The History Of New York Earthquakes: Before The Sixth Seal (Rev 6:12)

Historic Earthquakes
Near New York City, New York
1884 08 10 19:07 UTC
Magnitude 5.5
Intensity VII


USGS.gov

This severe earthquake affected an area roughly extending along the Atlantic Coast from southern Maine to central Virginia and westward to Cleveland, Ohio. Chimneys were knocked down and walls were cracked in several States, including Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Many towns from Hartford, Connecticut, to West Chester,Pennsylvania.

Property damage was severe at Amityville and Jamaica, New York, where several chimneys were “overturned” and large cracks formed in walls. Two chimneys were thrown down and bricks were shaken from other chimneys at Stratford (Fairfield County), Conn.; water in the Housatonic River was agitated violently. At Bloomfield, N.J., and Chester, Pa., several chimneys were downed and crockery was broken. Chimneys also were damaged at Mount Vernon, N.Y., and Allentown, Easton, and Philadelphia, Pa. Three shocks occurred, the second of which was most violent. This earthquake also was reported felt in Vermont, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Several slight aftershocks were reported on August 11.

British Pharma Funds the Antichrist

Iraq militia 'funded' by British drug giant Astrazeneca

 

 

By Matt Oliver For The Daily Mail

Published: 17:57 EDT, 29 October 2017 | Updated: 17:57 EDT, 29 October 2017

Astrazeneca was last night accused of funding a terrorist militia responsible for killing British soldiers in Iraq.

The Cambridge-based pharmaceuticals giant is one of several firms being dragged into a US court over allegations it bribed health officials who were aligned with Jaysh al-Mahdi, one of the most violent insurgent groups in Iraq.

Lawyers representing the families of US soldiers killed and wounded in the Iraq war claim Astra paid cash to win lucrative drug contracts. However, the money was then used to buy weapons and explosives that were deployed against British and US troops. The claims, filed in a federal court in Washington, relate only to US troops but could pave the way for similar litigation in the UK.

Accusations: Astrazeneca is one of several firms hit by allegations it bribed health officials who were aligned with Jaysh al-Mahdi, one of the most violent insurgent groups in Iraq

Ryan Sparacino, of Washington law firm Sparacino & Andreson, told the Mail: ‘Many coalition lives were destroyed because Astrazeneca made corrupt payments to Jaysh al-Mahdi terrorists in order to boost profits.’

Astra is named along with parent companies and subsidiaries of General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Roche Holding. They deny any wrongdoing.

The civil lawsuit accuses the companies of violating the US Anti-Terrorism Act and seeks damages. It is not expected that either side will present arguments in court for at least a year.

Claims brought by the families of US soldiers cover the deaths and injuries inflicted by Jaysh al-Mahdi between 2005 and 2009.

The group, also known as the Mahdi Army, was formed by radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in response to the 2003 invasion of Iraq by US and UK forces. In 2004 it took control of parts of the country’s second-largest city, Basra, which was the main area where British troops were based during the subsequent occupation.

Bribes paid by Astra and other drug companies to Iraq’s health ministry helped fund the militia’s activities, court papers claim.

The ministry was effectively controlled by Jaysh al-Mahdi, they say. Goods allegedly sold to Iraq include an anti-psychotic drug, hospital equipment, a birth control injection and a breast cancer drug.

An Astrazeneca spokesman said: ‘We are focused on bringing life-saving medicines to patients, and are disheartened anyone would suggest we have any connection to terrorism-related activity.

‘We take all allegations of bribery extremely seriously, and we intend to vigorously defend against them.’

Iran is Prepared to Nuke Up (Daniel 8)

Iran to Produce 20% Enriched Uranium in 4 Days: Salehi

faskarieh -

 

Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi says the Islamic Republic can restore the level of its uranium enrichment to pre-JCPOA era in a very short period of time.
“Iran can produce 20% enriched uranium in four days, but Tehran does not want to see the nuclear deal scrapped,” Salehi said on Sunday after a joint press conference with Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano in Tehran.

Section T of Iran Nuclear Deal
Elsewhere in his remarks, Salehi referred to the controversy over the Section T of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and said “when the Section T was being composed, our expectations were taken into consideration, but unfortunately the other side gives its own alternative interpretations.”
In Section T of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) a set of restrictions on research and other activities that could result in a nuclear explosive device are spelled out.
Salehi told the reporters in Tehran that “we have already talked about the T Section and our positions have been announced explicitly. Section T is not subject to specific inspections,” Tasnim News Agency wrote in a Farsi report.
Nuclear Propulsion Project
Salehi also pointed to the nuclear propulsion project, which the AEOI has been tasked by President Hassan Rouhani to pursue.
“The responsibility of the nuclear-propulsion systems is with the AEOI. It is a long-term research project. We have submitted two reports, and are working on it. If the budget is provided, with this pace it will take 10 to 15 years, because the project is very complicated.”
Inspection of Iranian Sites
In another part of his statements, the Iranian official noted that Amano did not request to visit Iran’s nuclear sites.
“Mr Amano came to Iran at his own request in light of the importance of the JCPOA and the events that have recently happened in the United States,” he went on to say.
Salehi said Amano is interested to take some actions in this regard.
“We expressed our satisfaction with the IAEA reports and its inspections. So far the agency has reported eight times that Iran has complied with its obligations. We hope the IAEA will continue with this approach,” said Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.
Salehi told reporters that “we know there is a lot of pressure from the United States on the IAEA, but according to the rules and the oath the Director General has taken, we hope he would express his technical views independently and in an unbiased way.”
Iran Complying with All Obligations: Amano
Amano, for his part, stressed that Tehran has complied with all its obligations.
“All the parties involved in the nuclear deal must comply with their obligations,” said Amano.
Amano also added that “the JCPOA is an agreement between Iran and the P5+1 which is endorsed by the UN Security Council. We have been monitoring so far and we say that Iran has fully complied with all its commitments in the framework of the accord.”

North Korea Prepares For Nuclear War

North Korea reportedly conducting nuclear war safety drills
By Fox News
North Korea reportedly conducting nuclear war safety drills
As tensions between the U.S. and North Korea continue to grow, the regime has been conducting safety measures for its people amid threats of nuclear war.
The country has “conducted rare blackout exercises and mass evacuation drills in secondary, tertiary cities and towns last week,” NK News reported Saturday. The drills were not conducted in the nation’s capital of Pyongyang.
Blackout drills require citizens to minimize lighting to conceal themselves from enemies, particularly enemy aircraft.
Reports of the exercises come as U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis recently stated that threats of a nuclear missile attack by the regime are accelerating.
“North Korea has accelerated the threat that it poses to its neighbors and the world through its illegal and unnecessary missile and nuclear weapons programs,” Mattis said Saturday.
According to NK News, evacuation drills of this nature are “extremely rare,” and often are unheard of in the communist nation that approximately 25 million people call home.
“I have never heard of this type of training exercises before in North Korea, but am not surprised,” a retired South Korean army lieutenant general said. “They must realize how serious the situation is.”
Although, one defector from North Korea, who lived in Pyongyang, told the news outlet he remembers these types of drills taking place “sometimes three times a year … especially at the time of military exercises of [South Korea] and U.S. army.”
According to NK News, “daily air raid drills” were common in 1994 when the North and the U.S. were “on the brink of war.”
Mattis on Saturday accused Kim Jong Un’s regime of illegal and unnecessary missile and nuclear programs, and vowed to defeat an attack by North Korea, which he said engages in “outlaw behavior.”
The defense secretary also said the U.S. will not accept the North as a nuclear power.

Indian Point Nuclear Will Be Trouble At The Sixth Seal (Rev 6:12)

Recent series of Indian Point shutdowns worst in years

Ernie Garcia, elgarcia@lohud.com

BUCHANAN — Four unplanned reactor shutdowns over a two-month period at Indian Point are the most setbacks the nuclear power plant has experienced in years.

