New York Earthquake: City of the Sixth Seal (Revelation 6:12)

New York earthquake: City at risk of ‚dangerous shaking from far away‘
Joshua Nevett
Published 30th April 2018
SOME of New York City’s tallest skyscrapers are at risk of being shaken by seismic waves triggered by powerful earthquakes from miles outside the city, a natural disaster expert has warned.
Researchers believe that a powerful earthquake, magnitude 5 or greater, could cause significant damage to large swathes of NYC, a densely populated area dominated by tall buildings.
A series of large fault lines that run underneath NYC’s five boroughs, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx and Staten Island, are capable of triggering large earthquakes.
Some experts have suggested that NYC is susceptible to at least a magnitude 5 earthquake once every 100 years.
The last major earthquake measuring over magnitude 5.0 struck NYC in 1884 – meaning another one of equal size is “overdue” by 34 years, according their prediction model.
Natural disaster researcher Simon Day, of University College London, agrees with the conclusion that NYC may be more at risk from earthquakes than is usually thought.
EARTHQUAKE RISK: New York is susceptible to seismic shaking from far-away tremors
But the idea of NYC being “overdue” for an earthquake is “invalid”, not least because the “very large number of faults” in the city have individually low rates of activity, he said.
The model that predicts strong earthquakes based on timescale and stress build-up on a given fault has been “discredited”, he said.
What scientists should be focusing on, he said, is the threat of large and potentially destructive earthquakes from “much greater distances”.
The dangerous effects of powerful earthquakes from further away should be an “important feature” of any seismic risk assessment of NYC, Dr Day said.

GETTY
THE BIG APPLE: An aerial view of Lower Manhattan at dusk in New York City

USGS
RISK: A seismic hazard map of New York produced by USGS
“New York is susceptible to seismic shaking from earthquakes at much greater distances” Dr Simon Day, natural disaster researcher
This is because the bedrock underneath parts of NYC, including Long Island and Staten Island, cannot effectively absorb the seismic waves produced by earthquakes.
“An important feature of the central and eastern United States is, because the crust there is old and cold, and contains few recent fractures that can absorb seismic waves, the rate of seismic reduction is low.
Central regions of NYC, including Manhattan, are built upon solid granite bedrock; therefore the amplification of seismic waves that can shake buildings is low.
But more peripheral areas, such as Staten Island and Long Island, are formed by weak sediments, meaning seismic hazard in these areas is “very likely to be higher”, Dr Day said.
“Thus, like other cities in the eastern US, New York is susceptible to seismic shaking from earthquakes at much greater distances than is the case for cities on plate boundaries such as Tokyo or San Francisco, where the crustal rocks are more fractured and absorb seismic waves more efficiently over long distances,” Dr Day said.
In the event of a large earthquake, dozens of skyscrapers, including Chrysler Building, the Woolworth Building and 40 Wall Street, could be at risk of shaking.
“The felt shaking in New York from the Virginia earthquake in 2011 is one example,” Dr Day said.
On that occasion, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake centered 340 miles south of New York sent thousands of people running out of swaying office buildings.

USGS
FISSURES: Fault lines in New York City have low rates of activity, Dr Day said
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city was “lucky to avoid any major harm” as a result of the quake, whose epicenter was near Louisa, Virginia, about 40 miles from Richmond.
“But an even more impressive one is the felt shaking from the 1811-1812 New Madrid earthquakes in the central Mississippi valley, which was felt in many places across a region, including cities as far apart as Detroit, Washington DC and New Orleans, and in a few places even further afield including,” Dr Day added.
“So, if one was to attempt to do a proper seismic hazard assessment for NYC, one would have to include potential earthquake sources over a wide region, including at least the Appalachian mountains to the southwest and the St Lawrence valley to the north and east.”

Europe’s largest nuclear power plant on fire after shelling

The remains of a Russian missile lies on the ground in Kyiv, Ukraine on Thursday. — AP

APPublished March 4, 2022 

Russian forces pressed their attack on a crucial energy-producing city in Ukraine by shelling Europe’s largest nuclear plant early on Friday, sparking a fire and raising fears that radiation could leak from the damaged power station.

