BREAKING NEWS : The Koreas on The Brink of a Nuclear War

Korea Deadly Tension Rising, North & South Fire Nearly 1,000 Rounds of Artillary




North & South Korea fire nearly 1,000 rounds of artillary into neighbor's waters as tensions mount
An official with South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said no shells from either side were fired at any land or military installations. Residents on a front-line South Korean island said they were evacuated to shelters during the exchange.
SEOUL, South Korea — North and South Korea fired hundreds of artillery shells into each other's waters Monday in a flare-up of animosity that forced residents of five front-line South Korean islands to evacuate to shelters for several hours, South Korean officials said.

The exchange of fire into the Yellow Sea followed Pyongyang's sudden announcement that it would conduct live-fire drills in seven areas north of the Koreas' disputed maritime boundary. North Korea routinely test-fires artillery and missiles into the ocean but rarely discloses those plans in advance. The announcement was seen as an expression of Pyongyang's frustration at making little progress in its recent push to win outside aid.

North Korea fired 500 rounds of artillery shells over more than three hours, about 100 of which fell south of the sea boundary, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said. South Korea responded by firing 300 shells into North Korean waters, he said.

No shells from either side were fired at any land or military installations, but Kim called the North's artillery firing a provocation aimed at testing Seoul's security posture. There was no immediate comment from North Korea.

Monday's exchange was relatively mild in the history of animosity and violence between the Koreas, but there is worry in Seoul that an increasingly dissatisfied North Korea could repeat the near-daily barrage of war rhetoric it carried out last spring, when tensions soared as Pyongyang threatened nuclear strikes on Washington and Seoul in response to condemnation of its third nuclear test.
Residents on front-line South Korean islands spent several hours in shelters during the firing, and officials temporarily halted ferry service linking the islands to the mainland. Kang Myeong-sung, speaking from a shelter on Yeonpyeong island, which is in sight of North Korean territory, said he didn't hear any fighter jets but heard the boom of artillery fire.

The poorly marked western sea boundary has been the scene of several bloody naval skirmishes between the Koreas in recent years. In March 2010, a South Korean warship sank in the area following a torpedo attack blamed on Pyongyang that left 46 sailors dead. North Korea denies responsibility for the sinking. In November 2010, a North Korean artillery bombardment killed four South Koreans on Yeonpyeong.

The North has gradually dialed down its threats since last year's tirade and has sought improved ties with South Korea in what foreign analysts say is an attempt to lure investment and aid. There has been no major breakthrough, however, with Washington and Seoul calling on the North to first take disarmament steps to prove its sincerity about improving ties.

Recent weeks have seen an increase in threatening rhetoric and a series of North Korean rocket and ballistic missile launches considered acts of protest by Pyongyang against annual ongoing springtime military exercises by Seoul and Washington. The North calls the South Korea-U.S. drills a rehearsal for invasion; the allies say they're routine and defensive.
"The boneheads appear to have completely forgotten the fact that Yeonpyeong island was smashed by our military's bolt of lightning a few years ago," a North Korean military official, Yun Jong Bum, said Monday, according to the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

Pyongyang also threatened Sunday to conduct a fourth nuclear test, though Seoul sees no signs it's imminent. Wee Yong-sub, a deputy spokesman at the South Korean Defense Ministry, said the North Korean warning about the live-fire drills Monday was a "hostile" attempt to heighten tension on the Korean Peninsula.

Recent threats are an expression of anger and frustration over what the North sees as little improvement in progress in its ties with South Korea and the U.S., said Lim Eul Chul, a North Korea expert at South Korea's Kyungnam University. Lim said the North might conduct a fourth nuclear test and launch other provocations to try to wrest the outside concessions it wants.

The Korean Peninsula remains in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. About 28,500 American troops are deployed in South Korea to deter potential aggression from North Korea.

