The Next Major Quake: The Sixth Seal of NYC

New York is overdue an earthquake from faults under city

New York is OVERDUE an earthquake from a ‚brittle grid‘ of faults under the city, expert warns

• New York City last experienced a M5 or higher earthquake in 1884, experts say
• It’s thought that these earthquakes occur on a roughly 150-year periodicity 
• Based on this, some say the city could be overdue for the next major quake 

By

Cheyenne Macdonald For Dailymail.com

Published: 15:50 EDT, 1 September 2017 | Updated: 12:00 EDT, 2 September 2017

When you think of the impending earthquake risk in the United States, it’s likely California or the Pacific Northwest comes to mind.

But, experts warn a system of faults making up a ‘brittle grid’ beneath

New York City could also be loading up for a massive temblor.

The city has been hit by major quakes in the past, along what’s thought to be roughly 150-year intervals, and researchers investigating these faults now say the region could be overdue for the next event.

Experts warn a system of faults making up a ‘brittle grid’ beneath New York City could also be loading up for a massive temblor. The city has been hit by major quakes in the past, along what’s thought to be roughly 150-year intervals. A stock image is pictured

THE ‚CONEY ISLAND EARTHQUAKE‘

On August 10, 1884, New York was struck by a magnitude 5.5 earthquake with an epicentre located in Brooklyn.

While there was little damage and few injuries reported, anecdotal accounts of the event reveal the frightening effects of the quake.

One newspaper even reported that it caused someone to die from fright.

According to a New York Times report following the quake, massive buildings, including the Post Office swayed back and forth.

And, police said they felt the Brooklyn Bridge swaying ‘as if struck by a hurricane,’ according to an adaptation of Kathryn Miles’ book Quakeland: On the Road to America’s Next Devastating Earthquake.

The rumbles were felt across a 70,000-square-mile area, causing broken windows and cracked walls as far as Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

The city hasn’t experienced an earthquake this strong since.

According to geologist Dr Charles Merguerian, who has walked the entirety of Manhattan to assess its seismicity, there are a slew of faults running through New York, reports author Kathryn Miles in an

adaptation of her new book Quakeland: On the Road to America’s Next Devastating Earthquake.

One such fault passes through 125th street, otherwise known as the Manhattanville Fault.

While there have been smaller quakes in New York’s recent past, including a magnitude 2.6 that struck in October 2001, it’s been decades since the last major tremor of M 5 or more.

And, most worryingly, the expert says there’s no way to predict exactly when a quake will strike.

‘That’s a question you really can’t answer,’ Merguerian has explained in the past.

‘All we can do is look at the record, and the record is that there was a relatively large earthquake here in the city in 1737, and in 1884, and that periodicity is about 150 year heat cycle.

‘So you have 1737, 1884, 20- and, we’re getting there. But statistics can lie.

‘An earthquake could happen any day, or it couldn’t happen for 100 years, and you just don’t know, there’s no way to predict.’

Compared the other parts of the United States, the risk of an earthquake in New York may not seem as pressing.

But, experts explain that a quake could happen anywhere.

According to geologist Dr Charles Merguerian, there are a slew of faults running through NY. One is the Ramapo Fault

‘All states have some potential for damaging earthquake shaking,’ according to the US Geological Survey.

‘Hazard is especially high along the west coast but also in the intermountain west, and in parts of the central and eastern US.’

A recent assessment by the USGS determined that the earthquake hazard along the East Coast may previously have been underestimated.

‘The eastern U.S. has the potential for larger and more damaging earthquakes than considered in previous maps and assessments,’ the USGS

report explained.

The experts point to a recent example – the magnitude 5.8 earthquake that hit Virginia in 2011, which was among the largest to occur on the east coast in the last century.

This event suggests the area could be subjected to even larger earthquakes, even raising the risk for Charleston, SC.

It also indicates that New York City may be at higher risk than once thought.

A recent assessment by the USGS determined that the earthquake hazard along the East Coast may previously have been underestimated. The varying risks around the US can be seen above, with New York City in the mid-range (yellow).

Obama Admits His Grave Mistakes in Iran

A rare moment of public self-criticism by a former president

Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN

Updated 7:33 AM EDT, Tue October 18, 2022

Editor’s Note: This story was adapted from the September 18 edition of CNN’s Meanwhile in America, the email about US politics for global readers. Click here to read past editions and subscribe.CNN — 

As historic protests and a bloody authoritarian backlash convulse Iran, former President Barack Obama has been reflecting on his response to previous uprisings there.