Plant spokesman Andriy Tuz told Ukrainian television that shells were falling directly on the Zaporizhzhia plant in the city of Enerhodar and had set fire to one of the facility’s six reactors. That reactor is under renovation and not operating, but there is nuclear fuel inside, he said.

A government official told The Associated Press that elevated levels of radiation were detected near the plant, which provides about 25 per cent of Ukraine’s power generation. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information has not yet been publicly released.

Tuz said firefighters cannot get near the flames because they are being shot at. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted a plea to the Russians to stop the assault and allow fire teams inside.

“We demand that they stop the heavy weapons fire,” Tuz said in a video statement. “There is a real threat of nuclear danger in the biggest atomic energy station in Europe.”

The attack renewed fears that the invasion could result in damage to one of Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors and trigger another emergency like the 1986 Chernobyl accident, the world’s worst nuclear disaster, which happened about 110 kilometers north of the capital.

The mayor of Enerhodar said earlier that Ukrainian forces were battling Russian troops on the city’s outskirts. Video showed flames and black smoke rising above the city of more than 50,000, with people streaming past wrecked cars, just a day after the United Nations atomic watchdog agency expressed grave concern that the fighting could cause accidental damage to Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors.

The Ukrainian state atomic energy company reported that a Russian military column was heading toward the nuclear plant. Loud shots and rocket fire were heard late on Thursday.

“Many young men in athletic clothes and armed with Kalashnikovs have come into the city. They are breaking down doors and trying to get into the apartments of local residents,” the statement from Energoatom said.

Later, a live streamed security camera linked from the homepage of the Zaporizhzhia plant showed what appeared to be armored vehicles rolling into the facility’s parking lot and shining spotlights on the building where the camera was mounted.

There were then what appeared to be bright muzzle flashes from vehicles, followed by nearly simultaneous explosions in the surrounding buildings. Smoke then rose into the frame and drifted away.

The fighting at Enerhodar came as another round of talks between the two sides yielded a tentative agreement to set up safe corridors inside Ukraine to evacuate citizens and deliver humanitarian aid.

Russian forces gain ground

Elsewhere, Russian forces gained ground in their bid to cut off the country from the sea, as Ukrainian leaders called on citizens to rise up and wage guerrilla war against the invaders.

While the huge Russian armoured column threatening Kyiv appeared bogged down outside the capital, Vladimir Putin’s forces have brought their superior firepower to bear over the past few days, launching hundreds of missiles and artillery attacks on cities and other sites around the country and making significant gains in the south.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal called on the West to close the skies over the country’s nuclear plants as fighting intensified. “It is a question of the security of the whole world!” he said in a statement.

The US and Nato allies have ruled out creating a no-fly zone since the move would pit Russian and Western military forces against each other.

The Russians announced the capture of the southern city of Kherson, a vital Black Sea port of 280,000, and local Ukrainian officials confirmed the takeover of the government headquarters there, making it the first major city to fall since the invasion began a week ago.

Heavy fighting continued on the outskirts of another strategic port, Mariupol, on the Azov Sea. The battles have knocked out the city’s electricity, heat and water systems, as well as most phone service, officials said. Food deliveries to the city were also cut.

Associated Press video from the port city shows the assault lighting up the darkening sky above largely deserted streets and medical teams treating civilians.

Severing Ukraine’s access to the Black and Azov seas would deal a crippling blow to its economy and allow Russia to build a land corridor to Crimea, seized by Moscow in 2014.

Ukrainian resistance

Overall, the outnumbered, outgunned Ukrainians have put up stiff resistance, staving off the swift victory that Russia appeared to have expected. But a senior US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia’s seizure of Crimea gave it a logistical advantage in that part of the country, with shorter supply lines that smoothed the offensive there.

Ukrainian leaders called on the people to defend their homeland by cutting down trees, erecting barricades in the cities and attacking enemy columns from the rear. In recent days, authorities have issued weapons to civilians and taught them how to make Molotov cocktails.

A former Ukrainian soldier gives instructions on how to handle weapons and move during conflict to civilians in the outskirts of Lviv, west Ukraine on Thursday. — AP

“Total resistance … This is our Ukrainian trump card, and this is what we can do best in the world,” Oleksiy Arestovich, an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in a video message, recalling guerrilla actions in Nazi-occupied Ukraine during World War II.

