A Closer Look At The Sixth Seal (Revelation 6:12)

   

A Look at the Tri-State’s Active Fault Line

Monday, March 14, 2011

By Bob Hennelly

The Ramapo Fault is the longest fault in the Northeast that occasionally makes local headlines when minor tremors cause rock the Tri-State region. It begins in Pennsylvania, crosses the Delaware River and continues through Hunterdon, Somerset, Morris, Passaic and Bergen counties before crossing the Hudson River near Indian Point nuclear facility.

In the past, it has generated occasional activity that generated a 2.6 magnitude quake in New Jersey’s Peakpack/Gladstone area and 3.0 magnitude quake in Mendham.

But the New Jersey-New York region is relatively seismically stable according to Dr. Dave Robinson, Professor of Geography at Rutgers. Although it does have activity.

“There is occasional seismic activity in New Jersey,” said Robinson. “There have been a few quakes locally that have been felt and done a little bit of damage over the time since colonial settlement — some chimneys knocked down in Manhattan with a quake back in the 18th century, but nothing of a significant magnitude.”

Robinson said the Ramapo has on occasion registered a measurable quake but has not caused damage: “The Ramapo fault is associated with geological activities back 200 million years ago, but it’s still a little creaky now and again,” he said.

“More recently, in the 1970s and early 1980s, earthquake risk along the Ramapo Fault received attention because of its proximity to Indian Point,” according to the New Jersey Geological Survey website.

Historically, critics of the Indian Point Nuclear facility in Westchester County, New York, did cite its proximity to the Ramapo fault line as a significant risk.

In 1884, according to the New Jersey Geological Survey website, the  Rampao Fault was blamed for a 5.5 quake that toppled chimneys in New York City and New Jersey that was felt from Maine to Virginia.

“Subsequent investigations have shown the 1884 Earthquake epicenter was actually located in Brooklyn, New York, at least 25 miles from the Ramapo Fault,” according to the New Jersey Geological Survey website.

Babylon the Great May Spend $17.7 Billion To Deploy Just 21 Nuke-Killing Missiles

Pentagon May Spend $17.7 Billion To Deploy Just 21 Nuke-Killing Missiles

Sebastien Roblin

ContributorAerospace & Defense

On Tuesday, multiple outlets reported an estimate by the office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) that plans to deploy 21 nuclear-missile-destroying interceptors would cost a stunning $17.7 billion.

Lockheed Martin LMT and Northrop Grumman NOC are developing competing designs for the Next Generation Interceptor program, which seeks to deploy a successor to the Ground Based Interceptors used in the United State’s GMD ballistic missile defense system.

Currently, 44 interceptor are deployed in silos in Alaska and California to protect the United States from a small-scale intercontinental-range ballistic missile attack, presumably from North Korea.

Unfortunately, the GBI missiles have failed nine out of 20 intercept tests (45%) over the last 22 years and are not believed capable of reliably defeating more sophisticated ICBMs which employ decoys, evasive maneuvers and/or release multiple nuclear warheads.

Congress required an independent cost assessment of the NGI program by CAPE in its last defense funding bill. According to CAPE, the bulk of the money ($13.1 billion) spent on NGI would go to research and development, including production of 10 test missiles which would be launched in the mid-2020s.

Then $2.3 billion would be spent procuring and deploying 21 interceptors starting around 2028, increasing the GMD force to 65 missiles. Operating costs to maintain these missiles would then to amount to $2.2 billion over their service lives.

That suggests a staggering total program cost of nearly $843 million per operational anti-nuke missile deployed. However, the unit cost of $109 million might matter if the MDA chooses to order more missiles beyond the initial 21 (possibly to replace the original GBI missiles), improving the payoff from the the steep R&D costs.

Originally, the Pentagon planned to spend $5.3 billion to replace the GBI’s exoatmospheric kill vehicle (EKV)—launched from the interceptor to ram into incoming missiles—with an evolved model called the Redesigned Kill Vehicle, using existing components to cut costs. 

However, researchers warned they had found flaws with those components that would result in a high probability of failure. Critics of the GMD system also have long highlighted that it has not been tested against targets which employ multiple warheads or penetration aids, as found in many contemporary strategic missiles.

The technical risks, coupled with multiplying costs and a consensus that the RKV wasn’t improved enough to perform much better against advanced missiles led to the program’s cancelation in August 2019 after $1.21 billion had already been spent.

The Pentagon’s rebooted program seeks a new design rather than an evolutionary ‘patched together’ solution, with the goal of improving both reliability as well as fielding interceptors designed to cope with more challenging missile threats.

Unlike the RKV program, NGI has a competitive aspect. GBI contractor Boeing BA was eliminated from the running earlier in 2021, leaving Northrop Grumman (teamed with Raytheon) and Lockheed Martin to develop competing proposals for the Critical Design Review program phase, for which $1.6 billion has been allocated through 2022.

One locus of improvement relates to linking the NGI missile more densely and redundantly to various land, sea- and space-based sensors and command-and-control facilities to ensure it receives continuous guidance as it hurtles towards a nukes at up to 23 times the speed of sound.

In fact, leveraging additional sensors may expand the capability of the GMD to defend against hypersonic glide vehicle-type weaponslike Russia’s Avangard, which is released from an ICBM and flies on a flatter, more evasive trajectory than ballistic missiles.

Companies vying for the contract also mention multiple kill vehicle technology. This implies one missile might release several interceptors to smack down the multiple reentry-vehicles (MRVs or MIRVs; the latter type subtype more sophisticated) released by modern ICBMs. 

For, example a DF-41 ICBM deployed by China’s PLA Rocket Force can released ten or twelve MIRVs, each of which can strike a different target with ten times the explosive yield of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. North Korea’s Hwasong-15 and -16 ICBMs are believed to have capacity for multiple MRVs.

In practice, modern missiles are also likely deploy penetration aids, including decoys, jammers and other countermeasures, to divert fire from genuine nukes. It’s highly likely the NGI will harness new infrared and/or radar sensor technology in a bid to better discriminate between decoys and the warhead-armed MIRVs. 

