Israeli-Greek defense pact invoked versus Turkish naval and air movements

Greece have invoked the mutual defense pact they signed secretly only 12 days ago in the light of heavy Turkish sea and air movements in the eastern Mediterranean. DEBKAfile's sources report that this was decided in a long nocturnal phone conversation Wednesday night Sept. 14 between the Israeli and Greek prime ministers, Binyamin Netanyahu and George Papandreou, and at Israel's expanded cabinet of eight, which was called into session over the Turkish threat to its off-shore oil and gas rigs.
The Greek Prime Minister added to the information recorded so far on Turkish fleet movements in the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas. He was particularly concerned by the observation flights suddenly increased in the past 48 hours over the Greek island of Kastelorizo in the southeast Mediterranean just two kilometers from the Turkish coast. Those flights are escorted by Turkish combat jets.
Athens fears a Turkish attack on the island, whose population is fewer than 1,000, and an attempt to damage or seize it. Israel suspects that a Turkish attack on the Greek island will be the signal for Turkish military aggression against its oil and gas platforms located in the Mediterranean between Israel and Cyprus. Papandreou said the Turks are capable of surprise attacks on additional Greek islands near the Turkish coast.
Ankara would be acting on the pretext that Israel and Cyprus have no right to mark out and exploit the gas and oil zones of the eastern Mediterranean – a fuel-rich region known as Block 12 – without the consent of Turkish Cyprus (the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus – TRNC). Turkey also backs Lebanon's complaint that Israel is robbing it of its natural resources. Talks between Lebanon and Cyprus to resolve this issue broke down. Beirut refuses any discussion with Israel.

Neither Jerusalem nor Athens has disclosed in what way they have invoked the new defense pact.
DEBKAfile's military sources surmise that in the first stage, Israeli navy and air forces are to be posted at Greek Mediterranean bases. The two intelligence agencies are already sharing input.

Up until now, Israel could only respond to a Turkish threat from its own borders. With a presence at Greek military bases, Israel will be able to operate from the rear of Turkish forces in the event of an attack by those forces in the Mediterranean.
Monday, Sept. 12, Ankara dictated conditions for Israel to obey in order to keep its navy afloat free of Turkish aggression:

1. Israel vessels are prohibited from taking action against Turkish ships heading for the Gaza Strip. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has declared "null and void" the UN report confirming the legality of Israel's blockade of Gaza.

2. Israeli warships crossing the 12-mile line bounding its territorial waters will be challenged by Turkish warships, which are instructed to approach them to within 100 meters and "disable their weapons."

This threat covers not only shipping bound for Gaza but also Israel's oil and gas drilling platforms which are more than 60 miles out to sea.
Israel's political and military spokesmen have been trying hard to downplay the Turkish menace. On Wednesday, Sept. 14, they brushed aside reports of Turkish naval and air movements in the eastern Mediterranean. After the cabinet of eight's meeting, the official line was that Israel is practicing "restraint in contrast to Turkish wildness" and they should be given time to cool down. In any case, the US and NATO were closely monitoring the crisis Ankara is generating with Israel, Greece and Cyprus, and won't let it degenerate into Turkish military action.

But both Israel and Greece appear to know better: They decided to invoke their mutual defense pact – not before obtaining a green light from Washington – because they believe the Turkish threats indicated by its military movements are real and tangible.

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7.3-magnitude quake strikes in Pacific, near Fiji islands

(CNN) -- A 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck early Friday in the Fiji islands region of the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

According to the U.S.-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, "a destructive tsunami was not generated, based on earthquake and historical tsunami data."

The quake struck at a depth of 626 kilometers, or about 390 miles below the earth's surface, the Geological Survey said on its website. Its epicenter was 74 miles south-southwest of Fiji's Ndoi Island, 281 miles south-southeast of the Fijian capital, Suva, and 264 miles west of Nuku'alofa in Tonga, according to the U.S. agency's estimations.

It happened just after 7:30 a.m. Friday, or 3:30 p.m. ET. Initially, it was reported as 7.2 magnitude.

Besides the U.S.-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, the Japan Meteorological Agency also did not release any tsunami warnings or advisories as a result of the quake.
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Faber: Now is Time to Buy 'Dirt Cheap' Gold

Others may veer away from the high price of gold, but Gloom, Boom and Doom editor Marc Faber says the precious yellow metal is “dirt cheap.”

In the face of what he describes as "failed Keynesian policy," Faber says his investing strategy is to continue to accumulate more gold and remain diversified.