During the 2009 Green Movement protests in Iran, the then-President trod cautiously – to the ire of critics in the Republican Party and abroad – ostensibly because he wanted to avoid giving Iranian authorities an excuse for a brutal crackdown.

In June of that year, Obama did call for free speech, dissent and the democratic process after elections in Iran to be respected and said he was deeply troubled by violence.

But he also had this to say: “It is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be.” He added that he wanted “to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran” and becoming a “handy political football.”

Obama later toughened his position, but was accused of pulling his punches to avoid complicating the path to a nuclear deal with Tehran (that he eventually achieved in 2015).

Obama now feels that his initial stance on Iran was wrong, as he explained on Crooked Media’s “Pod Save America” podcast, run by a group of his former White House aides.

“When I think back to 2009, 2010, you guys will recall there was a big debate inside the White House about whether I should publicly affirm what was going on with the Green Movement, because a lot of the activists were being accused of being tools of the West and there was some thought that we were somehow gonna be undermining their street cred in Iran if I supported what they were doing,” Obama said. “And in retrospect, I think that was a mistake.”

“Every time we see a flash, a glimmer of hope, of people longing for freedom, I think we have to point it out. We have to shine a spotlight on it. We have to express some solidarity about it,” he said.

Obama’s comments mark a rare moment of public self-criticism by a former president. But they also show the advantage of perspective that sitting presidents don’t enjoy, since they must make tough decisions on the fly in the heart of crises.

Obama isn’t, however, repudiating his nuclear deal with Iran. Even though it was trashed by his successor, Obama argues that the deal successfully delayed the Islamic Republic’s nuclear development. “Had we not had that in place, I think Iran would’ve had a nuclear weapon by now,” Obama said.

Thirteen years on, President Joe Biden, perhaps informed by his experience in the previous Democratic administration, has been more forceful in quickly supporting Iranian protests. It may also help that his hopes of reviving the Iran nuclear deal are getting more distant by the week.

On Friday, for instance, Biden told reporters that he was “stunned” by the reaction in Iran to the death of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old whose death after detention by Tehran’s morality police sparked the latest uprising.

“It’s awakened something that I don’t think will be quieted in a long, long time,” he said.

But while foreign policy partisans in Washington often seem to believe the weight of US words alone – backed up with sanctions – will topple the Iranian regime, things are a lot more complicated.

The US can’t dictate how this turns out. That is as true now as it was 13 years ago. In the end, it’s still up to the Iranian people. And the democratic world can do little more than recognize that flash of hope of people craving freedom.

We Are Not Frightened Enough of the Bowls of Wrath: Revelation 16

This photo shows a 12-kiloton nuclear explosion test that was conducted as part of Operation Plumbbob on 28 May 1957 at the US Nevada Test Site. Image credit: National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

We Are Not Frightened Enough – Nuclear Weapons And The Horrors They Pose

New survey reveals how the public understanding of “nuclear winter” is dangerously low.

DR. RUSSELL MOUL

Despite the popularity of games like the Fallout series or shows such as The 100, the understanding among UK and US populations of the threats posed by nuclear weapons and a subsequent “nuclear winter” is dangerously low. According to a new survey published by the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risks (CSER), the public appreciation of the long-term and catastrophic consequences from any exchange of nuclear weapons is the lowest it has been since the Cold War. 

Then there’s the radioactive fallout. The soot and debris thrown into the atmosphere becomes radioactive because of the explosion, and would therefore be hazardous and largely lethal to animals and humans across the world.  

The CSER’s survey was conducted online on January 25, 2023, and asked 3,000 participants to judge what they thought they knew about “nuclear winter” and if they had heard about it from contemporary media, academic research, or the beliefs held in the 1980s. The results showed that most knowledge about a nuclear winter was a legacy of older beliefs from the Cold War.

The survey also presented participants with fictional near-future media reports where Russia had used nuclear weapons against Ukraine, or the other way around, to measure the appetite for retaliation in the West. They found that in the event of a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine, fewer than one in five people surveyed in both the US and UK approved of a nuclear retaliation, with men being more likely than women to support this measure. 

Some of the survey’s participants also saw infographics that demonstrated the consequences of nuclear winter, as predicted by a study in Nature Food in August 2022, which estimated that over five billion people would die from a war between the US and Russia. Half the participants from each surveyed country were shown the infographics before they read the fictional reports about nuclear attacks, while the other half, a control group, only read the reports. 

The results showed that support for a nuclear retaliation was actually lower among the participants who saw the infographics – 16 percent lower in the US and 13 percent in the UK. The survey also found that this effect was more pronounced among supporters of the current governments of both countries, with support for retaliation being 36 percent lower among US Democrats and 33 percent lower among UK Conservatives. 