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Is Limited Defense Worth the Price?

Unless the Pentagon eventually buys more NGI missiles, it is essentially paying well over a half-billion dollars for each missile deployed when you count in R&D expenses. In theory, that shocking expense would be more than made back if the improved missile prevented a nuclear attack on any densely populated area of the United States.

Unfortunately, whether the missile defense system does deter attack, or is likely to defeat an attempted attack, is unclear. 

So far, missile defense appears to have motivated China and Russia to invest in more advanced nuclear weapons like Avangard and the DF-41 at lower cost than the U.S. defense systems, creating a feedback loop in which the Pentagon argues it must spend billions fielding improved nuclear missiles to keep up with Russia and China’s upgraded capabilities. Quite simply, offense has long proven cheaper to mass and enhance than defense in nuclear warfare.

There are already the known reliability issues with the GMD system—ie. the 45% percent failure rate intercepting simple ballistic targets. Currently, it is believed the MDA might launch four or more missiles per incoming ICBM to increase certainty of interception, meaning the effective number of ICBMs the system can intercept is a fraction of the total fleet.

The NGI is hoped to address this issue—expert speculate it might reduce the number of interceptors launched to two per ICBM—but its success in doing so on budget is not assured based on the rocky history of the GMD and RKV program.

While providing uncertain defense versus North Korean ICBMs, the missile defense system has spurred an arms race with China and Russia despite its manifest incapacity to defend against Chia’s 200-300 nuclear weapons or Russia’s 1,550 strategic nukes.

Beijing and Moscow apparently fear the U.S. may attempt a preemptive precision strike against Russia or China’s strategic nuclear forces, premised on the belief that missile defense could mop up any surviving nukes lobbed back at the United States.

They also argue a successful November 2020 test of a Navy SM-3 Block IIA missile against a simulated ICBM implies the U.S. effectively can deploy these weapons too against a strategic nuclear attack. The SM-3 offers a shorter-range defensive umbrella than GMD, but potentially hundreds may be deployed on U.S. Navy ballistic missile defense ships.

Still, domestic critics of missile defense argue that the NGI’s programs extraordinary cost illustrates the unfavorable offense-defense balance.

Arms control expert Jeffrey Lewis opined on Twitter: “The US approach to missile defense reminds me of the store that loses money on every sale, but plans to make it up in volume. Maybe the new interceptor will allow fewer shots per target, but it is very hard to see how this is ever a winning strategy for the U.S.”

That said, theoretically, limited missile defense capability may reduce the potential for low-volume attacks from actors large and small by creating a “go for broke or go home” dynamic, ie. either launch enough missiles to swamp the defense system or don’t bother trying.

U.S. missile defense do clearly pose a more significant obstacle to a country with a smaller arsenal like North Korea—though seemingly not an insurmountable one given the numerous increasingly capable missile North Korea has deployed in the last decade despite limited economic means and international sanctions.

Ultimately, proponents of missile defense believe the highly expensive but limited defense it offers still provides meaningful protection to Americans from the horrors of a nuclear attack. Its critics believe it provides no defense that cannot be overcome at lesser cost, and that system’s existence only fuels the development of more advanced nuclear arms.

Quad Strategy against China’s nuclear Horn: Daniel 7

Quad Strategy against China’s military and economic ascent

April 28, 2021

China’s military and economic rise has had a great impact on the geopolitics of the world, as well as on in East Asia. However, China’s overall rise changed the political and nuclear dynamics of East Asia and South-east Asia, and has also influenced the strategies of the USA and its global strategic partners in the world order.

Mao Zedong’s and Deng Xiaoping’s strategic thought relies more on the goal of economic development, which the USA sees as harmful for the global economic order. China, as one of the largest states, is seen by the USA and its allies as the emerging power, threatening the US hegemony and creating adverse implications in the region. However, China argues it does not want to become a superpower; its national military, foreign and economic strategies are more directed towards its development and modernization goal.

The China’s People’s Liberation Army has achieved its goal in modernizing the Military Industrial Complex and nuclear development to become a national power. China’s modernization in its armed forces and military capabilities has created a far greater threat perception of China than of Russia by the USA and its allies.  China’s rise has an impact on the strategic dynamics and stability of East and South-east Asia, as China is a veto power ans permanent member of the UN Security Council and the founding member in many multilateral treaties and export control regimes.

The USA’s strategy towards neo-authoritarian China is more adversarial as the US-India’s strategic partnership’s main goal is to counter China. China with the world’s largest army modernizes its conventional forces and is now the leading air and naval power. China’s steady rise andits impact has threatened the US hegemony and changed the global hierarchical order.

China’s rise has impacted Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam and India, through its economic and defense policies. China’s military rise in the South China Sea has impacted the USA, Japan, North Korea, India and South Korea but also Indonesia which does not even share a border with it.

Since Mao’s economic and military development, China’s rise has been seen as an East Asian theatre in global politics; because of its focus on Taiwan, Hong Kong and the South China Sea. China’s nuclear strategy is more significant as any miscalculation between China and the USA can lead them to the nuclear threshold; while China defines its economic and military rise as peaceful since Mao.

US President Trump’s strategy towards China, included every factor countering China in every aspect. That strategy focuses on hastening India’s rise in South East Asia to counter China, as, during the global covid-19 pandemic, China and India had skirmishes in the Aksai-Chin Ladakh region. That US strategy also includes supporting Taiwan.

China’s economic and developmental initiative includes most likely the infrastructure, roads, bridges and technological advancement which somehow create the biggest difference to the USA’s educational and other initiatives. In December 2020, China stated that it would continue the dialogue with NATO. The reason was the 30-member North American and European security block identified China as a rising threat beside Russia.

The Trump Administration’s strategy also stated that India will be predominant in South-east Asia while countering the China, and North Korea will no longer pose any threat to the USA and its allies, while the USA will work with strategic partners to resist and counter China in its economic, military and national rise by undermining China’s sovereignty and territory.

