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NEW YORK IS 40 YEARS OVERDUE A MAJOR EARTHQUAKE AND AMERICA ISN’T PROPERLY PREPARED, ‘QUAKELAND’ AUTHOR KATHRYN MILES TELLS TREVOR NOAH BY TUFAYEL AHMED ON 9/27/17 AT 9:28 AM Updated | An earthquake is long overdue to hit New York and America isn’t prepared, author and environmental theorist Kathryn Miles told Trevor Noah on Tuesday’s Daily Show. Miles is the author of a new book, Quakeland, which investigates how imminently an earthquake is expected in the U.S. and how well-prepared the country is to handle it. The answer to those questions: Very soon and not very well. “We know it will, that’s inevitable, but we don’t know when,” said Miles when asked when to expect another earthquake in the U.S. She warned that New York is in serious danger of being the site of the next one, surprising considering that the West Coast sits along the San Andreas fault line. “New York is 40 years overdue for a significant earthquake…Memphis, Seattle, Washington D.C.—it’s a national problem,” said Miles. Miles told Noah that though the U.S. is “really good at responding to natural disasters,” like the rapid response to the hurricanes in Texas and Florida, the country and its government is, in fact, lagging behind in its ability to safeguard citizens before an earthquake hits. “We’re really bad at the preparedness side,” Miles responded when Noah asked how the infrastructure in the U.S. compares to Mexico’s national warning system, for example. “Whether it’s the literal infrastructure, like our roads and bridges, or the metaphoric infrastructure, like forecasting, prediction, early warning systems. Historically, we’ve underfunded those and as a result we’re way behind even developing nations on those fronts.” Part of the problem, Miles says, is that President Donald Trump and his White House are not concerned with warning systems that could prevent the devastation of natural disasters. “We can invest in an early warning system. That’s one thing we can definitely do. We can invest in better infrastructures, so that when the quake happens, the damage is less,” said the author. “The scientists, the emergency managers, they have great plans in place. We have the technology for an early warning system, we have the technology for tsunami monitoring. But we don’t have a president that is currently interested in funding that, and that’s a problem.” This article has been updated to reflect that Miles said New York is the possible site of an upcoming earthquake, and not the likeliest place to be next hit by one.
A speech by a high-ranking member of the Revolutionary Guard recently caused speculation in Iran. Religious leader Khamenei has also dismissed Tehran’s former police chief and replaced him with someone even more brutal, raising fears of further escalation. By Ali Sadrzadeh
When does a crack in a building become dangerous? When it occurs in a load-bearing element and is so large you can see inside the structure, engineers say. In such cases, the house in question is ripe for demolition. Similarly in the case of monolithic systems. Often a single speech, an offhand remark or the public behaviour of a functionary is enough to reveal what is going on inside a system. Just as in a building, however, the crack that develops must cause a supporting element to totter.
Hamid Abazari, commander of the Revolutionary Guard, is one of the supporting pillars of the Iranian injustice system. Born 62 years ago in the Persian Gulf, he became a guardsman as a teenager and thus a “guardian of the revolution”. He quickly rose through the ranks of the Revolutionary Guard’s newly founded navy. In the early years, he was based in his birthplace on the strategically important Persian Gulf. Those were the war years with Iraq, and the Strait of Hormuz was considered the eye of the needle for the world’s energy supply.
Since then, Abazari has taken on many posts, most recently as vice-commander of Imam Hossein University. The military university is one of Revolutionary Leader Ali Khamenei’s most important institutions. It is here that the commanders and officers of the Revolutionary Guards are trained. Khamenei watches over the teaching staff meticulously; he attends the graduation ceremony every year and gives speeches. Attached to the college is a university where science and military technology are taught.
