6.1 Quake Hits New Zealand - Tremors Felt Throughout Country

M6.1 earthquake hits New Zealand's Central North Island - Tremors widely-felt throughout much of the country with more than 15,000 felt reports

A M6.1 earthquake has struck 25 kilometres south-west of Taumarunui at 3.13pm local time (2.13am UTC). Tuesday 30 October. This earthquake was widely-felt throughout much of the country, there are currently more than 15,000 felt reports.

This earthquake hasn’t caused a tsunami as it is too deep and was not centred near the coast.

As this was a very deep quake, you can see from the pattern of felt reports that the energy travelled along the rigid subducting slab on the east of the North Island.

Large, deep earthquakes like this usually cause fewer aftershocks than shallower ones.

The jolts which struck the country shortly after 3:00pm local time have led the Parliament to suspend its session.

Who else felt the one just now??? Hope the others in the video don’t mind #eqnz pic.twitter.com/Qednpe3iI5

— LVG NZ (@NzLvg) October 30, 2018

“I never thought I’d have to do that, suspend the House until we find out what’s happened,” deputy speaker Anne Tolley said, according to local news. “There were public in the galleries and people need to just make sure their staff are OK. I mean we’re in the safest building probably in the country – but just to make sure and get some advice.”

Russian Navy Plans To Test Missiles In International Waters Off Norway's Coast

Russia Plans Missile-Firing Exercise Off Norway Amid NATO Drills

The Russian Navy plans to test missiles in international waters off Norway's coast this week, Norwegian and NATO officials say, as the Western military alliance conducts its largest military exercise since the end of the Cold War.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on October 29 the alliance was informed last week about the planned tests.

"Russia has a sizable presence in the north, also off Norway," Stoltenberg told the Norwegian news agency NTB.

"Large [Russian] forces take part in maneuvers and they practice regularly," he added.

Russian officials did not immediately comment on the planned missile tests, which come amid persistent tension between NATO and Russia, which seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and backs separatists in an ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine but accuses the alliance of provocative behavior near its borders.

A spokesman for Avinor, which operates Norwegian airports and air-navigation services, said Russia had informed them about the tests in a so-called NOTAM, a notice to pilots about potential hazards along a flight route.

The spokesman, Erik Lodding, told the dpa news agency that it was "a routine message." 

The tests are to take place from November 1-3, west of the coastal cities of Kristiansund, Molde, and Alesund.

"There is nothing dramatic about this. We have noted it and will follow the Russian maneuvers," Norwegian Defense Minister Frank Bakke-Jensen said.

On October 25, NATO launched its Trident Juncture exercise, which Stoltenberg has called a "strong display" of its capability, unity, and resolve at a time of growing danger in Europe.

The live-field exercise is set to run to November 7.

NATO says it involves around 50,000 soldiers, 10,000 vehicles, 250 aircraft, and ships from all 29 NATO allies, plus partners Finland and Sweden.

The aim of the drills stretching from the North Atlantic to the Baltic Sea is to practice the alliance's response to an attack on one of its members.

Russia held large military exercises called Zapad-2017 (West-2017) in September 2017 in its western regions jointly with Belarus, which also borders several NATO countries, and last month conducted massive drills across its central and eastern regions.

Mystery Paralysis Illness Targeting Children

Mystery illness paralyzing Central Texas children

 Doctors nationwide are puzzled by a mystery illness paralyzing children as young as four years old.

In July, Jennifer Tavarez says her 5-year-old, Jahsua, had a cold and a fever. Then, when he got up in the middle of the night to use the restroom, he fell to the floor, unable to move his leg.

"He was unable to wiggle his toes or lift his leg up," Jennifer says. That's when Jennifer knew it was more than a cold, and at the advice of her pediatrician rushed Jahsua to Dell Children's Medical Center.

Within hours, she says her son was paralyzed from the neck down.

"Listening to that was the worst thing I've ever heard. I cried, of course," Jennifer says.

When the mom of two boys asked doctors how and why, they had no answers.

"We really don't know what is causing it in some kids now, and there definitely needs to be more research," says Emergency Room Dr. Eric Higginbotham at Dell Children's Medical Center.