That declassified document clearly shows the US strategy towards China is all about countering and resisting it in its rise while using all the coercive means and allies; the strategy also stated it would support any independent and free movement in South East China to counter China such as, resisting one nation and two system theory in Hong Kong and Taiwan, as well as anti-authoritarian protests.

Biden’s strategy towards China is a continuation of Trump’s strategy, and now it includes the strategic partnership while strengthening security ties with the Quad ally; the Australia-Japan-India-US anti-China nexus. All these strategies are designed to counter China’s economic and military rise as it is undermining the US security and hegemony in the global world order.

The Quad naval alliance sends aircraft, submarines and warships to the Indian Ocean. This shows the Quad’s strategy to counter China’s military rise in the South Asian and Indo-Pacific region. This happened in this global pandemic and China responds only with a statement to condemn the Quad’s Malabar naval exercises.

Quad countries do not have good ties with China individually as well; India and China had border skirmishes in the Galwan valley since after 1975, and Japan and China have a territorial dispute in disputed waters of the East China Sea.

The four democratic countries of the Quad tried their own strategies to counter China’s military and economic rise as they envision China as challenging the status quo, US hegemony in the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. These Quad countries also see China’s growing interdependencies with Southeast Asian states as exploitation of the economic order.

Hoever, the Quad informal alliance has faced challenges to deter and counter China. The US policy towards China in the Trump era was like a Cold-War style, where the strategy was containment. This containment strategy can be seen in the events happened in Trump’s tenure such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the false propaganda which the Doomsday clock triggers too, and the disagreements over trade. But the problem lies here in the Quads informal alliance; Japan and Australia are one step back in the US’s strategy, as Australia and Japan are the largest and second largest trading partners of China, respectively.

China said that Quad was the ‘Asian NATO’ with Japan, the USA, India and Australia lled by the USA to counter China. The Quad alliance viewed the countering of China meeting their strategic interest in their informal alliance, as the South China Sea and Indian Ocean are significant for India, while the East China Sea and South China Sea are significant to both the USA and Japan, while the Western Pacific is significant to Australia, So, the lack of the mutual interest between the Quad countries; such as between Japan, the USA, India and Australia, led to the failure of their informal alliance to counter China.

The Quad held a discussion in 2018 about the China’s economic initiatives, such as the BRI (Belt Road Initiative), but the Quad was unable to make progress in this discussion. In response, China did not adopt the policy the USSR did in the Cold war. instead Deng Xiaoping stated that China will go for free trade with more countries with a strategy of cooperation and openness. Deng also stated China would enthusiastically cooperate with all countries, regions and enterprises around the world that are also willing.

China’s economic and developmental initiative includes most likely the infrastructure, roads, bridges and technological advancement which somehow create the biggest difference to the USA’s educational and other initiatives. In December 2020, China stated that it would continue the dialogue with NATO. The reason was the 30-member North American and European security block identified China as a rising threat beside Russia.

NATO also added China to its list of the countries that needed internal reform. It stated that China needs to change its policies, such as spending highly on its defence budget, and the interdependences and influence China is creating on other countries through its strategy of infrastructure investment such as the Belt Road Initiative.

Israel Tries to Stop Hamas From Being Elected: Revelation 11

Hamas: Israel Responsible for Delaying Palestinian Elections, ‘Jerusalem Vote Is a Red Line’

The Gaza-based group calls on the Palestinian Authority to hold the vote – the Palestinians’ first in 15 years – in Jerusalem even without Israel’s consent

Jack KhouryApr. 28, 2021 9:59 PM
Palestinian group Hamas said on Wednesday it opposes delaying or canceling legislative elections set for next month, claiming Israel is responsible for the expected announcement by President Mahmoud Abbas to postpone the vote over disputes with Israel as to voting in East Jerusalem.

“The Jerusalem vote is a red line,” Hamas said in a statement carried by Palestinian media, “and no Palestinian should accept an election without Jerusalem, our eternal capital.” The group said the vote – the first since 2006 – should take place in Jerusalem even without Israel’s agreement, claiming the Oslo Accords allow that.

The official argument made in support of deferring the election is Israel’s opposition to voting in East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in 1967 and over which the Palestinian Authority does not have jurisdiction.

The Israeli government has not officially said whether it would permit polling stations to be established there, but Palestinian political sources say Mahmoud Abbas is interested in the postponement due to concern that his Fatah party would not secure the electoral victory that it is seeking.

According to Hamas, “elections must be held in Jerusalem” as a show of force “against the occupation,” amid heightened tensions in the city over the past weeks, with Palestinian residents and Israeli forces clashing in the Old City.

“We don’t take away responsibility from the occupation for delaying the elections,” Hamas added. Israel “bears responsibility for our people’s deprivation of rights,” it said, also taking a jab at “other international actors” who Hamas claims enable Israel’s policies against the Palestinians.

A Hamas political official told Haaretz the organization understands a decision had already been made. “It was clear that there were no elections and that Mahmoud Abbas has decided,” the official said.

Newly restored calm along Israel-Gaza border is only temporary
Palestinian sources: Fatah’s leaders have already decided to postpone May’s election
Canceling the Palestinian elections is patronizing, unjust – and dangerous
He added Hamas doesn’t plan a response that could risk a major escalation, such as rocket fire toward Israel. Meanwhile, Palestinian media reported a resumption of the Hamas unit launching explosive-laden balloons across the border, as a response both for the election delay and Israel’s decision to close off Gaza’s fishing zone.

Earlier on Wednesday, Palestinian officials have told Haaretz the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas’ rival Fatah party reached an internal decision to defer the parliamentary elections.

All of the Palestinian factions plan to meet later this week to discuss the issue and make an official decision on the elections, currently slated to take place May 22.

In an effort to pressure Israel to succumb to his request, President Abbas met Wednesday with European Union Representative to West Bank and Gaza Strip, Sven Kuhn von Burgsdorff, in Ramallah.