Revolutionary Guards, a central pillar of the Iranian regime: senior Guardsman Brigadier General Hamid Abazari suggested during a televised speech on the protests that not everyone was toeing the system’s line anymore. “I know of great commanders who have found themselves unwilling and unable to carry on,” he said. “It is these vital war commanders who are weakening and going against our values.” His words point to cracks in the country’s ruling system, writes Ali Sadrzadeh in his analysis
On 27 December, Brigadier General Abazari made a remarkable appearance on regional television in Mazandaran province. He spoke about resistance, perseverance and the need to fight against “troublemakers and counter-revolutionaries”. However, he also spoke at length about the psychological challenges of this struggle. Literally, he said, “Even I as a commander do not know what will happen tomorrow. I know of great commanders who have found themselves unwilling and unable to carry on. It is these vital war commanders who are weakening and going against our values.”
The video instantly went viral. The Revolutionary Guard had to react, keeping quiet was pointless, the message was too clear and too well documented on the Internet for that. At first, they hoped to put an end to the speculation about a rift in the leadership. This was not their position and did not correspond to reality, they said, rather it was the personal opinion of Brigadier General Abazari.
The following day, Gholamhossein Gheybparvar, former commander of the Basij forces, criticised “some elites” for still remaining silent on the unrest, as if they had already given up on the Islamic Revolution. “We do not deny that we have economic problems, high prices, unemployment and other difficulties, but we must not waver or show any weakness in this situation,” said the senior Guardsman.
Earlier in December, the hacker group Black Reward had circulated files containing exclusive security briefings intended for Hossein Salami, the Revolutionary Guard’s commander-in-chief. One of the documents said Khamenei had complained to Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel that large sections of the elites in the Islamic Republic were remaining silent on the unrest. Haddad-Adel is the father-in-law of Khamenei’s favourite son Mojtaba, who is to succeed his father in the post of Supreme Religious Leader.
Ali Khamenei relying on repression: the Iranian leadership has dismissed the police chief of Tehran, Hussein Ashtari, and replaced him with Ahmad Reza Radan, who is considered to be even more brutal. Sixty-year-old Radan was already the country’s police chief in 2009, at the height of the mass protests. His many atrocities from that time, including torture and murder, are well documented. Radan, who is on the international sanctions list, is also considered the architect of the “Gashte Ershad”, the so-called morality police, and advocates strict adherence to hijab regulations. With Radan, the tolerated loosening of the headscarf requirement, which could be observed on the streets of Tehran recently, is likely to come to an end, sooner rather than later, says Ali Sadrzadeh
Surrounded by the most radical
By the silent elite, Khamenei also means the influential clerics in Qom, the centre of Shia scholarship, who have unconditionally defended Khamenei’s rule for the past thirty years. For a long time, the Grand Ayatollahs Makarem, Nuri Hamedani and Amoli approved of everything Khamenei ordered and were constantly present in the media, but this is no longer the case.
Now Khamenei is only surrounded by the most radical supporters. On 7 January 2023, when two demonstrators were executed, he also dismissed his police chief, Hussein Ashtari, likely for a lack of brutality. He was replaced by Ahmad Reza Radan. Sixty-year-old Radan was the country’s police chief in 2009, at the height of the mass protests. His many atrocities back then, including torture and murder, are well documented.
Radan, who is on the international sanctions list, is also considered the architect of the “Gashte Ershad”, the so-called morality police, and advocates strict adherence to hijab regulations. With Radan, the tolerated loosening of the headscarf requirement, which has been seen on the streets of Tehran recently, is likely to come to an end – sooner rather than later.
The intensified repression is also taking on absurd features. Last week, for example, a man was arrested for posting a recipe for hamburgers on Instagram. The day of publication was the anniversary of the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani by the Americans. One popular anecdote in circulation is that Donald Trump made mincemeat out of Soleimani.
The modification was discovered during an unannounced inspection on Jan. 21 at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, a location built into a mountain where inspectors are bolstering checks after Iran stated it would drastically increase enrichment.
Recent activity at the Fordow nuclear facility in Iran. Credit: ImageSat International.
(February 1, 2023 / JNS) The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chastised Iran on Wednesday for modifying the connection between the two groups of high-tech machines at the Islamic Republic’s Fordow plant that enrich uranium to up to 60% purity, close to weapons grade.
