Volcanic activity world wide

Fuego activity from the satellite

A slight increase of activity can be noted at Popocatépetl volcano in Mexico. The frequency of explosions has increased to more than 1 per hour, i.e. doubled when compared to last week.

The more energetic explosions produced small ash plumes rising up to 1 km. Episodes of volcanic tremor occurred as well, CENAPRED writes.

The new seismic swarm at El Hierro continues with hundreds of small quakes per day concentrated at about 20 km depth in the south-central part of the island near El Pinar. Pulses of tremor and a slight inflation are visible as well, but for now, it seems that magma is not moving much.

San Cristobal volcano had a small explosion yesterday at 8:17 am local time. Recent measurements showed an increase of SO2 emissions to 2,490 tons per day, i.e. almost double than before. Also, seismic tremor increased in the evening of 15 Sep.

Fuego volcano, Guatemala: Activity remains at normal levels with sporadic weak to moderate explosions with ash rising 400-800 meters and some rumbling sounds. The lava flow to the Taniluya canyon has apparently decreased a lot, as INSIVUMEH reported it to be only 50 m long yesterday.

Santiaguito volcano continues to have occasional explosions ejecting ash columns to 500 meters height, which spread west and northwest over the region of the villages of El Rosario and San Marcos, Palajunoj. There is constant activity in the 4 active lava flows, generating avalanches of blocks deposited within the river banks Nima Nima I and II.

Most other volcanoes in Central and Southern America have not shown any significantly unusual behavior.

Satellite observations:
Batu Tara had its daily explosion to send ash to about 7,000 ft altitude, VAAC Darwin reports.

A strong SO2 plume was visible from Manam volcano (PNG) today, suggesting that there is heightened activity or an eruption.

Sakurajima volcano seems to be having a break from its relatively strong phase over the past days. There was only one probably weak explosion reported during the past 24 hours.

Volcano Discovery

IDF begins moving major bases to Israel's Negev

The Israeli military has begun construction of its largest training base ever, moving operations from some of the country's priciest real estate to the barren sands of southern Israel in a new attempt to realize the longtime dream of making the desert bloom.

The $650 million construction project is the military's biggest in three decades: Beginning in late 2014, 10,000 soldiers will be moved into the new base 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of the city of Be'er Sheva from their current quarters in the country's Tel Aviv-area heartland.

The program is designed to streamline combat support training, now carried out at multiple facilities, by funneling it into a single site.

But critics question whether it will jumpstart the economy of the Negev region as officials promise. They also note the project doesn't even discuss benefits for Arab Bedouin who account for a third of the 500,000 Israelis living in the area.

Not since Israel pulled up its bases from Egypt's Sinai desert in the early 1980s under the two countries' landmark peace treaty has the military carried out a project of this scope, in terms of cost, number of soldiers involved and sheer physical size, said project director Lt. Col. Shalom Alfassy.

Today, only a few spare buildings stand on the 625 acres (250 hectares) earmarked for the site. But within two years, 2.7 million square feet (250,800 square meters) of construction is supposed to go up, including barracks, hundreds of computerized classrooms, simulation sites and firing ranges.

The base will not train combat soldiers, but drivers, paramedics and other troops who would support them at the front. It will not draw operations from the main military headquarters and Defense Ministry in the heart of Tel Aviv.

The project is part of a broader move to relocate military facilities to the Negev. Alfassy says about half of the bases in Israel's center will move to the region by the end of the decade.

The Negev accounts for over half of Israel's land mass but is home to just 8 percent of its 8 million people. Making it flourish was the vision of Israel's founding father, David Ben-Gurion. But poor services have kept the area languishing, despite a series of government programs and improved road and rail links designed to boost it.

Alfassy believes things will be different this time. He estimates the project will create 20,000 to 30,000 temporary construction jobs for Negev residents. Some 500 civilian workers will work at the base and 2,000 to 2,500 jobs will be created for outside vendors, he predicted.

The military expects 200 to 300 career soldiers will move their families to the south to be near the base, boosting the economy as well as educational and medical services, he said.

Erez Tzfadia, head of the department of public policy and administration at Sapir College in the Negev, scoffed at that notion.

"There are half a million people" in the area where the base is being built, he said. "Will 200 families of career soldiers really pull up the Negev?"

The project's champions also talk about bringing more buying power to the Negev through the 10,000 soldiers to be based there.