Real Risk, Few Precautions (Revelation 6:12)

      By WILLIAM K. STEVENS

Published: October 24, 1989
AN EARTHQUAKE as powerful as the one that struck northern California last week could occur almost anywhere along the East Coast, experts say. And if it did, it would probably cause far more destruction than the West Coast quake.
The chances of such an occurrence are much less in the East than on the West Coast. Geologic stresses in the East build up only a hundredth to a thousandth as fast as in California, and this means that big Eastern quakes are far less frequent. Scientists do not really know what the interval between them might be, nor are the deeper-lying geologic faults that cause them as accessible to study. So seismologists are at a loss to predNew York,Earthquake,Nuclear,Sixth Seal,new jersey,revelation 6,nyc,andrewtheprophet,indian point,Andrew the Prophet,ict when or where they will strike.
But they do know that a temblor with a magnitude estimated at 7 on the Richter scale – about the same magnitude as last week’s California quake – devastated Charleston, S.C., in 1886. And after more than a decade of study, they also know that geologic structures similar to those that caused the Charleston quake exist all along the Eastern Seaboard.
For this reason, ”we can’t preclude that a Charleston-sized earthquake might occur anywhere along the East Coast,” said David Russ, the assistant chief geologist of the United States Geological Survey in Reston, Va. ”It could occur in Washington. It could occur in New York.”
If that happens, many experts agree, the impact will probably be much greater than in California.Easterners, unlike Californians, have paid very little attention to making buildings and other structures earthquake-proof or earthquake-resistant. ”We don’t have that mentality here on the East Coast,” said Robert Silman, a New York structural engineer whose firm has worked on 3,800 buildings in the metropolitan area.
Moreover, buildings, highways, bridges, water and sewer systems and communications networks in the East are all older than in the West and consequently more vulnerable to damage. Even under normal conditions, for instance, water mains routinely rupture in New York City.
The result, said Dr. John Ebel, a geophysicist who is the assistant director of Boston College’s Weston Observatory, is that damage in the East would probably be more widespread, more people could be hurt and killed, depending on circumstances like time of day, and ”it would probably take a lot longer to get these cities back to useful operating levels.”
On top of this, scientists say, an earthquake in the East can shake an area 100 times larger than a quake of the same magnitude in California. This is because the earth’s crust is older, colder and more brittle in the East and tends to transmit seismic energy more efficiently. ”If you had a magnitude 7 earthquake and you put it halfway between New York City and Boston,” Dr. Ebel said, ”you would have the potential of doing damage in both places,” not to mention cities like Hartford and Providence.
Few studies have been done of Eastern cities’ vulnerability to earthquakes. But one, published last June in The Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, calculated the effects on New York City of a magnitude 6 earthquake. That is one-tenth the magnitude of last week’s California quake, but about the same as the Whittier, Calif., quake two years ago.
The study found that such an earthquake centered 17 miles southeast of City Hall, off Rockaway Beach, would cause $11 billion in damage to buildings and start 130 fires. By comparison, preliminary estimates place the damage in last week’s California disaster at $4 billion to $10 billion. If the quake’s epicenter were 11 miles southeast of City Hall, the study found, there would be about $18 billion in damage; if 5 miles, about $25 billion.
No estimates on injuries or loss of life were made. But a magnitude 6 earthquake ”would probably be a disaster unparalleled in New York history,” wrote the authors of the study, Charles Scawthorn and Stephen K. Harris of EQE Engineering in San Francisco.
The study was financed by the National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The research and education center, supported by the National Science Foundation and New York State, was established in 1986 to help reduce damage and loss of life from earthquakes.
The study’s postulated epicenter of 17 miles southeast of City Hall was the location of the strongest quake to strike New York since it has been settled, a magnitude 5 temblor on Aug. 10, 1884. That 1884 quake rattled bottles and crockery in Manhattan and frightened New Yorkers, but caused little damage. Seismologists say a quake of that order is likely to occur within 50 miles of New York City every 300 years. Quakes of magnitude 5 are not rare in the East. The major earthquake zone in the eastern half of the country is the central Mississippi Valley, where a huge underground rift causes frequent geologic dislocations and small temblors. The most powerful quake ever known to strike the United States occurred at New Madrid, Mo., in 1812. It was later estimated at magnitude 8.7 and was one of three quakes to strike that area in 1811-12, all of them stronger than magnitude 8. They were felt as far away as Washington, where they rattled chandeliers, Boston and Quebec.
Because the New Madrid rift is so active, it has been well studied, and scientists have been able to come up with predictions for the central Mississippi valley, which includes St. Louis and Memphis. According to Dr. Russ, there is a 40 to 63 percent chance that a quake of magnitude 6 will strike that area between now and the year 2000, and an 86 to 97 percent chance that it will do so by 2035. The Federal geologists say there is a 1 percent chance or less of a quake greater than magnitude 7 by 2000, and a 4 percent chance or less by 2035.
Elsewhere in the East, scientists are limited in their knowledge of probabilities partly because faults that could cause big earthquakes are buried deeper in the earth’s crust. In contrast to California, where the boundary between two major tectonic plates creates the San Andreas and related faults, the eastern United States lies in the middle of a major tectonic plate. Its faults are far less obvious, their activity far more subtle, and their slippage far slower. 
Any large earthquake would be ”vastly more serious” in the older cities of the East than in California,  said Dr. Tsu T. Soong, a professor of civil engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo who is a researcher in earthquake-mitigation technology at the National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research. First, he said, many buildings are simply older, and therefore weaker and more  vulnerable to collapse. Second, there is no seismic construction code in most of the East as there is in California, where such codes have been in place for decades.
The vulnerability is evident in many ways. ”I’m sitting here looking out my window,” said Mr. Silman, the structural engineer in New York, ”and I see a bunch of water tanks all over the place” on rooftops. ”They are not anchored down at all, and it’s very possible they would fall in an earthquake.”
 Many brownstones, he said, constructed as they are of unreinforced masonry walls with wood joists between, ”would just go like a house of cards.” Unreinforced masonry, in fact, is the single most vulnerable structure, engineers say. Such buildings are abundant, even predominant, in many older cities. The Scawthorn-Harris study reviewed inventories of all buildings in Manhattan as of 1972 and found that 28,884, or more than half, were built of unreinforced masonry. Of those, 23,064 were three to five stories high.
Buildings of reinforced masonry, reinforced concrete and steel would hold up much better, engineers say, and wooden structures are considered intrinsically tough in ordinary circumstances. The best performers, they say, would probably be skyscrapers built in the last 20 years. As Mr. Silman explained, they have been built to withstand high winds, and the same structural features that enable them to do so also help them resist an earthquake’s force. But even these new towers have not been provided with the seismic protections required in California and so are more vulnerable than similar structures on the West Coast.
Buildings in New York are not generally constructed with such seismic protections as base-isolated structures, in which the building is allowed to shift with the ground movement; or with flexible frames that absorb and distribute energy through columns and beams so that floors can flex from side to side, or with reinforced frames that help resist distortion.
”If you’re trying to make a building ductile – able to absorb energy – we’re not geared to think that way,” said Mr. Silman.
New York buildings also contain a lot of decorative stonework, which can be dislodged and turned into lethal missiles by an earthquake. In California, building codes strictly regulate such architectural details.
Manhattan does, however, have at least one mitigating factor: ”We are blessed with this bedrock island,” said Mr. Silman. ”That should work to our benefit; we don’t have shifting soils. But there are plenty of places that are problem areas, particularly the shoreline areas,” where landfills make the ground soft and unstable.
As scientists have learned more about geologic faults in the Northeast, the nation’s uniform building code – the basic, minimum code followed throughout the country – has been revised accordingly. Until recently, the code required newly constructed buildings in New York City to withstand at least 19 percent of the side-to-side seismic force that a comparable building in the seismically active areas of California must handle. Now the threshold has been raised to 25 percent.
New York City, for the first time, is moving to adopt seismic standards as part of its own building code. Local and state building codes can and do go beyond the national code. Charles M. Smith Jr., the city Building Commissioner, last spring formed a committee of scientists, engineers, architects and government officials to recommend the changes.
”They all agree that New York City should anticipate an earthquake,” Mr. Smith said. As to how big an earthquake, ”I don’t think anybody would bet on a magnitude greater than 6.5,” he said. ”I don’t know,” he added, ”that our committee will go so far as to acknowledge” the damage levels in the Scawthorn-Harris study, characterizing it as ”not without controversy.”
For the most part, neither New York nor any other Eastern city has done a detailed survey of just how individual buildings and other structures would be affected, and how or whether to modify them.
”The thing I think is needed in the East is a program to investigate all the bridges” to see how they would stand up to various magnitudes of earthquake,” said Bill Geyer, the executive vice president of the New York engineering firm of Steinman, Boynton, Gronquist and Birdsall, which is rehabilitating the cable on the Williamsburg Bridge. ”No one has gone through and done any analysis of the existing bridges.”
In general, he said, the large suspension bridges, by their nature, ”are not susceptible to the magnitude of earthquake you’d expect in the East.” But the approaches and side spans of some of them might be, he said, and only a bridge-by-bridge analysis would tell. Nor, experts say, are some elevated highways in New York designed with the flexibility and ability to accommodate motion that would enable them to withstand a big temblor.
Tunnels Vulnerable
The underground tunnels that carry travelers under the rivers into Manhattan, those that contain the subways and those that carry water, sewers and natural gas would all be vulnerable to rupture, engineers say. The Lincoln, Holland, PATH and Amtrak tunnels, for instance, go from bedrock in Manhattan to soft soil under the Hudson River to bedrock again in New Jersey, said Mark Carter, a partner in Raamot Associates, geotechnical engineers specializing in soils and foundations.
Likewise, he said, subway tunnels between Manhattan and Queens go from hard rock to soft soil to hard rock on Roosevelt Island, to soft soil again and back to rock. The boundaries between soft soil and rock are points of weakness, he said.
”These structures are old,” he said, ”and as far as I know they have not been designed for earthquake loadings.”
Even if it is possible to survey all major buildings and facilities to determine what corrections can be made, cities like New York would then face a major decision: Is it worth spending the money to modify buildings and other structures to cope with a quake that might or might not come in 100, or 200 300 years or more?
”That is a classical problem” in risk-benefit analysis, said Dr. George Lee, the acting director of the Earthquake Engineering Research Center in Buffalo. As more is learned about Eastern earthquakes, he said, it should become ”possible to talk about decision-making.” But for now, he said, ”I think it’s premature for us to consider that question.”