A review of unplanned shutdowns from January 2012 to the present showed this year’s events happened within a short time frame, between May 7 and July 8, in contrast with events from other years that were more spread out, according to data released by Indian Point.

So many mishaps at the Entergy-owned plant haven’t occurred since 2009, when one of two units at the Buchanan site experienced a similar series, said plant spokesman Jerry Nappi.

Besides a May 9 transformer failure that spilled some 3,000 gallons of oil into the Hudson River, this year’s shutdowns were prompted by a May 7 steam leak, a July 8 pump motor failure and a June 15 switch yard breaker failure offsite in a Consolidated Edison substation.

If a nuclear plant has more than three unplanned shutdowns in a nine-month period, its performance indicator could be changed by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which results in additional oversight. That’s what happened with Entergy’s Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, Mass., after four unplanned shutdowns in 2013.

So far, Entergy said there doesn’t appear to be a pattern to the Indian Point shutdowns.
“You do want to look at these events holistically to see if there is something in common, but you also look individually to see what the causes were,” Nappi said. “A plant shutdown in and of itself is not a safety issue.”

One of the four recent Buchanan shutdowns triggered a special inspection by the NRC and calls to close the nuclear plant by environmental groups and elected officials. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said in the past Indian Point should close, but his office did not respond to a request for comment about whether the recent shutdowns have prompted any state scrutiny.

The NRC is expected to release a quarterly report on Indian Point this month that will address the transformer failure and, by year’s end, is planning an inspection of the transformer and an analysis of transformer issues since 2007.

Besides its transformer-related inquiries, the other three shutdowns have not raised “any immediate safety concerns or crossed any thresholds that would result in additional NRC oversight,” agency spokesman Neil Sheehan wrote in an email.

The unplanned shutdowns at Indian Point and Pilgrim in Massachusetts were mostly preventable, said Paul Blanch, a former Indian Point employee with 45 years of nuclear power experience.
“For this to happen this frequently indicates a deeper problem,” he said. “I believe it’s management oversight in the maintenance of these plants.”

Nappi said the transformer that failed May 9 and caused a fire and oil spill into the Hudson was regularly monitored. Investigators determined the failure was due to faulty insulation.

“The transformer inspection and reviews were in accordance with our standards and industry expectations, yet there was no indication the transformer was going to fail,” Nappi said.
The NRC conducted a separate, but related special inspection into the May 9 incident that focused on a half-inch of water that collected in an electrical switchgear room floor. Inspectors determined a fire suppression system’s valve failed to close properly.

Inspectors noted in their report that Entergy knew about that problem since April 2011 and replaced the valve but didn’t discover the actual cause — a dysfunctional switch — until after the fire.

Indian Point’s Unit 3 was down 19 days May through July, with the transformer failure accounting for 16 days. The shutdowns didn’t cause the public any supply problems because New York’s grid can import electricity from other states and New York has an energy plan to maintain reliability, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The nuclear energy industry judges a power plant on how continuously it produces energy, which is called a capacity factor.

There were 100 nuclear plants in the United States in 2014, a record year in terms of efficiency. In January, the Nuclear Energy Institute announced the U.S. average capacity factor was 91.9 percent.

Indian Point has an above-average efficiency rate. The plant’s Unit 2 and 3 reactors were each online more than 99 percent of the time during their most recent two-year operating cycles. They are currently in the middle of other cycles.

Making South Korea A Nuclear Horn (Daniel 8)

North Korea Rouses Neighbors to Reconsider Nuclear Weapons
By DAVID E. SANGER, CHOE SANG-HUN and MOTOKO RICH
October 28, 2017
Two of South Korea’s 24 nuclear reactors. The country has a huge stockpile of spent fuel from which it can extract plutonium — enough for more than 4,300 bombs, according to a report.
Jean Chung / Bloomberg, via Getty Images
As North Korea races to build a weapon that for the first time could threaten American cities, its neighbors are debating whether they need their own nuclear arsenals.
The North’s rapidly advancing capabilities have scrambled military calculations across the region, and doubts are growing the United States will be able to keep the atomic genie in the bottle.
For the first time in recent memory, there is a daily argument raging in both South Korea and Japan — sometimes in public, more often in private — about the nuclear option, driven by worry that the United States might hesitate to defend the countries if doing so might provoke a missile launched from the North at Los Angeles or Washington.
In South Korea, polls show 60 percent of the population favors building nuclear weapons. And nearly 70 percent want the United States to reintroduce tactical nuclear weapons for battlefield use, which were withdrawn a quarter-century ago.
There is very little public support for nuclear arms in Japan, the only nation ever to suffer a nuclear attack, but many experts believe that could reverse quickly if North and South Korea both had arsenals.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has campaigned for a military buildup against the threat from the North, and Japan sits on a stockpile of nuclear material that could power an arsenal of 6,000 weapons. Last Sunday, he won a commanding majority in parliamentary elections, fueling his hopes of revising the nation’s pacifist Constitution.
This brutal calculus over how to respond to North Korea is taking place in a region where several nations have the material, the technology, the expertise and the money to produce nuclear weapons.
Beyond South Korea and Japan, there is already talk in Australia, Myanmar, Taiwan and Vietnam about whether it makes sense to remain nuclear-free if others arm themselves — heightening fears that North Korea could set off a chain reaction in which one nation after another feels threatened and builds the bomb.
In a recent interview, Henry A. Kissinger, one of the few nuclear strategists from the early days of the Cold War still living, said he had little doubt where things were headed.
“If they continue to have nuclear weapons,” he said of North Korea, “nuclear weapons must spread in the rest of Asia.”
“It cannot be that North Korea is the only Korean country in the world that has nuclear weapons, without the South Koreans trying to match it. Nor can it be that Japan will sit there,” he added. “So therefore we’re talking about nuclear proliferation.”