What Jahsua experienced is called Acute Flaccid Myelitis, or AFM for short. It attacks the nervous system, targeting the spinal cord, leading to weakness in the arms and legs, eye problems including droopy eyelids, difficulty swallowing and slurred speech.  

The Centers for Disease Control says it's rare, with less than one in a million people getting it each year but the number of suspected cases in Central Texas seems to be on the rise. The CDC first saw an outbreak in 2014 and found it spikes every two years. So far this year, there have been 62 confirmed cases in 22 states. Fourteen have been reported in Texas, including two in Travis County and one in Hays County.

However, health care providers are not required to report possible cases of AFM to the Texas Department of Health and Human Services or the CDC, and KXAN found more than one child in Central Texas hit hard by the life-changing condition. Jahsua was just one of them.

Dr. Higginbotham says the hospital has seen upwards of six cases of AFM this year, and there are many unknowns when it comes to treatment.

"Some of these kids recover from it," he says. "Some kids, once they have that nerve damage, there is really not a way to heal that. So, they stay in this weakened condition."

One story of hope is 5-year-old Evelette Zavala.

The Central Texas kindergartner was rushed to the hospital early October when her mom, Virginia noticed the left side of Evelette's face was drooping and her body was weak.

"The next day, she started complaining about her neck hurting," she says. "She couldn't move and she couldn't sit up by herself."

After two weeks of intense treatment and therapy, Evelette went home, with only some weakness in her arm. It surprised doctors and her mother.

"She's a lot better," Virginia says. "We are happy they are working with her and therapy, like I said, the therapy is key."

Doctor Higginbottham says Evelette is lucky to make a near full recovery because not every child walks away from AFM.

Jahsua spent a month and a half  at Dell Children's Hospital. Jennifer says during that time, intense physical therapy three times a day led to Jahsua regaining the use of his upper body, but not his legs. He now must use a wheelchair.

Jennifer said Jahsua’s progress isn’t the same since leaving the hospital and regular, more frequent physical therapy sessions. She said – because AFM is so rare – her insurance recently denied coverage for possible treatment at the International Center for Spinal Cord Injury at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, which provides electrical stimulation and robotic devices to help children with the disease to use their arms and legs.

The CDC says it is concerned and has not confirmed the cause for the majority of AFM cases, but on it's website says it's looking into whether certain viruses, including poliovirus, non-polio enteroviruses, adenoviruses and West Nile virus trigger the condition in children.

On Monday, panelists on the Today Show discussed how some researchers believe they may have discovered a virus that could be the cause: Enterovirus D68. It's a polio-like virus that's been around for a while, and has its own CDC page. EV-D68 really started ramping up, however, in 2014 — around the same time doctors started seeing an increase in AFM. Research is still being done, but scientists' next steps will be to try to develop a vaccine or cure.

For parents like Jennifer, it's more about what's next now that Jahsua has limited use of his body and options to treat the mysterious illness.

"It breaks my heart — it breaks my heart," Jennifer says through tears. "Kids are meant to walk, they are meant to run, to fall, to get bruises on their legs."

Soros-Funded Coalition In 'Orwellian' Attempt To Bully Tech Companies Into Banning All 'Hate' From Social Media

SPLC Leads Soros-Funded Coalition in ‘Orwellian’ Attempt to Bully Tech Companies Into Banning All ‘Hate’ From Social Media

Last week, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) teamed up with five other groups funded by George Soros to pressure tech companies to "reduce hateful activities on their platforms." While this sounds like a noble goal, mainstream conservative and Christian groups that have fallen afoul of the SPLC warned that these liberal organizations have an "Orwellian" definition of hate that most Americans would disagree with. Worse, social media companies already seem biased against conservatives, and this SPLC campaign would only embolden that bias.

On Wednesday, the SPLC led a coalition of groups in releasing "Change the Terms," aiming to convince Big Tech to "reduce hateful activities on their platforms." The coalition warned that "white supremacist and other organizations that incite hate are using online platforms to organize, fund, recruit supporters for, and normalize racism, sexism, religious bigotry, as well as anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigrant animus, among other activities."

While the overwhelming majority of Americans abhor wicked ideologies like white supremacy, the SPLC boldly associates its political opponents with similar "hate," smearing them as "hate groups" to be compared with the KKK.