Sleepwalking into Nuclear War? Revelation 8

Sleepwalking into Nuclear War?

Jonathan Power27 April 2021

Image credit: Defense One

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN) — Last week on Tuesday (April 20), US Strategic Command, the part of the military responsible for nuclear weaponry and its use, posted an official Tweet that read, “We must account for the possibility of conflict leading to conditions which could very rapidly drive an adversary to consider nuclear use as their least bad option”.

This came just as Russia was pulling back its large deployment of troops on Ukraine’s border which, in turn, was triggered in part by President Joseph Biden’s decision to ship for the first time sophisticated weapons to Ukraine.

The crisis has now passed but the lesson lingers. Arguably we are closer to war with Russia than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 (which I wrote about last week, April 20).

It seems that the joint pledge made by Presidents Ronald Regan and Mikhail Gorbachev at their historic summit in Geneva in 1985, that there can be no nuclear war between them and that “no one can win a nuclear war”, is being undermined by both sides.

This rocky state of affairs was triggered by President George W. Bush who abrogated the important Anti-Missile Treaty made with the Soviet Union. Moscow felt the treaty gave both capitals protection against a nuclear attack.

This was followed by President Donald Trump abrogating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty that forbad the deployment of missiles based in Europe. (The US side said that it was nullifying its signature because Russia was about to introduce a weapon that did not observe the requirements of the treaty— an assertion that Moscow refuted. Both sides should have gone to the UN to ask for arbitration.)

In November, last year, the US successfully launched a test of its new Aegis System, capable of intercepting a long-range nuclear ballistic missile. Washington has long told Moscow that it had no plans to introduce into Europe rockets that could strike Moscow’s own intercontinental-range rockets while in flight.