But "soldiers don't have any money," Tzfadia said. "At most they will buy felafel at the central bus station in Beersheba. You don't build an economy on that."

None of the tribal Arab Bedouin who have been living in the area for decades will have to move to make way for the base, reducing any opposition to the project. Past attempts to develop the south have been marred by forced evictions of unauthorized Bedouin villages.

At the same time, the relocation program does not specifically consider ways to involve the impoverished Bedouin community.

"They aren't even taken into consideration as a party that should be a beneficiary, even at the level of discourse," Tzfadia said.

Alfassy said Bedouin would be considered for projects but had no information on plans designed to benefit them.

A top benefit of the relocation is having the military vacate sought-after real estate in central Israel. The Ministry of Construction and Housing estimates 35,000 apartments, including about 9,000 classified as affordable housing, will be built on the emptied sites.

That could bring some relief to the masses of young families who cannot afford their own home in an area where even a modest apartment can cost $500,000.

Haaretz

How do I prevent my family from going to the camps?

By James Smith
15 Sept 2012

I wrote a news story recently called “How technology will send you to hell in the FEMA camps” It was wildly popular and raised the question in my mind, “How do 
I prevent my family from going to the camps?”

The first thing is to know what to expect before hand. While people think about the dollar dropping to nothing, or an Obama re-election, you need to consider 

the most pressing signs of a pending martial law.
How pending?

About 15 minutes or less away from being put into a bus.
Now there are people who would look forward to 3 hots and a cot. And there are some who would actively encourage you to go to the camps. There was an article that said that social services folks are encourage self-sufficient people to use food stamps, and that the self-sufficient mentallity was preventing more 
people from being on food stamps.

But we aren’t those people. We are the kinds that enjoy freedom.
So what do we look for?

Using the backbone of a military operation, you must make the enemy (that 
would be you) deaf, dumb, and blind.

What does that mean? It means you must be blind: Not knowing what to expect, how many men are in the operation, and what your final destination will be. This means that the operation will most likely take place in the middle of the night. When they roll up, mega watt lights will be shone onto the neighborhood. This disorientates you as well as illuminate your home for movement. This also means the power to your block will be secured. Depending on the size of the town, perhaps several blocks at once. That would be a good thing. Read on…
Deaf means that you won’t know what is going on. Loud noises, such as bullhorns shouting orders, diesel engines running, and people yelling at you to go here or there. It also means you won’t be able to receive texts or cell phone service.

Dumb, or mute, means you won’t be able to call anyone, tweet, post a Facebook update, send an email of warning. Imagine if the events took place in Chicago. How quick would such a warning get spread all over Facebook or Twitter. It would “trends” quickly and the element of surprise would be gone.
Making you deaf and dumb is as simple as securing the internet with the Internet Kill Switch. That ends Facebook, Twitter, and Email.

And all you have to do to secure the cell phone or land-line service is to have the US military show up at the local phone office and have them secure all lines in the place. Turning the power off would be as effective as cutting lines, but once power is restored you could have normal service. Infrastructure would be maintained.

Your neighborhood is now deaf, dumb, and blind.
You need to buy yourself some time. Not much time, but just enough time.
And you have about 5 minutes to do it in. Maybe less.
What do you need?

You need to make an alert when you lose power. This is from my site:
“I took a small wall wart that is rated at 12 volts and about 100 mA. I attached it to the power and ground part of a small 12v relay I bought from radio shack. I then took a 9v battery connector and a piezeo alarm and put it on the connectors of the relay that if there is no power to the relay – will allow current to flow. The way you find that is to put the red wire of the connector to the relay, and one of the leads from the alarm to the opposite side of the relay. Connect the black wire and the other alarm wire together.
Provided you have a 9v battery on the connector you should hear a sound. If not, change to a different spot on the relay. So when you apply power by plugging in the wall wart, the sound goes off. Remove the wart or turn off the power, you get an alarm sound. “

When I was in the Navy, any time we lost power we went into an immediate Security Alert. And you should too. When that alarm sounds (Put it in your bedroom as close to the bed as possible), after you pull the alarm out of the socket, get up and hide the children,

And that means you have to have pre-arranged hiding spots.
A window seat is a great way to start. Make a bench, bolt it to the wall under the bedroom window, and make small doors for the child to hide in. You can do the same for your room. Tell the children just to go if they are ever told, and to stay very quiet until you tell them to come out. And only you. Pretend to be someone else and see if they come to them. Soldiers may be very sneaky and say, “Your parents told me to get you. Come on, let’s go to them!”
Practice this frequently so they are aware of what needs to be done, and to be done in the dark, and to be done without question.