"In fact, I could make an analysis to show that the price of gold today is probably cheaper than when it was $300 per ounce based on the increase in government debt, based on the increase in monetary base in the United States and based on the expansion of wealth in Asia, Faber tells moneycontrol.com.

Marc Faber (Newsmax file photo)

Gold futures for December delivery fell $46.20, or 2.5 percent, to settle at $1,813.30 at 1:30 p.m. Monday on the Comex in New York, Bloomberg reported. Gold touched an all-time high of $1,923.70 an ounce on Sept. 6.

"If I could compare say the gold price to the increase in wages in China and India over the last 10-20 years, then the price of gold is not particularly high."

Since early June, bonds and gold have rallied and equities have gone down, says Faber.

“There are some uncorrelated assets and that is why I am telling individuals — you have to diversify because we don’t know how the world will look like in five years time,” he says.

The metal is in the 11th year of a bull market, the longest winning streak since at least 1920 in London, as investors seek to diversify away from equities and some currencies. Gold is up 28 percent this year, beating global stocks, commodities and Treasurys, Bloomberg reported.




Read more: Faber: Now is Time to Buy 'Dirt Cheap' Gold
Important: Can you afford to Retire? Shocking Poll Results


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Australian passports to now come with 3 gender options: male, female and indeterminate

1 Corinthians 6:9
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,
NKJB


CANBERRA, Australia — Australian passports will now have three gender options — male, female and indeterminate — under new guidelines to remove discrimination against transgender and intersex people, the government said Thursday.

Intersex people, who are biologically not entirely male or female, will be able to list their gender on passports as “X.”

Transgender people, whose perception of their own sex is at odds with their biology, will be able to pick whether they are male or female if their choice is supported by a doctor’s statement. Transgender people cannot pick “X.”

Previously, gender was a choice of only male or female, and people were not allowed to change their gender on their passport without having had a sex-change operation. The U.S. dropped the surgery prerequisite for transgender people’s passports last year.

Any country that complies with the International Civil Aviation Organization’s specifications for machine-readable passports can choose to introduce a gender “X.”

Australian Sen. Louise Pratt, whose partner was born female and is now identified as a man, said the reform was a major improvement for travelers who face questioning and detention at airports because their appearance does not match their gender status.

“’X’ is really quite important because there are people who are indeed genetically ambiguous and were probably arbitrarily assigned as one sex or the other at birth,” Pratt said. “It’s a really important recognition of people’s human rights that if they choose to have their sex as ‘indeterminate,’ that they can.”

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said the new guidelines removed discrimination on the grounds of gender identity and sexual orientation.

“This amendment makes life easier and significantly reduces the administrative burden for sex and gender diverse people who want a passport that reflects their gender and physical appearance,” Rudd said in a statement.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland said while the change would affect few Australians, it was important because it would allow them to travel free of discrimination.

Peter Hyndal, who negotiated with the government on the reforms on behalf of the human rights advocacy group A Gender Agenda, said the new guidelines were in line with more flexible approaches to gender issues in passports issued by the United States and Britain.

“It’s amazingly positive,” Hyndal said. “It’s the biggest single piece of law reform related to transgender and intersex issues at a commonwealth level ever in this country — mind-blowing.”

As many as 4 percent of people are affected by an intersex condition, but most never become aware of their minor chromosome abnormalities.

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Financial crisis: spectre of credit crunch returns as banks pump money into markets

As the head of the International Monetary Fund warned of a new “dangerous phase of the crisis”, the Bank of England and other central banks said they would start lending cash to European banks that were struggling to borrow.

Such “liquidity-providing operations” were last conducted in 2008 and 2009 at the height of the credit crisis, when banks’ reluctance to lend to one another threatened to cripple the financial system.

The latest developments came on the third anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Bros, the US bank whose demise brought the financial system to the brink of meltdown.

The central banks’ fresh intervention, which will run from October until December, was driven by the deepening crisis in the eurozone, which is struggling to cope with the debts of countries including Greece.

George Osborne, the Chancellor, is to admit that Britain is “not immune” to the international crisis, telling The Daily Telegraph Festival of Business that recent events make it all the more important for the Coalition to stick to its deficit-reduction plans.

The eurozone debt crisis has led to growing fears in financial markets about the stability of major European banks, especially those in France.

Investors, particularly US money-market funds, are increasingly worried that the European banks are exposed to huge losses on loans they have made in Greece and other indebted eurozone countries.