"It's obviously concerning that they want to censor free speech, and of course their definition of 'hate speech' is not what most people think of as hate speech," Mat Staver, founder and chairman of the Christian legal nonprofit Liberty Counsel, told PJ Media.

"Most people think of hate speech as somebody encouraging physical violence," Staver argued. Groups like the SPLC "extend it to anybody who doesn't accept their view on LGBT issues, same-sex marriage, abortion, immigration, or Islam."

Tech companies have already targeted Liberty Counsel for adverse treatment thanks to the SPLC's "hate group" list. "We had Norton Security software attempt to block us," Staver recalled. "We sent a demand letter, and they withdrew the block. When they did their own review, they concluded that we were not a hate group."

If tech companies consider "Change the Terms," they should also examine the source.

"Tech companies should be aware that the Southern Poverty Law Center was connected in federal court to domestic terrorism when the shooter who attacked the Family Research Council in 2012 pled guilty to the crime while confessing that he relied on the SPLC's discredited 'hate map' to target the FRC," Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin, executive vice president at the Family Research Council (FRC), told PJ Media.

Indeed, the convicted terrorist who attempted to kill everyone in the FRC's Washington, D.C., office admitted that he used the SPLC's "hate map" to find his target. Even so, the SPLC has not reconsidered its "hate group" designation for FRC, and outlets like CNN plastered the SPLC "hate map" online, with no caveats.

Boykin warned that "the SPLC is a political defamation machine that has little respect for freedom of thought and expression. The SPLC is calling on tech companies to sacrifice free speech on the altar of political correctness."

"To demand that social media platforms push past First Amendment principles to pursue nothing but the strictest forms of content-based regulation on free speech is to throw decades of jurisprudence on the fires of history," Boykin argued. "The SPLC's requests are nothing more than a demand to acquiesce to Neo-Marxism."

The SPLC and its coalition would likely respond that the proposed terms do not violate the First Amendment. In a set of Frequently Asked Questions on the "Change the Terms" website, the groups argue that "hateful activity" means "activities that incite or engage in violence, intimidation, harassment, threats, or defamation targeting an individual or group based on their actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, immigration status, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability."

"Because of the strict definition of hateful activity found in the terms of service, these policies will not block free speech," the site claims. The First Amendment does not bind a private company, but it also does not protect all speech. "We carefully wrote the definition of hateful activity to cover types of speech that courts have said are not protected as free speech: incitement, violence, intimidation, harassment, threats, and defamation."

The difficulty comes, however, in the application of these terms. "Change the Terms" calls on tech companies to "allow for individuals and organizations — but not government actors — to flag hateful activities, as well as flag groups and individuals engaged in hateful activities," and to "create a trusted flagger program for vetted, well-established civil and human rights organizations to expedite review of potential hateful activities."

Monitoring content on massive social media sites is difficult, so the SPLC and its Soros-funded allies are here to help! Just who would these "civil and human rights organizations" be?

The coalition includes the Center for American Progress (CAP), a left-wing group whose former president served as chief of staff for both Bill and Hillary Clinton. CAP admits receiving more than $1 million from Soros' Open Society Foundations, but the Media Research Center put the number at $10 million — back in 2015!

CAP and the SPLC also teamed up with Free Press (which received $350,000 from Open Society Foundations in 2009), Color of Change (whose co-founders are Van Jones and a former MoveOn.org director, and which received $550,000 from the Open Society Foundation), the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (a group that opposed Robert Bork in 1984 and received more than $900,000 from Soros groups), and the National Hispanic Media Coalition (which took $450,000from Open Society Foundations in 2016). Not to be left out, the SPLC also received a $75,000 grant from Open Society Foundations in 2016.

Jennifer Roback Morse, a leader at the Ruth Institute (which lost its credit-card processor thanks to the SPLC's "hate group" label), told PJ Media that "'Change the Terms' seems to be a coalition of well-funded hard-Left organizations intent on shutting down even small opponents."

Lamentably, "the people behind 'Change the Terms' appear to be completely oblivious to their own biases," Morse noted. She warned that "independent thinkers should not allow groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center to censor the Internet."

