Day: December 6, 2017

Prepare for the Sixth Seal (Revelation 6:12)

PALISADES, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) – Many are still shaken from a 4.1 earthquake that was felt along the East Coast on Thursday.

As CBS2’s Vanessa Murdock reported, while seismic activity doesn’t happen often in this region, it isn’t as unusual as you might think.

Surveillance video shed light on the shaking caused by Thursday’s earthquake centered near Dover, Delaware.

“I saw the fence right in front of us shake,” one man said.

“It was very brief, but it was very intense,” a woman added.

The earth moved hundreds of miles away.

“I was surprised that people felt it this far north,” said one man.

The seismograph at Lamont Doughtery Earth Observatory, just north of the city, came to life around 4:48 p.m.

Seismologist Won-Young Kim says earthquakes happening here are nothing new. He showed Murdock a map of three fault lines that run right through Manhattan – one at 125th Street.

“That’s a major break,” he said.

There’s one at Dykman Street and one that runs through Midtown and Gramercy. Thankfully, they’re all considered inactive.

However, you might recall back in 2001, a quake measuring 2.6 on the Richter scale centered near Long Island City woke folks from their slumber.

“The ground jumped. It gave a good bolt,” one man said.

In 1985, a 4.0 magnitude quake was centered in Ardsley, Westchester County. Sarah Buff of Harlem, remembers it well.

“My mom was like kind of hysterical,” she said.

In 1884, a 5.0 quake struck Far Rockaway.

What about something stronger?

“I do wonder, yes,” said one woman.

Like a quake similar to the 8.2 that devastated parts of southern Mexico in September.

“I think it would be devastating,” another woman said.

Kim’s colleague, Heather Savage, said it’s highly unlikely we’ll experience anything like that, because of where we sit on the North American tectonic plate.

“You see the plate boundary is out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean,” she explained.

It’s called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. On the West Coast, it’s the San Andreas Fault, where ‘the big one’ is much more likely to occur.

But something smaller could happen anytime. Experts cannot predict

Indian Point Still Subject to the Sixth Seal (Revelation 6:12)

CORTLANDT, NY — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has decided to allow Entergy to defer seismic and flooding evaluations of Indian Point. Those evaluations are part of a series of new requirements imposed on the nation’s nuclear power plants after the Fukushima disaster in 2011.

The NRC required all U.S. nuclear power plants to perform a new evaluation of their seismic and flooding risks. Based on information developed during an initial assessment, plant owners might have had to conduct further evaluations and possibly make modifications to the facilities.

However, in January Entergy announced its intention to permanently shut down the two operating reactors at Indian Point, Units 2 and 3, in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

Subsequently, the company asked for a deferral of remaining seismic and flooding evaluations/changes in light of work that was already performed and the limited operational timeframe for the plant. On May 10, 2017, Entergy requested a deferral of the remaining seismic responses, including seismic probabilistic risk assessments (SPRAs) and spent fuel pool evaluations. On July 24, 2017, the company requested a deferral of the remaining flooding responses.

The NRC has concluded that the deferral of the remaining seismic and flooding evaluations/changes at the Indian Point nuclear power plant – until after the facility is permanently shut down — is acceptable and poses no immediate safety concerns, said spokesman Neil Sheehan.

Among other things, this is based on:

  • Indian Point’s compliance with NRC post-Fukushima requirements on Mitigating Strategies for Beyond Design Basis events and enhanced spent fuel pool instrumentation. With respect to the former, the plant has acquired FLEX equipment, including portable pumps and generators, that allow it to respond to an event involving the loss of off-site power and on-site backup power. NRC inspectors are scheduled to conduct inspections in these areas before the end of 2017.
  • The results and pertinent risk insights of the partially completed Indian Point 2 and 3 seismic probabilistic risk assessments (SPRAs), which were audited by NRC staff as supplemented by the staff’s independent seismic risk analysis of these sites.
  • The expedited seismic evaluation process (ESEP) information for the plant, and the NRC staff assessment of the ESEP submittal
  • The seismic design margin existing in nuclear power plants
  • Information regarding the seismic capacity of the plant’s spent fuel pools.
  • The NRC staff considered Indian Point submittals which indicated that the impact to the site from the re-evaluated flooding hazards is limited and the site is able to cope with it. Interim actions to address the re-evaluated hazards have been implemented by the company, as documented in the flooding hazard re-evaluation report and have been inspected by the staff.
  • The limited timeframe for continued operation of Indian Point 2 and 3

If Entergy decides to continue to operate the units beyond 2020 and 2021, respectively, the company would need to provide the seismic and flooding information by the deferral dates approved by the NRC staff.

France Lines Up Against Iran (Daniel 7)

Iran Focus
 

London, 5 Dec – French President Emmanuel Macron called on Iraq to dismantle all militias — including an Iran-backed military force – and open a dialogue with Iraqi Kurdish leaders to ease tensions in a recent press conference.

On December 2, at a joint press conference with Iraqi Kurdish leaders, including Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, Macron said: “France calls for a constructive national dialogue to engage in Iraq.”

