A chain of earthquakes like the ones that hit Kumamoto Prefecture and neighboring areas could occur in other regions, given the numerous active faults in the nation.
The Kumamoto Earthquake illustrated the fact that Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone countries. About 10 percent of the world’s earthquakes occur in the nation.
The Kumamoto Earthquake occurred in an active fault zone that was causing quakes following repetitive movements that created fissures in the ground.
There are 2,000 active faults across the nation, and 97 active fault zones that have been designated as key areas that could move within 30 years, the government’s Earthquake Research Committee announced previously.
The Hinagu fault zone caused a magnitude-6.5 quake on the night of April 14, and the Futagawa fault zone caused a magnitude-7.3 quake in the early morning of April 16. Both are designated as key fault zones. The first quake was followed only about 28 hours later by the second one.
“The quake on the night of April 14 triggered the main quake in the Futagawa fault zone,” said Prof. Kazuki Koketsu of the University of Tokyo’s Earthquake Research Institute.
“We have to be aware that if active faults are connected with others, a series of major earthquakes could occur in areas [other than Kumamoto Prefecture],” he said.
Earthquakes frequently occur in Japan because the country is located on four plates — out of a dozen or so that cover the surface of the Earth — that overlap each other.
Also, a sea plate is submerging beneath a land plate, causing tension to build up.
This is a major factor that causes active faults to move.
A new fault zone was found when the Iwate-Miyagi Inland Earthquake hit the Tohoku region in 2008. It had a magnitude of 7.2 and registered upper 6 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7.
An earthquake may occur in the future in a fault zone that has not been found — just like the Iwate-Miyagi earthquake.
Nobuo Fukuwa, director of Nagoya University’s Disaster Mitigation Research Center, said: “Areas that have not been hit by quakes recently should change their mind-set and [assume] that the time for a quake is approaching. They should prepare disaster countermeasures, led by local governments.”
An increase in seismic activity at Pavlof Volcano, which erupted spectacularly in March, has prompted Alaska Volcano Observatory staff to step up monitoring of the Alaska Peninsula volcano.
In a brief update Friday, raising Pavlof’s alert level to watch and its aviation color code to orange, staff at the observatory said they haven’t been able to visually confirm any eruption from satellite data or camera images, due to clouds obscuring the volcano.
“At about 10:35 a.m. (Alaska time) seismic activity at Pavlof Volcano increased to levels typically associated with low-level eruptive activity and it is possible that an eruption of Pavlof Volcano may be in progress,” AVO staff wrote.
AVO spokesman Dave Schneider said that the seismic activity that led to Friday’s notice for Pavlof has been increasing in intensity, although there’s still no confirmation that “anything is coming out of the volcano.”
“As it was starting to trend up over the last several hours, we thought it prudent to increase our alert level,” Schneider said. “This is what the beginning of an eruption looks like.”
Coast to Coast AM – ‘Fukushima & Nuclear Issues‘, Mar 31, 2016 (emphasis added):
At 42:00 in — Linda Moulton Howe, Regional Emmy Award-winning reporter: “Five years later now in March 2015, no one yet knows how deeply those three cores melted into the Fukushima ground.”
At 44:30 — Howe: “In the first days of the March 2011 catastrophe, [nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen] told media that Fukushima was ‘Chernobyl on Steroids’. Arnie meant that the Fukushima disaster would turn out to be much worse than the April 1986 core explosion at the Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Many experts believe now that the three missing Fukushima cores have melted right through the concrete floors, and are contaminating any water that reaches them — going down, perhaps touching, the groundwater.”
At 45:30 in — Arnie Gundersen, nuclear engineer: “Scientists and engineers knew exactly where the nuclear core was at Chernobyl a year later, but at Fuksuhima we’ve got three nuclear cores that are in direct contact with groundwater. Now that mean the containment broke and water is coming in and is contaminating the groundwater — so clearly the liquid releases from Fukushima are way, way more severe than Chernobyl.”
At 57:30 in — Howe: “The concept is… when water from mountain run-off reaches the ice wall, it will freeze or flow around the frozen ground out to the Pacific Ocean without passing by the highly radioactive melted cores. But everybody says, ‘How do you know that’s going to work because no one knows where the cores are, or how deep they are in the ground right now?’”
At 1:16:45 in — Howe: “[Fukushima] is a cleanup challenge that is now expected to take decades more, into the end of the 21st century — re-enforcing what Arnie Gundersen said five years ago in that very first week, that ‘Fukushima is Chernobyl on steroids’. And so far over these five years, it appears that he has been right.”
A shallow magnitude 3.0 earthquake was reported Saturday afternoon four miles east northeast of Gilroy, Calif., according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The temblor occurred at 12:39 p.m. Pacific time at a depth of 5.0 miles.
According to the USGS, the epicenter was 11 miles southeast of Morgan Hill, 13 miles north northwest of Hollister, and 16 miles east northeast of Watsonville.
In the past 10 days, there has been one earthquake of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered nearby.