Previously, the Aegis had been advertised by the USA as being limited to aborting threats from short and intermediate-range missiles. But the Aegis, in a first strike, can make nonsense of Russia’s structure of deterrence. Once Aegis is deployed it is likely to have the consequence of ending further mutual cuts in nuclear weapons stocks. 

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has its famous Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight. It describes this as “the new abnormal”.

Apart from the uncertainties described above is the likelihood of nuclear war by accident. I described one incident during the Cuban Missile Crisis in last week’s column. There are a number of others, many of which I’ve investigated to see if they are true. You will find a long list on Google if you enter “accidental nuclear war”. In one case National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brezinski was awakened in the middle of the night to be told that there was an incoming Russian nuclear attack. He told the military to check it out to be sure. The minutes passed by while Brzezinski wondered should he wake the president (Jimmy Carter).

At that moment the word came in that it was a false alert. Brzezinski mused afterwards that in those few minutes he wondered if should he wake his wife, but then he reasoned it was better if she slept if they were going to be blown to smithereens.

Former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has observed, “We survived the Cold War by the skin of our teeth, entirely by sheer, dumb, luck.” A former head of Strategic Command, General George Butler, who resigned after concluding the nuclear launch systems he presided over could not be morally justified, has made the same point.

Former senator Sam Nunn, who is widely considered one of the top experts on nuclear weapons, who led the effort at the end of the Cold War to dismantle Russian rockets, has said we are “sleepwalking into nuclear catastrophe”. Human beings do do this, witness the two world wars and the present crisis of climate change whose dangers we were warned about over 40 years ago.

Caitlin Johnstone has made the point in an article on the website of Russia Today that “people like to think that every nuclear-armed country has only one “button”, with which a president could consciously choose to start a nuclear war, after careful deliberation. But in fact there are thousands of people in the world controlling different parts of different arsenals who could independently initiate a nuclear war.

The arrogance of believing anyone can control such a conflict over years on end is astounding”. I think her “thousands” is perhaps an exaggeration. But certainly a few hundreds if you count in launch officers, rogue commanders (who thankfully, until now, have been identified almost at the last moment) and senior office holders in the chain of command.

The detonation of just 100 nuclear warheads would be sufficient to throw five teragrams of black soot into the earth’s stratosphere for decades, blocking out the sun, the consequences of which everyone knows.

On April 26, the respected Stockholm Institute for Peace Research reportedthat the US last year had increased it spending on modernizing its nuclear armoury. We know from President Vladimir Putin’s statements that Russia is doing the same. He has even threatened the West with a new hypersonic nuclear missile that Russian scientists are developing.

It seems to be only yesterday that the Americans were helping Russia remove its weapons-grade plutonium and dismantling its rockets based in Ukraine. That era has gone.

Where is the most likely flashpoint? Ukraine. Fortunately at the moment there is no other. Ukraine is the Poland of today. (I suggest those who would like to know about the parallels of the events in Ukraine with the start in Poland of the unnecessary World War 2 should read the work of Oxford University’s historian, A.J.P Taylor’s “The Origins of the Second World War”.)

In an article in the Washington Times last week, Edward Lozansky, president of the American University in Moscow and a seasoned Russia-watcher, says this is where World War Three could start. “The Kiev government is trying with its tail to “wag the dog” and draw America and Nato into their dangerous game. “Washington keeps accusing Russia of violating the Minsk accords when it is President Volodymyr Zelenskiy who openly declares that these accords are not acceptable in their current formulations”.

Have both Washington and Kiev forgotten that the Minsk accords had the imprimaturs of Germany, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and France? If the accords had been implemented, it would have diffused the Ukraine crisis.

We have gone from MAD to MADDER. (Mad is the acronym for Mutually Assured Destruction, a phrase beloved by the military.)

Relative to the stakes—the corrupt, badly run, repressive state of Ukraine—how could a sensible person consider nuclear war for the first time in 30 years? But some of the generals and would-be generals on both sides appear to believe it is a serious option.

* About the author: The writer was for 17 years a foreign affairs columnist and commentator for the International Herald Tribune, now the New York Times. He has also written many dozens of columns for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times. He is the European who has appeared most on the opinion pages of these papers. Visit his website:www.jonathanpowerjournalist.com[IDN-InDepthNews — 27 April 2021]

Image credit: Defense One

Israeli army drone falls outside the Temple Walls: Revelation 11 ]

JERUSALEM 

The Israeli army said Wednesday that one of its drones fell in northern Gaza during a routine operation in the area.

Avichay Adraee, a spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), confirmed the news in a statement on Twitter, adding there are “no concerns of leaked information” from the drone.

Meanwhile, a source from one of the resistance groups in Gaza who spoke to Anadolu Agency on the condition that the group’s name is not mentioned said his group seized the drone but did not give further details.

Gaza has witnessed a military escalation since Friday in which Palestinian resistance groups have fired rockets from Gaza towards Israeli areas while the Israeli army has targeted several locations in Gaza of Hamas’s military wing.

The developments in Gaza took place after clashes erupted in Jerusalem between Palestinians and Israeli forces who tried to prevent them from gathering in the Damascus gate area of Jerusalem’s Old City.

On Monday, the Israeli security cabinet authorized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz to attack Gaza if rockets continued to be fired.

*Ahmed Asmar contributed to this report from Ankara

Iran stands in a united front with Palestine outside the Temple Walls: Revelation 11

Imam Khamenei: Iran stands in a united front with Palestine

News Code : 1135588

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA):Ayatollah Khamenei has responded to the messages of Hezbollah Secretary-General and Hamas’s Hanieh on the demise of the second-in-command of the IRGC Quds Force, stressing that Iran stands in a united front with Palestine.

In his separate messages, the Leader expressed gratitude to Nasrallah and Haniyeh for their condolences on the demise of the second-in-command of the IRGC Quds Force General Hejazi who passed away last week.

Leader said that General Hejazi passed away after spending his life doing Jihad for the sake of God.

In the message to the Hamas official, Ayatollah Khamenei said that Iran stands in a united front with Palestine and the Palestinian brothers. He also wished victory for the Palestinian nation.