In a statement, Paul Ingram, the senior researcher working on the CSER survey, explained how worrying the results are. “Ideas of nuclear winter are predominantly a lingering cultural memory”, he said, “as if it is the stuff of history, rather than a horribly contemporary risk.” 

“Of course it is distressing to consider large-scale catastrophes, but decisions need to account for all potential consequences, to minimise the risk,” he added. 

The ongoing war in Ukraine has brought the threat of a nuclear conflict to a new generation and has raised profound questions about the ways that states respond to global risks. In fact, on January 24, 2023, the Doomsday Clock, the metaphorical and symbolic representation of how close the world is to a human-made global catastrophe, was set to 90 seconds to midnight. This is the closest it has been to midnight since its creation in 1947.

Yet while this is a devastating figure, a study in Risk Analysis has argued that small pockets of survivors would nevertheless still exist on the planet, even after the worst catastrophe. According to this research, island nations like Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu would be the most capable of producing food to sustain human existence. 

Russia flies nuclear bombers over the UK Horn: Daniel 7

Russia flies nuclear bombers over sea north of Scotland

16th February

Two Russian bombers flew over the sea north of Scotland this week, as NATO meets to discuss supplying more military aid to Ukraine.

A pair of Tupolev Tu-160 supersonic jets flew across the neutral airspace of the Barents and Norwegian seas, passing to the north of Shetland.

The Soviet-era plane is the fastest bomber in active service and capable of deploying nuclear weapons.

The Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday: “Two Tu-160 strategic missile carriers conducted a 13-hour flight over the neutral waters of Barents and Norwegian seas

“Long-Range Aviation conducts periodic flights over the neutral waters of the Arctic, North Atlantic, Black and Baltic Sea, as well as Pacific Ocean.

Here’s what happened and what it means.

Why has Russia done this now?

As the country’s defence ministry said, Russia does make periodic flights across neutral airspace.

However, the move has been seen as a response to the NATO summit in Brussels.

Ukraine, which is not a member of the organisation, is asking for fighter jets as they brace for a renewed Russian offensive.

The two jets which passed north of Scotland followed flights by two Tupolev Tu-95s over the Sea of Okhotsk and a mission by two fighters of the same type over the Bering Sea which separates Russia from Alaska.

Those flights close to NATO’s borders have been seen by some as a warning from the Kremlin.

RAF jets periodically intercept aircraft from other nations near the UK’s airspace, with two Tu-95s accompanied by two Tu-142 maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare planes escorted away from British airspace last February by planes scrambled from Lossiemouth.

No British jets were scrambled on Tuesday.

Have there been any other developments?

Norway’s intelligence service said this week that Russia has deployed ships armed with nuclear weapons in the Baltic Sea for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Northern Fleet includes warships and submarines, and is headquartered in Severomorsk near the borders with Finland and Norway.

The Norwegian report stated: “With weakened conventional capability, the importance of nuclear weapons for Russia has increased significantly.

“The Russian strategic and regional deterrent forces have thus become increasingly important for the Russian military power.”

Why is Ukraine asking for fighter jets?

Most of Ukraine’s jets are from the Soviet era, and are overmatched by more modern jets deployed by Russia.

The more modern fighters can strike targets without entering Ukrainian airspace, making air defence more difficult for Kyiv.

On Tuesday, the day Russia conducted the flight north of Scotland, defence minister Oleksii Reznikov arrived at the NATO meeting and produced a handkerchief with a drawing of a fighter jet on it.

Why haven’t NATO provided the jets?

It’s feared that providing American, French and Swedish jets would escalate tensions with Russia, and be seen as NATO directly entering the war.

Ukraine is not a member of the alliance so it is not bound by treaty to defend the country from attack.

U.S President Joe Biden has blunty refused to F-16s and F-35s, with NATO instead focusing on air defences and training.

Russia has the largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the world, and has around 1,500 which are deployed – meaning ready to launch.

Vladimir Putin warned in September last year: “I want to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction, and for separate components and more modern than those of NATO countries and when the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, to protect Russia and our people, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal.”

Iranian Horn’s Killing Outside the Temple Walls: Revelation 11

Iran ‘mapping’ Jews in diaspora for kill squads

The hit squads would be deployed if Israel ever attacked Iran

BY DAVID ROSEFEBRUARY 16, 2023 11:23

Head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Hossein Salami, delivers a speech during a rally outside the former US embassy in the capital Tehran on November 4, 2021, to mark the 42th anniversary of the start of the Iran hostage crisis. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

Iran has been “mapping” the Jewish diaspora for an assassination campaign that will be triggered if Israel attacks its nuclear facilities, a Jewish woman who met Ayatollah Khamenei has told the JC.