The second round of talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations was held in neighbouring Belarus. But the two sides appeared far apart going into the meeting, and Putin warned Ukraine that it must quickly accept the Kremlin’s demand for its “demilitarisation” and declare itself neutral, renouncing its bid to join Nato.

Putin told French President Emmanuel Macron he was determined to press on with his attack “until the end”, according to Macron’s office.

The two sides said that they tentatively agreed to allow ceasefires in areas designated safe corridors, and that they would seek to work out the necessary details quickly. A Zelenskyy adviser also said a third round of talks will be held early next week.

Putin decried what he called an “anti-Russian disinformation campaign” and insisted that Moscow uses “only precision weapons to exclusively destroy military infrastructure”.

Putin claimed that the Russian military had already offered safe corridors for civilians to flee, but he asserted without evidence that Ukrainian “neo-Nazis” were preventing people from leaving and were using them as human shields.

He also hailed Russian soldiers as heroes in a video call with members of Russia’s Security Council, and ordered additional payments to families of men killed or wounded.

The fighting has sent more than one million people fleeing Ukraine, according to the UN, which fears those refugee numbers could skyrocket.

Ukrainians still in the country faced another grim day. In Kyiv, snow gave way to a cold, gray drizzle, as long lines formed outside the few pharmacies and bakeries that remained open.

More shelling was reported in the northern city of Chernihiv, where emergency officials said at least 33 civilians had been killed in the bombardment of a residential area.

Firefighters work to extinguish a fire at a damaged city centre after a Russian air raid in Chernigiv, Ukraine on Thursday. — AP

Families with children fled via muddy and snowy roads in the eastern region of Donetsk, while military strikes on the village of Yakovlivka destroyed 30 homes, leaving three people dead, authorities said.

In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, with about 1.4m people, residents desperate to escape the bombings crowded the railroad station and squeezed onto trains, not always knowing where they were headed.

In the south, Russian troops appeared to roll from Kherson toward Mykolaiv, another major Black Sea port and shipbuilding center to the west. A US defence official said the Russians may want to set up a base in Mykolaiv ahead of a ground offensive against Odesa, Ukraine’s largest port city, which is also home to a large naval base.

The immense Russian column of hundreds of tanks and other vehicles still appeared to be stalled roughly 25 kilometers from Kyiv and had made no real progress in days, amid fuel and food shortages, according to US authorities.

Nuclear War Means the Bowls of Wrath NOT the End of the World

Nuclear war fears are growing as Russian forces continue to invade Ukraine; what would happen if the unthinkable happened? Would a nuclear war mark the end of the world? Credit: Wiki Images/Pixabay

Would a Nuclear War Mean the End of the World?

ByViktor Elias

March 3, 2022

Could a nuclear war erupt over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? And, if in the unlikely scenario, it does, what will be the consequences for humanity?

Images and videos of the Russia-Ukraine conflict gave the world pause, but it may have appeared quite remote or far away for some; so, when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced, on Sunday, that his nuclear forces were shifting to a higher state of alert, calling it “special combat readiness,” it shook the world to its core.

On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said World War III would involve nuclear weapons and be very destructive. Russia would face “real danger” from Ukraine, if it acquired nuclear weapons, he said.

The possible effects of a nuclear war, including both environmental and civilian, are unthinkable.

The human toll of nuclear war

A possible nuclear weapons exchange in Ukraine would have enormous implications for Europe and beyond.

A nuclear strike would unleash suffering on a scale not seen since World War II — not even considering advances in nuclear technology since then — so it is very possible that the devastation that the next nuclear strike would incur is far, far worse.

It is very hard to picture what the effect a nuclear attack would look like, but Alex Wellerstein, a nuclear historian at the Stevens Institute of Technology, has created a website called Nukemap that allows users to “drop” a specific bomb on any target.

What if a nuclear bomb struck Kyiv, Ukraine? Alex Wellerstein, a nuclear historian at the Stevens Institute of Technology, created Nukemap, which illustrates the impacts of a nuclear bomb strike anywhere in the world using visuals. His website found that Kyiv would see nearly 25,000 deaths and nearly 4,500 injuries, assuming the roughly 140-kiloton explosive that North Korea tested in September 2017 was dropped on the city. Credit: Nukemap

Detonating the roughly 140-kiloton explosive that North Korea tested in September 2017 in the heart of Kyiv resulted in a devastating human toll, with nearly 25,000 deaths and nearly 4,500 injuries, according to Nukemap.