If you can’t make a window bench, then fill your closet up with “boxes”. These boxes are “stacked” to make it look like a storage area, but it’s just a shell. If you are in a manufactured home or a single story home, go to the closet and cut open a hatch to the crawl space. Have a black blanket so you can hide under the blanket to stay concealed. USE YOUR IMAGINATION!
The idea is that soldiers don’t have mchu time to search each home. They have to keep moving onto the next house. Once they leave and the power goes back on – DON’T CHANGE ANYTHING. If the bathroom light was on, leave it on. The smart meters will detect and record ANY changes and it will alert someone that there are people within the home!

Drones will be used to monitor communities and neighborhoods. Going out after dark is the same as going out during the day.
If you go out at night, take a night vision capable video camera. Put black platic around the IR lamp that is usually beneath the camera’s lens. This will prevent the drone from seeing the IR light, but you’ll be able to see the IR lights on the drone in the dark.

If you feel froggy, shoot down the drone AS IT LEAVES! The flight will be level and of constant speed, enough for you to get a bead on it. It’s difficult to tell where the shot came from, and you’ll get some satisfaction of taking one down. These thing are expensive and if they have to redirect one away from another area, that means someone else is getting a break.
If you have to move from one place to another, do so during a rain or thunderstorm. These conditions make drone flying very difficult and seeing anything of value VERY difficult. Yes, it is horrible conditions for you, but at least you will be free.

If, during the day, you see people wandering through your town, ignore them and hide. They may be “spies” looking for the last holdouts. As a rule of thumb, 8 to 80, blind, crippled, or crazy, means anyone may be a threat. Don’t kill them, just let them pass through. Watch them to see if they use a radio. IF they do use one, listen for codes such as, “Secure”, “Subjects”, “Natives”, or “SitRep (Situation Report)”

Such phrases would mean that they are looking for you as wolves in sheep’s clothing. DO NOTHING towards them. Get their photos if you can but remain hidden.

Satellites may detect heat from fireplaces, so use the covert cooking methods like solar cooking, Hay Box cooking or Creveche. If you can, light a match in the sewers to eliminate any flammable gasses, and cook down there. The streets should hide the heat signature well enough, especially in the day. Solar cooking using the back of a pickup may be a good decision as it may imitate the accumulated heat of a canopy.
You will be on your own. You will be the deciding factor if you live free or die free.

But it’s your decision. No one else makes it for you.
And that’s why it’s called FREEDOM.
http://www.thecovertprepper.com/?p=600

Growing tension between China and Japan fuels concerns over potential war

China’s incoming leader re-emerged this weekend after an unexplained two-week absence, just in time to see the country he’s about to inherit consumed with rabid anti-Japanese nationalism that his Communist Party unleashed, and which the United States warned on Sunday could lead to a regional war.

Beijing’s rapidly deteriorating relationship with Tokyo will top the agenda as Xi Jinping takes over as general secretary of the Communist Party from President Hu Jintao, a promotion expected as early as next month. While Mr. Xi will continue to share power with Mr. Hu for months afterward, the stakes could scarcely be higher for his first test.

Six days of sanctioned anti-Japanese protests – which escalated Sunday into a nationwide day of rage that saw Japanese businesses and diplomatic missions attacked – have whipped up hatred and created a situation that leaves the Chinese leadership little room to compromise in a showdown over disputed islands in the East China Sea. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, who is on the verge of calling an election that will see him challenged from the nationalist right, similarly has little room to negotiate.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he was worried the growing tensions between China and Japan could result in a war that would “have the potential of expanding.”

The U.S. is bound by treaty to defend Japan in the event it is attacked. China and Japan are the world’s second and third-largest economies.

“A misjudgment on one side or the other could result in violence, and could result in conflict,” Mr. Panetta said in Tokyo at the start of a tour that will take him to Beijing this week for talks with senior leaders.

The confrontation over the uninhabited islets, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, escalated from obscure to alarming last week after Tokyo moved to purchase them from the Japanese family that privately owned them for the past four decades. Beijing responded by unilaterally declaring new sea borders around the islands and then dispatching patrol boats to the area on Friday. Japanese boats were also sent to the area, leading to a nine-hour pursuit before the Chinese ships finally left the disputed waters.

