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.”

Muqtada al-Sadr: How the Antichrist assumed so much power in Iraq

Muqtada al-Sadr: How one man assumed so much power in Iraq

Sadr’s ability to shut down a violent eruption in Baghdad is one more indication of the power he commands in Iraq’s political scene

On 29 August, the influential Iraqi Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr announced his “retirement” from the political scene.

In response, his followers took to Baghdad’s supposedly fortified Green Zone and ransacked various government buildings. Regional government buildings across the country were occupied by Sadr’s supporters. A countrywide curfew was imposed, security forces and other armed groups got involved and within 24 hours dozens had been killed.

Shortly after midday on 30 August, Sadr gave a press conference urging his followers to end the protests and withdraw from the Green Zone. They promptly did. In response, the curfews were lifted.

Over the space of less than a day, Sadr illustrated once again the power he has to plunge Iraq into chaos and then, with an order, seemingly pull it back from the brink.

The past two decades since the 2003 invasion of Iraq have established Sadr as arguably, with the possible exception of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most powerful single individual in Iraq.

Originally the leader of armed forces opposed to the US-led occupation, he has established himself as a nationalist, an opponent of foreign interference and a champion of the poor.

But his ability to mobilise millions of supporters (often armed) with a word unnerves those who see his power as a threat to Iraq’s weak democracy and the authority of the state.

Son of martyrs

The 48-year-old Muqtada al-Sadr was born in Najaf during the rule of the Iraqi Baath Party and then vice president Saddam Hussein and president Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr.

Sadr’s father, Mohammed Sadiq, and relative and father-in-law, Mohammed Baqir, were both highly influential clerics, and to this day their faces regularly adorn placards and banners of Sadrists and other religious and political factions in Iraq.

A young girl holding a picture of Muqtada al-Sadr (R) and his assassinated father, Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr (AFP)

Both were killed by Saddam Hussein and are regarded as martyrs and advocates of the poor by many Shia.

Although often referred to by media as a “cleric” with religious authority, Sadr is not a marjaa, religious jurist, like his father and father-in-law were and is not bestowed with the authority to issue religious rulings.

Indeed, the apparent impetus for his decision to announce his retirement was an apparent slight made by Ayatollah Kathem al-Haeri on Monday.

Haeri announced his own retirement from his role as marjaa, a position which he had taken up in succession to Sadr’s father and which saw him as one of the main sources of religious authority for Sadr’s current followers. Following his retirement, supposedly for health reasons, Haeri told his followers to seek religious authority instead from Iran’s supreme ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

He also warned against the divisive rhetoric of those who claimed to follow Mohammed Sadiq and Mohammed Baqir but do not have religious credentials – an implicit slight against Sadr and his claim over the legacy of his relatives.

Despite the lack of religious credentials, however, Sadr was able to capitalise on his heritage and organise the impoverished and marginalised Shia communities of Iraq into a political movement and armed militia (the Mahdi Army) following Saddam’s downfall.

The sprawling Sadr City region of Baghdad, named after Sadr’s father and previously named Saddam City and Thawra City at various points, has long remained his heartland, but he commands support among Iraqi Shia across the country.

For many years after the overthrow of his erstwhile enemy Saddam, Sadr led his Mahdi Army in an armed rebellion against the coalition forces occupying the country.

He would later reform the Mahdi Army into Saraya al-Salam (Peace Brigades) and become involved in parliamentary politics, calling for an end to corruption, the dismantling of the militias and technocratic reform of the country’s economy.

Despite his attempt to portray himself as an opponent of Iraq’s establishment, numerous governments have included ministers linked to his movement, while Sadrists are present across the country’s institutions.

And while in recent years he has advocated the end of sectarianism in Iraq, in the mid-00s his Mahdi Army was responsible for much of the brutality that swamped the country and saw sectarian killings of Sunnis, Christians and other groups.

Questions still remain about Sadr’s involvement in the death of senior cleric Abdul-Majid al-Khoei, who was killed in an attack by an angry mob in the holy city of Najaf in 2003. The US has long suspected Sadr had ordered the killing of a potential rival.

Sadr has also condemned liberalising tendencies in Iraqi society, railing against LGBT people and the mixing of men and women.