The center yellow circle, which is the fireball radius — that is, the mushroom cloud — would extend out about 0.25 square miles. Those within the green circle, in an approximately 1.2-square-mile area, would face the heaviest dose of radiation.

“Without medical treatment, there can be expected between 50% and 90% mortality from acute effects alone,” Nukemap says here. “Dying takes between several hours and several weeks.”

Radiation poisoning would result in:

1. Nausea and vomiting
2. Spontaneous bleeding
3. Diarrhea, sometimes bloody
4. Severely burnt skin that may peel off

The dark grey circle in the middle, which includes a 17-square-mile area, denotes flattened residential buildings, killing people in or near them, with debris and fire everywhere.

People in the bigger yellow circle, encompassing a 33.5-square-mile area, would receive third-degree burns. “There’s a bright flash of light,” says Brian Toon, a scientist and expert on nuclear disasters at the University of Colorado Boulder, in an interview with Vox. Those exposed to the light would get burns, assuming their skin was exposed. The light would also “easily ignite fires with flammable objects like leaves, twigs, paper, or your clothing.”

Most victims would likely not feel much pain because the burns would destroy nerves that control pain, but they’d cause major scarring or the inability to use certain limbs, while others might require amputation, according to Wellerstein’s website.

In the biggest circle, a 134-square-mile area encompassing almost the entirety of the air-blast zone, people can still die, or at least receive severe injuries, but the blast — outside of the other circles — would primarily just break windows. And those standing near said windows may be killed by glass shards, or at least be seriously wounded.

Those who survive the bombing and its effects, will have to walk through burning rubble and pass lifeless, charred bodies to reach safety, which will likely cause severe mental distress.

Even though some of them will ultimately survive, others will succumb to sustained injuries or radiation, and will likely reel with the after-effects of mental illness for many years thereafter. And wind will carry the debris far outside the blast zone, sickening countless others, even in areas far, far away from the blast.

As for Kyiv, it will likely take decades and billions of dollars not only to rebuild the city but to eliminate the radiation entirely.

It is worth noting that all of the above are estimates for one strike on one location. In an actual nuclear war, there would be wider and more devastating consequences, with the effects after the conflict being much worse than the attacks themselves.

The attacks would also change the course of human history.

“Almost everybody on the planet would die”

Over the past few decades, numerous experts have been trying to understand the true impact nuclear war would have on the planet.

In an interview with Vox, Alan Robock, an environmental sciences professor at Rutgers University, in New Jersey, explains his work has focused on three factors — economic, scientific, and agricultural models — that aim to explain the long-term impacts of a nuclear war.

He has found the most devastating long-term effects come down to the black smoke that hampers the growth of crops, and will likely have unintended side effects that impact the entire globe, not only just the areas targeted by strikes.

The dust and particulates in the air, likely exacerbated by the fact that cities and industrial areas would likely be targeted for their impact, would produce tons of smoke. The smoke, some of which would make it to the stratosphere, meaning it would stay there for years, would expand around the world as it heats up and eventually block out sunlight over much of the planet.

Global impact, however, would depend on the amount of smoke.

While scientists’ models and estimates vary, it’s believed that about five million to 50 million tons of black smoke could lead to the so-called nuclear autumn, while 50 million to 150 millions tons of smoke might plunge the world into a nuclear winter.

If the latter scenario came to pass, “almost everybody on the planet would die,” Robock said.

“Nuclear autumn”

A 2016 study looked at the ramifications of a nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan.

“Even a ‘small’ nuclear war between India and Pakistan, with each country detonating 50 Hiroshima-size atom bombs, could produce so much smoke that temperatures would fall below those of the Little Ice Age of the fourteenth to nineteenth centuries, shortening the growing season around the world and threatening the global food supply,” researchers wrote at the time.

An India-Pakistan nuclear war could emit at least five to six million tons of black smoke into the stratosphere, leading to massive reductions in agriculture production around the globe.

Even American and Chinese food production would be affected, especially for corn and wheat, plunging at least 20 to 40% in the first years post-attack. It’s possible that the cooling, which would last at least a decade, would plunge temperatures to levels “colder than any experienced on Earth in the past 1,000 years,” researchers added.