Rising tensions and violence outside the Temple Walls: Revelation 11

Israel – Palestine – Rising tensions and violence in Jerusalem and Gaza (DG ECHO, EUDEL, media) (ECHO Daily Flash of 26 April 2021)

News and Press Release Source ECHO Posted 26 Apr 2021 Originally published 26 Apr 2021 Origin View original
A week of turmoil in Jerusalem resulted in heightened tensions across large swathes of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, with protesters chanting “death to Arabs”.
From 23 to 26 April, 41 rockets were launched from Gaza to Israel. This was the largest barrage of rockets since 2018. Israeli Defence Forces responded with retaliation strikes from air, sea and ground against Hamas positions. There were no injuries reported.
Tensions have risen with the erection of barricades preventing people from celebrating Ramadan at traditional prayer sites and there are worries that the situation may further deteriorate if Palestinian elections planned for 22 May 2021 are cancelled.

Hamas Continues to Threaten Israel: Revelation 11

Hamas to ‘Israel’: Any Folly Will Be Met by Unprecedented Response

Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades
The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, military wing of Hamas resistance group.
Hamas Palestinian Resistance movement has threatened the Zionist occupation of an unprecedented response in case the Israeli regime commits any folly, Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar reported on Tuesday.

As the Israeli occupation claims it wants to deescalate tensions in Al-Quds through removing barricades in Damascus Gate of Al-Quds Old City, the Palestinian Resistance movement insists on setting a formula that relates between Al-Quds and Gaza missiles, the Lebanese paper said.

Hamas considers that Israeli oppression against Palestinians in Al-Quds is still ongoing, despite the measures taken in Damascus Gate, according to Al-Akhbar.

Israeli pressure on the Palestinians has been also up, as the occupation prevents Gazans from fishing off the coastal enclave, sources affiliated with Hamas told the daily.

Hamas-affiliated sources told Al-Akhbar that Egypt and the UN envoy to the Middle East Tour Winsland had contacted Hamas to investigate the situation in Quds and Gaza Strip, and quoted the Zionists as saying that Tel Aviv did not intend to escalate the situation in Al-Quds.

According to these sources, Winsland has told Hamas that he will prevent any movement that provokes Muslims, but Hamas has said that this is not enough in return for the occupation continuous violations against the Palestinians in Al-Quds and at Al-Aqsa Mosque, in addition to preventing the Palestinian elections in Al-Quds.

Hamas has sent through mediators a message to the Zionist entity that any folly by the occupation will be met by unprecedented response, the daily reported.

Source: Al-Akhbar Lebanese daiy

Israel Manipulates the U.S. into War

A Prospective Undersecretary of Defense Appears to Believe That Israel Manipulates the U.S. into War

For decades, the canard that Israel tricks America into fighting wars on its behalf has been a favorite of anti-Semites of both left and right. Among those who have echoed it is Colin Kahl, who served as then-Vice-President Joe Biden’s national-security adviser and whose nomination for undersecretary of defense for policy is now being considered by the Senate. Kahl made the insinuation after Israel announced the capture of an Iranian nuclear archive in 2018, tweeting, “Let’s see what this is. But this sure has an eerie pre-2003 Iraq vibe to it”—implying, it seems, that Jerusalem hoped the U.S. would use the finding as reason to invade the Islamic Republic. Tony Badran comments:

The Shi’a Horn Strikes Saudi Arabia : Daniel

Explosive-laden ‘drone’ boat targets Saudi port of Yanbu

By JON GAMBRELL and ISABEL DEBRE , Associated Press
April 27, 2021 – 9:50 AM

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A remotely piloted boat packed with explosives targeted the Saudi port of Yanbu in the Red Sea on Tuesday, the kingdom said, with the blast sending black smoke into the sky off the coast.

Saudi Arabia claimed to have intercepted and destroyed the attack boat. However, private security firms suggested commercial traffic near the port may have been hit in the assault.

At Least 40 Rockets Fired From Outside the Temple Walls Strike Southern Israel

At Least 40 Rockets Fired From Gaza Strike Southern Israel

Illustrative: Rising smoke in Gaza after it was hit by Israeli airstrikes, November 15, 2012. (Scott Bobb/Voice of America)

The Media Line Staff

04/25/2021

At least 40 rockets were launched from Gaza into southern Israel over the weekend. The rocket attacks began late Friday night, stretching into Saturday morning; several more rockets were fired on Saturday night.

Some of the rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system and the rest landed in empty fields. Some damage was reported. Several other rockets landed in Gazan territory.

The Israel Defense Forces responded to the rocket attacks with air strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza, including rocket launchers and what the military described as “underground infrastructure.”

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, the military arm of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s Abu Ali Mustapha Brigades claimed responsibility for the attacks. They said the attacks were in response to the current clashes between Arabs and Palestinians in Jerusalem with Jewish extremists and police.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday held a meeting with defense officials to assess the situation in the wake of the attacks. He said following the meeting that the IDF should “prepare for any scenario” with Gaza. Defense Minister Benny Gantz said in a statement that the military “will do what is necessary so the calm is preserved/”

Meanwhile, the IDF announced that IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi would postpone a scheduled trip to the United States due to the current situation of unrest.

Antichrist attempts political barter with Kadhimi ahead of Iraq’s elections

 

Sadr attempts political barter with Kadhimi ahead of Iraq’s elections

BAGHDAD – Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr has pledged to support Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi for a second term, if the latter decides not to run a party of his own in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

An Iraqi political source familiar with the matter revealed to The Arab Weekly the existence of electoral understandings between Kadhimi and Sadr. According to these , the source said, the Sadrist movement will support the current prime minister to remain at the head of the government in exchange for Kadhimi’s commitment not to form a party or a bloc and not to enter the parliamentary elections that are expected to take place this October.

The source confirmed to The Arab Weekly that these understandings are supported by Shia political forces represented by the former premier Haider al-Abadi and the head of the Wisdom Movement Ammar al-Hakim, as well as by Sunni forces represented by parliamentary speaker Muhammad al-Halbousi and Kurdish groups led by the former president of the Kurdistan Region Masoud Barzani.