The chilling plan, disclosed at a high-level meeting in Tehran, involved identifying key Jewish figures and determining “how to strike and where”.

The hit squads would be deployed if Israel ever attacked Iran, she was told, so “the diaspora would have a very nasty surprise”.

The revenge plot was revealed to Catherine Perez-Shakdam, one of the few Westerners to be granted an audience with Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei only seemed scared of one thing  — an Israeli attack, she said, adding: “He believes Netanyahu’s threats and he knows that, for now, Israel is militarily superior. ”

She also met Qasem Soleimani, the terrorist mastermind killed in a US attack three years ago, and Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s hardline president.

Unbeknown to the despotic regime, Ms Perez-Shakdam, a Middle East analyst and research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society think tank who contributed to pro-Iranian websites and the Russian propaganda TV channel, RT, was also a Jew.

She said she gained the high-level access via the man she called “Iran’s Dr Goebbels”, the late-Nader Talebzadeh, who led propaganda campaigns and cultivated her as a friend and ally.

It was at a closed event he organised in Iran that she said was told of the plan “to identify all the prominent NGOs run by Jews, who was doing what in each business sector, the important rabbis. They wanted to figure out their influence and where they lived with their families in order to target them.” Talebzadeh, she said, was explicit that the mapping was preparation for murder to make “the diaspora pay a price”.

In November MI5’s director general Ken McCallum said ten Iranian assassination plots had been foiled in the UK in the space of a year, although he did not say whether Jews had been targeted.

The revelations will increase the pressure on the government to follow the US and proscribe the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation.

A spokesperson for the Community Security Trust said: “We have known for many years that Iran is involved in plotting terrorism against Jewish communities, but it is utterly chilling to have it spelled out in such clear detail. When people ask why Jewish schools and synagogues need security, this is a large part 

Who is the Antichrist Iraq’s most influential religious-political figure?

Who is Moqtada Al Sadr?

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At the height of the US occupation of Iraq there were few figures American troops loathed more.
As a Shiite preacher, Moqtada Al Sadr used Friday sermons to rail against the invaders who deposed Saddam Hussein. “The little serpent has left and the great serpent has come,” he told a western journalist in 2004.
It led to him being labelled a firebrand cleric and, eventually, almost three years of self-imposed exile in Iran.
It has not been the easiest journey but the shape-shifting 44-year-old, whose political alliance appears to have won the highest number of seats in Iraq’s election, is on the verge of a remarkable transformation.
The corruption that plagues Iraq appears to have created his political opening.
Cultivating an outsider image, Al Sadr has navigated shifting allegiances, military
Embracing an Iraqi nationalist identity, staunchly against foreign influence, made him stand out in a field of post-invasion leaders at one time or another seemingly beholden to foreign states.
He is now a potential king-maker.
Born in the religious city of Najaf, the young cleric came to prominence after 2003 by raising an insurgent army, leveraging his influence as the son of a revered Grand Ayatollah killed for opposing Saddam.
Armed with Kalashnikov rifles and improvised explosives, the Mahdi Army led the Shiite resistance against the American invasion.
During Iraq’s brutal sectarian war in 2006-2007, the militia was accused of running death squads, seeking to remove Sunnis from areas of Baghdad.
The Pentagon once declared that the group had “replaced Al Qaeda in Iraq as the most dangerous accelerant of potentially self-sustaining sectarian violence.”
Al Sadr later fell foul of the Iraqi government following violence between his militiamen and the rival Shiite group, the Badr Organisation.
It wasn’t until the Iraqi army cracked down on the Mahdi army in 2007 – years after an arrest warrant had been issued against Al Sadr – that the heat finally got too much.
He fled to Iran – studying to become an ayatollah at the preeminent Shiite religious centre in Qom – before returning in early 2011.
The Mahdi army remobilised as the Peace Companies in 2014 to fight against ISIS but today Al Sadr’s influence rests more on his ability to rouse his followers.
In 2016, he reasserted his political relevance when his supporters stormed Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone in protests demanding better services and an end to corruption.
He drew upon that same support base and anger to mobilise voters last weekend.

Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr visits his father’s grave after parliamentary election results were announced, in Najaf, Iraq on May 14, 2018. Alaa Al Marjani / Reuters Photo

Campaign slogans such as “corruption is terrorism” resonated across Iraq, but particularly in neglected areas of Baghdad such as the sprawling working class neighbourhood that bears his family name.
Sadr City was once Saddam City but was renamed in memory of the protests which were crushed there following Al Sadr‘s father’s murder in 1999. Uncollected rubbish piles and open sewers fuel resentment at the lack of development.
Like most Iraqis, his “Sadrist” followers want change, lacking faith in the post-invasion political elite to deliver.
But whereas many Iraqis stayed home on Saturday, either as a boycott or from apathy – turnout was only 44.5 per cent – the Sadrists voted in force, believing in his determination to tackle corruption.
He had earlier cleaned house within his own ranks, banning current MPs – accused of corruption – from running.
Instead, Al Sadr formed an alliance with Iraqi communists and secularists, allowing him to inject new faces and complete his move from sectarian militia leader to Iraqi nationalist.

Iraqi supporters of Sairun list celebrate with Iraqi flags and a portrait of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr after results of Iraq’s parliamentary election were announced in Baghdad, Iraq May 15, 2018. Thaier Al Sudani / Reuters Photo

The move worked, with his Sairoon bloc winning the nationwide popular vote with more than 1.3 million votes, and gaining an estimated 54 of parliament’s 329 seats.
“He has undergone a transformation – he is more mature now – but that’s also true of the atmosphere around him,” said Dr Muhanad Seloom, associate lecturer in international relations at the University of Exeter.
“I don’t think he’s a different beast as people say, he’s the same person, he still holds the same convictions, political and religious, but he’s a nationalist.”
Al Sadr immediately began negotiations to form a coalition government, another role he is familiar with. In 2010, after the Sadrist bloc won 39 seats in parliament, Al Sadr showed his ability to bury the hatchet, playing coalition partner to former enemy Nouri Al Maliki. The pact allowed Al Maliki to retain the premiership.
This time Al Sadr will be in a stronger position, though political office is not his aim. As he did not stand as a candidate himself, he cannot be named prime minister.
And as in previous elections, when prime ministers have been selected with the consultation of both the US and Iran, Al Sadr‘s bloc will have to contend with rivals.
The US will be wondering whether it can maintain influence with a man they once labelled a thug but may take solace in his strong stance against Iran.
Iran may be more inclined toward supporting Al Sadr‘s rivals, Shiite militia leader Hadi Al Ameri, and, once again, Al Maliki.
Ahead of the election, a senior Iranian official said: “We will not allow liberals and communists to govern Iraq,” a reference to Sadr’s allies in the Sairoon bloc.
Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has given indications it would be willing to work with Al Sadr, who visited the kingdom last summer to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Saudi minister of state for Arab Gulf affairs and former ambassador to Iraq, Thamer Al Sabhan congratulated Iraq on its elections, tweeting: “You are truly on marching toward wisdom, patriotism and solidarity. You’ve made the decision for change towards an Iraq that raises the banners of victory with its independence, Arabism and identity.”
If Al Sadr were able to form a government, it could be a step in the right direction for Iraq, Dr Seloom believes: “He wants a technocratic government, he wants Iraq to be democratic and he wants to fight corruption.”

Iran’s official: Khamenei Regime At The Point of Collapse

Wed February 15, 2023

Iran’s official: Khamenei Regime At The Point of Collapse

Khamenei’s Regime at the Point of Collapse. Image from twitter screenshot.

Iran’s Khamenei regime has reached the brink of the abyss under the impact of the organized nationwide uprising (#iranrevolution) ongoing for the past 5 months.

While the explosive situation of the society on the powder keg of the economic crisis has shaken the “Supreme leaders” regime, Khamenei made important confessions about the economic bankruptcy of the regime on January 30. he unwittingly confessed to several tightening crises:

o Poverty and tangible livelihood problems”

o “Difficulties in the lives of families”

o “Unemployment of millions of graduates” and their inevitable “immigration.” 

o “Retardation and relative closure of economic matters”

o “Many negative economic indicators”

o “Extraordinary budget deficits”

o Uselessness of forming the Economic Council of the Heads of Power

and much more

Each of these confessions contradicted Khamenei’s previous claims and his “moderate” lobbies‘ propaganda in the press and think tanks abroad, regarding his regime’s progress. The “supreme leader” throwing the blame has not helped. It has now become more difficult to curb open attacks and revelations by his closest trustees which reveal the status of the regime.

A simple one-minute video showing Mullah Ansari, a member of Khamenei’s Expediency Council, a most trusted body, has a clear message