pound bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and 5,000 parts for roadside bombs in a warehouse, the military said. After the initial find Sunday, an additional 4,000 100-bags of fertilizer were found in a nearby compound. The joint forces also made 15 arrests.

The seizure included enough fertilizer to make dozens to a couple of hundred roadside bombs, said John Pike, director of the military think tank Globalsecurity.org.

Afghanistan is not the only country in which fertilizer is used to make bombs. In 1995, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols detonated a truck packed with 4,800 pounds of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil to destroy the Oklahoma City federal building, killing 168 people.

Fertilizer is easily available in agricultural areas of southern Afghanistan, and the Taliban have been successful manufacturing homemade bombs from this and other materials.

In a country awash in weapons after 30 years of war, the Taliban also appear to have little trouble obtaining rifles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and other ordnance, some of which may be bought on Asian black markets.

There is not much evidence to suggest that the Taliban rely on weapons captured or stolen from NATO forces or that they even need to shore up their own stockpiles, Pike said.

"I don't think they have a shortage of Kalashnikovs," he said. "I think it's probably more often a case of it leaking out of the Afghan army. I think the Afghan National Army has a high AWOL rate and everything's for sale in Afghanistan."

The footage of insurgents handling weapons, including anti-personnel mines with U.S. markings on them, was broadcast Tuesday on Al-Jazeera.

Insurgents could employ the ammunition against U.S. and Afghan forces, though the amount shown was not extensive. Still, Taliban propagandists will no doubt use the footage to encourage their supporters.

The insurgents claimed the weapons were from remote outposts in Nuristan province that were abandoned after the battle that killed eight Americans, according to Al-Jazeera.

Tech. Sgt. Angela Eggman, a NATO spokeswoman, said it wasn't clear from the video where or when insurgents obtained the items. U.S. forces closed outposts in the mountainous Kamdesh district of Nuristan province in early October.

"Before departing the base, the units removed all sensitive items and accounted for them," she said.

Nuristan's provincial police chief Gen. Mohammad Qassim Jangulbagh disagreed, saying, "The Americans left ammunition at the base."

The U.S. destroyed most of the ammunition, but some of it fell into the hands of insurgents, Jangulbagh said.

Farooq Khan, a spokesman for the Afghan National Police in Nuristan province, also said U.S. forces left arms and ammunition when they moved from the area, which he said is now in insurgent hands.

The Pentagon said the outposts in Nuristan were on a list of far-flung bases that U.S. war commanders had decided were not worth keeping. That decision, the Pentagon said, was on the books before the assault – part of plans by top U.S. commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal to shut down such isolated strongholds and focus on more heavily populated areas.

Meanwhile, NATO said a U.S. service member was killed Tuesday by a roadside bomb in Helmand province. The military provided no other details.

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Associated Press Writers Amir Shah and Elena Becatoros contributed to this report.

Obama Narrows Afghan Strategy To 4 Possible Options

2009-11-10T17:17:49Z

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — The White House says President Barack Obama has narrowed down his decision for an Afghanistan strategy to four options.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says the president will discuss those options with his national security team on Wednesday. Gibbs did not provide any details about the options, and says the president's decision on troop deployments is still weeks away.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal – the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan – has told the president that the U.S. mission there is headed for failure unless the president sends an additional 40,000 troops. Sources tell The Associated Press that the president will add tens of thousands more forces, though probably not quite the 40,000 McChystal is seeking.

Executing Gitmo Detainees Will Endanger America, Report Says

2009-11-10T17:09:26Z

The Center For American Progress, a public policy think-tank based in D.C., has released a report that investigates the implications of the closure of Guantanamo Bay.

The report makes several recommendations, specifically that the closure deadline should be pushed back to July 2010 and that federal courts should be used for trial wherever possible.

Perhaps most importantly, the report argues that use of the death penalty in cases related to 9/11 would be counter productive:

It is in the strategic interests of the United States to deny these most heinous Al Qaeda terrorists what they want most: martyrdom. Al Qaeda will exploit an execution by the U.S. government as a significant propaganda victory, no matter how fair and legitimate the trial. Life imprisonment, however, would cause Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his co-conspirators to be forgotten like Ramzi Yousef and other terrorists currently rotting in obscurity in U.S. jails.

In January 2009 President Obama signed executive orders that proposed the base should be closed within the year. Attorney General Eric Holder has said that a decision about which detainees should be tried in military courts and which in civilian courts would be made by November 16.

For the full text of the report and an executive summery, please visit The Center For American Progress

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2012 Prophecies Sparking Real Fears, Suicide Warnings

2009-11-10T16:12:30Z

by Brian Handwerk for National Geographic News

It's almost the end of the world, according to purported Maya predictions, and the 2012 apocalypse business is booming.

Survival kits, documentaries, and nearly 200 books presenting the "real" 2012 story are all on offer. And you could probably surf the Web from now until Armaggedon—tentatively slated for December 21, 2012—and still see just a fraction of the Web sites and products devoted to the topic.