Such fears have been raised before, in Asia and elsewhere, without materializing, and the global consensus against the spread of nuclear weapons is arguably stronger than ever.
But North Korea is testing America’s nuclear umbrella — its commitment to defend its allies with nuclear weapons if necessary — in a way no nation has in decades. Similar fears of abandonment in the face of the Soviet Union’s growing arsenal helped lead Britain and France to go nuclear in the 1950s.
President Trump, who leaves Nov. 3 for a visit to Asia, has intensified these insecurities in the region. During his presidential campaign, he spoke openly of letting Japan and South Korea build nuclear arms even as he argued they should pay more to support the American military bases there.
“There is going to be a point at which we just can’t do this anymore,” he told The New York Times in March 2016. Events, he insisted, were pushing both nations toward their own nuclear arsenals anyway.
Mr. Trump has not raised that possibility in public since taking office. But he has rattled the region by engaging in bellicose rhetoric against North Korea and dismissing talks as a “waste of time.”
In Seoul and Tokyo, many have already concluded that North Korea will keep its nuclear arsenal, because the cost of stopping it will be too great — and they are weighing their options.
Capability to Build the Bomb
Long before North Korea detonated its first nuclear device, several of its neighbors secretly explored going nuclear themselves.
Japan briefly considered building a “defensive” nuclear arsenal in the 1960s despite its pacifist Constitution. South Korea twice pursued the bomb in the 1970s and 1980s, and twice backed down under American pressure. Even Taiwan ran a covert nuclear program before the United States shut it down.
Today, there is no question that both South Korea and Japan have the material and expertise to build a weapon.
All that is stopping them is political sentiment and the risk of international sanctions. Both nations signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but it is unclear how severely other countries would punish two of the world’s largest economies for violating the agreement.
South Korea has 24 nuclear reactors and a huge stockpile of spent fuel from which it can extract plutonium — enough for more than 4,300 bombs, according to a 2015 paper by Charles D. Ferguson, president of the Federation of American Scientists.
Japan once pledged never to stockpile more nuclear fuel than it can burn off. But it has never completed the necessary recycling and has 10 tons of plutonium stored domestically and another 37 tons overseas.
“We keep reminding the Japanese of their pledge,” said Ernest J. Moniz, chief executive of the Nuclear Threat Initiative and an energy secretary in the Obama administration, noting that it would take years if not decades for Japan to consume its fissile material because almost all its nuclear plants have remained offline since the 2011 Fukushima accident.
China, in particular, has objected to Japan’s stockpile, warning that its traditional rival is so advanced technologically that it could use the material to quickly build a large arsenal.
Analysts often describe Japan as a “de facto” nuclear state, capable of building a weapon within a year or two. “Building a physical device is not that difficult anymore,” said Tatsujiro Suzuki, former deputy chairman of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission.
Japan already possesses long-range missile technology, he added, but would need some time to develop more sophisticated communications and control systems.
South Korea may be even further along, with a fleet of advanced missiles that carry conventional warheads. In 2004, the government disclosed that its scientists had dabbled in reprocessing and enriching nuclear material without first informing the International Atomic Energy Agency as required by treaty.
“If we decide to stand on our own feet and put our resources together, we can build nuclear weapons in six months,” said Suh Kune-yull, a professor of nuclear engineering at Seoul National University. “The question is whether the president has the political will.”
President Moon Jae-in of South Korea has been firm in his opposition to nuclear weapons. But his is increasingly a minority view.
In Seoul, a Rising Call for Arms
President Moon Jae-in has been firm in his opposition to nuclear weapons. He insists that building them or reintroducing American ones to South Korea would make it even more difficult to persuade North Korea to scrap its own.
Though Mr. Moon has received high approval ratings since his election in May, his view is increasingly a minority one.
Calls for nuclear armament used to be dismissed as chatter from South Korea’s nationalist fringe. Not anymore. Now people often complain that South Korea cannot depend on the United States, its protector of seven decades.
The opposition Liberty Korea party called on the United States to reintroduce tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea in August after the North tested an intercontinental ballistic missile that appeared capable of reaching the mainland United States.
“If the U.N. Security Council can’t rein in North Korea with its sanctions, we will have no option but to withdraw from the Nonproliferation Treaty,” Won Yoo-chul, a party leader, said in September.
Given the failure of sanctions, threats and negotiations to stop North Korea, South Koreans are increasingly convinced the North will never give up its nuclear weapons. But they also oppose risking a war with a military solution.
Most believe the Trump administration, despite its tough talk, will ultimately acquiesce, perhaps settling for a freeze that allows the North to keep a small arsenal. And many fear that would mean giving the North the ultimate blackmail tool — and a way to keep the United States at bay.
“The reason North Korea is developing a hydrogen bomb and intercontinental ballistic missiles is not to go to war with the United States,” said Cheong Seong-chang, an analyst at the Sejong Institute near Seoul. “It’s to stop the Americans from intervening in armed skirmishes or full-scale war on the Korean Peninsula.”
The closer the North gets to showing it can strike the United States, the more nervous South Koreans become about being abandoned. Some have asked whether Washington will risk the destruction of an American city by intervening, for example, if the North attempts to occupy a border island, as its soldiers have practiced.
For many in South Korea, the solution is a homegrown nuclear deterrent.
“If we don’t respond with our own nuclear deterrence of some kind, our people will live like nuclear hostages of North Korea,” said Cheon Seong-whun, a former presidential secretary for security strategy.
With nuclear weapons of its own, the South would gain leverage and could force North Korea back to the bargaining table, where the two sides could whittle down their arsenals through negotiations, some hawks argue.
But given the risks of going nuclear, others say Seoul should focus on persuading Washington to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons.
“The redeployment of American tactical nuclear weapons would be the surest way” to deter North Korea, Defense Minister Song Young-moo said last month, but he added that it would be difficult to get Washington to agree to that.

In Tokyo, Cautious Debate
The discussion in Japan has been more subdued than in South Korea, no surprise after 70 years of public education about the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
But Japan has periodically considered developing nuclear weapons every decade since the 1960s.
In 2002, a top aide to Junichiro Koizumi, the prime minister then, caused a furor by suggesting Japan might one day break with its policy of never building, possessing or allowing nuclear arms on its territory.
North Korea has reopened that question.
Shigeru Ishiba, a former defense minister seen as a potential challenger to Prime Minister Abe, has argued that Japan needs to debate its nuclear policy given the threat from North Korea.
Mr. Abe has stopped short of calling for a re-evaluation of the country’s position on nuclear weapons. But he has increased military spending and echoed Mr. Trump’s hawkish position against the North.
Mr. Abe’s administration has already determined that nuclear weapons would not be prohibited under the Constitution if maintained only for self-defense.
The Japanese public is largely opposed to nuclear weapons with polls indicating fewer than one in 10 support nuclear armament.
But Japan’s relations with South Korea have long been strained, and if Seoul armed itself, those numbers could shift.
Some analysts say the discussion is aimed at getting additional reassurance from Washington. “We always do that when we become a little upset about the credibility of the extended U.S. deterrence,” said Narushige Michishita, a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.
Tobias Harris, a Japan analyst at Teneo Intelligence, a political risk consultancy, said Japan would rethink its position on nuclear weapons if it suspects the United States would let it down.
“We’re kind of in uncharted waters as far as this goes,” he said. “It’s hard to know exactly what the threshold is that will lead the Japanese public’s switch to flip.”

Russian Horn Prepares for Nuclear War (Daniel 7)

Vladimir Putin Personally Launches Test Missiles in Russian Nuclear Drills

by Ben Kew

28 Oct 2017

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin personally launched four ballistic missiles as part of a series of drills for the country’s nuclear program, the Kremlin claimed Friday.

“The exercise practiced interaction of the Strategic Missile Force, nuclear-powered submarines of the Northern and Pacific Fleets and long-range aviation of Russia’s Aerospace Force,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to Bloomberg.”The supreme commander-in-chief made launches of four ballistic missiles.”
The Russian Defense Ministry also confirmed the use of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“To participate in the training, forces, and means of the ground, sea and aviation component of the Strategic Nuclear Forces of the Russian Federation were involved,” the ministry said in a statement. “From the State Plesetsk cosmodrome, the combat calculation of the Strategic Missile Forces launched the launch of the intercontinental ballistic missile Topol on the Kura test range.”
“The training assignments were accomplished in full and all the practice targets were successfully destroyed,” it added.
The drills come amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and North Korea after the North last month conducted its sixth successful test of a hydrogen bomb, and threatened to attack the U.S. with an “unimaginable strike at an unimaginable time.”
Putin has previously urged for calm over the crisis, and has claimed that sanctions against the regime will prove “useless and ineffective,” warning that both countries are “balanced on the verge of a large-scale conflict.”
“In Russia’s opinion, the calculation that it is possible to halt North Korea’s nuclear missile programs exclusively by putting pressure on Pyongyang is erroneous and futile,” Putin said. “It is essential to resolve the region’s problems through direct dialogue involving all sides without advancing any preconditions. Provocations, pressure and bellicose and offensive rhetoric is the road to nowhere.”
However, Peskov claimed that the drills “aren’t connected with any international events and take place regularly.”
Russia is known for its outward displays of military strength, and according to Bloomberg, have carried out over 2,500 military exercises so far this year.
In July, Russia and China held a series of joint naval exercises in the Baltic Sea, while last month Putin attended a series of exercises involving over 5,000 troops on the Russian border with Estonia. Russian officials have insisted the drills are purely defensive.
Russia and North Korea are two of nine countries to have an advanced nuclear weapons program. Other countries include the U.S., France, China, Pakistan, India, Israel and the United Kingdom.
Follow Ben Kew on Facebook, Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart.com.