NATO is continuing its military buildup along Russia’s borders. However, Russia is responding to every step the alliance takes by deploying new defensive weapons at its borders.
According to an article on the foreign affairs analysis website Voltaire Network, Washington in fact will not attack Russia. Its military buildup is rather aimed at provoking Moscow, in order to justify NATO’s expansion in Central Europe.
Amid NATO’s increased military activities near Russian borders, Moscow has announced the creation of two new units in the Western Military District (in Smolensk and Voronezh) as well as a new division in the South Military District (Rostov-on-Don).
At the same time, along the Russian borders with Finland, the Baltics and Poland Russia is now deploying Sova anti-intrusion networks. This equipment allows the surveillance and monitoring of several moving targets and their trajectories.
The Sova-SBRM (stands for Combat Surveillance Vehicle) is operated by a group of servicemen. It is based on the chassis of the GAZ-233036 Tigr combat vehicle.
The Sova-SBRM is equipped with up to 50-80 magnetic, seismic and acoustic sensors. The sensors can be integrated into a network in designated areas and are controlled remotely. Each sensor is designed to recognize the frequencies of a number of sound vibrations, including those produced by helicopters, aircraft and armored vehicles.
Al Qaeda’s Inspire online magazine is calling on jihadis to damage the American economy by killing business leaders and entrepreneurs in their homes.
Articles in the May 14 edition, its 15th, also urge radical Islamic terrorists to emulate the Palestinian street-killings of Jews by walking up to Americans and stabbing them to death.
Inspire’s cover carries the headline “Professional Assassinations” and the subhead “Home Assassinations.” It depicts the dark profile of a hooded killer stalking a victim who lives in an upscale American home.
A photo montage shows Microsoft founder Bill Gates, a pistol and spattered blood.
The kill list represents a different kind of target compared with the ultraviolent Islamic State, which has urged the killings of U.S. military personnel via assassination. Both Sunni extremist groups advocate mass killings.
The periodical is published by al Qaeda’s main affiliate, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), whose priority from its base in Yemen is to attack the U.S. homeland.
Russia may reconfigure its aerial task force and deploy the country’s only aircraft carrier The Admiral Kuznetsov to the Syrian coast, the author suggested. The deployment may take place in July.
Starting February 27, Russia pulled out 46 aircraft of its task force from Syria, including Su-24, Su-25, Su-30, and Su-34 jets. They were deployed to the Hmeymim airbase.
"At the same time, Washington has continued to ship advanced weapons to terrorists in Syria. As a result, after Palmyra was liberated the Syrian Army could not continue its advance on Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor," military expert Valentin Vasilescu wrote.
Within a month the Syrian Air Force lost three jet fighters. They were shot down by terrorists from the ground. Currently, the Air Force cannot provide enough support for the Syrian Army. Moreover, Russian airstrikes have been limited since President Vladimir Putin ordered a withdrawal from Syria.
"The only solution to help continue the anti-terrorist offensive would be to deploy Russia’s The Admiral Kuznetsov to the Syrian coast," he wrote.
"In fact, Vladimir Putin doesn’t seem to be ready to leave Syria without a Russian military presence. Rumors are going around that in summer Russia may send its only aircraft carrier – the Admiral Kuznetsov – to Syria. Putin may replace the airbase with an aircraft carrier," Rodier told Atlantico.
Currently, the air-wing of the Russian aircraft includes Su-33 and MiG-29K/KUB jet fighters. Last year, Russian pilots underwent special training in Crimea, learning to take off and land on the deck of an aircraft.
In addition to aircraft and helicopters, the Admiral Kuznetsov carries a number of different weapons, including air defense systems, Granit anti-ship missiles, artillery guns, and anti-submarine bombs.
There is a growing fear in financial and monetary circles that there is something deeply wrong with the global economy. Publicly, officials and practitioners alike have become confused by policy failures, and privately, occasionally even downright pessimistic, at a loss to see a statist solution. It is hardly exaggerating to say there is a growing feeling of impending doom.
The reason this has happened is that today’s macro-economists are a failure on the one subject about which they profess to be experts: economics. Their policy recommendations have become the opposite from what logic and sound economic theory shows is the true path to economic progress. Progress is not even on their list of objectives, which fortunately for us all happens despite their interventions. The adaptability of humans in their actions has allowed progress to continue, despite all attempts to discredit markets, the clearing centres for the division of labour.
Ill-founded beliefs in the magic of unsound money have been shattered on the altar of experience. Macro-economists are discovering that the failure of monetary and fiscal planning are becoming a policy cul-de-sac that has generated a legacy of unsustainable debt. Those of us aware of a gathering financial crisis are discovering that governments have tamed only the statistics and not what they represent.
There is evidence that central bank intervention began to irrevocably distort markets from 1981, when Paul Volker raised interest rates to halt the slide in the dollar’s purchasing power. It was at that point the free market relationship between the price level and the cost of borrowing changed, evidenced by the failure of Gibson’s paradox. That was the point when central banks wrested control of prices from the market. This is explained more fully below.
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