The modification was discovered during an unannounced inspection on Jan. 21 at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP), a location built into a mountain where inspectors are beefing up checks after Iran stated it would drastically increase enrichment.
In a confidential report to member states obtained by Reuters, the U.N. nuclear watchdog stated that “they were interconnected in a way that was substantially different from the mode of operation declared by Iran [to the IAEA].”
In a public statement summarizing that confidential report, the IAEA said its chief, Rafael Grossi, “is concerned that Iran implemented a substantial change in the design information of FFEP in relation to the production of high-enriched uranium without informing the agency in advance.”
“This is inconsistent with Iran’s obligations under its Safeguards Agreement and undermines the agency’s ability to adjust the safeguards approach for FFEP and implement effective safeguards measures at this facility,” he said.
Army says facilities storing chemicals for missiles and for manufacturing weapons hit; small armed group claims second volley of rockets in response to sanctions against prisoners
Fire and smoke rise above buildings in Gaza City during retaliatory Israeli airstrikes on the Palestinian enclave, after rockets were launched at Israel, early on February 2, 2023. (MOHAMMED ABED / AFP)
Israeli Air Force warplanes carried out sorties in the Gaza Strip early Thursday in response to a rocket attack on southern Israel hours earlier, as a new round of rocket alarms sounded in Sderot and nearby towns, the military said.
The Israel Defense Forces said its jets bombed a site where the Hamas terror group stores chemicals used to make missiles. It also struck a facility where the group manufactures weaponry, the army said.
The Palestinian Shehab news outlet reported that Israel bombed “resistance sites” in central Gaza.
Footage published by Palestinian media outlets showed fireballs exploding amid the densely populated coastal enclave.
Israel considers Hamas, which rules the Strip, responsible for any attack emanating from the enclave regardless of whether the group was behind it.
“The Air Force destroyed Hamas weapons production and storage sites tonight. Any [rocket] fire at the State of Israel or any attempt to harm the lives of the residents of the south will be met with the strength of the IDF,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Twitter on Thursday morning.
The Israeli bombing runs came hours after a rocket launched toward the southern city of Sderot on Wednesday evening was intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense system, the IDF said.
Sirens went off again in Sderot and other nearby towns several times as Israel carried out the airstrikes.
The IDF later said that 12 projectiles were fired from the Gaza Strip during the airstrikes, but not all of them were rockets. Some were anti-aircraft missiles aimed at Israeli jets, and others were rockets aimed at Israeli towns.
The military said 11 of the projectiles exploded in open areas in Israel or mid-air, and one rocket fell short in the Strip.
The Iron Dome air defense system was not activated in any of the cases, the IDF said.
The military did not respond to the further attacks overnight, but only to the initial rocket on Wednesday evening.
In the earlier rocket attack, a woman in her 50s was lightly hurt after slipping while running to a bomb shelter in Sderot, medics said. She was taken by the Magen David Adom ambulance service to a nearby hospital for treatment.
A large piece of shrapnel caused minor damage to a road, the Sderot municipality said.
The rocket attack was the second in recent days, with the region convulsed by increasing violence. On January 26, Palestinian fighters fired two missiles at Israel, in response to a deadly raid in the West Bank earlier that day. Then as well, Gazans fired a fresh volley of rockets at Israel when it carried out an ensuing round of airstrikes early the next morning.
Rocket shrapnel found in the city of Sderot following an attack from the Gaza Strip, Febuary 1, 2023. (Sderot Municipality)
The National Resistance Brigades, the armed wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group, claimed responsibility for the second round of rocket fire on southern Israel Thursday morning, saying in a statement that it was a response to the “systematic aggression” of the Israel Prison Service against Palestinian inmates.
The military wing of Hamas, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, as well as the smaller Mujahideen Brigades faction, both claimed their fighters fired anti-aircraft weapons and ground-to-air missiles at the Israeli planes carrying out the attacks.
There were no reports of injuries on either side.
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The Wednesday attack also seemed to be in response to reports of a crackdown by the Israel Prison Service (IPS) against Palestinian inmates in Israeli jails, especially female prisoners.