Iran Continues to Build Nuclear Missiles (Daniel 8:4)

Rouhani says Iran will keep producing missiles, state TV reports

 

Reuters Staff

 

 

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran will continue to produce missiles for its defense and does not consider that a violation of international accords, President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday in a speech broadcast on state television.
Rouhani spoke days after the U.S. House of Representatives voted for new sanctions against Iran’s ballistic missile program, part of an effort to clamp down on Tehran without immediately moving to undermine an international nuclear agreement.
He also meet the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog in Tehran, who again vouched for Iran’s compliance with the 2015 accord that curbed its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief, which has drawn fire from U.S. President Donald Trump.
“We have built, are building and will continue to build missiles, and this violates no international agreements,” Rouhani said in a speech in parliament.
The United States has already imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran, saying its missile tests violate a U.N. resolution, that calls on Tehran not to undertake activities related to missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and says it has no plans to build nuclear-capable missiles.

Rouhani also criticized the United States over Trump’s refusal this month to formally certify that Tehran is complying with the accord on Iran’s nuclear program, even though international inspectors say it is.

 

“You are disregarding past negotiations and agreements approved by the U.N. Security council and expect others to negotiate with you?” Rouhani said.
“Because of the behavior it has adopted, America should forget any future talks and agreement with other countries,” Rouhani added, referring to unnamed countries in East Asia, an apparent reference to North Korea.

IAEA HEAD VISITS

Yukiya Amano, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), met Rouhani, President of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran Ali Akbar Salehi, and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Tehran, an IAEA statement said.
“Director General Amano reiterated that the nuclear-related commitments undertaken by Iran are being implemented, and that the JCPOA represents a clear gain from a verification point of view,” it said, using an abbreviation for the 2015 accord.
“For the future, he stressed the importance of full implementation by Iran of its nuclear-related commitments in order to make the JCPOA sustainable.”
Trump’s decision not to certify Iranian compliance with the landmark nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers means Congress now has less than 60 days to decide whether to re-impose sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under the agreement that Amano’s agency is in charge of policing.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said Tehran will stick to the agreement as long as the other signatories do, but will “shred” the deal if Washington pulls out, as Trump has threatened to do.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has pressed the IAEA to seek access to Iranian military bases to ensure that they are not concealing activities banned by the nuclear deal.
Asked whether Amano had made any requests for new inspections, Salehi said after meeting Amano: “He has no request in this area,” Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported.
Salehi said Iran could resume production of 20 percent enriched uranium in four days, but did not want the Iran deal to fall apart.
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Saturday that he could not imagine the United States ever accepting a nuclear North Korea, and stressed during a week-long trip to Asia that diplomacy was America’s preferred course.

Reporting by Dubai newsroom, additional reporting by Michael Shields in Zurich,; Editing by Nick Macfie, Larry King

The Sixth Seal: More Than Just Manhattan (Revelation 6:12)

New York, NY – In a Quake, Brooklyn Would Shake More Than Manhattan

By Brooklyn Eagle

New York, NY – The last big earthquake in the New York City area, centered in New York Harbor just south of Rockaway, took place in 1884 and registered 5.2 on the Richter Scale.Another earthquake of this size can be expected and could be quite damaging, says Dr. Won-Young Kim, senior research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.

And Brooklyn, resting on sediment, would shake more than Manhattan, built on solid rock. “There would be more shaking and more damage,” Dr. Kim told the Brooklyn Eagle on Wednesday.

If an earthquake of a similar magnitude were to happen today near Brooklyn, “Many chimneys would topple. Poorly maintained buildings would fall down – some buildings are falling down now even without any shaking. People would not be hit by collapsing buildings, but they would be hit by falling debris. We need to get some of these buildings fixed,” he said.

But a 5.2 is “not comparable to Haiti,” he said. “That was huge.” Haiti’s devastating earthquake measured 7.0.

Brooklyn has a different environment than Haiti, and that makes all the difference, he said. Haiti is situated near tectonic plate.

“The Caribbean plate is moving to the east, while the North American plate is moving towards the west. They move about 20 mm – slightly less than an inch – every year.” The plates are sliding past each other, and the movement is not smooth, leading to jolts, he said.

While we don’t have the opportunity for a large jolt in Brooklyn, we do have small, frequent quakes of a magnitude of 2 or 3 on the Richter Scale. In 2001 alone the city experienced two quakes: one in January, measuring 2.4, and one in October, measuring 2.6. The October quake, occurring soon after Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, “caused a lot of panic,” Dr. Kim said.

“People ask me, ‘Should I get earthquake insurance?’ I tell them no, earthquake insurance is expensive. Instead, use that money to fix chimneys and other things. Rather than panicky preparations, use common sense to make things better.”

Secure bookcases to the wall and make sure hanging furniture does not fall down, Dr. Kim said. “If you have antique porcelains or dishes, make sure they’re safely stored. In California, everything is anchored to the ground.”

While a small earthquake in Brooklyn may cause panic, “In California, a quake of magnitude 2 is called a micro-quake,” he added.

Iranian Hegemony in Iraq (Daniel 8:4)

Khamenei asks Iraqi PM not to dissolve Iranian-backed Shia militia
Mewan Dolamari
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei meets with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Tehran. (Photo: IRNA)
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – During Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s visit to Tehran, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei asked him not to dissolve the Iranian-backed Shia Hashd al-Shaabi militias, a source said on Saturday.
Two days ago, Abadi visited Tehran following his tour in neighboring countries as tensions between Erbil and Baghdad escalated.
“The Hashd al-Shaabi must not be dissolved,” al-Jarida, a Kuwaiti newspaper, quoted an informed source on what Khamenei told Abadi.
The report comes days after the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called on the Iranian militia groups to leave Iraq. In response, Abadi had pledged to disarm any Iraqi groups and factions that refused to obey the Iraqi government’s orders.
“The presence of the Hashd al-Shaabi is necessary until the end of all security problems in Iraq,” Khamenei told Abadi, according to the source.
“The Hashd al-Shaabi must be like [Iran’s] Basij [Organization for Mobilization of the Oppressed] to the government, and the reward for all their efforts should not be [a] dissolution,” Khamenei added.
Sazman-e Basij-e Mostaz’afin was established in 1980 by order of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini with the purpose of recruiting 20 million fighters for the organization.
The source stated that Abadi frankly told Khamenei of Washington’s determination to dissolve the Hashd al-Shaabi, also known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), and integrate them into the Iraqi armed forces so no troops would remain under the command of Tehran inside Iraq.
According to the source, Abadi told the Iranian Supreme Leader that Tillerson had assured him US President Donald Trump’s administration would continue to support the Federal Government of Iraq regarding issues with the Kurdistan Region.
The Iraqi PM also said the US would back the return of the Iraqi army’s control on all the territory in the country under the condition the PMF stopped their advance in the current areas which include disputed regions, the source added.
The Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC) recently accused Iran and the Shia PMF militias of attacking Peshmerga forces from four axes in the Zummar areas, northwest Mosul.
“Unity is the most important tool against the terrorists and their agents. Do not trust America; it will hurt you in the future,” Khamenei warned after Abadi’s recent visit to Riyadh where he signed a joint Washington-sponsored agreement of Coordination Council with Saudi Arabia.
Sources confirmed to the Kuwaiti newspaper that Abadi met the Iranian Commander of the Quds Force, General Qassem Soleimani, before leaving Tehran.
The two allegedly decided to coordinate so the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) would hand over the control of border crossings to the Iraqi government.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany

The Russian Nuclear Horn Prepares for War (Daniel 8:8)

Putin oversees test fire of four nuclear-capable ballistic missiles

Sam Meredith

 

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin personally oversaw the launch of four nuclear-capable ballistic missiles as part of a test for Moscow's strategic nuclear forces, according to the Kremlin.
The training exercise, which was conducted Thursday evening, included the testing of land, air and submarine-based ballistic missiles, Russia's defense ministry said in a statement.
A Topol intercontinental ballistic missile was tested from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia, hitting a target thousands of miles away at a military testing range on the Kamchatka Peninsula.
Three other intercontinental-range ballistic missiles were launched from nuclear-powered submarines.
"The training assignments were accomplished in full and all the practice targets were successfully destroyed," the ministry said.
In a tweet at 7:09 p.m. London time (2:09 p.m. ET) on Thursday, Russia's defense ministry posted a video that appeared to show the nuclear-capable ballistic missile tests.
Last month, Russia launched two intercontinental missiles in the space of two weeks amid escalating geopolitical tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea Prepares for Another Nuclear Test