That showdown at sea was followed by a weekend of dangerous street theatre around China. Tens of thousands took part in marches in dozens of cities Saturday and Sunday that were officially condoned and disturbingly xenophobic. “Declare war on Japan!” thousands shouted as they marched past the Japanese Embassy in Beijing. Some waved portraits of Mao Zedong, and pelted the embassy gate with eggs and bottles as rows of military police looked on.

Japanese restaurants a few blocks away were forced to close, draping their exteriors in red Chinese flags so as to leave no question as to where their loyalties lay. An adjacent Chinese restaurant on the same street drew crowds by putting up signs declaring “pet dogs welcome, but not Japanese dogs.”

“We insist that the government take some hard actions” to seize the disputed islands, said Lu Zhentao, the restaurant’s manager. “The Japanese attitude is that they will not bow their heads to us.”

In the southern city of Guangzhou, a crowd smashed the windows of a building housing the Japanese consulate. In the neighbouring city of Shenzhen, police used tear gas, water cannons and pepper spray to disperse an estimated crowd of 10,000 that attacked a Japanese department store. In all, demonstrations were reported in 85 Chinese cities.

Anger is expected to rise ahead of Tuesday’s anniversary of the Mukden Incident of 1931, a staged attack on a Japanese railway line that was used as pretext for the Imperial Army’s invasion of Manchuria, and later the rest of China, at the outset of the Second World War. Considered a day of national humiliation in China, the anniversary is marked by protests even when ties between Beijing and Tokyo are businesslike.

“Regrettably, [there] is a problem concerning the safety of Japanese nationals and Japan-affiliated companies,” Mr. Noda said in televised remarks Sunday. “I would like to urge the Chinese government to protect their safety.”

However, Mr. Noda gave no indication he was considering Chinese demands that Japan abandon its purchase of the disputed islands. Tokyo does not recognize any dispute over the ownership of the islands, which have been in Japanese hands since 1895, except for a 26-year American occupation following the Second World War.

China’s own claim is based on the fact the islands appeared on Chinese maps for centuries before the Japanese annexed them.

Beijing is also unlikely to back down ahead of its own sensitive transition of power, which is expected to begin in late October and which requires the support of the hawkish leadership of the People’s Liberation Army. Seven of the nine current members of the all-powerful Standing Committee of the Politburo are due to retire at an upcoming Communist Party meeting, making way for a new generation of leaders headed by Mr. Xi, the current vice-president.

Mr. Xi returned to the public eye on Saturday – the Xinhua news agency published five photographs of him touring the China Agricultural University on Saturday – after an unexplained 13-day absence, putting to rest rumours that he was deathly ill or had been targeted in an assassination attempt.

He looked hale during his visit to the university, but did not address the showdown with Japan in brief remarks reported by Xinhua.

Many protesters outside the Japanese Embassy in Beijing spoke of boycotting Japanese products until Tokyo withdrew its purchase of the disputed islets.

“If Chinese people boycott Japanese products, I don’t believe the Japanese could be so aggressive,” said 36-year-old Zhang Binglan, an insurance saleswoman who said Sunday’s protest was the first time in her life she had ever joined a political demonstration.

The Communist Party initially encouraged the protests with inflammatory media coverage of the islands dispute and laissez-faire policing that cleared a route for the demonstrators and allowed them to bring in boxes of eggs and other projectiles. But, as passions rose, police began trying to calm the crowd, using loudspeakers to urge the demonstrators to respect the law.

“I agree with their patriotism, but I disagree with their way of expressing it,” Zhang Liguo, a 17-year-old performing arts student, said of the attacks on Japanese interests. He wore a handmade sign reading: “Drive away the disrespectful Japanese!”

Some saw the protests as a convenient distraction for the Communist Party.

Even before Mr. Xi’s disappearing act, the party was dealing with the fallout of the scandalous Bo Xilai affair, which saw the one-time rising political star purged amid allegations he had helped cover up the murder of a British businessman by his wife Gu Kailai.

The treason trial of Wang Lijun, Mr. Bo’s former police chief in the southeastern city of Chongqing – who instigated his downfall by trying to seek refuge in a U.S. consulate – begins Tuesday, the same day the anti-Japanese demonstrations are expected to crest.