Experts have termed the possibility of nuclear war, with some warning that a scenario in which agriculture production is impacted so viciously as a “nuclear Autumn.”

Even in a so-called “limited” war situation, up to two billion people would be at risk of starvation, with most being in the Americas, Europe, and Southeast Asia. “The death of 2 billion people wouldn’t be the end of the human race, but it would be the end of modern civilization as we know it,” says Ira Helfand, a board director at the anti-nuclear war Physicians for Social Responsibility, in an interview with Vox.

The lack of food would most definitely drive up prices for whatever remained and likely cause worldwide conflicts and wars over resources. Helfand suggests the situation could worsen to the point that another nuclear war could start, as food and water is seized by states.

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The British Horn Is Campaigning for Nuclear War: Daniel 7

A Sukhoi Su-35S fighter jet of the Russian Aerospace Forces takes part in the Allied Resolve 2022 joint military drills held by Belarusian and Russian troops at the Obuz-Lesnovsky training ground. (Peter Kovalev / TASS via Getty Images)

The British Media Is Campaigning for Nuclear War

ByAlex MacDonald

By advocating a No-Fly Zone in Ukraine, the commentariat is demanding that we roll the dice on nuclear war – the latest reminder of just how dangerous our warmongering media truly is.

It’s hard to watch the ongoing Russian onslaught in Ukraine without feeling a sense of helplessness. The images of the country’s cities reduced to rubble, civilians huddling in bomb shelters, and the grim statistics of those killed—at least 406 civilians so far—ticking up on international news sites understandably provoke calls that ‘something must be done’.

There are things to do. The government must instantly open the UK’s border to all Ukrainian refugees (all and any refugees wouldn’t hurt either); domestically there must be a push for the dirty money of Putin’s cronies to exposed and seized; and all solidarity should be shown with both the determined people of Ukraine defending their right to nationhood and the brave anti-war activists in Russia who are being locked up by the thousands but still keep up their opposition to Putin’s brutality. And it’s worth highlighting and calling for consequences for those politicians who have actually served to prop up and excuse Putin’s regime over the past two decades or so, too.

But should more be done militarily? There is very little appetite for direct military intervention in the post-Iraq War world. Perhaps noting this, a number of British commentators have in the past few days been touting the idea of a No-Fly Zone.

‘Pleased to see powerful voices joining my call for a humanitarian partial or total NO FLY ZONE,’ tweeted Tobias Ellwood, Chair of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee, on Tuesday morning, citing a call by retired US General Philip Breedlove for such an action. ‘What scale of war crimes, what numbers of civilian deaths must we witness—before NATO, the most powerful military alliance in the world, is tasked to intervene?’

No-Fly Zones involve the creation of a demilitarized air space above a territory. In practice, it means preventing aircraft—in this case, Russian jets—access to Ukrainian airspace through surveillance and military action. This can extend to pre-emptive strikes on airfields to prevent enemy aircraft from taking off.

No-Fly Zones have been used a number of times in past. One popular example of a supposed success story was the No-Fly Zone imposed by the US, UK, and (initially) France over Iraq’s northern Kurdish region in the ’90s. Coming in the wake of Saddam Hussein’s brutal genocide of the Kurds (which was at the time downplayed by those same countries), it prevented further air strikes on the territory and is cited as helping develop Kurdish autonomy and eventually the creation of the autonomous, and thoroughly pro-Western, Kurdistan Regional Government.

What is often forgotten when No-Fly Zones are raised, however, is that they are an act of war. The No-Fly Zone over Iraq, for example, resulted in large numbers of deaths, including those of civilians, and was against an army that was demoralised, crumbling, and weak after years of war.

On Monday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki quite straightforwardly laid out what a No-Fly Zone really meant and why the US was reluctant to get involved in such an action. ‘It would essentially mean the US military would be shooting down planes, Russian planes. That is definitely escalatory. That would potentially put us in a place where we’re in a military conflict with Russia. That is not something the President wants to do.’

A No-Fly Zone would mean direct military confrontation between NATO and Russia—the most powerful military force in the world against the second most powerful. And it doesn’t take years of working in International Relations to realise this would be a bad thing.