North Korea warns of possible nuclear test

Updated: 7:10 pm, Thursday, 26 October 2017

The recent warning from North Korea's foreign minister of a possible atmospheric nuclear test over the Pacific Ocean should be taken literally, a senior North Korean official says.
'The foreign minister is very well aware of the intentions of our supreme leader, so I think you should take his words literally,' Ri Yong Pil, a senior diplomat in North Korea's Foreign Ministry, told CNN.
North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said last month Pyongyang may consider conducting 'the most powerful detonation' of a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean amid rising tensions with the US.
Speaking with Sky News, Acting Director of foreign policy defense at the United States Studies Centre Ashley Townshend says if a North Korean nuclear test occurred it would be a demonstration of force.
'North Korea is talking about demonstrating in the most visceral way possible their ability to detonate a nuclear warhead. This would see, for the first time in decades, a mushroom cloud,' Mr Townshend said.
'How likely it is to occur is anyone's guess, we hear a lot of provocation from Pyongyang. No one really knows how serious they are about one test or another, but I think it's important to bear in mind that they are trying to demonstrate their progress made towards having a functional ICBM.'
The minister made the comment after President Donald Trump warned that North Korea, which has been working to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States, would be totally destroyed if it threatened America.
CIA chief Mike Pompeo said last week that North Korea could be only months away from gaining the ability to hit the United States with nuclear weapons.
Experts say an atmospheric test would be a way of demonstrating that capability.
All of North Korea's previous nuclear tests have been conducted underground.
Trump next week will make a visit to Asia during which he will highlight his campaign to pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear and missile programs.
Despite the bellicose rhetoric, White House officials say Trump is looking for a peaceful resolution of the standoff. But all options, including military ones, are on the table.
The US Navy said on Wednesday a third aircraft carrier strike group was now sailing in the Asia-Pacific region, joining two other carriers, the Ronald Reagan and Theodore Roosevelt.
Navy officials said the Nimitz, which was previously carrying out operations in support of the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, would be ready to support operations in the region before heading back to its home port.
On Wednesday, Trump was asked whether he would visit the tense demilitarised zone dividing North and South Korea during his Asia tour and responded enigmatically.
'I'd rather not say, but you'll be surprised,' he told reporters.
Reuters

What Will Happen At The Sixth Seal (Revelation 6:12)

What If The Earthquake Had Hit Manhattan?

Brian Barrett 24 August 2011 8:56 AM

Today’s 5.9 magnitude earthquake was felt throughout the mid-Atlantic, but its epicentre — a small town in Virginia — took the brunt of its wrath. What if it had started in NYC instead? We may find out sooner than you think.

The Risk Is Real

New York isn’t very high on the list of places you think of when you think earthquake. But that’s more a lucky accident of the times we live in than a promise of future calm. In the 400 years that we’ve inhabited that small, skinny island off the coast of New Jersey, the city’s been hit at least three times by moderate-to-major earthquakes. A 1737 quake just outside the city limits shook chimneys to the ground. Another struck in 1783. And in 1884, a 5.5-magnitude event cracked the walls of buildings in Jamaica and was felt as far away as Maine. Historically speaking, we’re overdue.
Scientifically speaking, too. A 2008 report in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (PDF) showed that those three were just the perceptible earthquakes suffered by the region; a total of 383 tremors and shakes have occurred in the 39,000sqkm area around NYC since 1677. New York and its environs sit atop a vast networks of several small, active faults and a handful of lines capable of producing 6 and 7 magnitude events that have lain dormant. For now.

Best Case Scenario

The most likely occurrence — a 5ish magnitude quake in or near Manhattan — would be terrifically bad. Not end-of-the-world bad. Not cataclysmic. But horribly traumatic, according to a 2005 study by the New York City Area Consortium for Earthquake Loss Mitigation. The committee, a group of civil engineers, academics, and government officials, spent four years determining the fallout of a significant NYC quake. Let’s hope we never find out if they were right.
I spoke with Dan O’Brian, a Program Manager for the NYS Office of Emergency Management and one of the co-authors of that report. He said that while it was published in 2005, the findings largely hold true six years later. And that the biggest risk isn’t the city’s the towering skyscrapers; it’s the brownstones:

The [structures]that are of a particular concern are unreinforced masonry. The brownstones, six-story, turn of the century. Those are the buildings that don’t have much ability to withstand lateral forces, and they tend to crumble.

So what kind of damage are we talking about? According to the NYCEM report, an event of equal strength to what hit Virginia today would cost approximately $US45 billion (inflation adjusted) in building damage and lost income, with over 2500 buildings damaged and nearly 200,000 people left homeless. Forty tons of debris would cascade the streets, 25 times the amount caused by 9/11. The casualties: 1200 dead, 200,000 wounded.
“You’ve got so much there, if you were to have an epicentre of even a moderate sized earthquake, if it’s epicentered in the immediate NY area you’re likely to see a good bit of damage,” explains O’Brien. Most of that is due to the general building stock.”
The destruction wouldn’t be evenly distributed. Softer soil leads to stronger vibrations; that geological truth, combined with where most of that unreinforced masonry stock is located, make the Upper East Side and Chinatown most vulnerable to a quake. The city’s skyscrapers will hold (to a point), the bridges will survive as well today as they did in 1884. There would be nearly a thousand fires, but the NYFD would have the resources to handle them–assuming the water lines aren’t cut in the quake.
So yes, bad, right. But not doomsday. Although that’s an option, too.

Worst Case Scenario

Did you know that New York City sits less than 40km away from an active nuclear power plant? And that that same power plant sits just a mile south of an active seismic zone that’s considered capable of causing a 6.0-magnitude earthquake? That’s when things get apocalyptic.
The Indian Point nuclear plant, located just north of Manhattan, has provided power to Westchester County and the city itself for decades without incident. But while its operators have claimed that the structures can survive up to a magnitude 6 quake, seismologist Lynn Sykes told the Gotham Gazette recently that he isn’t so sure:

The plants are designed to withstand an event on the intensity scale of VII, which equals a magnitude of 5 or slightly higher in the region. (Intensity measures the effects on people and structures.) A magnitude 6 quake, in Sykes opinion, would indeed cause damage to the plant.

The two reactors provide 10 per cent of the state’s electricity and 30 per cent of NYC’s, meaning that in addition to the destruction outlined in our best case scenario, massive power outages could be expected. If the quake were strong enough to create fractures in Indian Point’s bedrock, radioactive materials could flow freely into the Hudson River. After the events of Fukushima earlier this year, that’s no longer an unthinkable occurrence.
So where does that leave us? We’re in no better or worse shape today than we were yesterday or last month. And the only part of this equation that might change in the next several years is Indian Point, which has been facing political pressure of late and whose contract may not be renewed. But really, the only thing that’s different now is the awareness that it’s not an if, it’s a when. That we’re just running out the clock. And that’s should have us shaking in our boots.