Kifah Mahmoud, the media adviser to the Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, confirmed that Kadhimi is still quite popular as a political figure, noting the premier’s serious efforts towards resolving the country’s differences with the Kurdistan region. Mahmoud also stressed the good personal relations Kadhimi has with Barzani and the other Kurdish political leaders.

He added that Kadhimi is viewed as the closest Iraqi politician to the Kurdish leadership.

Kadhimi, Mahmoud explained, had enjoyed Kurdish support ever since he took office as prime minister in May 2020.

This means that Kadhimi will probably get Sadrist and Kurdish support for a second term, Barzani’s media adviser said, noting the progress of understandings between the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Sadrist movement.

This comes at a time when Sadr is warning of attempts by some parties to weaken security in Iraq with the aim of delaying or cancelling the general parliamentary election.

“There are parties who want to weaken security in Iraq for many reasons, the most important of which is delaying or cancelling elections.” said Sadr in a tweet on his personal account. “To achieve this, these parties are tasking unruly militias with mounting attacks against the occupying forces, hoping to cancel their withdrawal. The presence of occupying forces is, in fact, the only excuse for the militias to remain active,” .

Political forces are betting on Kadhimi as the safest option in order to control the street and prevent the outbreak of new protests, especially in the light of the progress of the anti-corruption campaign that has targeted graft involving a number of political figures.

An Iraqi parliamentary source said, “If Muqtada Sadr changed his position from initially wanting a Sadrist as the next PM to supporting Kadhimi for a second term, then this is only some sort of practical understanding of the reality on the ground.”

Kadhimi represents an ideal option for the Sadrists, especially if they can achieve an electoral victory in the upcoming polls.

However, Iraqi academic and political analyst Rahim al-Kaabi warned, “The road is still long for Kadhimi to dispel Iran’s fears and doubts about his person. Iran’s trust is the most crucial factor that can decide the fortunes of a candidate to the position of Iraq’s Prime Minister.”

Kaabi told The Arab Weekly that Kadhimi needs more than “cross-quota alliances” to secure a second term.

Fierce competition

Political observers agree that the upcoming elections, if held on time, will witness a fierce competition between state forces and non-state actors, particularly Iranian militias.

The pro-Iranian agents are aware that it is difficult to win the battle for the position of the next prime minister, but they are working hard to prevent any party from getting the required majority to name the next premier by itself.

Though Sadr is the spiritual father of all armed militias, his problematic relationship with Tehran has put him in the complex position of no war and no peace with Iran, a position that can be changed at any time.

Iraqi political forces and parties believe that Sadr, not the state, is the one who is capable of standing up to non-state actors. The cost of such a scenario will be the replacement of currently uncontrolled weapons with a spread of less uncontrolled weapons.

Two Shia camps are set to emerge ahead of and during the upcoming election. The first is what can be called the national Shia forces, the forces of moderation, or as some call them “the state forces”. These include Kadhimi, Abadi and Hakim, as well as Sadr, if he continues his current approach and does not make a U-turn as he has done before.

The second Shia camp includes militia groups that have political ambitions, such as the Badr Organisation led by Hadi al-Amiri and the Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq led by Qais Khazali. The second camp also includes the Islamic Dawa Party headed by Nuri al-Maliki, and parties known as “loyalists” because of their absolute loyalty to the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, or other non-state actors.

Iraq’s old political figures, experts say, know that they will not be able to control the scene anymore, especially after their sectarian strategies and tactics have become ineffective when it comes to mobilising voters. This will push part of the political class to declare its support for Kadhimi in his attempt to gain the public’s confidence and change in the political balance within the House of Representatives.

Kaabi, however, believes that the political class in Iraq is well aware that the elections are nothing but “a show” to give substance to their political projects, and finalise their already-settled deals.

“Iran, which is ecstatic with its nuclear negotiations with the international community, wants to reposition itself in Iraq, and Kadhimi will not be its ideal option, even if he is the godfather of Tehran’s normalisation of relations with Saudi Arabia – a normalisation that will top the agenda of Iran’s Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif’s visit to Baghdad,” Kaabi said.

“Tehran has its allies and means of pressure inside Iraq and this will make Washington and the democrats, who are restless about the Iraqi file, lose patience,” he added.

The Impending Sixth Seal (Revelation 6:12)

   

Massachusetts struck by 4.0 magnitude earthquake felt as far as Long Island

By Jackie Salo

November 8, 2020 

A 3.6-magnitude earthquake shook Bliss Corner, Massachusetts, on Sunday morning, officials said — startling residents across the Northeast who expressed shock about the rare tremors.

The quake struck the area about five miles southwest of the community in Buzzards Bay just after 9 a.m. — marking the strongest one in the area since a magnitude 3.5 temblor in March 1976, the US Geological Survey said.

With a depth of 9.3 miles, the impact was felt across Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and into Connecticut and Long Island, New York.

“This is the strongest earthquake that we’ve recorded in that area — Southern New England,” USGS geophysicist Paul Caruso told The Providence Journal.

But the quake was still considered “light” on the magnitude scale, meaning that it was felt but didn’t cause significant damage.

The quake, however, was unusual for the region — which has only experienced 26 larger than a magnitude 2.5 since 1973, Caruso said.

Around 14,000 people went onto the USGS site to report the shaking — with some logging tremors as far as Easthampton, Massachusetts, and Hartford, Connecticut, both about 100 miles away.

“It’s common for them to be felt very far away because the rock here is old and continuous and transmits the energy a long way,” Caruso said.

Journalist Katie Couric was among those on Long Island to be roused by the Sunday-morning rumblings.

“Did anyone on the east coast experience an earthquake of sorts?” Couric wrote on Twitter.

“We are on Long Island and the attic and walls rattled.”

Closer to the epicenter, residents estimated they felt the impact for 10 to 15 seconds.

“In that moment, it feels like it’s going on forever,” said Ali Kenner Brodsky, who lives in Dartmouth, Massachusetts.