Migrant Caravan Update: U.S. Troops To Arrive By Friday, Inside The Pentagon's Plan To Stop 'Invasion'

Second migrant caravan storms into Mexico

• The second caravan making their way up through Central America have members armed with explosives
• Had gasoline bombs made of soft-drink bottles, and improvised PVC tubes to launch fireworks 
• Mexican federal police briefly blocked the migrants from crossing the Suchiate River on Monday
• But the migrants soon defied the law enforcement presence and broke through into Mexico  
• Many tried to swim or wade across to Mexico, some while carrying children
• Law enforcement avoided a second day of violence, a day after a confrontation left one migrant dead  

The second migrant caravan, believed to be armed with bombs and guns, crossed into Mexico on Monday despite a huge police presence.

Hundreds of migrants following in the footsteps of the first caravan heading to the U.S. border crossed a river from Guatemala.

A low-flying police helicopter hovered overhead as the migrants waded in large groups through the Suchiate River's murky waters, apparently trying to use the downdraft from its rotors to discourage them. 

Guatemala's Noti7 channel reported that one man drowned and aired video of a man dragging a seemingly lifeless body from the river.

Once on the Mexican side the migrants were surrounded and escorted by black-uniformed officers as sirens wailed. 

The second group back at the Guatemalan frontier has been more unruly than the first that crossed. Guatemala's Interior Ministry said Guatemalan police officers were injured when the migrant group broke through border barriers on Guatemala's side of the bridge.

Mexico authorities said migrants attacked its agents with rocks, glass bottles and fireworks when they broke through a gate on the Mexican end but were pushed back, and some allegedly carried guns and firebombs.

On Monday, Mexican Interior Secretary Alfonso Navarrete Prida lamented what he called a second 'violent attempt' to storm the border, accusing people of placing the elderly, pregnant women and children at the front, putting them at risk of being crushed.

'Fortunately, that did not happen,' he said.

While catching rides from passing trucks was a largely impromptu affair in the first week of the caravan, it has now become more organized. On Monday, more than 100 migrants lined up at a gas station parking lot to wait for rides.

Mayor Ramiro Nolasco of the town of Zanatepec said locals had organized a bus and several trucks to carry migrants, mainly women and children.

'We are helping our brothers from other countries with food, water, and transportation,' Nolasco said. 'It is going to be very little, compared to what they need.'

At a checkpoint near the town, some migrants gathered to ask for help returning home to Honduras, the origin of the great majority of those in the caravan. Exhausted from many days on the road, and disheartened by the many miles yet to go and misbehavior by some fellow travelers, people have been dropping out from the caravan, which at its peak was estimated at more than 7,000.

The generosity shown by small towns and residents when the migrants first began trekking through southern Mexico has also lessened. At the last stop, few people came out to offer food, clothes and other items, said Hasiel Isamar Hernandez, a 28-year-old Honduran mother of three who has been with the caravan since it started in her hometown of San Pedro Sula. 

Pentagon says 5,000 troops will deploy to the border by Friday to 'deter' immigrant caravan

The Pentagon is dispatching 5,200 active military troops to 'harden' the southern border and comply with President Donald Trump's order to deter an immigrant caravan the president called an 'invasion', it said Monday.

Eight hundred troops were already en route Monday – a force the Defense Department is dramatically increasing by adding helicopter companies and engineers who are bringing 'heavy equipment.'

In total DOD is sending 5,200 troops to 'harden' the border, the Pentagon said at a briefing Monday. 

US riot police officers take part in a border security drill at the US-Mexico international bridge, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on October 29, 2018. The Pentagon is sending 5,200 troops to the southern border

Caravan on its way: Honduran migrants taking part in the caravan heading to the U.S. resume their march from San Pedro Tapanatepec to Santiago Niltepec, Oaxaca State, more than 1,000 miles from the border

'We'll reinforce along priority points of entry so as to enhance [Border Patrol]’s ability to harden and secure the border,” said Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy Monday.

The forces are 'just the start' of the operation,' he said. 

The 800 troops en route are in addition to the more than 2,000 members of the National Guard already providing assistance at the border now. Officials say the troops will provide "mission enhancing capabilities" and will be armed. 

'We are bringing three helicopter companies in. They are enhanced with optics and censors that will allow them to operate at night and provide assistance to bring our [border patrol] personnel exactly where they need to be regardless of the conditions,' he said.