Assurances from European regulators have not allayed those fears. Moody’s, a credit ratings agency, has downgraded two of France’s biggest banks, Société Générale and Credit Agricole, and issued a downgrade warning to a third, BNP Paribas.

The Financial Services Authority, the UK market regulator, called senior executives from British banks to a meeting to discuss the City’s ability to withstand the eurozone crisis.

Stock markets jumped after the intervention, with bank shares rising sharply, amid relief that an immediate financial collapse had been averted.

The FTSE 100 index of leading British companies closed at 5,337, up 2.1 per cent. Banking shares made the biggest gains: Lloyds Banking Group rose 6.6 per cent, Barclays gained 4.4 per cent and HSBC rose 3.8 per cent. European and American markets also rose sharply.

However, analysts warned that the short-term measure would not change the fundamental problems in the eurozone and elsewhere.

“This is about central banks buying time for politicians,” said Michael Symonds of Daiwa Capital Markets.

Marc Ostwald, a strategist at Monument Securities, said that the central banks’ decision to “flood” the inter-bank market with money demonstrated the scale of the problem the global financial system faced.

He said the intervention implied that current funding pressures and the possibility of a Greek debt default were “threatening to completely destabilise western financial markets”.

Investors’ fears are also being exacerbated by growing evidence that major economies are slowing and could slip back into recession.

Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, said that international leaders must do more to address fears over debt and economic growth.

“We are certainly living through a very troubled time at the moment with great economic anxiety,” she said. “The economic skies today look troubled, they look turbulent, as global activity slows and downside risks increase. We have entered into a dangerous phase of the crisis.”

She added: “Without collective, bold action, there is a real risk that the major economies slip back instead of moving forward.”

The European Commission warned that growth in the eurozone economies would “come to virtual standstill” later this year.

The commission also cut its forecasts for growth in the British economy this year, from 1.7 per cent to 1.1 per cent.

Figures this week showed that UK unemployment had climbed above

2.5 million, and the Treasury is expected to cut its growth forecasts later this year.

Martin Weale, a member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, warned that Britain was at growing risk of a double-dip recession. “Looking at what’s happened in the last two months or so, anyone would have to say that it [the risk of recession] is greater than it seemed in July,” he said.

Mr Osborne will insist today that the Government will not water down its programme of spending cuts.

“Here at home we are not immune to what is going on at our doorstep. America and the eurozone are our two biggest export markets. But I am confident that we can weather this storm,” he will say.

“Our plan was designed for both good times and tough times. If we abandoned it now there would be a collapse in that confidence and a surge in interest rates.”

The Treasury is working on a package of reforms to spur growth, and Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, has said that a “gear change” in such work is required.

But privately, ministers concede that the Government’s scope for action is limited and are looking to the Bank to provide fresh stimulus for the economy with a new round of quantitative easing.
The Telegraph

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Canary Islands Government Puzzled By El Hierro Earthquake Swarm

The Canary Islands Government says it has commenced an in-depth geological survey of El Hierro, the smallest of the islands, in an effort to determine the source of an earthquake swarm.

The unprecedented seismic activity commenced on 19 July. In excess of 6,000 earthquakes have been recorded up to 14 September 2011. More than two dozen tremors were recorded during Wednesday (14 Sept.) alone.

The vast majority of the tremors have been recorded in the northwest of the 278.5-square-kilometre island at El Golfo, the location of a massive landslide that created a 100-metre high tsunami almost 50,000 years ago. Theearth tremors have ranged between 1 and 3 magnitude, the National Geographic Institute (IGN) reported.

However, the Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands and Actualidad Volcánica de Canarias have both reported a sizeable decrease in the number of tremors recorded during the first two weeks of September, compared to the latter half of August.

Location of tremors on El Hierro. Image Google Earth

El Instituto Volcanológico de Canarias (INVOLCAN) seismic report for August 2011

The National Geographic Institute confirmed on Wednesday that it has commenced a geological study of the epicentre of the tremors in the town of Frontera. Local officials admitted that the origin of the seismic movements could be volcanic, but further examination is required.

The Council of Hierro noted that there is no imminent threat to the residents of the sparsely populated island (10600 inhabitants), but refused to rule out an evacuation of island residents in the event of a heightened risk of a volcanic eruption.

The earthquake swarm, prompted the Canary Islands Government to convene the first ever meeting on 22 July of the Steering Committee and Volcanic Monitoring, reflected in the Specific Plan Protection Civil and Emergency for Volcanic Risk, given what it described “the significant increase in seismic activity”.