He continued: “It is essential that there is a gradual demilitarization, in particular of the [Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces] that established itself in the last few years in Iraq, and that all militias be gradually dismantled.”

The leaders of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have accused the mainly Shi’ite and Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) of violence against the Kurdish people in Iraq’s ethnically mixed regions.

This does not include the September 25 invasion, by Iraqi forces and the PMU, of the autonomous region in northern Iraq which forced the Kurds out of the areas and allowed Iraq to gain control of a major oil field that they passed on to Iran.

They invaded after the Iraqi Kurds held an independence referendum, which Iraqi leaders called illegal.

The Iraqi government has denied that the PMF, which it supports, has been engaged in violence against the Kurds.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s office issued a statement on December 2, which said that Abadi had spoken to Macron, who had confirmed France’s commitment to a unified Iraq but did not raise the subject of dismantling the militias.

However, Iraq’s Vice President Nuri al-Maliki, a former prime minister, called Macron’s comments, “unacceptable interference” in Iraq’s internal affairs.

He said: “These positions from France are absolutely rejected and harm Iraq’s sovereignty and its institutions.”

Iranian Destabilisation

However Iraq reacts to Macron’s call, this is far from the first time that France has countered the Iranian Regime on its interference in the Middle East and its ballistic missile programme since Macron took office.

In early November, Macron announced that he would be standing strong in opposition to Iran’s ballistic missile program and its malign influence in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, the French Foreign Ministry noted that France was taking seriously the USA’s concerns over Iran’s violations of two UN Security Council resolutions and urged the Iranian Regime to comply with all its international commitments.

Alexandre Georgini, deputy foreign ministry spokesperson, said: “We take these American indications seriously and attach utmost importance to Iran’s compliance with all of its international obligations, including the weapons’ transfer bans provided for in UN Security Council Resolutions 2216 and 2231.”

In October, Macron urged the international nuclear inspectors to ensure Iran’s strict compliance with the nuclear deal.

It is clear that Macron does not trust the Iranian Regime, nor should he.

The Trump Trigger Finger

Two shaky fingers on nuclear buttons

opinionDecember 05, 2017 01:00

By The Nation

The fear is that Trump, now squarely in Kim’s gun sights, might try to be quicker on the draw

The latest missile test by North Korea last week has moved the world a step closer to war. The rocket capacity is more advanced than ever. The response from Washington remains inconsistent. While Pyongyang is being deliberately provocative, the other side could just as easily ignite the war.

Pyongyang tested its new missile, the Hwasong-15, last Wednesday, claiming it was a novel type of intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching Washington DC – and anywhere else in the United States. A significant advance on the missile it launched in July, the Hwasong-15 was reported to have flown for 50 minutes on a nearly vertical trajectory, reaching 4,500 kilometres above earth before plunging into the sea west of Japan.

Experts estimate that such a missile launched in anger, on a lower trajectory, could fly 13,000km. Washington is 11,024km from Pyongyang. The potential range is a crucial factor. North Korea now claims it is a “nuclear state”, and experts elsewhere are not disputing this, some believing the North might have 60 nuclear warheads. Its nuclear capacity is advanced and powerful enough to trigger a global catastrophe.

Fortunately, the experts also seek to reassure us. They calculate that the North does not plan to start a nuclear war with the US or its allies Japan and South Korea. More likely, they say, Pyongyang wanted nuclear capability as a bargaining chip for whenever talks resume about the future of the Korean Peninsula. For the sake of world peace, we are advised to learn to live with a nuclear North Korea, just as we do with the nuclear US, China, Russia, Britain, France, India, Pakistan and Israel.

Unfortunately, such rosy assessments do not warrant complete trust. A horrific nuclear war could result from an accident, misperception or the personal volatility we see in the leaders of the two nations facing off right now – Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump, both of whom appear to be as ruthless as they are irrational.

Kim has been shown to be an outright murderer, willing to order the execution of not just dissidents but even family members deemed threats to his hold on power. Trump’s favoured weapons against enemies are ridicule and the ability to sack anyone he dislikes, with a possible next target being Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, whose diplomatic efforts towards Pyongyang are ridiculed by Trump.

Most recently he called his national security adviser, Lt General HR McMaster, “a pain” for correcting an inaccurate point he made in a meeting. Then McMaster turned around and told reporters first that Trump is committed to de-nuclearising the Korean Peninsula and second that the risk of war with the North has increased. He did not elaborate. Vice Admiral Phillip Sawyer, commander of the US 7th Fleet, said on a recent visit to Thailand that diplomacy was an option for ending the showdown, adding that, “A man in uniform is the last person who would rely on using force to solve the problem.”

The mixed signals from America serve only to worsen an already precarious situation. We have no clear idea of Trump’s intentions.

All confidence rests with the international community pursuing a peaceful resolution of the conflict in the knowledge that either side could trigger a war. Before either Trump or Kim has a chance to do so, all parties involved must be pushed into negotiations.