Thursday, April 2, 2015

Russian analyst urges nuclear attack on Yellowstone National Park and San Andreas fault line

Russian analyst urges nuclear attack on Yellowstone National Park and San Andreas fault line

Date
  • 31 reading now
Su-Lin Tan

Reporter

View more articles from Su-Lin Tan
 Follow Su-Lin on Google+
Bear shows claws: A Russian geopolitics analyst says Yellowstone National Park would be a good target for nuclear attack.
Bear shows claws: A Russian geopolitics analyst says Yellowstone National Park would be a good target for nuclear attack. Photo: AP/National Park Service
A Russian geopolitical analyst says the best way to attack the United States is to detonate nuclear weapons to trigger a supervolcano at Yellowstone National Park or along the San Andreas fault line on California's coast.
The president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems based in Moscow, Konstantin Sivkov said in an article for a Russian trade newspaper on Wednesday, VPK News, that Russia needed to increase its military weapons and strategies against the "West" which was "moving to the borders or Russia". 
He has a conspiracy theory that NATO - a political and military alliance which counts the US, UK, Canada and many countries in western Europe as members - was amassing strength against Russia and the only way to combat that problem was to attack America's vulnerabilities to ensure a "complete destruction of the enemy".
Conspiracy theory: The president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems based in Moscow, Konstantin Sivkov.
Conspiracy theory: The president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems based in Moscow, Konstantin Sivkov.
"Geologists believe that the Yellowstone supervolcano could explode at any moment. There are signs of growing activity there. Therefore it suffices to push the relatively small, for example the impact of the munition megaton class to initiate an eruption. The consequences will be catastrophic for the United States - a country just disappears," he said. 
Advertisement
"Another vulnerable area of ​​the United States from the geophysical point of view, is the San Andreas fault - 1300 kilometers between the Pacific and North American plates ... a detonation of a nuclear weapon there can trigger catastrophic events like a coast-scale tsunami which can completely destroy the infrastructure of the United States."
He said the Russian geography on the other hand would protect it from a tsunami or a volcano attack. Few people live on the coast in Russia and Siberia which rests on basalt would withstand similar attacks.
Russian target number 2: The San Andreas fault line, here pictured on the Carrizo Plain in California.
Russian target number 2: The San Andreas fault line, here pictured on the Carrizo Plain in California.
Mr Sivkov, who spoke at the 2013 Moscow Economic Forum, said by 2020 to 2025 Russia would have amassed "asymmetric weapons" in its arsenal for the attack.
"The situation for us today is comparably worse than half a century ago," he said.
"The weakened economic potential in Russia, the loss of the 'spiritual core of what was the communist idea', and the lack of large-scale community allies in Europe such as the Warsaw Pact, Russia simply cannot compete against the NATO and its allies." 
In December last year, the vocal military strategist told Russian newspaper, Pravda.ruthat there is a "developing standoff between Russia and the West" and the US's ultimate goal was to "destroy Russia". 
Mr Sivkov accused American politicians of committing several crimes including causing the deaths of 1,200,000 people in Iraq. He believed the only way for the "American elite" to be held accountable was for its military forces to be destroyed.
"American politicians have committed a variety of crimes. Will anyone be held accountable for those crimes? What about the international law, the UN and other organisations? Are they doing anything?" he asked.
Mr Sivkov told Pravda that the idea of the US preparing for a serious war against Russia using cruise missiles was plausible given that it had already launched a thousand missiles in Yugoslavia and Iraq.
Advertisement
Featured advertisers

Special offers

Credit card, savings and loan rates by Mozo
Advertisement

at

Republicans warn world that Obama U.N. plan could be undone

Republicans warn world that Obama U.N. plan could be undone

By By Valerie Volcovici | Reuters – Tue, 31 Mar, 2015
By Valerie Volcovici
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration's plan for U.N. climate change talks encountered swift opposition after its release Tuesday, with Republican leaders warning other countries to "proceed with caution" in negotiations with Washington because any deal could be later undone.
The White House is seeking to enshrine its pledge in a global climate agreement to be negotiated Nov. 30 to Dec. 11 in Paris. It calls for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by close to 28 percent from 2005 levels within a decade, using a host of existing laws and executive actions targeting power plants, vehicles, oil and gas production and buildings.
But Republican critics say the administration lacks the political and legal backing to commit the United States to an international agreement.
"Considering that two-thirds of the U.S. federal government hasn't even signed off on the Clean Power Plan and 13 states have already pledged to fight it, our international partners should proceed with caution before entering into a binding, unattainable deal,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said.
U.S. officials stressed that their Intended Nationally Determined Contribution, U.N. lingo for its official submission, stands on sound legal footing, with the measures drawing authority from legislation such as the Clean Air Act and the Energy Independence and Security Act.
Todd Stern, the lead U.S. climate change negotiator, said he frequently tells foreign counterparts that "undoing the kind of regulation we are putting in place is very tough to do."
But elements of the administration's climate policy already face legal challenges. On April 16, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. will hear arguments from 13 states opposed to as-yet-unfinalized regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that target emissions in existing power plants.
And McConnell's warnings echoed the tone of a March 9 "open letter" from 47 Republican senators to Iran, in which they warned a Republican president would not be bound to honor a nuclear agreement struck by Democrat Obama without congressional approval, calling it a "mere executive agreement."
Some observers said that resistance to the administration's climate policies leaves foreign governments questioning whether Obama's commitments can last.
“By strenuously invoking EPA regulations, the Administration is trying to convince skeptical international audiences that the U.S. can actually deliver on its new climate goals, despite Republican resistance,” said Paul Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House official who is now with the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
“But major capitals are likely to remain nervous.”
The administration is clearly sensitive to the threat. Power plants are the biggest domestic source of greenhouse gas emissions, and the EPA is seeking to use its power to slash carbon levels from plants to 30 percent of their 2005 levels by 2020.
On Monday, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said the agency had designed power plant rules under the authority of the Clean Air Act - and insisted that they can withstand Supreme Court scrutiny.
"We don’t need a plan B if we are solid on our plan A," she said.
But Jeff Holmstead, a lawyer representing utilities industries for Bracewell & Giuliani and former assistant administrator of the EPA under George W Bush, says even if the courts uphold the EPA proposal on power plants, a future Republican administration can reverse it.
"There are some EPA rules that are very difficult for a new administration to change but this is not one of those rules," Holmstead said. He calculates that at least five high court justices are wary of the EPA's regulatory leeway.
Environmental groups, on the other hand, were more confident that Obama's measures cannot be reversed by the courts or politics.
“The Clean Air Act has proven to be quite durable," said David Waskow, director of international initiatives for the World Resources Institute. "While elements may be slowed or modified by legal challenges, they are rarely overturned.”
(Reporting By Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Bruce Wallace and Grant McCool)
at