His attempts to reinvent himself as a nationalist anti-corruption force in the country led him to throw his weight behind the anti-government movement that began to gain national momentum in 2015.

His followers piled into the movement, which before then was led by secular civil society activists, and, while this added considerable numbers and weight to the situation (leading to an earlier incident of Sadrists breaking into the prime minister’s office), many saw it as a hijacking.

A similar problem emerged after the 2019 October uprising. While Sadr and his supporters at first backed the anti-government Tishreen movement, he eventually turned against it and allied with his erstwhile rivals in the pro-Iran camp in suppressing the movement.

The current crisis

His Sairoon party came first in last October’s parliamentary elections (though most Iraqis did not vote), and he then  attempted to push for the formation of what he called a “majority government” along with Sunni and Kurdish allies.

However, he was unable to secure enough support among other parliamentarians to form a government, and in June, in a supposed attempt to break the deadlock, Sadr ordered his MPs to withdraw from the assembly.

The occupation of the Iraqi parliament, which started on 30 July, nominally came in response to the nomination of Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as a potential prime minister by the Shia Coordination Framework, the alliance of parties that has held sway in the parliament since Sadr’s MPs withdrew.

Sudani was a minister in the government of Sadr’s arch-rival, Nouri al-Maliki, and saw his nomination as an afront.

In the October 2021 elections, Maliki’s State of Law coalition managed to secure the third-highest number of seats in the parliament, and as part of the Coordination Framework he had been looking to make a political comeback.

This has helped stoke tensions with Sadr, who despises Maliki for leading a deadly 2007 crackdown on his Mahdi Army. The problem worsened after the release of a leaked audio tape last month in which Maliki was purportedly heard to describe Sadr as “bloodthirsty” and a “coward” whose political ambitions would destroy Iraq.

Following the leak of the tape, Sadr demanded that Maliki leave politics entirely, and since then the confrontational stance between the two has only worsened, with the former premier being seen brandishing weapons in defiance of Sadr’s takeover of the parliament.

‘I apologise’

Iraq: Sadr followers end protests after cleric calls on them to withdrawRead More »

Sadr apologised for the violence on Tuesday, in a speech that drew commendation from the country’s prime minister.

“I apologise to the Iraqi people, the only ones affected by the events,” Sadr told reporters in Najaf, after giving his followers one hour to leave the Green Zone.

In response, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi thanked Sadr for his actions in shutting down the violence.

“His Eminence Muqtada Al-Sadr’s call to stop violence is the epitome of patriotism and respect to the sanctity of Iraqi blood,” he wrote in a statement.

“His speech emplaces national and moral duty upon all to protect Iraq and stop political escalation and violence and, to immediately engage in dialogue.”

Whether dialogue will now be possible in Iraq is unsure, but the very fact that the prime minister of Iraq was compelled to commend Sadr for shutting down a conflagration he was largely responsible for is arguably an indication of how much power he has.

For many Iraqis, though, the ongoing violence is simply a fact of life, over which they have virtually no say.

Who is the Antichrist?

Muqtada al-Sadr (Photo credit: Twitter/ali_almikdam)

Who is Muqtada al-Sadr?

Sucharita Ganguly

• Muqtada al-Sadr is a politician and militia leader in Iraq
• He is the leader of the Sadrist Movement and the Peace Companies
• In 2018, he joined his Sadrist political party in the Saairun alliance

Iraq’s two-decade experiment with democracy may be coming to an end, as conflict between political factions threatens to turn the West Asian country into a civil war.

In the most recent outbreak of violence in Baghdad, supporters of cleric Muqtada al-Sadrstormed government facilities and clashed with the pro-Iran Coordination Framework, a competing Shiite bloc. Both factions exchanged gunfire in Baghdad’s Green Zone.

During the Monday skirmishes, at least 17 people were killed by gunfire, and about 100 people were injured. According to media reports, the strongly protected green zone has become a besieged zone.

Who is Muqtada as-Sadr?