But amid all the hype—including a viral marketing campaign for 2012, the disaster movie opening Friday—some people are developing honest "end times" anxiety that has experts seriously concerned.

SEE PHOTOS: Six End-of-the-World Myths Debunked

NASA's Ask an Astrobiologist Web site, for example, has received thousands of questions regarding the 2012 doomsday predictions—some of them disturbing, according to David Morrison, a senior scientist with the NASA Astrobiology Institute.

"A lot of [the submitters] are people who are genuinely frightened," said Morrison, who thinks movie marketers, authors, and others out to make a buck are feeding some of the fears.

"I've had two teenagers who were considering killing themselves, because they didn't want to be around when the world ends," he said. "Two women in the last two weeks said they were contemplating killing their children and themselves so they wouldn't have to suffer through the end of the world."

2012 Movie Just Entertainment

Part of the worry, Morrison says, is being fanned by a suite of Web sites created by 2012 distributor Sony Pictures Entertainment.

The sites appear to represent scientific organizations, press releases, and 2012 whistle-blowers all intent on telling the "truth" about our upcoming doom.

SEE PHOTOS: 10 Failed Doomsday Prophecies

Now all the 2012 marketing sites display clear disclaimers that the contents are "Part of the 2012 Movie Experience."

But those labels weren't there from day one, adding to the suggestion that the doomsday scenarios might have some truth behind them, Morrison said.

Sony Pictures spokesperson Steve Elzer argues that it's clear the film's marketing materials are tied to the promotion of the movie.

"When moviegoers see trailers or visit Web sites linked to our film," he said, "they know this is an entertainment experience, just as those who see materials created for Transformers understand robot aliens have not really landed or those who attend Twilight: New Moon know vampires are not actually among us."

2012: Is This the Way the World Will End?

In general, fear over the 2012 doomsday prediction is just another example of a scenario that has been repeated over the centuries, said University of Wisconsin historian Paul Boyer.

Baptist preacher William Miller, for example, convinced as many as a hundred thousand Americans in the early 1800s that the second coming of Jesus Christ would happen in 1843. It didn't, much to the Millerites' "great disappointment."

And Hal Lindsey's 1970s national bestseller The Late, Great Planet Earth suggested that the end could come in the 1980s. We're still here and so is Lindsey, who has since revised his theories.

"The crucial date always seems to be within a decade or so of the present, so that you have a sense of imminence, that it's going to happen soon," said Boyer, author of When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture.

A healthy distrust for authority fuels the fire.

Conspiracy theorists often believe that world governments and those "in power" know all about some impending disaster but are doing nothing to save the rest of us.

Now, thanks to the Internet, such theories can gain traction quickly and spread more widely than ever before.

Yet something must account for the enduring appeal of an upcoming Armageddon. Perhaps it's knowing the future when others don't, or being one of the select few to solve impenetrable mysteries, Boyer said.

"For a lot of people I think it's almost kind of a parlor game. But there are also people who take it very seriously," he said.

"What strikes me is the total lack of historic awareness that people who get caught up in these things seem to exhibit. The most elementary look at history shows such a series of these episodes that are then proven false.

"Yet despite that, there always seems to be a market."

Maya 2012: Truth Better Than Fiction

Anthony Aveni, a Maya expert and archaeoastronomer at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, has also seen the effects of 2012 hysteria firsthand.

"I got into an email dialogue with a high school student who was quite seriously concerned that the world was going to end," he said. "This person thought we were all going to die. That motivated me to write about it."

His book, The End of Time: The Maya Mystery of 2012, is one of several attempts by experts to dispel the myths of the Maya apocalypse and instead focus attention on the facts about the ancient culture.

"It's a teaching moment," Aveni said. "If we allow people to fear 2012 and miss a great opportunity to learn about the Maya and their amazing culture, then we're not doing our job."

ON TV 2012: Countdown to Armageddon airs Sunday, November 15, at 7 p.m. ET on the National Geographic Channel. Watch the Preview.

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Thierry Tilly, Oxford-Based 'Guru,' Accused Of Torturing French Aristocrats

2009-11-10T16:10:16Z

By John Lichfield, The Independent

To his followers in a large suburban Oxford house, Thierry Tilly is a "super-man" - a secret agent for a centuries-old, Da Vinci Code-style, secret society, sworn to protect the world from evil.

French investigators, though, take a different view. To them, he is a vulgar - and violent - con-artist, who has used brain-washing techniques and even torture to rob three generations of a wealthy French family.

Mr Tilly, 45, is now in custody in south-western France. He is accused of using "acts of torture and barbarism" to persuade 11 members of the aristocratic Védrines clan to hand over furniture, jewellery, paintings and property worth €3m (£2.7m) over the last eight years.

Ahmadinejad: Capitalism Is Dead

2009-11-10T15:30:43Z

Istanbul, Turkey - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sought to bolster the Islamic Republic's regional standing at an economic summit for Muslim leaders in Turkey on Monday, by declaring that a "new era is starting" after the "definite defeat" of capitalism.