Images and a video circulating on social media shortly after the attack Wednesday showed three Iranian-made 107mm Fadjr-1 projectiles, similar to the shrapnel found in Sderot, with text on them reading: “The female prisoners are a red line.”
It was unclear which armed group had issued the footage, and there was no immediate claim by any of the Gaza-based terror groups for the rocket fire Wednesday.
The Prisons Service has been taking disciplinary actions against so-called security prisoners — Palestinians held on terror charges — who had been allegedly celebrating recent terror attacks in Israel. The Kan public broadcaster said the moves were also being taken against female Palestinian prisoners, some of whom have been transferred to solitary confinement and have had their rooms searched.
The network said Islamic Jihad had threatened a response over the jailers’ actions.
Earlier Wednesday, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir ordered the Prisons Service to shutter two bakeries inside detention facilities that were supplying security inmates with fresh bread.
The minister said the rocket attacks would not deter him from taking measures against prisoners.
“The [rocket] fire from Gaza will not stop me from continuing to work to abolish the summer camp conditions of murderous terrorists. I give my full support to the Prisons Service to go into the [prison] wings and restore order,” he said.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir speaks to the press at Jerusalem’s Shaare Tzedek hospital on January 28, 2023 (Courtesy Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
Tensions have been high as the IDF has pressed on with an anti-terror offensive mostly focused on the northern West Bank to deal with a series of attacks that left 31 people in Israel dead in 2022, and seven more in an attack on Friday.
The IDF’s operation has netted more than 2,500 arrests in near-nightly raids. It also left 171 Palestinians dead in 2022, and another 35 since the beginning of the year, many of them while carrying out attacks or during clashes with security forces, though some were uninvolved civilians.
Israeli troops operate in the West Bank, early February 1, 2023. (Israel Defense Forces)
On Friday night, a Palestinian gunman from East Jerusalem killed seven people and injured three more in the capital’s Neve Yaakov neighborhood, and the next morning, a 13-year-old Palestinian shot and wounded two Israeli men near the Old City.
There has also been a rise in revenge attacks by Israelis against Palestinians following the two terror attacks.
The IDF bolstered forces in the West Bank following the recent incidents.
ByMichael Callahan, Jennifer Hansler and Haley Britzky, CNNWire
Tuesday, January 31, 2023 1:10PM
Russia has stepped up its offensive attacks in Eastern Ukraine with a missile hitting a residential area.
Russia is violating a key nuclear arms control agreement with the United States and continuing to refuse to allow inspections of its nuclear facilities, a State Department spokesperson said Tuesday.
“Russia is not complying with its obligation under the New START Treaty to facilitate inspection activities on its territory. Russia’s refusal to facilitate inspection activities prevents the United States from exercising important rights under the treaty and threatens the viability of U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control,” the spokesperson said in statement.
“Russia has also failed to comply with the New START Treaty obligation to convene a session of the Bilateral Consultative Commission in accordance with the treaty-mandated timeline,” the spokesperson added.
In December, Putin warned of the “increasing” threat of nuclear war, and this month, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, threatened that Russia losing the war could “provoke the outbreak of a nuclear war.”
“Nuclear powers do not lose major conflicts on which their fate depends,” Medvedev wrote in a Telegram post. “This should be obvious to anyone. Even to a Western politician who has retained at least some trace of intelligence.”
And though a US intelligence assessment in November suggested that Russian military officials discussed under what circumstances Russia would use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, the US has not seen any evidence that Putin has decided to take the drastic step of using one, officials told CNN.
Under the New START treaty — the only agreement left regulating the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals — Washington and Moscow are permitted to conduct inspections of each other’s weapons sites, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, inspections have been halted since 2020.
A session of the Bilateral Consultative Commission on the treaty was slated to meet in Egypt in late November but was abruptly called off. The US has blamed Russia for this postponement, with a State Department spokesperson saying the decision was made “unilaterally” by Russia.
The treaty puts limits on the number of deployed intercontinental-range nuclear weapons that both the US and Russia can have. It was last extended in early 2021 for five years, meaning the two sides will soon need to begin negotiating on another arms control agreement.