Tillerson Chastises Pakistani Terrorism (Daniel 8)

Tillerson says 'too many terrorist organizations' find refuge in PakistanTillerson says 'too many terrorist organizations' find refuge in Pakistan
By ANNIE GOWEN | The Washington Post | Published: October 25, 2017
NEW DELHI — U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday that "too many terrorist organizations" find refuge in Pakistan and reiterated his call for the country to do more to address a rising problem of terrorism within its borders that, he said, threatens to destabilize Pakistan itself.
"There are too many terrorist organizations that find a safe place in Pakistan from which to conduct their operations and attacks against other countries," Tillerson said, speaking in India's capital on a final stop of a tour through the Middle East and Asia. The terrorist groups' growing strength and capability "can lead to a threat to Pakistan's own stability," Tillerson said.
At a news conference at India's Ministry of External Affairs, Tillerson told reporters that during a meeting with Pakistan's interim prime minister, its army chief and other leaders on Tuesday in Islamabad, he had outlined "certain expectations" of "mechanisms of cooperation" that Pakistan must fulfill to address the problem or face U.S. reprisals. Pakistan's government has long denied the existence of safe havens for terrorist groups.
Pakistan has been mired in political turmoil since its prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, was ousted by the country's Supreme Court in a financial scandal in July. His close ally, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, is serving as interim prime minister.
Tillerson's arrival in India - his first trip to the country as secretary of state - comes at a time when the U.S.-Pakistan relationship is increasingly under strain and the Trump administration seeks a closer relationship with its "natural ally" India, the world's most populous democracy and one of its biggest arms buyers.
Tillerson's warm welcome in India - where he toured a memorial to revered freedom leader Mohandas Gandhi - was a contrast to the chilly reception he had received in Pakistan's capital the day before. There, one prominent politician said Tillerson was "acting like a viceroy," a reference to leaders of the British Raj.
India's Minister of External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj, echoed Tillerson's criticism of Pakistan. Recent terrorist attacks in Afghanistan "are proof that safe havens and supporters of terrorism are active," she said. "Pakistan needs to act on this."
Swaraj also said she and Tillerson discussed India's relationship with North Korea. India maintains an embassy in Pyongyang but has moved to put new limits on trade. Swaraj said she told Tillerson the embassy should remain "so that some channels of communication are kept open" with friendly countries.
As the Trump administration maps out a long-term strategy in South Asia that includes increasing U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan to 13,500, Washington is urging India to boost its support to the war-torn country. India already has large-scale development projects there and provides $3 billion in assistance.

Clinton Before Trump’s Own Watergate

Trump says uranium deal with Russia on par with Watergate
Associated PressWed 3:25 PM, Oct 25, 2017
WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump is claiming that an Obama era uranium deal with Russia is a scandal on par with Watergate.
And he's promising that the Republican donor who funded the compiling of a dossier on him will be revealed.
The uranium deal involves the purchase of American uranium mines by a Russian-backed company in 2010.
Mr. Trump says that sale, reached while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, was "so underhanded" and that it's "Watergate modern age."
Some investors in the company had relationships with former President Bill Clinton and donated to the Clinton Foundation.
Mr. Trump's comments follow the revelation that Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid for the creation of a political dossier on Trump.
A Republican donor who opposed Trump reportedly paid for the dossier in the beginning of the campaign, but the research firm behind the dossier has refused to reveal that person's identity.
Mr. Trump thinks the name "probably be revealed" eventually.
He posted a quote on Twitter that he attributes to Fox News.
His tweet says: "Clinton campaign & DNC paid for research that led to the anti-Trump Fake News Dossier. The victim here is the President." FoxNews"
The president has derided the dossier as "phony stuff," bit the FBI has worked to corroborate the document

The Importance of Korean and Iranian Collusion

The Real Importance of North Korean and Iranian Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons
Jonathan Adelman
Professor Jonathan Adelman
All of the extensive talks and negotiations in the last decade and two over North Korea and Iran getting nuclear weapons have missed an important point. The discussions have shown that the Western policy, led by the United States, of negotiation with these two would be (In the case of Iran) or already has been (in the case of North Korea) a serious mistake. It has shown that allowing these countries to have (North Korea) or soon gain nuclear weapons (Iran) poses a major threat to the Middle East and East Asia respectively.
But, a point that is frequently missed, is to ask how the success of the Iranians and North Koreans in moving over decades towards nuclear weapons will now encourage other Third World states to acquire such weapons. We begin by examining those countries that have nuclear weapons already. Most of them (United States, Russia, Great Britain, France, China and India and Israel) are or have been historically First World powers either militarily or politically. Only Pakistan would be neither a major political or military power but is a significant middle ranging power in long term conflict with nuclear India. So too is Israel in conflict with Iran and its Middle East allies.
Their nuclear arsenals have developed over decades. The United States and Russia, emerging from victories in World War II as superpowers, both developed approximately 7,000 nuclear powers in the later 1940s. Significant middle range powers Great Britain, which developed over 200 nuclear weapons in the 1950s, and France obtained 300 nuclear weapons by 1960. Rising Third World countries China (270 nuclear weapons) in 1964 and India (115 nuclear weapons) in 1974 developed nuclear weapons. India’s move led its enemy Pakistan to develop nuclear weapons in 1985. Israel, possibly with foreign help, developed its nuclear arsenal of 80-200 nuclear weapons in the 1960s.
Let’s look at more than a dozen other countries that began to work on nuclear weapons but then took a different path. They fall into four categories.
First, over half of these countries—Sweden, South Korea, Taiwan, South Africa, Brazil, Algeria and Argentina—started down the nuclear path and then gave up. All seven (save for Algeria) were essentially pro-Western countries. Their acquiring nuclear weapons would have had local significance but did not threaten the international political order. Also, their decisions caused them to leave behind the nuclear path in the 1960s (Sweden), 1970s (Taiwan, Brazil, South Korea ), 1980s (Argentina, Algeria) and 1990s (South Africa). In South Africa’s case they already had a few nuclear weapons but gave up their pursuit for local political reasons.
Subscribe to The Morning Email.
Wake up to the day's most important news.
Second, three of these countries had significant nuclear power from the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 —Belarus (81 nuclear weapons), Kazakhstan (1,400 nuclear weapons) and Ukraine (5,000 nuclear weapons).All three in the mid 1990s gave up their nuclear weapons under strong Russia pressure and lesser opposition from other major powers.
Third two nuclear powers—Iraq (1981) and Syria (2007)—had their programs abruptly stopped because of Israel bombing of their nuclear facilities. The Israelis felt the need to do this from some unusual factors. They felt extremely vulnerable from the tiny size of Israel (8,000 square miles), the width from Tel Aviv to Haifa of as little as nine miles and the concentration of most Israelis in only three metro areas (Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem). Also, it worked in stopping the two countries near to Israel from developing nuclear weapons.
Fourth, and finally, Iran is moving close to having nuclear weapons while North Korea already has them. Both are highly authoritarian anti-American countries which the United States has tried to propitiate over a number of years. Thus, they don’t fall into the usual categories and their success will encourage other authoritarian anti-American countries to gain nuclear weapons. They could also be encouraged by a simple fact that this could allow dictatorships to survive despite the great differences between them and the West. They are very aware that the overthrow of Middle East dictators Saddam Hussein (Iraq) and Muammar Qadaffi (Libya) came in countries that lacked the ultimate deterrence of having nuclear weapons.
In short, success by authoritarian Iran and North Korea could also leave to a number of other such countries emulating them by going down the nuclear path to preserve their anti-West status.