For decades, the fear of confrontation between the US and the USSR meant whole generations accepted the risk of nuclear annihilation. From the sci-fi cinema and satire of the 1950s and ’60s to grim what-if productions like When the Wind Blows and Threads, through songs and literature that reminded the world of the destruction that took place in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and, of course, the tireless efforts of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and other anti-war movements, the idea of nuclear war was never far from the public mind, and the chance of humanity rapidly, suddenly ending life on Earth was understood to be a real possibility.

For many, especially those on Twitter, this has apparently been forgotten.

‘If people want to oppose a no-fly zone, fine. But understand that is an act of appeasement no different to our appeasement of Hitler in 1938. We are refusing to do what we know is morally right out of fear. We are prepared to let a free nation die to safeguard ourselves. What accounts for this attitude?’ tweeted Mail on Sunday commentator Dan Hodges.

Piers Morgan, no doubt in good faith as always, also made reference to ‘appeasement’ and suggested that the fear that Putin might ‘chuck his nukes around’ as ‘bullsh*t designed to scare everyone off’.

In response to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s confirmation that the UK would not be supporting a No-Fly Zone, one Ukrainian journalist criticised him at press conference on Tuesday, saying ‘people are desperately asking for the West to protect our sky [with] no-fly zone.’ ‘We are crying, we don’t know where to run,’ she said.

For some, it is this sense of helplessness: seeing the horror unfolding for Ukrainian citizens, fearing how far Putin might be willing to go, and wishing for military might be thrown in his way as a result. The brazenness with which the ‘Butcher of Grozny’ has been willing to assault civilian areas with weaponry prohibited under international law, such as cluster bombs, is clear to anyone who remembers Chechnya and Syria—and it is entirely understandable to want to protect civilians.

For another tranche of commentator, though, it’s about re-legitimising the idea of righteous military might and the West as the planet’s pre-eminent power. There are those who have never recovered from the backlash to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the failure to take military action in Syria, and are determined to find any excuse to reassert the status quo of the long ’90s, when the US and those in its orbit appeared unchallengeable.

None of this changes the basic fact that the US, the British prime minister, and the more cool-headed among our commentator class have realised: a No-Fly Zone means war between nuclear powered states.

Alex MacDonald is a reporter at Middle East Eye.

The Iranian Horn is Nuclear Ready: Daniel 8

Iran approaching nuclear bomb yardstick as enriched uranium stock grows

VIENNA (Reuters) – The stock of enriched uranium amassed by Iran in breach of its 2015 nuclear deal is growing to the point that its most highly-enriched material is most of the way to a common bomb yardstick, a report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog showed on Thursday.

The amount in the quarterly International Atomic Energy Agency report to member states seen by Reuters comes as negotiators at talks on salvaging the 2015 deal say they are in the final stretch. Western powers have warned time is running out before Iran’s nuclear progress makes the talks pointless.

The report showed Iran’s stock of uranium enriched to up to 60% fissile purity had almost doubled, increasing by 15.5 kg to 33.2 kg (46 to 110 pounds). A senior diplomat said that is around three-quarters of the amount needed, if enriched further, for one nuclear bomb according to a common definition.

That definition – 25 kg of uranium enriched to 90% – is a theoretical yardstick and how much is needed in real life would depend on further processes the material would still have to go through to make an actual bomb, the senior diplomat cautioned.

The 2015 deal between Iran and world powers imposed restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. 

Then-President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018, reimposing tough economic sanctions on Tehran. Iran responded by breaching many of the deal’s restrictions, including a 3.67% cap on the purity to which it could purify uranium and a 202.8-kg limit on its enriched uranium stock.

That total stock of enriched uranium now stands at 3.2 tonnes, an increase of 707.4 kg on the quarter, the report showed. That is still less than the more than five tonnes the Islamic Republic accumulated before the 2015 deal but the highest purity it achieved then was 20%.

(Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

World War III would be nuclear and destructive: Revelation 16

World War III would be nuclear and destructive: Lavrov

Russia would face a ‘real danger’ if Ukraine acquired nuclear weapons, says Russian foreign minister

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ReutersMarch 02, 2022

Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov addresses the Conference on Disarmament with a pre-recorded video message in Geneva, Switzerland, March 1, 2022. PHOTO: REUTERS

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MOSCOW:

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that if a third World War were to take place, it would involve nuclear weapons and be destructive, the RIA news agency reported.