Muqtada al-Sadr is a politician and militia leader in Iraq. He is the leader of the Sadrist Movement and the Peace Companies, a successor to the “Mahdi Army” militia he formerly led during the American military occupation in Iraq. In 2018, he joined his Sadrist political party in the Saairun alliance, which gained the most seats in the Iraqi legislative elections in 2018 and 2021.

He is suspected of ordering the assassination of Abdul-Majid al-Khoei in 2003, though he disputes the claim and his role has yet to be established.

He is a member of the renowned Sadr family, which originated in Lebanon’s Jabal Amel before settling in Najaf. Sadr is the son of Iraqi religious figure and politician Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, who opposed Saddam Hussein, and the nephew of Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr. He is frequently addressed with the honorific title Sayyid.

His formal religious position in the Shi’i clergy hierarchy is comparatively low. As a result, Sadr claimed neither the title of mujtahid (the equivalent of a senior religious scholar) nor the power to issue fatwas in 2008. He was said to be learning to be an ayatollah in early 2008, which would considerably increase his religious stature.

Muqtada al-Sadr is the fourth son of the late Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, an Iraqi Shi’a cleric. He is also Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-son-in-law. Sadr’s Both were admired for their care for the underprivileged.

Muqtada was born in Iraq, and his great-grandfather is Ismail as-Sadr. Muqtada al-father, Sadr’s Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, was a revered person throughout the Shi’a Islamic world. He and two of his sons were allegedly slain by Saddam Hussein’s government.

In 1980, Iraqi authorities executed Muqtada’s father-in-law. Muqtada is a cousin of the recently disappeared Iranian-Lebanese Amal Movement founder Musa al-Sadr.

Sadr married one of Muhammad Baqir al-daughters Sadr’s in 1994.

The Russian Nuclear horn is ready to attack Europe

Belarus claims nuclear weapons mods are completed on its warplanes

Aug 29, 01:06 PM

WARSAW, Poland — As Belarus’s involvement in the Russian war against Ukraine continues to push Minsk towards an even closer military cooperation with Moscow, Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko has announced that Russia upgraded his country’s jets to enable them to carry tactical atomic weapons.

“Putin and I once said in St. Petersburg that we will refit Belarusian Sukhoi aircraft among other things so that they could carry nuclear weapons,” the Belarusian dictator said, according to state-owned news agency BelTA, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Do you think we talk nonsense? Everything is ready,” he said.

Last June, during a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Lukashenko asked Putin to modernize his country’s Sukhoi Su-25s to allow them to carry nuclear weapons. The Belarusian authoritarian leader claimed this would enable the country’s air force to mirror NATO drills. During the same meeting, Russia’s leader said his country will provide nuclear-capable Iskander-M missiles to Belarus.

The Belarusian military “has a fairly big number of Su-25 planes. They can be respectively re-equipped,” Putin said at the meeting.

Industry publications estimate Belarus operates 67 Su-25 jets which makes the fighter the most prevalent combat aircraft in the country’s fleet.

Marek Jablonowski, a political scientist from the University of Warsaw, told Defense News the Belarusian regime believes that “flexing its military muscles can secure its survival”, and that it is “showing readiness to trade an even bigger part of its sovereignty in exchange for Moscow’s backing.”

Meanwhile, some analysts believe Minsk will mostly use the alleged upgrade for the purpose of its propaganda directed at the West.

“For Putin, to give Lukashenka nuclear weapons is to strengthen him and his position. Not sure he wants it,” tweeted Hanna Liubakova, Belarusian journalist and a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank. “The Russian [A]rmy used other airfields (closer to the Ukrainian border) to station its jets and missile launch systems. Those didn’t and won’t belong to the regime in Minsk.”

There are also technical questions surrounding the purported upgrade. “The Su-25 has significant limitations in this role, and this raises questions about the credibility of Russia’s and Belarus’ announcement,” researchers at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies wrote in a paper last month. “Designed as a close air support aircraft, the Su-25 would probably be limited to deliver a nuclear weapon only in free-fall mode” while having lower survivability than comparable NATO, the analysts wrote.

In February 2022, Minsk organized a referendum which enabled the authorities to modify the constitution’s article describing Belarus as a “nuclear-free zone” and a “neutral” state, enabling Russia to deploy additional nuclear weapons along NATO’s eastern flank.