Saudis and Antichrist Try to Make Mends

 

Renewed Saudi-Iraq ties 'to rival Iran's influence' | Saudi Arabia News

by Huthifa Fayyad25 Oct 2017

 

A recent warming of ties between Saudi Arabia and Iraq could signal a move away from Iran's influence over Baghdad, analysts say, but with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi arriving on Wednesday in Tehran, that remains to be seen.
On Sunday, Saudi Arabia and Iraq inaugurated a coordination committee and signed a number of agreements. The developments come after years of tension between Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
Al-Abadi visited Riyadh for the second time in four months, as part of a regional tour that also included stops in Egypt and Jordan.
In a statement addressing the inauguration of the committee, King Salman of Saudi Arabia said the body presents the two countries with a "historic opportunity to build an effective partnership to achieve common aspirations".
The coordination committee includes a range of political, security, economic, trade and development deals.
As part of the agreements, Saudi Arabia will open a consulate in Iraq, relaunch airline flights between the two countries, open the border, and jointly develop ports and highways.
The two nations also agreed to allow Saudi investment in Iraq, study a trade exchange area, and review customs cooperation agreements.
For his part, al-Abadi expressed his optimism and "deep satisfaction" with the recent developments between the neighbouring countries.
What has changed?
Since the fall of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's government in 2003 during the US-led invasion, Iran has advanced its influence in Baghdad.
Iran has helped Iraq in the fight against ISIL (also known as ISIS) while supporting powerful Shia militias in the country.
The fallout in Saudi-Iraqi relations began after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Following the demise of Hussein's regime, incoming Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's administration in Baghdad did not offer much optimism to solve the myriad of post-war problems.
Since 1990, Saudi Arabia has had its embassy in Iraq shut down and borders closed.
However, the first signs of easing tensions between the two countries started in 2015 when Saudi Arabia reopened its embassy in Iraq.
In February, Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, visited Baghdad marking the first visit by a Saudi foreign minister to the Iraqi capital in almost 27 years.
"Abadi's tenure has contrasted somewhat starkly with that of Maliki, who was a much more divisive figure, populist, and sectarian in his outlook and rhetoric," Ranj Alaaldin, a visiting fellow at Brookings Doha Center, told Al Jazeera.
"Since the arrival of Abadi, Iraq has been presented with an opportunity to open a new chapter with the region."
Iran challenged
With Iraqi elections coming up less than a year from now, Saudi Arabia is attempting to establish new alliances in Iraq to ensure its interests and relations with Baghdad remain secure, according to analysts.
One of the goals is to "sideline and challenge Iran's alliances in Baghdad", Alaaldin said.
"The US backs Abadi and sees him as a counterweight against Iran-alliances - including Maliki and Shia militia groups that aligned with Iran," he said.
Another common interest between Saudi Arabia and al-Abadi's government is to "reconstruct and rehabilitate Arab Sunni cities in northern Iraq - financially and politically", Alaaldin said, in order to enhance Arab-Sunni political participation with elections around the corner.
In July, Iraq's nationalist Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr made a surprise visit to Saudi Arabia's Jeddah, where he met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
'Balanced approach'
How effective the Saudis can be in containing Iran's influence in Iraq remains unclear.
Marwan Kabalan, an associate political analyst at the Doha Institute, said it is unknown if the Saudis can succeed "given their poor foreign policy performance vis-a-vis Iran".
Al-Abadi will maintain a "balanced" approach in his regional relations, he said, with the Iraqi prime minister arriving in Tehran for talks on Thursday.
"[al-Abadi] would most probably assure the Iranians that his visit to Saudi Arabia is not against them," Kabalan told Al Jazeera.
"All he is trying to do is to invite much [needed] investment money to rebuild Iraq's destroyed cities, something the Iranians cannot offer. This is important especially for his Shia base of support, which is very sceptical about Saudi Arabia."

The Sixth Seal Is Long Overdue (Revelation 6)

ON THE MAP; Exploring the Fault Where the Next Big One May Be Waiting

The Big One Awaits

By MARGO NASH
Published: March 25, 2001

Alexander Gates, a geology professor at Rutgers-Newark, is co-author of ”The Encyclopedia of Earthquakes and Volcanoes,” which will be published by Facts on File in July. He has been leading a four-year effort to remap an area known as the Sloatsburg Quadrangle, a 5-by-7-mile tract near Mahwah that crosses into New York State. The Ramapo Fault, which runs through it, was responsible for a big earthquake in 1884, and Dr. Gates warns that a recurrence is overdue. He recently talked about his findings.
Q. What have you found?
A. We’re basically looking at a lot more rock, and we’re looking at the fracturing and jointing in the bedrock and putting it on the maps. Any break in the rock is a fracture. If it has movement, then it’s a fault. There are a lot of faults that are offshoots of the Ramapo. Basically when there are faults, it means you had an earthquake that made it. So there was a lot of earthquake activity to produce these features. We are basically not in a period of earthquake activity along the Ramapo Fault now, but we can see that about six or seven times in history, about 250 million years ago, it had major earthquake activity. And because it’s such a fundamental zone of weakness, anytime anything happens, the Ramapo Fault goes.
Q. Where is the Ramapo Fault?

 A. The fault line is in western New Jersey and goes through a good chunk of the state, all the way down to Flemington. It goes right along where they put in the new 287. It continues northeast across the Hudson River right under the Indian Point power plant up into Westchester County. There are a lot of earthquakes rumbling around it every year, but not a big one for a while.

Q. Did you find anything that surprised you?
A. I found a lot of faults, splays that offshoot from the Ramapo that go 5 to 10 miles away from the fault. I have looked at the Ramapo Fault in other places too. I have seen splays 5 to 10 miles up into the Hudson Highlands. And you can see them right along the roadsides on 287. There’s been a lot of damage to those rocks, and obviously it was produced by fault activities. All of these faults have earthquake potential.
Q. Describe the 1884 earthquake.
A. It was in the northern part of the state near the Sloatsburg area. They didn’t have precise ways of describing the location then. There was lots of damage. Chimneys toppled over. But in 1884, it was a farming community, and there were not many people to be injured. Nobody appears to have written an account of the numbers who were injured.
Q. What lessons we can learn from previous earthquakes?
A. In 1960, the city of Agadir in Morocco had a 6.2 earthquake that killed 12,000 people, a third of the population, and injured a third more. I think it was because the city was unprepared.There had been an earthquake in the area 200 years before. But people discounted the possibility of a recurrence. Here in New Jersey, we should not make the same mistake. We should not forget that we had a 5.4 earthquake 117 years ago. The recurrence interval for an earthquake of that magnitude is every 50 years, and we are overdue. The Agadir was a 6.2, and a 5.4 to a 6.2 isn’t that big a jump.
Q. What are the dangers of a quake that size?
A. When you’re in a flat area in a wooden house it’s obviously not as dangerous, although it could cut off a gas line that could explode. There’s a real problem with infrastructure that is crumbling, like the bridges with crumbling cement. There’s a real danger we could wind up with our water supplies and electricity cut off if a sizable earthquake goes off. The best thing is to have regular upkeep and keep up new building codes. The new buildings will be O.K. But there is a sense of complacency.
MARGO NASH

Democrats Try To Block Trump’s Nuclear Power

Democrats push bill to stop a Trump pre-emptive strike on North Korea

Julian Borger
Last modified on Thursday 26 October 2017 17.27 EDT
The US military test fires an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile from the Vandenberg air force base in California on 3 May 2017.
Congressional Democrats have introduced legislation aimed at preventing Donald Trump from launching a pre-emptive attack on North Korea, as concerns grew about the administration’s failure to explore talks with Pyongyang.
The “No Unconstitutional Strike against North Korea” bill is the second legislative attempt to curtail’s Trump power to start a war unilaterally. Earlier this year, a bill was introduced to prohibit the president from ordering a nuclear first strike against a foreign adversary without a declaration of war by Congress, amid concerns over Trump’s belligerent language, erratic behaviour and frequent tweeted threats against other countries.
The new legislation prohibiting an attack on North Korea without congressional authority was launched by Democrats John Conyers in the House and Ed Markey in the Senate. It has two Republicans among the 61 backers in the House, but at present no formal Republican backing in the Senate.
“As a veteran of the Korean war, I am ashamed that our commander-in-chief is conducting himself in a reckless manner that endangers our troops stationed in South Korea and our regional allies,” Conyers said.
“President Trump’s provocative and escalatory rhetoric, with threats to unleash ‘fire and fury’ and ‘totally destroy’ North Korea, cannot be allowed to turn into reality,” Senator Markey said. “As long as President Trump has a Twitter account, we must ensure that he cannot start a war or launch a nuclear first strike without the explicit authorization of Congress.”
The bill’s supporters acknowledge that it will not pass without attracting more Republican support, but they argue that it helps focus attention on the unlimited authority of a US president to order the use of nuclear weapons, many of which can be launched within a few minutes. No official has the power to stop or even delay the launch.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, speaking at a conference organised by the Ploughshares Fund, an non-proliferation advocacy group said she once asked a former head of US Strategic Command if he would carry out a launch order even if he knew it was a catastrophically bad decision. “He looked me straight in the eye and said: Yes,” Senator Feinstein recalled.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have reached critical levels since Pyongyang carried out a sixth nuclear test in September and a series of long-range missile tests. Trump has tweeted a series of threats against the regime and declared at the UN in September that he could “totally destroy” North Korea.
Meanwhile, Trump and his administration have given mixed signals on whether they would consider any kind of dialogue with Pyongyang, and no overtures appear to have been made in that direction.
NBC News reported on Thursday that Joseph Yun, the top American diplomat on North Korean issues, has been warning of a breakdown in diplomatic efforts at meetings in Congress and seeking help in persuading the White House to give negotiations a chance.
William Perry, a former US defence secretary and a veteran of the Cuban missile crisis, said there was a rising danger of the US stumbling into a war with North Korea by making Pyongyang think a “decapitation strike” is imminent and panicking it into launching its own nuclear weapons.
“What we’re doing is making the regime think they are about to go, so they might as well go out in a blaze of glory,” Perry said, adding that the best thing Congress could do to stop the drift to nuclear war was to pass the Conyers-Markey legislation.
“It doesn’t seem now it can be passed, but things can change,” he said.
Ted Lieu, the Democratic congressman who co-authored the bill in January to limit the president’s power to launch a first strike said the best recruiter for Republican support was Trump’s behaviour.
“Every time the president does something erratic, which is every day, we get more co-sponsors,” Lieu said.