“Russia has a clear path for returning to full compliance. All Russia needs to do is allow inspection activities on its territory, just as it did for years under the New START Treaty, and meet in a session of the Bilateral Consultative Commission,” the spokesperson said. “There is nothing preventing Russian inspectors from traveling to the United States and conducting inspections.”
According to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Russia has roughly 5,977 nuclear warheads, 1,588 of which are deployed. The US has 5,550 nuclear warheads, according to the Center, including 3,800 active warheads.
On Monday, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the last remaining element of the bilateral nuclear arms control treaty with the United States could expire in three years without a replacement.
Asked if Moscow could envisage there being no nuclear arms control agreement between the two nations when the extension of the 2011 New START Treaty comes to an end after 2026, Ryabkov told the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti on Monday: “This is a very possible scenario.”
As tensions rise in Palestine, Washington attempts to contain the escalation, reports Mohamed Abu Shaar
Palestinians protest in the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound in Jerusalem after one of the deadliest Israeli occupation forces raids in the occupied West Bank (photo: AFP)
January saw the most violent confrontations between Israel and Palestinians since 2015, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Some 35 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank.
The Israeli army invaded the Jenin refugee camp on 27 January, killing 10 Palestinians and arresting several others. Tel Aviv claimed it was an operation to thwart a major plot to attack Israel, but the army did not elaborate on the alleged plot.
Hamas’ military wing has thus joined those armed groups recently mounting operations recently in the Jenin Refugee Camp, including some associated with Islamic Jihad and the Fatah-affiliated Al-Aqsa Martyrs.
However, most of the victims at the refugee camp were civilians, and they included an elderly woman and member of the Palestinian Olympic team Ezzeddin Salahat, who played for Ittihad Al-Shurta Club and represented the national team at many sports events.
The Israeli army also destroyed the youth sports centre at Jenin Camp, where the main building and the sports pitch were seriously damaged.
Islamic Jihad also fired two rockets from the Gaza Strip towards Ashkelon on its border, and Israel responded by bombing military locations in Gaza. Islamic Jihad once again fired rockets, before cautious calm was restored.
On Friday, tensions peaked following a shooting by a Palestinian called Khairy Alqam, 21, near a synagogue in occupied Jerusalem that killed seven Israelis and injured more than ten others. The attack had a seismic impact inside Israel, and Tel Aviv described it as the worst since 2008.
Israeli analysts viewed the incident as a serious example of the danger represented by what Israel calls “lone wolves”. This is a term used by Israeli security circles to describe those who carry out attacks but don’t belong to any armed Palestinian group.
It is a challenge for Israeli security agencies to pursue such attackers because there is no organisational structure that can be discovered or information collected from those arrested during daily raids by the Israeli army in the West Bank. The army claims
those raids are in pursuit of elements connected to Palestinian factions, especially Islamic Jihad which is active in Jenin and is trying to form robust armed cells there.
According to Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, there is nothing much to do about lone wolf attacks, except to monitor social media through the Israeli army’s intelligence agencies to uncover the intentions of possible perpetrators and deploy more Israeli forces to thwart operations on the ground.
One day later, two Israelis were injured in a shooting by an Israeli youth in Salwan district in Jerusalem. In response, Israel took a series of unprecedented steps including approving the arrest of the families of Palestinian attackers and barricading their homes. Israeli forces took these steps against the family of Alqam, the perpetrator of the Jerusalem attack.
The smaller Israeli security cabinet approved a series of steps, including denying the right to national insurance and other benefits to the families of Palestinians who support armed operations against Israel, not issuing Israeli ID cards to families of Palestinians who support attacks, and increasing to thousands the number of gun owners by accelerating and expanding the scope of firearms licenses.
The police urged any Israeli with a licensed weapon to carry it with them, since in the past Israelis have shot at Palestinians carrying out attacks against Israel. Tel Aviv also decided to deploy its troops extensively in various areas across Israel. It is likely the new Israeli government will take further steps to confront the wave of increasing attacks against Israelis. These include an imminent proposal by National Security Ministry Itamar ben Gvir that includes sentencing Palestinian attackers to the electric chair.