U.S., U.N. Leads Criticism of Thai Junta Martial Law Replacement

U.S., U.N. Leads Criticism of Thai Junta Martial Law Replacement

by Naharnet Newsdesk 15 hours ago
W460
The Thai junta's decision to lift martial law was denounced by critics Thursday as cosmetic, with Washington and the United Nations warning that replacement security measures would not loosen the military's grip on power.
In an announcement late Wednesday Thailand's generals officially lifted martial law 10 months after seizing power in a coup.
But the controversial law, which western allies had called on Bangkok to revoke, was replaced with a new executive order retaining sweeping powers for the military and junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha.
Those measures were passed under Section 44 of the junta-written interim constitution, a controversial provision handing Prayut power to make any executive decision in the name of national security.
The new order includes a continuance of a ban on political gatherings of more than five people, while the military retains the right to arrest, detain and prosecute people for national security crimes or those who fall foul of the country's strict royal defamation laws.
A new rule also appears to deepen censorship of the media, by allowing military officers to stop the publication or presentation of any news they deem to be "causing fear or distorted information".
The U.N.'s human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein described the new powers as "even more draconian" than martial law.
He added he was "alarmed" by the move "which bestows unlimited powers on the current prime minister without any judicial oversight at all".
A U.S. State Department official said Washington expected the Thai military to end trials of civilians in military courts, detention without charge and to allow people to express their opinions freely.
"We are concerned that moving to a security order under Article 44 will not accomplish any of these objectives," the official said.
Thai analysts and critics pilloried the replacement measures as martial law in all but name.
"Section 44 is actually worse (than martial law)," constitutional scholar Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang of Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University told AFP, adding that the new order allows Prayut to execute key decisions without the oversight of a military court.
"When they ask for the martial law to be lifted, what the public is really asking for is the return of basic rights and liberties to Thais. Prayut fails to understand that," he said.
Political commentator Verapat Pariyawong described the move to replace martial law "with something even worse" as an "April Fool's day trick".
But the junta defended the order saying the potential remained for anti-coup protests to upset an uneasy peace imposed since the military power grab.
"There have been movements from groups of people who lost power... groups of people who want to create disorder," Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-Ngam told reporters.
"The lifting of martial law will ease concerns from the people and the international community."
Thailand's generals had been under pressure from western allies, business and the tourism industry, which usually accounts for around 10 percent of GDP, to rescind the law.
It will however remain in place in Thailand's Muslim-majority southernmost provinces where a deadly insurgency has raged for years.
Thailand's generals took over last May after months of often violent street protests that led to the ousting of Yingluck Shinawatra's democratically-elected government.
It marked the latest chapter in a decade of political conflict broadly pitting Bangkok's middle classes and the royalist elite -- backed by parts of the military and judiciary -- against pro-Shinawatra urban working-class voters and farmers from the country's north.
Prayut has vowed to return power to an elected civilian government, but only once reforms to tackle corruption and curb the power of political parties are codified in a new constitution.
Critics say those reforms are aimed at neutering the power of the Shinawatras, ensuring that they and parties linked to them can never take office again.
Shinawatra parties have won every election since 2001.
SourceAgence France Presse
World
COMMENTS 0

at

Jordan closes border with Syria amid heavy clashes

Jordan closes border with Syria amid heavy clashes

 
The Associated Press
Published: April 1, 2015
    •  
    •  
    •  
    •  
    •  
  •  
BEIRUT — Jordan has closed the only functioning border crossing with Syria following heavy clashes on the Syrian side between rebels and government forces.
Jordanian government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani says the Nasib crossing was closed late Tuesday because of clashes nearby.
A Wednesday statement by Syria's foreign ministry says it holds Jordanian authorities responsible for "obstructing the movement of trucks and passengers and any ensuing economic or social repercussions."
A spokesman for rebels in southern Syria, Issam al-Rayess, confirmed that rebel fighters were trying to take control of the border crossing from Syrian authorities.
The Nasib crossing is the only functioning crossing between Jordan and Syria and is considered a crucial gateway for Syria's government and for both Syrian and Lebanese traders and merchants.
at
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Contact Form

Name

Email *

Message *