Lavrov has said that Russia, which launched what it calls a special military operation against Ukraine last week, would face a “real danger” if Kyiv acquired nuclear weapons.

A week after launching its invasion of Ukraine, Russia said its forces took control the first sizable city on Wednesday, seizing Kherson, in the south, as fighting raged around the country and Western nations tightened an economic noose around Russia.

More than half a million Ukrainians have fled the fighting since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of his southern neighbour nearly a week ago.

Russian bombardments of Ukrainian cities continued, with video posted on social media showing heavily damaged buildings around the second city of Kharkiv.

On Tuesday, Lavrov told a Geneva disarmament meeting that Ukraine has been seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, a “real danger” that needed a Russian response.

“Today the dangers that (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelenskiy’s regime pose for neighbouring countries and international security in general have increased substantially after the authorities set up in Kyiv have embarked upon dangerous games related to plans to acquire their own nuclear weapons,” the Russian foreign minister told the Conference on Disarmament in a video address.

“Ukraine still has Soviet nuclear technologies and the means of delivery of such weapons. We cannot fail to respond to this real danger,” he said, also calling for Washington to rebase its nuclear weapons from Europe.

He delivered the speech to a thin crowd after many diplomats including France and Britain staged a walk-out to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as they did at a parallel UN meeting in Geneva on Tuesday.

Former Official Says US Preparing For Another Obama Deal

Rob Malley (R) speaking with Russian envoy Mikhail Ulyanov in Vienna on December 29, 2021

Former Official Says US Preparing To Lift IRGC And Khamenei Sanctions

Author: Iran International Newsroom

US chief envoy in Iran nuclear talks, Rob Malley, is preparing to lift sanctions imposed on Iranians tied to terrorism, a former State Department official has revealed.

Gabriel Noronha, Former Special Advisor for the Secretary’s Iran Action Group in the Trump administration in a series of tweets on Wednesday quoted State Department, National Security Council and European Union unnamed officials as having authorized him to reveal that Malley is preparing to make concessions to Iran that are damaging to US national security.

Noronha said these current officials hope that by revealing details of the concession they hope to prompt the US Congress to act “to stop the capitulation.”

He also charged that Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s chief envoy in the talks, has been the main architect of the deal. Noronha said that his contacts said, “What is happening in Vienna is a total disaster.”

Earlier, “concessions and other misguided policies have led three members of the US negotiating team to leave,” Noronha said in one his tweets.

Republican Senator Jim Inhofe tweeted later that “There is no limits to what @USEnvoyIran will offer Tehran to return to the failed nuclear deal.”

Noronha further said, “US has promised to lift sanctions on some of the regime’s worst terrorists and torturers, leading officials in the regime’s WMD infrastructure, and is currently trying to lift sanctions on the IRGC itself.”

Iran has long demanded that all post-2018 sanctions should be lifted – not just nuclear related sanctions. There are many terrorism and human rights related sanctions. The Biden Administration has insisted that it is willing to lift only nuclear sanctions.

Following Noronha’s revelations, a State Department spokesperson responded to Iran International’s questions, saying, “We are in the final days of a complex negotiation. We are prepared to lift JCPOA-related sanctions in order to end the nuclear and regional crises prompted by our withdrawal.Beyond that, we are not going to respond to specific claims about what sanctions we would be prepared to lift as part of a mutual return to full implementation of the JCPOA.”

According to Noronha, President Biden’s team “is preparing to rescind the Supreme Leader’s Office Executive Order (E.O. 13876) as soon as coming Monday, and lift sanctions on nearly every one of the 112 people/entities sanctioned…”

Top Islamic Republic officials facing serious accusations or evidence of involvement in acts of terrorism are also apparently slated to be de-listed.

Reuters reported last month reported some details about a draft agreement being prepared in Vienna, which did not mention these details. It appeared that the US was moving cautiously, with gradual lifting of economic sanctions.

If what Noronha has reported based on information that he says he has received from current officials is true, Iran would achieve almost everything it has been demanding in 11 months of negotiations.

Republicans and some Democrats in Congress have warned the Biden Administration about making concessions to Iran. It is not clear how they would act to demand accountability from the White House.