The growing escalation in the West Bank and Jerusalem portends a broader confrontation if armed Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip engage on the front line, especially since factions like Islamic Jihad refuse to curb their response to Israeli attacks on Gaza, which they view as an Israeli plot to separate Palestinian areas and deal with each separately.
Hamas, however, which was more cautious at the start of the military escalation with Israel, warned that the region is approaching an unprecedented upsurge as Israel continues to target Palestinians, especially the families of Palestinian prisoners which Israel has taken several punitive measures against.
Ismail Haniyah, the head of Hamas’ Politburo, warned on Saturday that there will be unprecedented escalation in the Palestinian territories, due to widespread repression by the Israeli Prisons Administration against Palestinian prisoners. Haniyah warned that confrontation will not remain within Israeli prisons.
“The repression to which prisoners are subjected is part of a systematic terrorist plan within an agreed agenda of Netanayhu’s government, led by Ben Gvir,” asserted Haniyah.
In response to Israeli escalation, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners decided on Monday to begin an open hunger strike to protest Israeli measures taken by the prison administration against them.
As confrontations crescendoed in all Palestinian areas, the US administration attempted to calm the situation. This was the main talking point during meetings by CIA Director William Burns and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who visited Israel and Ramallah to urge calm. Washington’s efforts were timed shortly after the Palestinian Authority (PA) declared it would end security coordination with Israel, and begin action against Israel on the international stage, with the help of Arab countries, at the UN and International Court of Justice.
The US is trying to dissuade the PA from continuing along this path to prevent a greater rupture with Israel. However, the Palestinian leadership – which has unusually refrained from condemning the killing of Israelis in the shooting attack in Jerusalem – gave
a list of demands to US officials visiting Ramallah.
The PA rejects Washington’s proposal to provide economic incentives without progress on the political track with Israel. While the US has reiterated its commitment to a two-state solution, it is not taking any steps to prevent Israel from settlement activities or the Judaisation of occupied Jerusalem.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 2 February, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
In brief: While the US has further tightened restrictions on chip-related exports to China recently, there are some entities in the country that have been on an export blacklist for decades. One of these is China’s top nuclear-weapons research institute, but that hasn’t stopped it from regularly buying Intel and Nvidia hardware.
The state-run China Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP) was one of the first to be placed on a US export blacklist in 1997 because of its work in the field of nuclear weapons, preventing it from purchasing American technology. However, according to a Wall Street Journal report, the institute has obtained US hardware at least a dozen times since 2020, including Intel’s Xeon Gold processors and Nvidia’s GeForce RTX graphics cards, for use in academy computers.
Intel and Nvidia cannot sell their products directly to the CAEP; instead, the institute bought them from Chinese marketplaces such as Taobao, Aliexpress, and other resellers. A WSJ review of CAEP-published research papers found at least 34 over the last decade referenced using American semiconductors in its research. The laboratory studies computational fluid dynamics, a broad scientific field that includes modeling nuclear explosions; physicists at CAEP helped develop the country’s first hydrogen bomb.
Used for high framerates and nuclear-weapons modeling
The revelation illustrates the difficulty in enforcing US export restrictions on China. Nvidia said the millions of PCs sold worldwide means it cannot control where its products end up. Intel said it complies with export regulations and sanctions and so must its distributors and customers.
“It is insanely difficult to enforce the U.S. restrictions when it comes to transactions overseas,” former top Commerce Department official Kevin Wolf told the WSJ.
The Department of Defense said China has been accelerating its nuclear weapons development in recent years. The People’s Liberation Army currently has more than 400 warheads, a figure that could reach about 1,500 by 2035 if the current rate of expansion continues.
With the export restrictions in place, China has been trying to create its own chips, a plan the US is trying to scupper by prohibiting the sale of advanced chipmaking tools to the Asian nation. The Biden administration recently came to an agreement with the Netherlands and Japan that will see the two countries impose their own export controls on chipmaking equipment to China.
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