“It’s all staged. Only the Japanese could help us to have such a demonstration,” dissident artist Ai Weiwei told The Globe and Mail while wandering past Sunday’s protest in Beijing. “We haven’t had such street protests for decades. The Japanese are helping us get back our rights.”

The Globe and Mail

Iran plans military exercises in preparation for Israeli strike on nuclear facilities

The exercise is being showcased as the biggest air defence war game in the Islamic Republic's history and will be Iran's most visible response yet to mounting speculation that Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, may order a military strike this autumn.

Using surface-to-air missiles, unmanned drones and state-of-the-art radar, Iran's Revolutionary Guards and air force will combine to test the defences of 3,600 sensitive locations throughout the country, including oil refineries and uranium enrichment facilities.

"This manoeuvre is intended to assess the preparedness both of our manpower forces and air defence installations," Brigadier General Farzad Esmaili, commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya air defence base, told a conference marking Iran's annual air defence day earlier this month. "We will also identify vulnerabilities, try out new tactics and practise old ones."

The high-profile manoeuvres will represent a riposte to planned naval exercises this week by the US in the Persian Gulf. The American exercises, which focus on tackling threats from sea mines, are seen - though not officially acknowledged - as a response to Iranian threats to close or sabotage the waterways of the Strait of Hormuz, the strategically vital transit route for around one-fifth of the world's oil.

Last week, General Hossein Salami, deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards, promised to "drag the war inside the enemies' borders" if Iran were attacked. His comments may have referred to Iran's capacity to call on the services of Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese Shiite group widely seen as Tehran's proxy, to fire rockets into Israel in the event of hostilities.

The Telegraph

UK housing collapse to leave 1.7 million families homeless

A new standard for human stupidity.. fanatics with nuclear weapons

WASHINGTON – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized certain American columnists saying that they "set a new standard for human stupidity" for writing that a nuclear Iran may "stabilize the Middle East".

In interviews with CNN's State of the Nation and NBC's Meet the Press, both scheduled to be aired on Sunday, Netanyahu tried to rein in the flood of criticism expressed in American newspapers.

In a segment from the interview which was published Saturday night ahead of the NBC interview, the prime minister was asked whether he believed a "containment strategy" would work on Iran, as was done with the Soviet Union in its time.

Netanyahu responded: "I think Iran is very different, they put their zealotry above survival, they have suicide bombers all over the place, I wouldn't rely on their rationality."

According to Netanyahu: "Since the advent of nuclear weapons you've had countries that have had access to nuclear weapons who always made a careful calculation of cost and benefit but Iran is guided by a leadership with an unbelievable fanaticism.

"It's the same fanaticism that you see storming your embassies today. You want these fanatics to have nuclear weapons?"

Netanyahu then responded to the slew of recent criticism expressed in US newspapers towards his plans for a military strikeon Iran: "I heard some people suggest…I actually read this in the American press, they said 'well you know if you take action that’s a lot worse than having Iran with nuclear weapons.'

"Some have even said that Iran with nuclear weapons would stabilize the Middle East. Stabilize the Middle East! I think that the people who say this set a new standard for human stupidity."

On Friday Defense Secretary Leon Panetta dismissed this week's public debate between US and Israeli leaders over whether the allies should set "red lines" that could trigger military action against Iran's nuclear program.

"The fact is, look, presidents of the United States, prime ministers of Israel or any other country – leaders of these countries don't have, you know, a bunch of little red lines that determine their decisions," Paneta told Foreign Policy Magazine.




Iran: Fanatics with nuclear weapons? (Photo: AP)

"What they have are facts that are presented to them about what a country is up to, and then they weigh what kind of action is needed to be taken in order to deal with that situation. I mean, that's the real world.

"Red lines are kind of political arguments that are used to try to put people in a corner," he added.

The New York Times reported on Friday that President Barack Obama has rejected an appeal by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to define a specific “red line” that Iran could not cross in its nuclear program.

Netanyahu reportedly asked Obama in a phone call earlier this week to set the size of Iran’s stockpile of close-to-bomb-grade uranium as the threshold that, if passed, would trigger a US military strike on the Islamic Republic's nuclear facilities.

The report cited an unnamed senior US official as saying that the Obama administration's "red line" is a nuclear weapon.


Ynet