The Pentagon says the added forces will be able to 'spot, identify groups and rapidly deploy' personnel as need.

'The helicopters will ensure the agents can arrive in the most austere locations and fast-rope down and conduct and work the law enforcement activities,' said Gen. O'Shaughnessy.

Asked if the troops were a 'political move' just days before an election as the size of the caravan has receded, he responded: 'We have to be prepared for I the potential arrival of a very large group.'

Troops will come from Fort Bragg, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Fort Stewart, Fort Campbell, Fort Riley and Fort Knox, Fox News reported. 

The armed troops won't take part in law enforcement activities in keeping with the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits it. 

'We will not allow a large group to enter the United States in an unsafe and unlawful manner,' said Kevin K. McAleenan, head of Customs and Border Protection. 

Speaking of the arsenal being brought to assist border agents, guard forces, and troops, McAleenan said: 'These agents will be augmented and supported by over two dozen CBP air assets for surveillance and mobile response, including four Blackhawks and six additional helicopters as well as multiple fixed wing assets and unmanned aerial systems.'

He said the agency would potentially pull a 'few hundred' forces from the northern border since there is no caravan there.

The dramatic dispatch of U.S. forces to the border comes just days before the off-year elections, with Democratic critics arguing Trump is using the perceived threat of the caravan to motivate his political base.

According to the Pentagon forces will first build up in southern Texas and Arizona, then California.

Priority will go to 'harden' points of entry. 

The engineering battalions have expertise in 'building temporary vehicle barriers, fencing and are bringing in heavy equipment,' according to the Pentagon.    

President Donald Trump issued yet another dire warning about the 'invasion' posed by the migrant caravan making its way through Mexico, as it was revealed that the Pentagon is upping its troop levels far above the initial 800 announced. 

TheWall Street Journal reported earlier Monday on the dramatic troop increase complying with the president's demand that military forces be put in place to stop the caravan of Central American migrants. 

'Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border,' Trump wrote on twitter, moving away from last week's claim that the caravan contained 'Middle Easterners.'






Inside The Pentagon's Plan For Stopping The "Migrant Invasion"



The White House's latest "troop surge" to the border will ensure that more than 7,000 National Guard and active duty troops are waiting at 26 crossing points in Texas, Arizona and California to intercept members of the migrant caravan that's slowly making its way from Honduras to the US's southern border with Mexico. While most of the thousands of migrants who have been traveling with the caravan are expected to either turn back or seek asylum in Mexico, hundreds, if not thousands, could still try to cross into the US and either petition for asylum or try their luck with an illegal crossing as part of "Operation Faithful Patriot."


But as a second caravan has formed and is making its way through southern Mexico behind the first caravan that formed on Oct. 13 in the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula, the latest wave of soldiers will likely be staying at the hardened border for some time, armed with weapons and tools to help provide "logistical support" for the more than 2,000 National Guard troops that have been deployed since April, and the border patrol agents whose responsibility it is to apprehend migrants, per RT.

About 3,500 migrants are being monitored in southern Mexico near the border between the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, while another group of roughly 3,000 is forming at the Mexican-Guatemalan border.

One of the first responsibilities of the latest troop wave will be to "harden" the border.

"We know border security is national security," General Terrence O'Shaughnessy, a commander with the US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), announced at a news conference on Monday, noting that the main objective of the US forces is to "harden the points of entry."

The border patrol's message to the migrants is simple, one of their commanders said: "We will not allow a large group to enter the US in an unlawful and unsafe manner."

Trump said in an interview with Fox that the migrants are "wasting their time," adding that "they are not coming in." He added that they would be captured and not let out until their asylum claims had been processed.

To accomplish this, the troops will build additional border barriers using razor wire and "over two dozen CBP air assets," four Blackhawk helicopters and drones, which will monitor migrants attempting an illegal entry, according to Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan. Furthermore, US troops will use "multiple fixed wings assets" to deploy troops to stop migrants where needed.

"We are bringing three helicopter companies in. They are enhanced with optics and sensors that will allow them to operate at night and provide assistance to bring our personnel exactly where they need to be regardless of the conditions," Gen. O'Shaughnessy explained.

"The helicopters will ensure the agents can arrive in the most austere locations and fast-rope down and conduct…law enforcement activities."