PROPHECY ALERT -- Massive Earthquake Prophesied Soon in California

The San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that extends roughly 810 miles (1,300 km) through California in the United States. It forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, and its motion is right-lateral strike-slip (horizontal). The fault divides into three segments, each with different characteristics, and a different degree of earthquake risk. Although the most significant (Southern) segment only dates back about 5 million years, the oldest sections were formed by the subduction of a spreading ridge 30 million years ago.

The fault was first identified in 1895 by Professor of geology Andrew Lawson from UC Berkeley who discovered the northern zone. It is named after a small lake which was formed in a valley between the two plates. Following the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, Lawson concluded that the fault extended all the way into southern California. In 1953, geologist Thomas Dibblee astounded the scientific establishment with his conclusion that hundreds of miles of lateral movement could occur along the San Andreas Fault.

The likelihood of a Megathrust earthquake ('the big one') is the subject of formal study at the University of California. A project called the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD) is drilling into the fault to improve recording and prediction of future quakes.

The next "Big One"

A study in 2006 concluded that the San Andreas fault has reached a sufficient stress level for the next "big one", or a M ≥ 7.0, to occur. It also concluded that the risk of a large earthquake may be increasing more rapidly than researchers had previously thought. The paper stated that, while the San Andreas Fault had experienced massive earthquakes in the central (1857) and northern (1906) segments, the southern section of the fault has not seen any similar rupture for at least 300 years. Such an event would result in substantial damage to Palm Springs and other cities in San Bernardino, Riverside and Imperial counties in California, and Mexicali municipality in Baja California. It would be felt throughout much of Southern California, including densely populated areas of metropolitan San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, Ensenada and Tijuana, Baja California, San Luis Rio Colorado in Sonora and Yuma, Arizona. It concluded: "The information available suggests that the fault is ready for the next big earthquake but exactly when the triggering will happen and when the earthquake will occur we cannot tell [...] It could be tomorrow or it could be 10 years or more from now.

As both the public and scientific community continue to speculate on the size of the next earthquake to strike California, predicting major earthquakes with sufficient precision to warrant taking increased precautions has long been sought but remains elusive. Nonetheless, the 2008 Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast (UCERF) has estimated that the probability of an M ≥ 6.7 earthquake within the next 30 years on the northern and southern segments of the San Andreas fault is somewhere between 21% and 59%.

Cascadia connection

Recent studies of past earthquake indicate there is a correlation in time between seismic events on the northern San Andreas Fault and the southern part of the Cascadia subduction zone (which stretches from Vancouver Island to northern California).

The San Andreas Fault has had some notable earthquakes in historic times:

1857 Fort Tejon earthquake: About 217 miles (349 km) were ruptured in central and southern California. Though it is known as the Fort Tejon earthquake, the epicenter is thought to have been located far to the north, just south of Parkfield. Only two deaths were reported. The magnitude was about 7.9.
1906 San Francisco earthquake: About 267 miles (430 km) were ruptured in Northern California. The epicenter was near San Francisco. At least 3000 people died in the earthquake and subsequent fires. This time the magnitude was estimated to be 7.8.
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake: About 25 miles (40 km) were ruptured (although the rupture did not reach the surface) near Santa Cruz, California, causing 63 deaths and moderate damage in certain vulnerable locations in the San Francisco Bay Area. Moment magnitude this time was about 6.9. The earthquake also postponed game 3 of the 1989 World Series at Candlestick Park. This quake occurred on October 17, 1989, at approximately 5:04 P.M. PDT.
2004 Parkfield earthquake: On September 28, 2004, at 10:15 A.M. PDT, a magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck California on the San Andreas Fault. It was felt across the state, including the San Francisco Bay Area.

Max Keiser beats 'Jamie Dimon' bankster

Max Keiser brings the concept of "beating a bankster's' ass" to a whole new level!!!




In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss putting the entire economy into a plastic bag and towing it across the flood of Central Bank liquidity. In the second half, Max interviews Matt O'Connor, the promoter for the first ever bitcoin championship fight to be held at the O2 Indigo Arena on 5th April. When Matt brings along one of his fighters who is fighting on behalf of the bankers, things don't go so well between him and Max Keiser!