Babylon the Great Prepares for Nuclear War (Revelation 15)

Washington Resumes Talking About Nuclear War

Uri Friedman

 

On an unseasonably warm October day recently, Donald Trump’s CIA director and national-security adviser appeared one after another at a conference in the nation’s capital. They soberly assessed the world’s greatest threats below the gentle light of chandeliers in a hotel ballroom. In between their remarks, D.C.’s cognoscenti spilled into an adjoining courtyard to conduct their own threat assessments over wraps and caesar salad. All was normal in Washington—except that two of the president’s top aides were signaling, with deadly seriousness, that conflict could soon erupt between two nuclear-weapons powers.

Talk of nuclear war—of the “general and universal physical fear” of being “blown up” at any moment, as William Faulkner once put it—subsided with the end of the Cold War. Americans instead cited “fear of the greenhouse effect, the ozone layer, and Chernobyl as dangers to the future,” a psychoanalyst told The New York Times in 1992, when George Bush and Boris Yeltsin officially concluded the rivalry between the nuclear superpowers. Just a few years ago, former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was observing that while it was good that “our children don’t know what the threat of nuclear war really feels like,” this generational divide made it more challenging to convey the urgency of ridding the world of its deadliest weapons.

But as North Korea’s nuclear program has rapidly advanced, and as the Trump administration has sounded the alarms about that progress, such talk is creeping back into public discourse in Washington and beyond. The president and his advisers have avoided explicit discussion of nuclear war. Yet they’ve spoken increasingly openly—and with remarkable stoicism—about the potentially catastrophic toll of a U.S.-North Korean conflict, not only because both countries possess nuclear weapons but because North Korea has formidable non-nuclear arms and shares a heavily militarized peninsula with South Korea.

At the October conference, which was organized by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, CIA chief Mike Pompeo noted that North Korea may be just months away from developing the capacity to place a nuclear warhead on a long-range missile that can reach the United States. The North Koreans are so close, in fact, that U.S. policymakers should “behave as if we are on the cusp of them achieving that objective,” he said. As for what behavior he had in mind, Pompeo stressed that Trump would rather use peaceful tactics—economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure—to deny North Korea this capability. But the president is determined to keep Kim Jong Un from holding America hostage with nukes, he added, even if that requires taking military action against the North Korean leader.
Next, National-Security Adviser H.R. McMaster spoke to the relative probability of peace and war, and the timeline in which one could give way to the other. It is “unacceptable” to “accept and deter” a North Korean government that can threaten the United States with nuclear weapons, he said, even though America has for decades successfully deterred Russian and Chinese governments that can threaten the United States with nuclear weapons. He stated that the Trump administration would only enter into negotiations if North Korea agreed to take initial steps toward dismantling its nuclear-weapons arsenal, even though North Korean officials claim this precondition is a nonstarter.

In banking on a long-shot diplomatic outcome and refusing to tolerate any lesser result, McMaster was hinting that military conflict is a distinct possibility—and not a distant one. He did more than drop hints. “We are in a race to resolve this short of military action,” McMaster acknowledged. As one U.S. official told NBC News, in reference to why U.S.-North Korean diplomatic channels are breaking down, the Trump administration’s message to North Korea appears to be “‘surrender without a fight or surrender with a fight.’”

Trump, for his part, has threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea with a show of force that “this world has never seen before” in order to protect America or its allies. U.S. military action against North Korea isn’t “unimaginable,” Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, argued earlier this year, even though “anyone who has been alive since World War II has never seen the loss of life that could occur if there’s a conflict on the Korean peninsula.” What’s unimaginable, he continued “is allowing a capability that would allow a nuclear weapon to land in Denver, Colorado.”Nuclear-weapons powers have very rarely engaged in direct military conflict; setting aside the many U.S.-Soviet proxy battles during the Cold War, the only precedent is brief, non-nuclear war clashes between China and Russia in 1969 and India and Pakistan in 1999. A nuclear war—in the sense of an exchange of nuclear weapons between countries—has never been fought. History is thus of limited help in understanding the stakes of the current standoff between the United States and North Korea. As a result, nobody’s quite sure what to make of the Trump administration’s rhetoric, let alone the Kim government’s blustery warnings of imminent nuclear armageddon.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, for instance, says his diplomatic campaign to counter North Korea “will continue until the first bomb drops,” while the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker, accuses Tillerson’s boss of leading the United States toward “world war.” On Twitter, speculation churns about U.S. military preparations in East Asia and whispers of war around D.C. Some analysts argue that even if the Trump administration conducts limited strikes against North Korea’s nuclear infrastructure, Kim Jong Un’s government, following a kind of “use it or lose it” logic, might deploy its nuclear weapons early in the conflict to compensate for its relative military weakness. Others assert that if the Trump administration is intent on eliminating North Korea’s nuclear capabilities and minimizing North Korean retaliation, the United States would likely be the first to use nuclear weapons—in a massive surprise attack. News outlets simultaneously reassure us that “We Shouldn’t Worry About Nuclear War With North Korea Right Now” and warn us that “A Nuclear War Between America and North Korea Is Very Possible.” Journalists are now asking their sources in Washington to estimate the odds of nuclear war with North Korea (10 percent, according to one retired Navy admiral, with a 20 to 30 percent chance of a non-nuclear military conflict); to weigh in on whether the president can be trusted with the nuclear codes (Corker has his doubts); to clear up whether Trump’s military advisers can “tackle him” or “lock him in a room” to prevent him from ordering a nuclear strike (the answer, from a legal perspective, is probably no).

Most of all, however, people are struggling to once again confront the specter of war with unimaginably destructive weapons. In a recent iterview with Terry Gross of NPR, the New Yorker reporter Dexter Filkins recounted a conversation he’d had with “a very senior person” about how the U.S. military could use a nuclear weapon to wipe out North Korea’s leaders. “It’s terrifying,” Filkins admitted. “It’s just not even something that you want to think about.” Gross was mystified. “How do you use a nuclear weapon to decapitate the regime?” she asked. “God if I know. I don’t know. I mean, because—I don’t know,” Filkins responded. “I think that the idea, at least in the discussion that I had, was that that would be the only way that you could guarantee that you would basically obliterate the leadership, wherever it was. The problem with that, obviously, is that you’re going to end up obliterating a lot of other things as well.” Gross cut to a commercial break.