The Iran Horn steps up underground uranium enrichment

Exclusive: Iran steps up underground uranium enrichment, IAEA report says

Francois MurphyAugust 29, 20223:22 PM MDTLast Updated a day ago

VIENNA, Aug 29 (Reuters) – Iran is pressing ahead with its rollout of an upgrade to its advanced uranium enrichment programme, a report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog seen by Reuters on Monday showed, even as the West awaits Iran’s response on salvaging its 2015 nuclear deal.

The first of three cascades, or clusters, of advanced IR-6 centrifuges recently installed at the underground Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) at Natanz is now enriching, the report said, the latest underground site at which the advanced machines have come onstream

Diplomats say the IR-6 is its most advanced model, far more efficient than the first-generation IR-1 – the only one the deal lets it enrich with.

For more than a year Iran has been using IR-6 centrifuges to enrich uranium to up to 60% purity, close to weapons-grade, at an above-ground plant at Natanz.

Recently it has expanded its enrichment with IR-6 machines at other sites. Last month a second IR-6 cascade at Fordow, a site buried inside a mountain, started enriching to up to 20%.

In the confidential report to U.N. member states, the watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, wrote: “On 28 August 2022, the Agency verified at FEP that Iran was feeding UF6 enriched up to 2% U-235 into the IR-6 cascade … for the production of UF6 enriched up to 5% U-235.”

Uranium hexafluoride (UF6) is the gas centrifuges enrich.

Of the two other IR-6 cascades installed at the Natanz FEP, one was undergoing passivation with depleted UF6, a process that is carried out before enrichment proper begins, and the other had yet to be fed with any nuclear material, the agency said.

Iran and the United States appear to be inching towards an agreement to revive the 2015 deal, which placed restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for lifting sanctions against Tehran. That deal unravelled after a U.S. withdrawal in 2018 prompted Iran to breach those restrictions one by one.

After more than a year of indirect talks, Iran has said it will soon respond to the latest U.S. comments on a compromise text submitted by the European Union, which is coordinating the talks.

A deal would involve undoing much of the enrichment work Iran has been doing, and capping its enrichment at 3.67% purity.

Its installation of advanced machines at underground sites like Natanz and Fordow, however, could be a signal to any power that might want to attack it if there is no agreement, since it is unclear that airstrikes on those sites would be effective.

Western powers worry that Iran is moving towards the ability to make nuclear bombs. Iran denies any such intention.

Antichrist announces hunger strike

Powerful Iraqi Shi’ite Muslim cleric al-sadr announces hunger strike – state media

Reuters

Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr delivers a sermon to worshippers during Friday prayers at the Kufa mosque near Najaf, Iraq September 23, 2016. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

Aug 29 (Reuters) – Powerful Iraqi Shi’ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is said to have announced a hunger strike until the violence and use of weapons stops, Iraq’s state news agency INA and state TV reported late on Monday.

There was no immediate confirmation from Sadr’s office.

At least 10 Iraqis were killed on Monday after powerful Shi’ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said he would quit politics, prompting his loyalists to storm a palatial government complex in Baghdad and leading to clashes with rival Shi’ite groups.

Humanity is One Step Away from Nuclear War: Revelation 8

“Humanity is one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation”

“Nuclear devices of death guarantee no victory or safety. By design, their only result is destruction”, Secretary-General of the UN, António Guterres, stated.

“Our world has been held hostage by nuclear weapons long enough”, he said.

The weapons, which he described as “devices of death”, are unable to guarantee victory or safety for the countries that possess them, the UN chief said.

“Let’s ensure the end of testing forever, and consign nuclear weapons to history – once and for all”, Guterres concluded.

UN Secretary-General also addressed the issue in his speech at the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference in New York in early August.

He warned that “humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation”, because the war in Ukraine and tensions in other regions, the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic have brought the world “under greater stress than it was, with which we faced”.

“Abandoning nuclear weapons is the only guarantee that they will never be used,” Guterres said at the time. The US, Great Britain, Russia, France, China, Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea currently possess nuclear weapons.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), “of an estimated 12.705 warheads at the beginning of 2022, about 9.440 were in military stockpiles for potential use.”