The Committee has met numerous times since then to discuss the low magnitude seismic activity. It reported on Monday that it had stepped up its seismic monitoring operations to identify the source of the earthquakes.

It remains unclear if the unprecedented seismic activity on El Hierro is a precursor to a possible future increase in earthquake or volcanic activity.  However, the latest surge in recorded earthquakes and the inflation of the volcano could indicate magma rising underneath El Hierro.

According to the Global Volcanism Program, the massive Hierro shield volcano is truncated by a large NW-facing escarpment, seen here from the east, which formed as a result of gravitational collapse of the volcano. The steep-sided 1500-m-high scarp towers above a low lava platform bordering 12-km-wide El Golfo Bay, which is barely visible at the extreme left. Holocene cones and flows are found both on the outer flanks and in the El Golfo depression. The latest eruption, during the 18th century, produced a lava flow from a cinder cone on the NW side of El Golfo.

Latest seismic activity on El Hierro 

Earthquake Swarms

Earthquake swarms are events where a local area experiences sequences of many earthquakes striking in a relatively short period of time. The length of time used to define the swarm itself varies, but the United States Geological Survey (USGS) points out that an event may last for days, weeks, or months.

El Hierro’s Volcanic/Seismic Past

El Hierro is situated in the most southwestern extreme of the Canaries.  The island was formed after three successive eruptions. Volcanic activity, principally at the convergence of the three ridges, has resulted in the continual expansion of the island.

A mere 50,000 years ago, as a result of seismic tremors which produced massive landslides, a giant piece of the island cracked off, crashed down into the ocean and scattered along the seabed. This landslide of more than 300km3 gave rise to the impressive amphitheatre of the El Golfo valley and at the same time caused a tsunami that most likely rose over 100 metres high and probably reached as far as the American coast.

According to ElHierro.com: “Although over 200 years have elapsed since the last eruption, El Hierro has the largest number of volcanoes in the Canaries with over 500 open sky cones, another 300 covered by the most recent outflows, and some 70 caves and volcanic galleries, notably the Don Justo cave whose collection of channels surpasses 6km in length.”

El Hierro is located south of Isla de la Palma (population 86,000), currently the most volcanically active of the Canary Islands.  About a half a million years ago, the volcano, Taburiente, collapsed with a giant landslide, forming the Caldera de Taburiente. Since the Spanish occupation, there have been seven eruptions.

Taburiente, La Palma, marked on Google Earth

Caldera de Taburiente. Image wiki

In a BBC Horizon programme broadcast on October 12, 2000, two geologists (Day and McGuire)  hypothesised that during a future eruption, the western flank of the Cumbre Vieja, with a mass of approximately 1.5 x10¹⁵ kg, could slide into the ocean. This could then potentially generate a giant wave which they termed a “megatsunami” around 650–900 m high in the region of the islands. The wave would radiate out across the Atlantic and inundate the eastern seaboard of North America including the American, the Caribbean and northern coasts of South America some six to eight hours later. They estimate that the tsunami will have waves possibly 160 ft (49 m) or more high causing massive devastation along the coastlines. Modelling suggests that the tsunami could inundate up to 25 km (16 mi) inland – depending upon topography.

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U.S. cautions Russia over joint naval drills with N. Korea

Any form of cooperation with North Korea should not jeopardize international efforts to convince Pyongyang to halt its nuclear weapons program, the U.S. State Department said.

The Russian military said on Tuesday Russia and North Korea could hold joint naval drills in the Yellow Sea in 2012 with the focus on sea rescue and humanitarian missions.

The plans were outlined during the visit of Russia's Eastern Military District Commander Admiral Konstantin Sidenko to Pyongyang in August.

"We are aware from press reports that Russia and North Korea have announced their intention to hold joint naval exercises next year," the State Department commented on Thursday.

"Any engagement with the North Koreans should be conducted in a way that does not detract from the international community's clear message of concern about the North's weapons programs, and the necessity for Pyongyang to do what is necessary to return to the Six-Party talks," the State Department said.

North Korea is banned from conducting nuclear or ballistic missile tests under UN Resolution 1718, adopted after Pyongyang's first nuclear test on October 9, 2006.

However, the country carried out a second nuclear test on May 25, 2009, followed by a series of short-range missile launches, and has threatened to build up its nuclear arsenal to counter what it calls hostile U.S. policies.

The Six-Party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions involving the two Koreas, China, the United States, Russia and Japan came to a halt in April 2009 when North Korea walked out of negotiations to protest the United Nations' condemnation of its missile test
RIA Novosti

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